What skill set should I use for doing missions with a Barrage Ranger

I've been reading through the posts about Barrage rangers on this forum. I was just wondering, What kind of skills would be best before I go out and buy it? The Splinter Weapon looks interesting, but I'm not sure how well that works if I'm just doing missions (usually with a few friends and henchmen). Should I go the Charm Animal route or the Live Vicariously/other Monk skills route? They both seem to be used for farming specific places with specific teams, but I'm looking for a more general use build. Anyway, thanks for any help.

Generally, pets are only used by barragers as a melee wall and a means of producing corpses for a minion master in barrage groups. They are effective at this when there's 4-5 of them + minions, which is ok in a specific barrage group, but if you are the sole barrager then a pet is simply a deadweight.

For general use, it would be best to augment your Barrage damage to get the maximum DPS you can - extra healing skills are generally redundant. To this end, consider damage buffs from both Ranger skills and 2ndary class, try some out, and see what fits your playstyle best.

Some examples off the top off my head...
Spirits, such as
[skill]Favorable Winds[/skill] or [skill]Winnowing[/skill]

An elemental bowstring combined with a conjure enchantment
[skill]Conjure Flame[/skill][skill]Conjure Lightning[/skill][skill]Conjure Frost[/skill]
and as a bonus, you can combine a fiery Barrage with [skill]Mark of Rodgort[/skill]

For undead heavy areas, such as Kryta or the Fissure, consider changing your damage to holy
[skill]Heart of Holy Flame[/skill][skill]Judge's Insight[/skill]

Um... that's about all I can think of. Whatever.

Thanks, that's kind of the info I was looking for, since I've only read but not actually used the skills before. I'm thinking of trying out Splinter Weapon, so here's what I'm currently using.

Splinter Weapon
Barrage
Distracting Shot
Favorable Winds

I'm not sure what to do with the remaining 4 skills though. Maybe stuff like Whirling Defense or Troll Unguent. But how useful are these considering what I'm doing with this char.

dont leave home without [skill]Splinter Weapon[/skill]...it's the new black

Usually when I run barrage, its with no preps, since barrage cancels them all out anyways. So there is no point in wasting a skill slot for one. I usually go barrage/inturupt, specially for missions. Pesking monk/ele/mesmer bosses are a bitch to kill without them, specially monk bosses. Bringing something like vital blessings, isn't a great thing...you can't really afford to lose a bipof engery recharge, and hopefully the monk you have with you, can heal, and if you are taking too much dmg, you are smart enough to fall back and use troll to help yourself heal. There are a lot of other good ranger elites out there besides barrage though.
As for the pet comment...Im not really going to comment on that..since you asked for barrage, not barrage/pet build. There is actually a difference. Test some skills out for yourself and if you find skills that work well together, save them for future use.

Lately, as a result of discussions on other threads, I've been working with Splinter Weapon as well.

My initial response wasn't positive: whilst there was no denying that it did significant damage, enemies scattered quickly and it seemed questionable as to whether it merited the cost of its invocation.

However, yesterday, I equipped it my build along with Nightmare Weapon and Barrage and included Jin, Margrid and Olias in my team. Jin and Margrid had standard B/P builds with dire lionesses and Olias was an MM. I also took two healing henchies, a henchie ranger and elementalist.

I found the Underworld (the areas accessible from the Tombs of the Primeval Kings) to be particularly rewarding. There is a nice synergy between a barrage ranger equipped with Splinter Weapon and an MM: the minions tend to keep enemies, particularly Grasps, nicely co-located so that you're able to use Splinter Weapon effectively multiple times.

So much depends on the team you're playing with. Also, Nightmare Weapon is a nice alternative to Splinter when your left with a well-armored high level boss. Some one else, possibly Snipious Max, XvArchonvX or Amy Awien offered that good suggestion on one of the other threads.

I've tried Splinter Weapon with Barrage, and I still don't think it's nearly as good/sustainable as the R/E alternative:

Barrage
Conjure Flame
Mark of Rodgort (AoE now "nearby", so less casts )
Glyph of Lesser Energy
Savage Shot
Favorable Winds
Troll Unguent
Rez

Marksmanship: 16
Expertise: 9
Wilderness Survival: 8
Fire: 8

I keep trying other Barrage builds, but I always end up coming back to this.
The second buff to Mark of Rodgort makes it even better.

Of course, if SOMEONE ELSE is constantly casting Splinter Weapon on you, then disregard this entire post, because thats when Splinter Weapon + Barrage gets crazy.

ye, splinter is hard to use properly cause its often waste splinters when not all monsters grouped.
My Barrage setup is
Brutal weapon (at least at 9 communing for +10-12 dmg)
Barrage
Savage Shot
Needling Shot
Favorable Winds

and 3 bows -
Sundering Longbow (Zelenhun's)
Zealous Flatbow (have only IronWing one - want to switch to recurve cause arc =) )
and Vampiric Recurve.
so for swarms main idea is
sundering +barrage +brutal + FW. switch to Zealous for mana gain if needed
Single target - Vampiric+Brutal + barrage+needling . After 50% hp I using only needling - so recharges instantly and made 21+11+5 = 37 Amor IGNORING damage (yes. brutal affects armor ignoring).
With last trick 3 ppl team with heroes killed Shiro in 1:05 =) or so (dont remember exactly) =)

[skill]flail[/skill]

In Barrage builds, Flail is an excellent IAS as well.

Hm... I've been noticing that a lot too. While it was nice to watch Splinter Weapon at work, the situation just doesn't happen enough for general play. Since the teams I played with are rarely organized, the strategy that HalPlantagenet would rarely work for me (I'll keep that in mind though if it ever occurs, thanks for your suggestion). Thanks a lot for the replies, I'll be trying some of these skills out (especially Grammar's), since I farmed a bit more cash to buy the skills ^o^.

centur: I actually read your reply on a different post about the Needling Shot, tried it earlier and loved it (2 mana with Expertise, instant recharge ^_-). The only problem I had was balancing out the attributes since it meant spreading it out between 4 of them now. Can you post yours so I have an idea how you did it?

Oh yeah, and I don't have Nightfall

Expertise 8+1
Marks 12+3+1
Communing 9 resto 5
or communing 10 resto 2
I prefer to deal damage and get monk to group for healing than become "wannabe jack-o-trades". If you focusing on dmg - than you shouldnt try to heal yourself (maybe only with WhirlDefence+vampiric barrage)

OK, I'm stuck. I have a bow with 20/20 mod on it. Do I go Brutal Weapon or put a Fiery mod over it for Conjure Flame/Mark of Rodgort. I really can't decide which route to go for general pve/missions... I guess if I ever decide to do FoW/UW anytime in the future, I've probably wasted the 20/20 mod... but aside from that... suggestions please

Edited: Well, I guess the FoW/UW part doesn't matter much, cause I can just go the Judge's Insight route anyway... But it seems like most people prefer the pet route for FoW/UW?

I prefer R/P for GftE. Critical hits on casters create amazingly impressive numbers.

Marksmanship 12+3+1
Expertise 8+1
Command 10

Barrage
"Go for the Eyes!"
Savage Shot
Distracting Shot
"Stand your Ground!"
Whirling Defense/Throw Dirt
--whatever--
Signet of Return

Use a Zealous Flatbow of Fortitude/Defense