Prepared Shot Build

So I was try to figure out a build which doesn't rely on degen to kill but still does a lot of damage without sacrificing too much defense and interrupt ability. Here's what I came up with. This build is made to be used in Alliance Battles, but you can just take out the condition removal and put in a resurrection ability and you'll have a PvE version of this build.


Distracting Shot (You can use any interrupt, but I prefer Distracting Shot)
Prepared Shot {E}
Penetrating Attack
Sundering Attack
Kindle Arrows/Apply Poison
Troll Unguent
Condition Removal (I chose Antidote Signet)
Stance (I chose Whirling Defense)

Bow: Any with a Vampiric String

Attributes: depends, I'll explain later
I chose:
Expertise: 11 + 2 = 13
Marksmanship: 10 + 1 = 11
Wilderness Survival: 10 + 1 =11
Wasted points: 1

The strategy of this build is simple: spam the three bow attacks and use Prepared Shot to compensate for the massive energy loss for having every shot cost energy. The result is a very high damage output that not many people except from a non-Burning Arrow ranger, but none of the energy problems.

Weaknesses:

Limited interrupts, defense and utility compared to other ranger builds.

My personal comments:

Before I ran this build, I used Escape as my elite. This limited my damage but gave me a lot of defense, so to compensate I had three attack skills and only one interrupt. Changing to the Prepared Shot simply switches the advantages from having high defense to having high offense. However! The Prepared Shot never has any energy problems, even in extended fights, (especialy if you use Kindle Arrows) and does not rely on the existance of enchantments and hexes (Forked Arrow) and the life of target (Needling Shot). Also, in order to compensate for my lack of defense I put some extra points into expertise, which made my stances better, but its up to you if you want more damage, defense, or healing and preperations.

In my opinon, the increase in damage and a full mana pool more than compensates for the lack of interrupts and defense. What do yall think?

I have been using a build similar to this but with dual shot and read the winds instead of your prepartions.

*looks on in sheer confusion*

Why in gods name are you running 11 Marksmanship?! The whole frigging point of the elite is to gain more energy the more you have in Marksmanship... and the rest of your build seems to be based on doing damage. 11 Marksmanship can't damage for shit. (Neither can Penetrating/Sundering anymore either tbh). Got 2 builds for it, Interrupter and Conditioner, no Shampoo though.

[skill]Prepared Shot[/skill]
[skill]Distracting Shot[/skill][skill]Savage Shot[/skill][skill]Screaming Shot[/skill][skill]Apply Poison[/skill][skill]Troll Unguent[/skill]

Or

[skill]Distracting Shot[/skill][skill]Savage Shot[/skill][skill]Concussion Shot[/skill][skill]Apply Poison[/skill][skill]Troll Unguent[/skill]

15/16 Marksmanship, 12/11 Wilderness Survival, 9 Expertise

Last 2 slots for a res, evasive stance or mending touch. At 16 Marks Prep Shot nets you 10 energy, 7 gained w/ 9 expertise. At 15 Marksmanship, 9 energy.

I tend to use the Conditions build if any, that many interrupts is a little ott but you get enough energy to use Concussion Shot fairly often. If your in an area with lots of immunity to poison/bleeding (or generally that monsters are spiked down so fast it doesn't matter) you can use RtW/Kindle and Keen Arrow/Crossfire instead.


Edit: If anyone comments on how Burning Arrow is better i will castrate you with a rusty spoon.

Barrage is better.

Barrage is boring.

Boring Barrage ... someone should make a build around that theme ... mhh ...

[skill]Barrage[/skill]

Ok, enough. As an option, lowering WS. If you're hitting one opponent, like in PvE, you'll only need a few points for the poison and Kindle is comparable in damage to RtW, so one could go for just Read the Wind.

Evilsod, where have the damage skills gone to? You were complaining about low Marks and then change everything to interrupt or conditioning?

I played around with Prepared Shot and used the following skills for damage dealing:

[skill]Prepared Shot[/skill][skill]Savage Shot[/skill][skill]Screaming Shot[/skill][skill]Penetrating Attack[/skill][skill]Kindle Arrows[/skill]

When used together, every attack made can be done so by using an attack skill, even if an interupt is never used. Kindle Arrows is used because half the point of using Prepared Shot is not having to invest heavily into Expertise. Therefore the attributes run with 16 Marks, 9 Expertise, and 11 Wilderness Survival (assuming a sup mask w/ rune and all minors).

This was the best Prepared Shot build I have tried myself so far, but it's still weaker than an Apply Poison + Burning Arrow + Crossfire (or other 5 energy attack skill) build if you are going against fleshy enemies imo. When tested on the dummies, it was possible to take down all 4 dummies at once before they popped back up when spreading poison and burning to each targets and could get 3 down at once when targetting only 1 dummy at a time, but the Prepared Shot combo could only take down 2 targets at a time max.

Unless there is a good buff on Ranger attack skills, it's going to be hard for me to take Apply and Burning Arrow out of my skill bar for most situations.

Oh, and Barrage is not better. It may be better suited for specific PvE type situations when large mobs can be expected, but it's a bit weak when your enemies aren't in huge mob balls.


*edit* I swapped out Kindle Arrows for Apply Poison and was able to get similar results with the Prepared Shot build. I guess it's just Kindle Arrows that sucks, lol.

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another good damage skill oft overlooked for the optional spot of course is:
[skill]Keen Arrow[/skill]

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