to divide or not to divide?

khanites

Academy Page

Join Date: Dec 2007

KHANITEZ

W/Mo

i am lvl 18 R/Rit.

i am struggling with the question whether to go barrage/splnter way and attack multiples but less damage or concentrate on one enemy at the time and get rid of them quickly, less for the melee people to deal with. A enemy health of 60 is as good as enemy health of 200 since it will still attack. Maybe i should concentrate.

Last night i did a mission in nightfall with a lvl 20 W/E and my god the enemies do swarm you a lot. i am frightened as a ranger since once they get to you, that is the end, troll ungent is not that good because of the recharge time.

please any advise for a frightened ranger to go into nightfall.. which are the best elite skills to get first to make life easy.

thx

Lourens

Lourens

Forge Runner

Join Date: Mar 2006

[skill]burning arrow[/skill] and [skill]natural stride[/skill] will make your life easier

Joker

Academy Page

Join Date: May 2005

ESS

R/Mo

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lourens
[skill]burning arrow[/skill] and [skill]natural stride[/skill] will make your life easier What he said.

Hookecho

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2005

The Red States

The Runners Academy

W/Mo

My PvE ranger is R/Rit and I run a barrage/splinter build.
My bar looks like this (sorry i have no idea how to do that niffty graphical thing)

Splinter Weap
Barrage (E)
Dshot
Savage Shot
Needling Shot
Lightning reflex
Troll
Rez sig or that rit rez that I cant remember the name of ATM

I use mainly a recurve or a LB

When we hit a mob, depending on team makeup, I usually hang way back. If we have some warrior meat sheilds to grab the main aggro, I'll wait a sec so the Wars can hold the alpha and then its Splinter->Barrage->Barrage->either reapply splinter and then Barrage again or start dishing out some interrupts. If you see a target below 50% health, then spam Needling until target is dead and then re-evaluate the situation.

Remember, as a ranger you are not the priority of the mob. The AI will in most cases try to go for the squishies 1st. You have 2 feet...use them. Dont get rooted in cement....move! If say that margonite warrior guy with the big assed hammer parks his ugly butt next to you and starts to try to cave your face in...hit Lightning Reflex, dshot, and savage him, with LR running he may latch onto someone else...if not and he has melee lock on you move and scrape him off on your melee guys (wars, dervs) and keep plinking away.

Because i just sort of finished NF on my ranger, the Typical Margonite mobs are fresh in my mind. IIRC they usually consist of a monk, para, necro or ele, ranger, warrior, derv. and sometimes an extra war or derv. As I typically play with friends and fill with heroes so usually the real players are the squishies and the heroes are the wars and stuff. I love to bring a 2-para line with my ranger, brings a nice synergy with all those arrows and spears flying around...anyway...like I said I play with friends so at mob aggro, the enemy monk is 1st priorty (dont ask...its just how we do it) and gets the called target....so off goes Jora and copy of Jora (hey because 2 huge amazon blonds are better than 1) to the monk and spears and whatnot start flying at said monk and the fight is on. What I noticed is this with the Margonite mobs.

They split sort of. Their backline of Monk, ranger, para and either necro or ele tend to stay in a bunch and dont kite much, but after you splinter/barrage them once or twice they spread just enough to cancel the adjacent trigger or the para does by moving to the mid line. The warrior (or Warriors plural) charge into your group and seem to take special pride in chasing Dunkoro or Takora all over creation while the Derv will always find the 2 squishies that are standing next to each other and start her blender and proceed to hack them up. By this time the monk should be toast so I usually switch my target call to the para to get the Jora twins on him and spears flying in his general direction, and I start looking at warriors in our caster line seeing who I can interrupt (heal sig) or start needling. If you get in trouble and hammers and scathes are flying at you (oh my!) hit LR and kite away. Remember mobility is one of your strengths...use it

I used this splinter/barrage build all thru factions, nightfall, and now halfway thru GWeN, and it has worked well for me. your mileage may vary but thats why GW is fun....lots of paths to reach the same place.

iridescentfyre

iridescentfyre

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Mar 2006

W/

Quote:
Originally Posted by khanites
please any advise for a frightened ranger to go into nightfall.. which are the best elite skills to get first to make life easy.
Barrage is nice to have in some areas, but lots of casual (read: kinda bad) rangers just don't even consider bringing another elite, no matter what they're fighting. Burning Arrow is a much better choice all-around.

Rangers are not defenseless, in fact you're better defended against elemental attacks than even warriors are, with better blocking stances and even an area blinding skill to escape physical hits. Your ranger should have no problems surviving with Natural Stride on your bar.

Marverick

Marverick

Forge Runner

Join Date: Aug 2006

R/

Just use [wiki]Volley[/wiki] with [skill=text]Splinter Weapon[/skill] if you want AoE damage; that way you still have your elite open for utility purposes.