First we had the 55 Monk, now the 55 Ranger?

A thought came across me today that nearly every class with the right build can solo the UW. At this point your thinking 'Well done Sherlock.' But when a friend said he saw a Mesmer 55 Build on these forums and was becoming rich off it while I was here still farming the Grawl at Port Sledge thinking, gah I'm getting ripped off here. So my first natural instinct is to start a Mesmer. Mesmer superior runes are cheap and it would take less than a week to be farming Ectos in the UW. But then I thought, what about a 55 Ranger? I asked a guildmate for his thoughts and he said that I was stupid and should just stick to grawl farming. I didn't want to create a new character for the soul purposes for farming using a build that wasn't mine just to be rich. Anybody can do that and their wasn't any fun in that. But it could be easier to try it with a Ranger. The superior runes were pretty cheap, I recall paying 2k-3k for all the Ranger runes. I pulled my wallet and brought a set of 1.5k Druids Armor from Droknar's Forge. Applied runes, skilled up and headed to Temple of Ages.

My Build ran like this: (can't remember exact figures)

8 Protection Prayers
9 or 10 Healing Prayers
7 or 8 Smiting Prayers
3 Beast Mastery (0 + Superior Rune)
3 Marksmanship (0 + Superior Rune)
9 or 10 Expertise (6 or 7 + Superior Rune)
5 or 6 Wilderness Survival (2 or 3 + Superior Rune)

1. Serpents Quickness
2. Throw Dirt (perhaps)
3. Essence Bond
4. Balthazar's Spirit
5. Mending
6. Shield of Judgement
7. Healing Breeze
8. Protective Spirit

Went into UW and tryed it out. I could tank the Aataxes, no problem. Quite Ironic as Rangers can't tank well. I could keep myself alive by using the invincimonk tactic but wasn't doing anything to kill them. In the end it was just a game of Chicken to see who would log out first between me and the Aataxe. Of course I gave in and the Aataxe lived to see another day. But would it be possible to do a successful working 55 Ranger, like the much more popular 55 Mesmer and 55 Monk, also heard of a successful 55 Necro and Warrior, but I've only seen the Mesmer and Monk in action. If I proved anything its how you can waste 10k or there abouts. So heres my question, has anyone found a working 105/55 Ranger UW farming build, if so please post here, or if you are afraid of revealing your build, by all means PM me.

Thanks.

Hmmm... the biggest problem I see is basically that SoJ is not a very efficient way to kill something, as I'm sure you might have noticed . Rangers lack an armor-ignoring power skill (at least, I think so) that a necro's spiteful or the mesmer build's IlluWeaponry supplies.

I can't really think of anything to deal the damage... Aatxes and smites are practically immune to conditions (inherent mending and mend condition) so poison isn't an option. Another consideration is that of graspings. The mesmer can use SV to dodge the 'Fear Me' spam, monks have bonetti's to regen, but when 4 graspings unleash fear me on you, you'll lose 16 energy, and that can hurt in a crunch.

Well not sure on what exactly you could use... rangers are hit pretty hard by the Aatxe's massive armor. Not to mention the smites' Shield of Judgement, which warriors can bypass with ripostes and Glad's def.

Yeah I noticed, however, the build itself still could be used to keep yourself alive pretty efficently, which essentialy would be good for two man UW.

Well the Prot Spirit is a necessary skill as is Mending. Though I am not sure that two energy management skills are needed. I see SoJ is one of your damage dealing skills. That makes sense as no other skills you have do so. I think you should AT LEAST take down Throw Dirt as just blinding a foe isn't necessary as a 55 anything in my opinion (could be wrong). So the build I would try out would be this,
1) Serpent's Quickness (though I am not sure the purpose of this skill)
2) A trap or another damage dealer that can be easily spammed
3) Essence Bond
4) Bal's Spirit
5) Mending
6) SoJ
7) Healing Breeze
8) Prot Spirit

If this doesn't work, consider removing one of your energy skills (Bal's and Essence) for another damage dealing skill like another trap perhaps. Traps may not be the best example as I don't know recharge time and cast time and may be interupted too easily. The point of traps is to deal quite a fair amount of damage. So what I would say is just first take of Throw Dirt for damage. If that doesn't work take off a energy skills for another damage dealer. Hope this helps.

Sergio

Oh I missed that post then scratch my idea. :P

Maybe you can add in the traps, so while you are tanking the hits, you can just be throwing out traps? get it?

Well, you can't trap when being bombarded by attacks firstly

I prefer having 2 energy management skills, safer overall usually. This would probably make a decent tanking build (still overshadowed by a mesmer, necro, and monk build however for various reasons).

If anything, perhaps bring Escape and use it to help tank larger packs, and do 2-man runs. But most importantly, nightmares are going to rip your head off and use the bloodshed to repaint the roof. Unless you brought distracting shot and could switch to a bow fast enough... your necro supporter (if using SS nec) would need an interrupt as well (unless you were VERY good with pulling, and even then you can slip up).

What I'd like to know is if anyone has suceeded, I thought of a concept similar to the Racthoh W/N build, by using Riposte, Deadly Riposte, Gladiator's Defence, Watch Yourself, Whirling Defence, Throw Dirt, Healing Signet and Serpents Quickness. In theory it could work, with 12 tactics, 13 Expertise (11 + Head + Minor), 7 Wilderness Survival (6 + minor). With serpents quickness it could keep Glads up for 90% of the time and in its down time Whirling Defence. Damage wise Riposte and Deadly Riposte could work, alongside the infamous Fire Wand it would avoid triggering the Aataxes Deadly Riposte and Riposte counters. Thoughts?

Serpent's is a stance, along with Glads. Wont it cancel with no effect? Even if it doesn't, theres still a 25% chance to be hit. Thats 4 dodges, and when you DO get hit...

You'll notice that Racthoh, despite all his stances, gets hit quite a good deal.

Now Racthoh has 80 + 20 (glads armor) + 16 + 40ish from dolyak + 20 armor. Also -7 damage (2 shield 3 rune 2 boots). This sums up a total of around 180 armor and -7 absorb. Yet you'll also note he gets nearly killed a few times, even with a 16 tactic healingsignet of the gods.

You however will only have 70 + 20 + 16 armor versus physical, and -2 absorb. Thats 106 and -2, and NO enfeeble that Racthoh uses. You'll be taking damage in the range of 150-200 per hit, and that is going to add up when you compare to Ract getting hit 20~ and still going low at times. I really don't think throw dirt can cover that...

And lets not start on the smites. 75% dodge and 4 smites means you're going to be hit, and hit alot. And you don't have the monumental armor and damage soak to weather it...

You could have stopped at the first sentence as I realised SQ will not work with Glads.

But but but I like writing long posts!

Plus I wanted to bring down any assumption it could be tried with something else in place of SQ

Well then thanks you just saved me 1k

Have you tried this? Does it work?

I'm sure this will work very well against griffons outside augury. With enchant grip 2 SoJ's will kill them, and without 3 will do it for sure.

Oh and I figure 55monk will work so much better because the sup runes will help it more than rangers' sup runes will help them as 55 chars

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