A couple questions while I install...

Hello, I just had a couple of quick questions, I've played guildwars nightfall a bit, about halfway through and loved it, but now I want to start the whole game fresh from prophecies and then go through in order to kill time before guild wars 2.

I want to try a ranger, my last character was a rit, and then a paragon and I found them both okay, but I like pet classes, the necro doesn't appeal to me because I get tired of trying to keep pets up, the ranger style of just a self sufficient pet is more enjoyable.

(side note..is there a skill that prevents pets from decaying as a necro?, something that doesn't need to be recast constantly?)


Anyways, I am looking for a secondary for my ranger and these are the things I am trying to find for a build:

Something that "procs" an effect on attack. I like the mechanic of when I hit something, there is a chance it might cause aoe, or a debuff or something, Is there any attacks in a secondary like this?

I am a bit lazy, so recasting things like splinter weapon I find annoying, is there any type of skill like it that has a long duration or triggers off attacks?


For a secondary my priorities are easy to get rolling quickly, I don't like how on my rit I have to use a bunch of cool downs to summon spirits before I start seeing the effects.

I guess these are kind of vague but hopefully someone gets what I mean.

I also was wondering any advice for achievements or the like sort of things you wish you had known when you began that might be fun for prophecies and beyond.


thanks

trp

Pets do not have health degeneration like necromancer minions. In PvE, you may take Comfort Animal, which heals your pet as needed, revives it if it dies, and also serves as a skill that enables the pet.

yes that's one of the reasons i prefer the ranger, thanks for the reply any other wisdom to share guys and gals?

Well firstly any character can have a pet all you need do is take ranger as your secondary class, but you probably knew that.

You will need to put some points into beast mastery or your pet will not be very effective.

I would go for heal as one when you can get it as you can then heal pet and yourself with one skill.
Its a Factions elite skill so it will be some time before you get it, but its an important one.

The Necromancer class is good and can do a lot more than raise minions, check out Spiteful spirit builds.
Minion masters these days are more often given to a necro hero since it is something they are good at and its a boring build.

necromancer is what I am leaning towards now, especially since Its one of the original classes. any other secondaries you can suggest perhaps based of procs or triggers from passive attacks something along the lines of splinter weapon.

Well you could go /Rt eventually and take Splinter, it's not terribly uncommon as a secondary on a necro. As for the original 6 classes your best choices are really mesmer or monk, I would say you would be fine drawing solely off the necro skills though.

Well if you still want a pet it has to be Necro/Ranger not common esp now your pet doesn't leave an exploitable corpse which was why I started Necro/Ranger.

Monk if you feel being able to resurect, heal yourself and remove conditions are essential.
The first allows you to bring back your party if your the only survivor.
The others make it a little easier if your going solo.

Mesmer useful if you want to clone a necro skill and cast it twice quickly good for Spiteful spirit necro builds and maybe a few others too.

You can change secondary later in the game but its a fair way into prophesies due to the slow character progression of that Game

If you want to run ranger, a good secondary is ele for Conjure (element), warrior for save yourselves, IAS, or melee weapons, Paragon to use a spear (works fantastically with a pet), Dervish (heals or scythe), rit for splinter (although thats better off char) etc.

If your looking for the best class to take from proph, then it really depends on ur playstyle. If you like fire and forget, id go necro or ele. If you like high damage/physical attacks warrior, maybe ranger. If you like highly responsive gameplay (less so these days due to cons and HB/UA, but still) Monk, and mesmer if you like, well, pretty armors. Lets be honest, mesmers still arent that awesome in pve bar a couple of builds which heroes run better.

If you've played half way through Nightfall, you must already be aware that you can change your secondary to whatever you want later. I would also think that you would be aware that, when starting out a new character, it doesn't really matter what your secondary is, because you have a lack of attribute points to spread around, and you should be concentrating on your primary. For nearly any class (except Monk) I recommend Monk as a secondary when you start out - and that's mostly just for the "hard" rez and maybe a self heal, because, as I said, you should be concentrating on your primary.
A lot of the builds that people recommend with a particular secondary require skills (and/or PvE-only skills) that you will only get later on in the game.

Ranger / Monk- this will carry you a long ways into the game. Once you have your pet, just take Comfort Animal, for your pet, and Rebirth/Res sig for your res. Use the other 6 slots for whatever Ranger skills you feel good with. As you progress and learn, you will find the best skills for how you play. As you learn, no need for fancy pet attacks, just let pet hit as you shoot. Later on you can experiment with Beastmaster skills or drop the pet.

For attributes, look at your skills as you acquire them, see what attribute line they are in. While in town/outpost, raise and lower each attribute and see its effect on each skill. Adjust them based on those effects you like. In Presearing Prophesies, bow damage alone will carry you along ways with the damage from your pet with no points in BM.

Attributes in short; Marksmanship - Meet weapon requirements, WS to raise Troll Unguent to +5/6 heal, Expert to lower energy costs, BM gets left overs for pet heal and damage. Once you have all your attribute points, you will understand how and where to put them based on your play experience.

And it's worth pointing out that your pet's health and armor is solely dependant upon the pet's own level, not your level in BM. You only need points in BM to increase the pet's damage and the effectiveness of BM skills. So, as Perkunas says, just put a few leftover points in it (if there are any) at first and the pet will function quite nicely as a body blocker.