Ranger seeking guidance

Hi everyone,

I'm a new GW player and I have just finished the Nightfall campaign this week.
I've enjoyed it a lot but I didn't find it very easy and had to ask for help for some mission as I just kept dying

So as my 1st elite skill I was planning on getting the Barrage skill from the Bearer of Misfortune (Domain of Pain). I've been trying to run it with different Henchmen and Heroes but without success, I've even been wiping before reaching the Bearer of Misfortune

This is the build I have atm (without barrage obviously ^__^) OgkkYdXX2au0ihqxjhF2FGPIth8G
I've read the "Basic Guide to Playing Ranger" thread

I know I have a lot to learn about playing GW, so I'd like to know what am I doing wrong ? Is it because of my character or my team setup ?
Any advice would help !
Cheers

Looks like it could possibly be a combination of both character and team setup that is causing you the troubles. I would need more information on what the rest of the team setup is like that you are taking along with you.

If you would like a hand, feel free to send me a whisper in game, and I'll be happy to tag along. IGN: Aria Silverfyre

I primarily play a ranger, so hopefully, I can help a bit

The Domain of Pain is a pretty rough area for inexperienced players.
If you really want Barrage (and only have Nightfall) I would recommend going to Sunspear Sanctuary and seeing if anyone there is doing the quest The Great Escape and would take you along. A ranger boss with Barrage spawns during that quest.
If you have other campaigns, pretty much any place in the other games that has a boss with Barrage is easier than the Domain f Pain. For a list of places to cap it, check the skill page.

Couple quick things. That build is impossible as it requires 213 attribute points whereas only 200 are available unless something amazing has happened.


Next,we really can't comment on the team setup as we don't know what your heroes are bringing or what henchies your using. But if this is your first elite on a ranger I would kinda wonder how well outfitted your heroes are in terms of builds.
You may think about capping Barrage somewhere easier. Based off your skill set I'm guess you only have nightfall? Which would mean seeing if any of your friends or guildies have the quest the great escape available to them. Then you can cap it much easier.

If not you may look at capping an easier elite for now and getting your heroes outfitted.

theres an easier way to unlock elites... create a pvp only toon, build up enough balth points to unlock barrage, after you unlock it buy an elite tome and get ur skill

otherwise

yeah your hero builds and even knowing what henchies you use would be more help

@AriaSilverfyre - great, I'll see you in game then ^__^

@RedDog91 - I didn't realize the Domain of Pain was a harder area :-P
Good idea about joining someone doing the great escape quest, I only have Nightfall atm so I'll definitely try that first :-)

@End - I got that build from here : http://www.gwpvx.com/Archive:Team_-_Barrage/Pet
It's pretty tough finding good PVE builds with only core+Nightfall :-S
Do you think this build makes no sense or is it just the 200 points problem ? I just wanted to try a barrage build since it looks pretty powerful so I'm really open to any variation on that build.

@Rites - Thx for the info, I didn't try PVP yet so I may give this a try as well ^__^

About the Heroes and Henchies I usually take Koss as tank, Dunkoro as healer and Master of Whispers to use "Animate Bone Fiend" (one of the rare heroe skill I bought).
I don't have the game in front of me so I can tell you exactly what each has but I think it's pretty much what they started with :-P I'll have a look tonight and post their build.
I've only upgraded 4x heroes armor so far using Stolen Sunspear Armor pieces.
For the Henchies I usually bring the Fire Elementalist, the Paragon, a ranger and sometimes another warrior or holy monk.

Hope this makes sense >__>
Thx all

It's not a great build but with only one campaign you kinda have to work with what you got. If I were you I would get rid of the paragon skills (and the pet but that's personal preference) abd bring something with more use. They work well in that build because all the chars are using attack skills whereas most of the casters on your team will have none making them pointless for them.




In guild wars for general pve a "Tank" is pointless. With the way aggro works in Guild Wars they will still just run to the casters. Also, frontline AI sucks. Ditch koss and bring something else. Buy your heroes skills. Your heroes should be just as well outfitted and such as your character.

The armor remains are really just for looks btw.

The henchies...Bring a healer henchy of a warrior. Again, frontline AI sucks and from the sounds of it you can really use the heals (note: don't bring the holy henchie thats a dervish frontliner)

So which second profession/build do you recommend for general PVE with heroes and Henchies ?
Or should I keep this build and swap the casters with other Heroes/Hench ?

Coming from WOW, having a tank sounded like a good idea So if tank do not "tank" in GW, what do they do ? pure damage ?

ok lol, I didn't know that >__< So is it possible to really upgrade Heroes' armor and weapons or is it fixed to the set they have when you get them ?

The problem is I have only played a Ranger for like a month or so, how am I supposed to know what my warrior, elementalist, etc ... skills should be ? I feel very confused about that

ok I'll try to look them up one by one

Thx

maybe take a build without the need to use barrage with a bar for you capture. Then after the capture, make the build. I use barrage but not using this build. For me, that was what I did until I got barrage.

And you may indeed need to look at your heroes' build too. Also, actually I have found out that things goes better when I do not use warrior heroes. I may bring in one warrior henchman but I will always bring in my own casters and healer heroes.

Nightfall isn't as easy for me as the other two campaigns. Maybe you could also try getting the skill in another campaign. For someone who has finished Nightfall, I think it will be easy for you to do the others:



Prophecies
Markis (Iron Mines of Moladune)
Snyk the Hundred Tongue (Abaddon's Mouth)
Cairn the Cunning (Riverside Province (explorable area), only during the War in Kryta)

Factions
Aurora (Boreas Seabed)
Chkkr Thousand Tail (Drazach Thicket) ( I got mine here)

Nightfall

Commander Kubeh (Arkjok Ward, only during the quest The Great Escape)
Bearer of Misfortune (Domain of Pain)

Eye of the North
Docu Kindleshot (Blood Washes Blood)
Groknar Weazlewortz (Against the Charr)
Storm of Destruction (Riven Earth)
Frostmaw Spawn (Frostmaw's Burrow)

you will probably need to change your bar a bit, as end already stated

as far as the melee AI, many peeps seem to have issues with them, i personally don't see much of an issue. then again i am a pet player, and many peeps don't like pet AI either, but i have no issues there as well

get as many skills as you can from the (free)skill trainers since they unlock for your heroes as well as yourself...

Koss as a swordsman, master of whispers as MM with some curses, if you are gonna use paragons always have a minimum of 2 (general morghan + sogolon in your case), herta the earth elementalist, kihm, and the derv or war
--- at least thats what i would use in your case

I am far from a great build creator, but considering that you dont seem to have any elites i threw this together



from what i read you mainly use physicals... mark of pain, barbs, and winnowing will help on damage.
keep barbed arrows at all times and you will be able to use scavenger strike to replenish energy

these builds were made with the thought that you only have nightfalls and have no elites (at least thats what i gathered from your posting)

Go talk to the hero skill trainers, available in Kamadan, Sunspear Sanctuary and elsewhere. They have ekstra skills available for your heroes.
You can also capture elite skills for them like this:
Go look up on wiki what bosses there are in different areas.
A useful skill for Sousuke or Zhed would be Searing Flames.

http://www.guildwiki.org/Korr,_Living_Flame

Now go to the Command Post, visit the Profession Changer and make yourself r/e and equip a Signet of Capture. Look at the map provided in this link and go kill Korr, Living Flame and cap the skill. (you might die underway, but keep trying)
Now you have unlocked Searing Flames and can equip the hero with it.

Repeat this process to make more elite skills available for heroes.

The skills are unlocked for your account in general. If you start a new character, they will be available for your heroes on that one aswell.

It also pays to spend a few k on runes and insignia for your most used heroes.

You will see that you and your heroes will make a more solid team with higher chance of getting through hard areas alive and finally you can go kill that desired boss and get barrage.

Many of the bosses in Kourna and Vabbi have quite weak elite skills available. As you already saw, the best ones are in the last part of Nightfall, the torment areas.

this is a definite yes, you would be surprised how much of a difference runes can make

personally i do not suggest ever using runes that remove from your hit point total (in other words only get the minor runes), but thats a personal choice.

Personally, since you're stuck with only NF and core skills, I'd drop the beast mastery and paragon skills and just do a 12/12 split between expertise and marksmanship with a +1 +2 expertise and a +1 marksmanship, throw on a rune of major/superior vigor (whichever you can afford) some survivor insignias, vitae runes and go with a build like:

OggSc5MPYnBgk5xoaw1HmiD

Swap out hunter's shot with called or dual shot if there are few fleshy mobs. Maybe swap lightning reflexes with Whirling Defense depending on circumstances (it lasts a little longer but longer recharge and no IAS). You could spec the remaining low into wilderness survival and replace keen or savage with apply poison too if fleshy mobs abound. Just remember any preparations are useless with barrage.

And frankly, until you can get a splinter weapon on a Rit hero or on your own bar if you can't bring a rit along, you're missing out on one of the best uses of barrage.

I'm not sure this message will appear in the thread, I've tried to reply already 3 times without success, but thx to you all for your help. I've updated my build, captured a couple of elite skills, still gearing up my heroes but I've bought EotN and I'll start playing it this week end ^__^ wiiiiiiiiiiii
Cheers

one of my previous reply just appeared today ^__^ thx Kvinna
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...38&postcount=8

Obviously, it's too late now, but I wonder why you went through an entire campaign without capping elites along the way?

Maybe because she could? I did the whole Proph. the 1st time on a ranger and only got barrage from Markis after I realized I couldn't do Ring of Fire without something extra so I went back and got it. But the 1st time through a mish I'm usually too busy just trying to stay alive and not worrying about capping.

OP: if you did the whole NF on a ranger with NO elites, my hat's off to you!

I would recomend using up your free character slots to experiment with other professions. Jus play them for a short time, perhaps a week or till they hit lvl 10-20. That way you will not only gain some insight as to how that profession works but you will also unlock skills that your hero's can use.

Hero's can use any skill for their profession/secondary that you have unlocked for your entire account.

I couldnt agree more. Try it. I have always been a caster kind of player for 5 years with the exception of a ranger and dervish. I had a warrior back in the old days but I didnt have fun from that so I deleted. Recently I made a para , thinking to learn how to play imba build. That reminded me of the value of adrenaline. Why some people simply NEED to get hit and whack people with a weapn that only does 15-22 damage per hit....simply because it enables them to do some good skills that are real nice, but requires adrenaline.
And those necros they love to see stupid minions and whatnot drop dead, its irreleant for most people, but it fuels their energy so they can cast more of their real nasty spells.
Not to mention the monks, they cant heal anything that is across the map. They expect you to be ahead but not move forward faster than they can follow.

For a new player it is beneficial to know such stuff, because your heroes and henchmen have it the same way. And the moment you start playing with real people they expect you to understand such basics.

No, no, End meant that AI suck as tanks, not that tanking in general is useless. And it was in reference to PvE, not PvP.

In PvE, mobs know to bypass tanks and go for healers and casters, but a human tank can bodyblock them, divert and regain aggro, take advantage of terrain etc. But AI tanks cannot do that, they pretty much act the same as the mobs (they try to bypass, fail, get easily distracted, wander off etc).

For this reason, if you decide you must have tanks in PvE, you either play one yourself, or you micromanage them. But expect to be frustrated 1-2 cases out of 3 by their limited AI. (Eg. you cannot predict 100% accurately what they will do in "aggressive" vs "guard" mode, sometimes pets attack even when set to "heel", sometimes they all stand there like idiots if you don't specifically target a mob etc.)

That's why many people prefer to deal with H/h by focusing on ranged attacks, using spread and kiting for damage mitigation. The AI does a decent job of kiting and their timing at casting/counter-casting is machine-perfect.

Again, this is about PvE, where tanking gameplay complexity is about an order of magnitude lower than PvP. In PvE a tank is mainly a means to attract and absorb damage while the ranged and casters deal damage. The tank's ability to inflict damage, while considerable, is usually secondary to the above. And it's useful only if it spikes well enough to actually [help] take down an enemy fast. If it doesn't it's useless, you drift into a futile blow exchange which can only end with YOUR defeat.

Don't play pressure games with the mobs in PvE, you're dealing with machines. They will take your pressure, match it and grind you down with sheer boredom.