Thoughts on a R/N Build

I've never done a whole lot of PvP, tending to focus more on PvE. However, the Factions preview has suckered me into match after match to farm some faction. After about a day of swapping skills and trying things out, I've come up with the following for a damage/interrupt build:

Profession: Ranger/Necromancer

Weapon: Stinger (for the +33% poison duration, any poisonous bow should work just as well)

Armor: Druid's (of course)

Attributes:
Marksmanship: 9+1
Wilderness Survival: 10+1
Expertise: 10+3+1 (Hunter's mask + Sup. Rune)
Curses: 7
Unused: 2

Skills:
Poison Arrow {E}
Troll Unguent
Savage Shot
Distracting Shot
Whirling Defense
Throw Dirt
Ignite Arrows
Suffering / Mark of Pain



Strategy:
-Abuse poison arrow, that's why it's there. The more people poisoned, the better, especially monks/casters.
-If the enemy happens to be grouped up (2+ in same area), use suffering to give them all -2 degen or mark of pain and poison/savage/distracting spam for massive shadow damage.
-Ignite Arrows is also great for those group situations, and since Poison Arrow is spammable, you can keep poison on and still put the splash dmg on them.
-Sometimes, my team thinks it's funny to let me be a tank. This is the time where I throw whirling defense on and hotfoot out of there. Throw dirt also helps for escaping/neutralizing an enemy while you deal quick fatal damage. Protect your healers with it too.
-Savage is good for following up Poison Arrow, but keep at least one interrupt ready at all times to knock out a res sig or dangerous skill.

Using this build, I can usually take out ill-prepared combatants no problem, and with other people doing more damage, it can take down armored tanks as well.

A few of these skills could be replaced, I think, but I'm not sure which ones or what to put in their place.

Seems like a well thought out build. If you think a skill could be replaced, then there is no better answer than experience. Vary it a little and you could find a more efficient build for your needs. Hope that helps

when im playing r/n i try to focus on something tha gives my team a better advantage than suffering or mop does. i mean stuff like BiP, blood ritual, rend entchantments, devour corpse(or whatever it is called). but using skills like throw dirt in combo with poison arrow just seems silly to me, as there are tons of boon prots around. before the update mop was fun to use in pve (especially with a pet, double shot and tf on). troll uguent in pvp??

Umm, Rez Sig?

Umm, Rez Sig?

I'd take out suffering or savage and put in a res sig.

Res Sig can mean the difference between Victory and Defeat.

I see what you're saying, but I use this primarily as a damage-dealing build, with interrupts served hot on the side.

I can't really vouch for the success of this, since I'm not in a honest-to-goodness guild (it's a joke guild really), but when I find a good team in the arena (funny, I can't really put my finger on what makes them good), I find that we go on long winning streaks. I take a lot of joy in shutting a mesmer down real quick with interrupts while degen eats their health pool and the team wails away on them.

Throw dirt and whirling are the "oh-shit" skills in the bunch. They're not meant to combo with anything, just there for emergencies. You could get rid of throw dirt if you wanted, but I prefer to keep it to neutralize tanks.

As far as replacing a skill, I'd definitely say Ignite Arrows comes up short-handed in this build. I find myself hardly ever using it.

[edit]Took a real long time writing this reply, because I got distracted. The two replies (three if you count DP!) are actually what I ended up replacing Ignite with, because my mates sucked.

If your gonna use degen, you might consider adding Hunter's shot for bleeding. It'll add just a little bit more. Usually you focus on either damage or interrupting, but you seem to have thought this one out. I like playing a jack of all trades when I play ranger. Throwing dirt also helps to protect your monk/casters.

As for troll ungent... Its REALLY important in the Random/Team arenas becuase you don't always (rarely in fact) get a monk on your team. Its nice to be self suficient. Troll ungent is a skill so it can't be interrupted by spell only interrupts (mesmers).

I agree bleeding would be a good degen, but Hunter's Shot requires the target to be moving. Given that, I wouldn't really replace any core skills here with HS.

However, there's a bit of flexibility, and opening a match with that bleeding on approaching targets might be a great way to start (especially if I nail the monks and let casters/tanks run out of their casting range)

And as far as Troll Unguent goes, the only PvP I do is Team Arenas or Random. If I ever join a real guild and do GvG or organized building, I'd probably remove that.

I'd swap out these:

Ignite for Kindle (just a personal preference)
Trow Dirt for Res Sig
Suffering/MoP for Faintheartedness.. even tho Faintheartedness isn't AoE, still useful..

Actually, Faintheartedness is really useful. I find myself using suffering on a single target a lot of the time (monks!)

The recharge is better, and so is the cost. I'll have to swap it in and try it. Thanks for pointing that out!

Hunter's Shot + Virulence is also a fun combo... I'm not sure how you'd work it into your current build, and max is -10 degen... But I love dropping four conditions on someone w/ just two skills.