Rate My Build - R/W

1) Pin Down
2) Troll Unguent
3) Distracting Shot
4) Hunter's Shot
5) Frenzy
6) Incendiary Arrow {Elite}
7) Apply Poison
8) Whirling Defense

Attributes are spread about between expertise, marksmanship, and wilderness survival.

After switching numerous secondary classes and experimenting with different skills and elites, this one seems to be pretty effective. Great at taking down casters. Usually I Apply Poison, then go for the target, using Incendiary Arrow, and if I'm not getting attacked, Frenzy. Troll Unguent is there for healing, Pin Down to kite warriors and stop others from escaping, and Whirling Defense at times the warriors try to gang up on me. Distracting shot is another interrupter, usually I save it for my target's healing spells or rez spells.

I'm a big fan of DoTs, so Hunter's Shot on a moving target works fairly well. Combined with bleed, poison, and burning targets go down fast unless they're getting healed. The only annoyance IMO is apply poison. I was really used to Poison Arrow, and I'm not a huge fan of preparations (stopping in the middle of the battle for a few seconds, and the chance of getting interrupted).

I'm still questioning what secondary I should have. As a monk healing breeze and JI is great, but I run out of energy way too often. Mesmers are not too bad either, but the attributes make it limited and energy is still an issue. Elementalists with their conjure flame (I would spare points from wilderness survival for that) was one of my thoughts, but I'm not sure if it would be worth it, especially since the damage would only be +7-9 from the enchantment. Frenzy is a pretty useful skill as I can spam it endlessly (recharge time is faster than duration, and energy cost is low), but once I get focused fire it's out of the question.

Any critiques?

Testing it out some more, and I've never been so successful with any other builds, I've tried so many combinations with several different buids and elite skills, but this beats it by far. Not one class is giving me any problems, unless I get ganged by about 3-4.

thought about W/R build?

frontline attacks with minor pet abilities and Poison hits.

Quote:

Unless you're looking to use a lot of strength skills, R/W trumps W/R by far.

I like your build. Your build has a caster disrupt, a melee snare, some Dot.

After playing every possible Ranger/x combo. The warrior secondary seems to work best. The caster classes require more energy than the ranger can spare and could be played better by a caster primary.

I'm not a big fan of using more than 1 Preparation. The cast time just annoys me. My personal preference would be do replace Incendiary Arrow {Elite} (Because it only lasts 8 seconds) with Practiced Stance{Elite}( which would make your apply poison last for ~ 34 seconds instead of 24 ).

The R/ele or conjure archer is easily outdamaged with this build by then switching Apply poison with Kindle Arrows.
Practiced stance-Kindle arrows- frenzy -frenzy-frenzy ...with a fast bow can add up to some nice sustainable damage

The other nice part about being R/W is when your team needs a melee'r you can rearrange your points from Marksmanship to Hammer or (other weapon), and be a decent secondary tank. You have 24 refund points and it will only take 12 to drop Marksmanship and then the other 12 to switch it back again. Rangers have some nice stances to help out avoiding the damage.

Thanks for the input. IMO incendiary arrow is the best ranger elite skill, so I really don't think I'll be replacing that. It only lasts 8 seconds, so you can use it 1/3 of the time, but that 1/3 is enough to take down any target unless they're getting healed constantly by other monks. Not to mention with frenzy and shortbow, the arrows shoot fast and almost every spell is interrupted. Having to use two preparations every 24 seconds really does suck though.

Have you ever thought about using a zealous bow for your energy issues? Zealous bow + Frenzy = mucho energy. Even if you are not using frenzy, using a zealous bow will give you more energy while you are attacking than if you were not using one.

JLL

Yeah I'm using zealous bow string as we speak, seems to be the best choice.