R/E Trap/AoE Build

Just a thought right now, hasn't been battled test or anything, and won't be until the game is actually released, since I'll be continuing to use my Lvl 14 R/Mo this next BWE, but I wanted to see what people thought of this...

Keep in mind this is just a skill build right now, and no actual numbers have been crunched concerning the spread of AP and such.

Ranger primary/Elementalist secondary
1. Muddy Terrain {Elite} -Create a level 1-8 Spirit. For all creatures within its range, all creatures move 10% slower than normal, and speed boosts have no effect. This Spirit dies after 30-78 seconds.

2. Troll Unguent -For 10 seconds, you gain health regeneration +3-9.

3. Apply Poison -For 12 seconds, enemies struck by your attacks become poisoned for 3-13 seconds.

4. Barbed Trap (this skill is still iffy, looking into it) -When Barbed Trap is triggered, all foes in the area take 20-74 piercing damage, become "Crippled" and begin "Bleeding" for 3-21 seconds. Barbed Trap ends after 90 seconds. While activating this skill, you are easily interrupted..

Now come the Elementalist skills. I'm not sure which Element I'll focus on, but for now I'm looking into Water...

5. Water Attunement - For 36-55 seconds, you are attuned to water. You gain 30% of the energy cost of the spell each time you use Water Magic.

6. Maelstrom - Create a maelstrom at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes in that area are struck for 8-29 cold damage each second. Maelstrom interrupts spell casting when it hits. This spell causes exhaustion.

7. Frozen Burst - Foes adjacent to you are struck for 10-70 cold damage and are slowed for 5-10 seconds.

8. Ice Spikes - Target and nearby foes are struck for 10-70 cold damage and are slowed for 2-5 seconds.

I'm still looking at other options, and I will obviously have no idea how well this build will work until I can actually test it, but does anybody have any comments/suggestions for me to improve this? Barbed Trap and Ice Spikes are iffy in my book right now, and could easily be replaced by Healing Spring/Serpent's Quickness (which, at second glance, look to be the way I may go).

Edit: But then again, Barbed Trap goes with the AoE theme, and looks rather nice, just going by description. 15 Energy to cast though...

And also, it's been a while since I checked the thread, but there was a debate a few weeks ago about AoE spells and how they have been weakened (I believe?), and I never saw what the consensus was. With my playing style though, I feel like this would work quite well, especially once you hit levels where a lot of creatures will gang up on you at once (i.e. The Wilds)

Yet Another Edit: Marksman's Wager {Elite} may replace Apply Poison, just as a way to possibly keep my Energy high. Of course, I've rarely missed any shots with my Ranger, so I don't think I'll have too much trouble losing any energy with a miss.

Barbed Trap is my favorite one to use, and I find it very handy, especially in PvP. I suggest you should keep it.

Muddy Terrain, eh, I don't really see the point of it. Better ways to slow targets down, especially if you are going with Water Magic. Get rid of it and replace it with Marksman's Wager. I've never had a problem where missing and losing energy outweighs hitting and gaining it. Water Attunement just won't be helping out with your energy that much in my opinion since you will have a low energy pool.

Personal preference, but I'm not big on PBAoE especially with a build so focused on long range combat. I would get rid of Frozen Burst and replace it with some kind of defensive/evasion stance.

While Maelstrom is a great spell, I don't know how effective it will be for a ranger considering it causes Exhaustion. Ice Spikes may be better to keep for your AoE spell since it won't be hard to get the energy back with Marksman's Wager.

Healing Spring seems pointless in your build, in my opinion. You seem more focused on damage being your form of "supporting" your team, so no need to provide an area heal.

Not sure if there is anything else to say. Hopefully I helped

Yeah, Healing Spring is out, looking into Armor of Mist at the moment. For the time being, I think I want to keep Maelstrom for a while until I can get some experience with it and see what problems arise from the Exhaustion. I may try and weasel Water Trident {Elite} in, just to add another long-range attacking spell.

I'm looking at numbers through GW Team Builder, so hopefully I come up with something soon.

how are you planning on spreading your attribute points out?


build looks pretty good to me, may come accross some energy problems here and there but other than that, looks good.

Depending on what kind of runes I can get my hands on, it'll look something like this...

Marksmanship: 10 + 1 from Armor
Wilderness Survival: 10 + 2 from Major Rune
Water Magic: 11

199 points used, 1 left

Edit: By the way, here's another form of this build, with Spike Trap, Water Trident, and Marksman's Wager thrown in.

At Level 20, using the point spread from above...

1. Spike Trap - When Spike Trap is triggered, all foes in the area take 56 piercing damage are crippled for 13 seconds and are knocked down. Spike Trap ends after 90 seconds. While activating this skill, you are easily interrupted. This is an elite skill.

2. Troll Unguent - For 10 seconds, you gain health regeneration 9.

3. Marksman's Wager - For 12 seconds, you gain 5 energy whenever your arrows hit, but lose 10 Energy whenever your arrows fail to strike. While activating Marksman's Wager, you are easily interrupted.

4. Barbed Trap - When Barbed Trap is triggered, all foes in the area take 74 piercing damage, become crippled, and begin bleeding for 21 seconds. Barbed Trap ends after 90 seconds. While activating this skill, you are easily interrupted.

5. Water Attunement - For 53 seconds, you are attuned to water. You gain 30% of the energy cost of the spell each time you use Water Magic.

6. Maelstrom - Create a maelstrom at target foe's location. For 10 seconds, foes in that area are struck for 27 cold damage each second. Maelstrom interrupts spell-casting when it hits. This spell cause exhaustion

7. Water Trident - Send out a water trident at target foe. Water Trident strikes for 54 cold damage if it hits. If it hits a moving foe, that foe is knocked down. This is an elite skill.

8. Ice Spikes - Target and nearby foes are struck for 65 cold damage and are slowed for 5 seconds.

Yea/nay?

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Troll Unguent... say goodbye. Seriously, you can find a better skill to replace it with. Have faith in your monks... or find new ones.

Marksmen's Wager... personally, I've never been a big fan of this skill. If you want to grab a skill that still has some gamble to it, try Oath Shot. I've seen quite a few Trapping Rangers bring this skill along

I'd also consider Serpent's Quickness if you aren't liking Oath Shot.

Also... now that I look at it... Marksmen's Wager & Water Trident are both elite... 2 elites that I don't think have any place in this build. I think you'll have better success with a skill like Pin Down.

Why would you want to go Ranger primary if your not going to use Expertise?

Agreed, Walder... I didn't even notice that...

Don't forget that Water Trident can be pretty unweildy... it's best used on moving opponents, and as such, is not the most accurate when hitting a moving opponent.

The only reason I had Marksman's Wager in my build at all was to try and deal with the lack of energy which I feel that I'll have by running a build such as this, since half of the skills on the list use 15+ Energy. And from my experiences with using even Ranger/Monk, I like to use up a lot of Energy with my combos.

And unless I do find a good dedicated healer Monk to bring with us in a party, I'll stick with the T.Ung (sounds like Tang, eh?). Hopefully some more do show up this coming Beta so I don't have to use up a skill spot...

Water Trident was only thrown in as something to round out the build, I have absolutely no experience with it and no knowledge of how it ran, so I'll take your guys word on it and remove it.

The point of this build was to not use a lot of skills which have to do with simply firing the bow, as most of the Expertise skill do, as well as basically all of the Marksmanship skills. What I hoped to accomplish with the build was to be able, as enemies move towards us, to lay a trap, cause an initial burst of damage which would either Cripple them or cause them to Bleed, and then hit them with Maelstrom and watch the damage rack up. However, I did totally overlook the benefits of having points alloted into Expertise and the results they produce, so I'll have to rework my build to incorporate as much Expertise as possible without drastically reducing any other Attributes.

This build was also just kind of a spontaneous thing, and it doesn't seem to realistic to use in game now that I've had to think about it (I'll test it anyway), but I'm going to start working on a new build for my Ranger/Monk which I'll actually use, so hopefully I can crank that out soon. I'll probably incorporate Barbed Trap into that one, since from the looks of it, it's a pretty nice skill, same with Spike Trap.