The ANTI-Build!

Yes i know its silly. Ah, that's the point, though. Just a harmless little diversion. As I said a decent turnout given the rather suboptimal skills selected.

Lazarous, a nice little minionator. A lot of AoE poison and damage floating around. And a Shock+Plague Touch combo seems like something nasty to pull. I'm not too certain about GLE although I suppose you need it for ABM. I might go with Bone Horror instead and pick up another skill somewhere like Malign Intervention, for example.

Cpukilla, I think I stated my concerns about Disease in melee well enough above. Plague Touch helps but it's pretty expensive for a primary Warrior to run. In fact, I'm not sure you'll have enough energy for what you want to do at all. Still, can't argue with Sever+Gash+Final and that's a nice lead in to Virulence while Plague Touch protects you against any Disease blowback. That's 8 degen, +16DPS, Weakness, and a Deep Wound on a single target as you lower the double damage boom. Pretty nasty. Malign+Verata's is a nice little combo, too.

Typhoon, another person who went Ele/Nec, I see. You went Earth, though, for the PBAoE route. Not a bad idea although since you're in Earth I don't see why you wouldn't pick up a Ward to throw down. The Blood AoEs and Death DDs leave a bit to be desired, I'd stick to Aftershock+Crystal Wave (nice thing to pull as their conditions, etc, start to fade, I think) past what you need to Touch away a condition for Virulence.

Greentongue, just under the bell. Fragility seems an obvious coice here. You're doubling up on Weakness with Enfeeble, though. I'd try and find a beter way to set up Virulence.


I could go on about all of them, I'm sure, but now we come to the winner, Greco and his Ran/Nec (I like the idea about a plague carrying pet, by the way...).

The strengths of this build are fairly evident. It's a very solid build and one that might work well in the Arena, for example. It's a bit too broad and diverse to take to other PvP, you've got Bows and Traps and all the rest, in the midst of an established team you're better off finding some more focus. But in the Arena you have no set team so being more well-rounded at the sake of some efficiency isn't a bad way to go.

So, yes, you'll be able to spread a lot of conditions, a lot of DOT, and you'll have decent enough damage to back it all up. Or, you can switch to traps and Plague Touching when they get in close. Serpent's Quickness lowers all your recharge times and lets you do everything faster. High Expertise lets you absorb the costs easily. And you're a smart little Necro as you've remembered to include Rend Enchantments on your build. You're right, it adds a lot, letting your team or yourself punch through defenses as needed. Enchantment removal isn't very good overall but Rend's the best of a bad lot and removing enchantments is vital enough that you'll be glad you have it even if it could be better.

The weaknesses are a symptom of your well-roundedness, though. You're spreading yourself thin so you're not packing the overall punch you could. Dropping Plague Touch (Yes, it's a contest requirement. I never said I was going to *keep* it in your builds :P) and the trap you could add in some more bow attacks to become a much better ranged attacker. Or you could ditch the ranged attacks and concentrate on being a trapper with a lot of Warrior hate - a good character to stick in the back row with the Monks for when Warrior trains come around, for example. By being so diverse you've sacrificed the ability to really shine at things. Not that such an approach can't work, of course, but you might get better results with a bit of a more narrow focus you could be more effective. DOT is a nice thing to apply but it's not going to win fights for you by itself as it tops out at 20DPS. You need to back it up with something else to take advantage of it and I'm not sure this build makes the most of that.

Since I'm looking at this as an Arena build you're also lacking a bit in defense. You've got Pin Down and Barbed Trap and Plague Touch but that's about it. I'd consider something like Healing Spring here to provide some healing while you're attacking away or laying your traps and all. If you're attacked quickly and fiercely enough your Serpent's Quickness can go down and that'll hurt especially if you've caught some Disease from an enemy.

As for countering this build the obvious answer is, of course, condition removal. A Protection Monk is your worse nightmare here as they'll get rid of your Poison or Bleeding before you can tag someone with Virulence, wasting that effort. And even if you do manage to put a lot of conditions on the rest of the team, you wouldn't expect them to last long in the face of adequate removal. In short, if the enemy's worried about conditions you're in for a rough time. Disease can be difficult for the removers to handle, though, as it can spread out of control and cause some nasty DOT to several opponents at once. However, that can be twarted by the simple expidient of your opponents managing to spread out and to not cluster together. That's just smart Tactics for the most part as they'll want to avoid AoEs in any event. If they do get Diseased, though, and lack the removal to get rid of it, a nice move is to run into range of people on your team, spreading Disease amongst *your* teammates.

Beyond that, you're a Ranger so you can be expected to get tagged with Weakness and attack speed debuffs of your own. You're not entirely vulnerable to that because a lot of your offense doesn't come from rapdily attacking but just from landing a few attacks at the right time. Still, it'll lower your output and that's a good thing from your opponent's standpoint. You can Plague Touch it away but that's a lot of time and energy and might put you in range of your own Disease. In any event it distracts you from pressing your advantage as much as you could. Traps are a lot harder to deal with as, beyond staying away from them, there's no counter.

Far from the best build ever but considering you made it in a few hours, not a bad one. If you were going to tweak it and tighten it the first thing you'd lose would proably be Virulence which opens up a lot of possibilities but rather wrecks the whole "lotsa conditions thing".

Anyhow, as a reward you get the satisfaction of knowing you can deal with being handed a rotten skill. But, as a little added bonus, I'm going to let you pick the skill and/or skills you want the next anti-build to combat.

Plague Touch is instant recharge. If you get Diseased back you give it right back again. If they already have Disease you'll lose it and extend the duration of their condition.

Also, Disease doesn't work *instantly*. It takes a bit of time before it affects you. Not a long time but it's a few seconds or so. Disease spreads almost instantly. Here is why it may seem to you like it was a few seconds. Disease comes in batches. You cannot get affected twice by the same batch.

Ok consider this situation. You affect a ranger with disease. 5 sec later a warror comes by and gets disease as well and runs away. Then monk removes disease off the ranger and warrior comes near again and ranger won't get infected because it is the same disease batch on the warrior. At least that's how I have seen it work. If you shake it off and someone affected by same disease batch comes around you don't get affected. Transfering with martyr or plague touch creates a new batch that will again infect everyone. At least that's how I see it.

Quick question on oath shot: will it recharge signets? Oath Shot recharges *everything*. Any skill, any type. The only exception is adrenal skills which, of course, have no recharge timers to recharge. Seems to break any skill locks or disabling, too.

I will, however, point out that all evidence to the contrary, Oath Shot is linked to Marksmanship. Not Expertise. The game says Expertise, it's listed under expertise, it says "Miss chance with Expertise less than x" but it's Marksmanship. Means you don't have to be a primary Ranger. Build accordingly.