My ranger, Props to Vanquisher of Idiot Savants for the help.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2534/gw0031ry.jpg | sup expertise major vig minor wilds/marks

Any suggestions?

my only concern is that wards would > me, in that case I would just focus on Debilling monks and distracting them.

If you want, go mesmer secondary and echo debilitating shot. It helps alot.

Then I would have to take off quick shot, no thanks =/

Why does everyone want quick shot... You can just use read the wind and energizing winds.

Read the wind = no Kindle and favor winds > read the wind.

and Energizing wind = mess up monks.

First of all, it seems to be very good, better than 90% of rangers that try to arena. If a member of Idiot Savants helped you out, then thats great, but doesnt mean that this build is perfect (after all, people cant share ALL their tricks, right?) Ill offer my opinion on some improement opportunites, just dont overreact and get defensive- I already said its a good build. Anyways:

Why Quick Shot? What so great about it? Wouldnt punishing shot hurt more? Also, your marksmanship is a little low (in my opinion) only 9. Check the new GWGuru calculator for how much damage you are actually getting out of that max damage bow. And no tigers fury? I repeat

Personally I was never was a fan of Favorable Winds. Its damage bonus isnt that great, only ~3 per shot. You could fire ~3 arrows within the 5 second casting time instead. You could cast it before the battle starts, but even then Id rather have whirling defense (your build needs some self defense anyways)

btw if you want conjure flame to actually work, you might want to switch to a fiery bow string. Just a tip.

Yea I noticed I needed a fire bow string =[

And I use QS just because I can spam it and does some damage.

9 marks is really all I need, with that build right there I am doing 80 dmg per shot to mesmers.

I don't know what to lower for Tiger fury, Belive me ive been working that out for over 3 hours now.

I was thinking of just dropping Conjure flame as I am buying a 5/1 vampiric soon, and then I can raise a few beast mastery and a little more marks

Edit: Quick shot, Dual shot, Distracting shot, Debilitating shot, Tiger's fury, Kindle arrows, Favorable winds, res signet | 9 Beasts, 14 Expertise, 10 wilderness, and 10 marks This is what I'm going to try with the above bow.

Edit #2: Seems the first build was doing more dmg =/

Quick Shot is actually just what it says: a quick shot. It doesn't make the arrow move faster.

It seems a little odd that your Marksmanship and Wilderness Survival are both that low when they're so important to damage. Doesn't Confure Fire, even with max Fire Magic, only give like +13? Kindle is more powerful (even though it's shorter lasting), it just seems a little odd to me. Care to explain why so much emphasis on Conjure?

I don't think you need a firey bow string if Kindle Arrows is on.

No, I just tested it. Kindel + conjure works.

I dunno, I like that skill, I seemed to be doing enough DMG as it was...

I changed it around ALOT though =/ Still testing quite a few things

Good luck on your tests, I'd like to hear back on what you come up with.

Kindle + Conjure works if you do not have a fiery string.

I would drop Conjure and pump wilderness to 12. That way, you're losing 11 damage per arrow (if you leave fire magic at 0), but getting about +5 for kindle. You have 3 buffs there, which is too much imo. First, conjure is an enchantment, Kindle is not. Second, FW can benefit the other team, sometimes more than yours, so you're actually putting yourself at a disadvantage.
If you're determined to keep quickshot in there, you simply MUST run tiger's fury AND a zealous string. This would be getting the most out of quickshot. If you have a team that can work around QZ, then QZ + TF + quickshot. You can click it as much as you want
Expertise at 14 = quickshot costs 2 to cast. Zealous makes it cost 1 to cast. I would not switch to the vampiric.

Anyway, since you seem to be focusing on Ranger skills and only use conjure from the fire line, I would drop it, and redistribute your fire magic points to wilderness+marksmenship. You'll lose damage per arrow from conjure, but you'll gain damage per arrow from kindle, and you'll gain a skill slot [if this skill slot is TF, even though you dmg per arrow is lower, your dps will be *higher*]. Than you can get a rune of Beast Mastery and have it at 2 for 6 seconds (if you can't get BM to 4). So dropping conjure and fire magic would result in an extra skill slot (potentially TF), and a faster quickshot build.

I kinda run a similar build, but I don't see why you'd need 14 expertise. It will hardly affect skills that use 5 or 10 energy. It will only change it to using 2 instead of 3 energy for the fives, and then I think...4 instead of 6. That's not that big of a deal considering that the skills there aren'te even affected by it really other than their energy.

Seems to me like by having expertise so high you're not using the build to it's full potential if you're going for damage. Marksmanship and wilderness surivival are also important. More important in fact.

My attributes right now are at...

fire-9
marksmanship-12
wilderness-11
expertise-9

And I'm missing 15 attribute points so I could level up something another point or two.

I personally don't see the point in really having quick shot...it's just...a quick shot. Not to special for an elite if you ask me. Why not use poison arrow for some DoT, or maybe barrage for some extra damage 'eh?

Other than that I'd say it's pretty good, I personally don't like spirits that much, but it's not bad. Mark of rodgort might be a nice skill to use if you're going to have fire magic that high. With a fiery bow string, keeping people set on fire for about 15 seconds is definately a good thing. Only problem is a high energy cost, but it's not that bad because with that conjure flame and kindle up your normal arrows have enough power to deal some fine damage while your energy recharges.

You kidding? 14 is the break point for 10 mana skills -> 4 mana. 10 mana skills include Penetrating Shot, Punishing Shot, Debilitating Shot, Tigers Fury, and Dual Shot. Gotta have 14. I think he should take points out of fire, not expertise.

My point is that, in my opinion at least, using only 4 mana instead of say, you had it at 11. That'd give you more attribute points to dump into marksmanship and wilderness survival---both of which will add more damage, not only with kindle arrows, but in your over all bow damage and in skills like penetrating shot, punishing shot, hunters shot and more. And if he's going to be using conjure flame + kindle arrows for damage, why not have a better base damage to go along with that?

Also, the only reason having 14 expertise would be great is to be able to spam all your 10 energy skills and get 'em off really quickly as they'll not take up energy, but if he's going to be using quick shot as his elite disabling those skills temporarily that defeats the purpose a little bit.

I'd say he needs his fire to be at least 8 or 9, otherwise conjure flame isn't worth much. So I wouldn't remove a lot of that if he still wants to then use that.

If he's going for damage, which is my guess, then marksmanship is a must, and if he had wilderness survival at about 11, his kindle arrows + conjure flame would do something like an +27 or 28 to each arrow he fires. I'd rather have a better overall damage than 2 extra mana whenever I fire off a shot. I think he could add more skills that only required five energy, like hunters shot for example.

Also, what does he have when it comes to protecting himself? With that skill set he's not going to be able to take down a warrior that comes his way without taking a fair bit of damage in the process.

I'd suggest adding something like whirling defense to keep you alive in a tough spot. And what about healing?

Where's healing spring or troll unguent? Depending on monks to keep you alive with no means of personal healing isn't a good idea, IMO.

I can't really pinpoint what he's going for with this build, is it high damage output? That's about the only reason for conjure flame and kindle arrows, but without marksmanship and wilderness survival up there you're not going to be doing as much damage as you really could be doing with them at 11 or 12. And I don't see many skills simply for damage, there's his spirit but that seems a little out of place.

And then there's debillitating shot in there as well, just wiping out some energy of the foe. Useful, sure, but how does it fit into the build? Is this going for a just all around sort of ranger?

I'd switch out Quick Shot and put in Melandru's Arrows, and since that would override Kindle Arrows, I'd put in Whirling Defense, Troll Unguent, or Serpent's Quickness. Dual Shot with the Conjure damage, Melandru Damage, and Bleeding would work quite well. Serpent's Quickness would make Dual Shot better for spamming, and Whirling and Troll are purely for defensive purposes.

And if it wasn't for that nasty little res sig, you could have so much more fun with that build. =) However, everyone does expect you to have one, and they are quite useful I guess.

Also, I might be tempted to switch Debilitating Shot with Penetrating Shot.

Edit: If you are going to take Conjure Fire out, I'd probably put in Tiger's Fury in it's place, and throw some points into Beast Mastery, and spend the rest on Marksmanship that you get from taking out Fire Magic, which you wouldn't be using anymore.

I dropped conjure as it was not worth the damage for the attrib points.

Quick shot, Distracting shot, Debilitating shot, Kindle Arrows, Serpents quickness, Favor winds, Pin down, Res signet

This is what I'm testing atm, I was using TF instead of Serpents and Dual instead of Res, All it seemed to be doing was wasting mana.

I had 8 +1 into Beast Mastery (lasted 9 seconds)

He has no healing because of The Idiots' misguided notion that no one should have self healing of any sort and rely on their monks instead. Very flawed philosophy I'd say. Also their notion of pumping an attribute way up into the teens is also one of their philosophies of specialization. Again not very smart unless you have a specific team you're trying to mesh into.

True enough. Monks have enough trouble as it is, and dropping a skill for something like troll unguent or whirling defense is by no means hurting the build. Having a superior rune for your expertise while you've got marksmanship and wilderness survival so low is what's hurting the build. We like 75 health.

I mean look, his total health is 446. Not very healthy, IMO. I like to have at least 480.

Whatever works for you though mate, testing out your ideas is the best way to figure out what works and what doesn't.

I have said around 3-4 builds, and the one with Tigers fury seemed to kill the fastest. But then after that I have no mana and get owned by a warrior.

The first one I posted takes a little while longer to kill but is more Energy efficient, I cant choose

How about you stop listening to the people showing off their blatant lack of understanding about the game, and do a nice 14/12/11 Quick Shot build without scrubby self-healing?

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I don't want to use QZ Because it messes up Ele's =[

Hurts the monks, I would rather do a little less damage to help keep my team alive.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/2534/gw0031ry.jpg

TF instead of Conjure flame is what I am going to try next.

14 Expertise 10 marks and something like 8+1 BM

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You're right, rangers aren't often the primary target, they're usually down there near the bottom of the "getting attacked" chain.

However, during the battle, you will take some damage. Either from another ranger or a few casters who notice you, and you will need to keep yourself out of trouble. Which is why a "shoddy" healing spell, like troll unguent, is sufficient for most all situations.

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Rangers are usually built on spamming attack skills, so Spirit Shackles by itself will dominate most Rangers. Luckily, very few people use Energy Denial on Rangers, instead focusing on caster shutdown.

That's not a build-specific flaw, it's just what happens because of the way Rangers are implemented. They're energy intensive, have low mana, and use expertise to counter their low mana. If you drain that low mana, then they're done.

Of course, your Mesmer skills aren't affected by Expertise, and you're an R primary. That means that Energy Denial is more effective against you than pretty much any other class combination, since you need energy but don't have much to spare. His Debilitating Shot by itself reduces you to about 20 mana (if you've spent none), Casting those 2 hexes leaves with with 1 mana. You're shut down too.

Side note: I still think Debilitating Shot is pretty sub-par against devoted casters, since they have so much more mana to spare. This is a rare example where it provides a quick and effective shutdown with only 1 ranger using it.

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Sometimes its hard, and I would rather keep and Ele alive rather than me, the ranger.

This is what I'm trying to do atm: http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/5189/gw0019ep.jpg

Seems to be working quite well, Some times it hurts the mana though =[

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