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

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Why my thead?

who knows? in any case i run a simlar build to tthis - havent capped quick shot yet, but i will get around to it sometime... in any case this is my version of a DD ranger -

Punishing Shot (despite somepe peoples dislike of it is acutally a really nice elite - especially as it can cause hell for people)
Trolls Unguent/Res Signet
Dual Shot
Penertaing Attack
Power Shot
Favourable Winds
Tigers Fury
Kindle Arrows

5 Beast mastery, 14 expertise, 10 wilderness, 11 marks (with runes). if im right with a Superior Vigor + Perfect Bow grip of fortiude (+30 hp) you should be able to take a superior expertise rune, a superior marks rune, as well as a marks mask, and end up wiht 5 beast, 14 expertise, 10 wilderness, 14 marks.
and still have around 460~ hp.

Few things:

Troll is highly overrated. If you have a competent monk, you simply do not need it. Competent means the monk can keep himself alive while you do other things. These monks are rare, but if you have one in your team you have wasted a slot on troll. Further, troll sucks anyway. If you're in a situation in pvp where you need to pop a troll, chances are you're going to die anyway. Troll has never saved anyone from me (that's assuming I don't just interrupt it) and I doubt it's saved you that often either. You're much better off putting an attack of some sort in that slot.

Also, these conjure flame/kindle builds are not the way to go for maxing out ranger damage potential. No, I'm not willing to spill the beans on my build, because I am a jerk and don't want it to become fotm, but I will tell you that you're looking in the wrong place.

There's always healing spring, with about 9-10 expertise it only costs another energy point or two. And with high wilderness survival it heals you for about 51 points every 2 seconds for 10 seconds, that's 255 health. And that's DAMN nice.

Only problem is it's easy to interrupt, but it's got great healing.

And Troll Unguent saved my life several times today.

At least it will IF you have wilderness survival up high enough.

Pfft. For the 3 second cast time, you're contributing 0 to your team. And healing spring is another waste of a slot. My wilderness survival is also plenty high - troll is a +7 regen for me, and I still wouldn't give up any skill I have for it. As is my build does huge damage and if I dropped any skill for troll it would have to be the res signet - not an option. And in my other ranger build, set for interrupts, I can't afford to drop a single skill either. Both builds would be drastically less effective with troll on board.

Plainly put, if you have a slot for troll/healing spring (healing spring is even worse) you're not getting the most out of your ranger. But go ahead and keep wasting slots anyway, I laugh every time I kill someone while they're waiting to cast troll or when I let it go 2 seconds and then interrupt it.

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NO pin down?!?! =[

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Ensign, I do realize that more arrows per second is a good thing, but will a quick shot ranger really out-damage a punishing shot ranger? (not being sarcastic, I really dont know)

Thinks out loud:

Quick Shot adds no innate damage, it just lets you fire an extra arrow, cus it fires almost instantly. With 12 marksmanship, punishing adds 18 damage, but still fires at the normal rate. So basically, if your extra arrow from quick shot does more than 18, you will have done more damage. If not, than you were better off with punishing shot. Quick Shot does work better with preperations, though, so I guess quick shot is better for damage; but doesnt interupt.

Wouldn't dual shot allow you to fire the most arrows?

True, it does, and it is in his build as well. Just keep in mind that those arrows are 25% weaker.

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Thats why I was using it :O

This build is less about the initial damage of your arrows, and more about getting the most amount of arrows out in the shortest amount of time, taking advantage of buffs.
Dual shot gives 2 arrows, which would normally warrant you a bad damage increase, but with 2x conjure and kindle stacked, it becomes rather powerful.

Wouldn't Ignite arrow be better? or is the 5 mana less cost and plus 2 damage better than splash?

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5 energy, plus 5 damage. Check your sources, they're wrong. Ignite has somewhat of an AOE effect, and it's boost isn't able to be blocked or evaded, while kindle is easier to spam and does more energy to a single target. There are, I believe, several posts that argue between the use of one or the other.

Fine it is 5 at full wilderness, but is 5 more damage + 5 less mana cost better than splash?

Since this seems to be a spike build, the answer is evidently yes.

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I've recently semi changed my views on pets for a ranger. Many elites for Rangers are just hyped versions of normal skills. The exceptions being Greater Conflag, Barrage, Oath Shot, and Ferocious Strike, (Quick Shot is also an above par skill, and I intend to do some more testing using a Horn Bow for the supposed 10% armor penetration).

Barrage is not the most useful skill in HoH or random arena anymore.. most teams already spread out a good bit to prevent AoE's from killing them. You would at most hit 2 in a random arena.

Greater Conflag is the center of most spirit spam builds, so if your planning on using it then your elite is already taken. Or you borrowing it from a teamate with Arcane Mimicry to maintain space for another elite.

This leaves Oath Shot and Ferocious Strike as top choices in random arena builds. Oath Shot has some very nice comboing synergy with Lightning Reflexes for a nearly constant 33% speed/75% evasion in one skill.

Meanwhile Ferocious Strike is a largely overlooked very powerful ability. +25 damage, and 9 energy at the cost of 5(2) energy is probably one of the most useful elites in the game. Comboing this with Zephyr can help shut down the other teams energy usage, while helping you regenerate by now having an extra 9 energy every 4 seconds. The equivalent of 7 extra pips of energy regen. I'm sure if there was an elite that simply gave you 7 pips of energy regen it would be one of the most popular in the game. But this is even better, it's not an enchantment, and it also adds 7 dps.

In my opinion the key to making a truly elite random arena Ranger is to become the most efficient character possible. With Quickening Zephyr running your forcing everyone else to be as efficient as you. This helps Warriors and Rangers shine, as their damage is largely dependant on non heavy energy cost skills. Using those Zealous strings with speed buffs and dual shots gives you an edge on the battlefield. If your opponets have no energy, or not enough to kill you, then they are at your mercy.

A semi-pet build focusing on Ferocious Strike, Quickening Zephyr, and possibly a Fertle Season to make sure you have enough life to survive the opening volleys could go a long way in Arenas. Add in the usual Debilitating, Tiger's Fury, Dual Shot, and Kindle and you are a force to be reckoned with. Simply wearing away at you opponets until the 20-30 second mark when they have nothing left, while you haven't really missed a beat.

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savage is actually 5 seconds isnt it? but yeah it only deals exactly 25 or w/e depending on your marks if it interrupts a spell

Quick shot > punishing in terms of only damage

Quick shot
Penetrating
Tiger's Fury
Kindle arrows
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is all you need for quick shot build.. also dont bring favorable winds. Other skills to bring would be like... pin down, distracting, debilitating, renewal, frozen soil, res sig, a monk res spell, enchant removal, hex removal, etc----, depending on the team

try 14 expertise, 4 beastmastery, 15 marks, 9 wilderness (sup marks, expertise, vigor, minor wild, beast)

u could try other attribute sets but it wont really make much of a difference

Z

Just to let you know that quick shot works best with QZ and u can do over 200+ dmg in 3 secs if ur using that kindle arrow and conjure fire build. Just hope you don't get eles in your team ^_^. Also that QZ and dual shot combo is pretty neat.

It's not the Ele's im thinking of when I use QZ, They can just use Ether renewal, its the monks.

Would serpent's quickness work better then tiger's fury (high level) in terms of spamming quick shot? And would using both be ineffective and hard to upkeep?

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I have a question about Quick Shot, previously when I used it, I already confirmed that the old Quick Shot was basically useless, because of the refire rate limit which causes you to sit there for the remainder of the fire rate limit. The Quick Shot I used back awhile ago had no use besides firing quicker within your firing limit, but does not amount to firing more shots. I see that Quick Shot got a recent change, and I would like to know if it does allow more shots to be fired.

Based on the specs Guru provides, QShot recharges in 3 seconds. Earlier it was siad that QZephyr could reduce QS's cooldown to nothing, letting you let loose a veritable machine-gun. However, QZ reduces the cooldown by half, which is 1.5. Wouldnt that round to 2 seconds?

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The only reason quickshot is of any use now is because of that change... before it would disable your skills for 2s after use. Which meant that yeah it upped your fire rate... but stopped you dead cold from chaining attacks.

Quickshot now is now simply a half energy (10 vs. 5)/fast recycle(5 vs. 1) dual shot. (2 attacks in 1.5tims the normal time of 2, vs. 2 attacks at 75% damage in the normal timeframe of 1). So if you're leveraging +damage effects from the preperation, +enchants, +hex debuffs... yeah then it can be a big help, as opposed to single shot damage. Especially if you leverage quick/dual/& tigers together... basically all you've done is boosted your RoF to as high as possible to make the most of your attack buffs, not so much the basic attack itself.

As far as ignite vs. kindle... I'd take either... I tend to lean in favour of ignite, but kindle has it's uses as a shock damage. In tombs in particular... I find the AoE off the ignite is definately more usefull. Personally, I think the only mistake you could make between the two is putting both on your skill bar at the same time.

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