Ranger Mana

I have a R/Mo 20 How can I get her more mana! She uses a bow so I can't hold any objects like my Mesmer can. Her mana is 25 and no matter what armor I buy I am still at 25. Please if there is somthing I am missing tell me.

if u buy a full set of Druids Armor... u can get ur Energy to 32...

I really wish there were max dmg bows to be had with energy boosts like the longbow of fortitude given as quest reward in pre sear,as it is 32 energy is just enough to keep my bow attacks running fluidly,however as soon as i pull a couple air skills my mana is just drained out,I have an airwand/stormartifact in my weapons sets but even then if i switch back to the bow I have to wait extra long for my mana to rise

Use Glyph of lesser energy when you use your ele skills and make sure you put as much as you can in expertise.

You can use marksman's wager (which SUCKS) or you can get expertise to 14 and have an easy time spamming ranger skills.

your best bet is to bump your expertise up to max. You'll be able to cast for a fraction of the energy is says it costs....only problem with that is you need to either give up some attributes in marksmanship(which makes being able to cast super quick useless)...or beast mastery(which will make skills like Tigers Fury useless....which I can't live without.)

expertise is a much have skill for rangers in conjunction with a zealous bow string

Can you enlighten me on that. If you lose a pip of energy regen, just to gain one per hit you do, how do you even get back to even effectively? I mean, if you are hitting every 1.66 seconds, you are down energy, and that's if you continuously attack. The only times you would be gaining would be with Barrage, or with Dual Shot, and even then, only for an instant.

I haven't played a ranger, it just seems that it would be wasteful.

Matt

An energy pip is one energy every 3 seconds, not one energy per second.

If you can hit consistently, a Zealous bow will net you a ton of energy.

Peace,
-CxE

and isn't max on a zealous string 5:1...so you'd be gaining 5 energy for every hit and only losing 1 every 3 seconds....couple the zealous string with tigers fury or barage and you'll never run out of mana

No, that's max on vamp - zealous is always 1:1, across the board for all weapons.

I didn't know that...I guess I should stop searching for a 5:1 zealous bow string

but under normal circumstances:
a longbow has:
so that would give 1 energy every 3.15 sec, right?
so only using favorable winds, dual shot and the like, is such a string recommandeble, right?

don't put a zealous string on your longbow...

well, thanx for your opinion. but i didn't ask for an opinon, i asked for a confirmation if i understood correctly, or missing the obvious.
offcourse a half moon is faster. but that is besides the point for a moment.

grtz Makk.

No. Every arrow has the same flight time, so there would be a 2.4 sec delay between each hit.

But you shouldn't use zealous on a longbow anyway. Grab yourself a shortbow instead.

if only they existed, i'm sure they'd cost quite a bit more than a 5/-1 vampiric.

and i've seen 5/-1 vampiric for 100K+

Nono, here's how bow statistics work:

The refire rate is the time that passes between one shot of your bow and the next. If you're using a Longbow with no speed buffs, you'll be firing once every 2.4 seconds.

The flight time is the amount of time that it takes for an arrow to reach the target when fired from the maximum range of a Short Bow on flat ground. Clearly as you get closer or further from your target, the amount of time it'll take for your arrow to reach said target will vary. Practically, the number means two things - one, how accurate the bow is going to be against moving targets (arrows with long flight times are easy to dodge), and two, how easy it is to use an interrupt with said bow.

There are a few other effects, namely that the longer flight time bows have a higher arc and thus are potentially more useful for sniping, as they're easier to shoot over obstacles with. But most of the time it's accuracy and interrupts that you're concerned about.

Just remember that you will start firing your next arrow before the previous one has landed, and the numbers are much more intuitive.

Peace,
-CxE

This isn't right. Bows are broken down into several arrow flight times, ranging from 0.5 seconds for composite, dead, and eternal bows up to 1.0 seconds for a flatbow. See Missile Weapon Properties for more information.

You can significantly reduce arrow flight time with Favorable Winds, which is a good thing with zealous bow strings, at the expense of having to spin up a spirit. It's situational.

Using the longbow example, refire delay is 2.4 seconds with a .75 second flight time. Every 2.4 seconds you will fire an arrow and that arrow will take .75 seconds to reach its target.

For a shortbow it's 2.0 second refire with .65 second flight time. Zealous bow strings are definitely best placed on bows with short refire bows with short flight times (ie. fast bows.)

I believe you can also use dual shot to double the energy return on zealous strings, as well as using barrage, remembering that dual shot has a cooloff of 5 seconds. However, if we break the math down for a couple bow times we find (based on 12 expertise for dual shot - note that all energy recovery times are skewed by the initial flight time only):

Energy Regen Pip

1 pip = 1 energy/3 seconds
Energy/sec = 0.33

Longbow

Without Dual Shot
First hit = 1 energy/0.75 seconds
Subsequent hits = 1 energy/2.4 seconds
10 hits = 10 energy in 24.75 seconds

Total energy spent = 0
Total energy gained = 10
Total time = 24.75 seconds
Energy/sec = 0.40
Assuming 20% miss rate = 0.32 energy/sec

With Dual Shot
Hit 1 = 2 energy, energy spent = 6
Hit 2 = 1 energy
Hit 3 = 1 energy
(.2 second delay for dual shot to recover)
Hit 4 = 2 energy, energy spent = 6
Hit 5 = 1 energy
Hit 6 = 1 energy
(.2 second delay for dual shot to recover)
Hit 7 = 2 energy, energy spent = 6
Hit 8 = 1 energy
Hit 9 = 1 energy
(.2 second delay for dual shot to recover)
Hit 10 = 2 energy, energy spent = 6

Total energy spent = 24
Total energy gained = 14
Total time = 24.75 seconds
Energy/sec = 0.56

Shortbow

Without Dual Shot
First hit = 1 energy/0.65 seconds
Subsequent hits = 1 energy/2.0 seconds
10 hits = 10 energy in 20.65 seconds

Total energy spent = 0
Total energy gained = 10
Total time = 20.65 seconds
Energy/sec = 0.48
Assuming 20% miss rate = 0.38 energy/sec

With Dual Shot
Hit 1 = 2 energy, energy spent = 6
Hit 2 = 1 energy
Hit 3 = 1 energy
Hit 4 = 1 energy
Hit 5 = 2 energy, energy spent = 6
Hit 6 = 1 energy
Hit 7 = 1 energy
Hit 8 = 1 energy
Hit 9 = 2 energy, energy spent = 6
Hit 10 = 1 energy

Total energy spent = 18
Total energy gained = 13
Total time = 20.65 seconds
Energy/sec = 0.63

I have never watched my arrows to see what my probable hit/miss ratio is. I would assume, based on gut feeling, that I'd miss 20% of my shots (more if I'm debuffed).

Basically what this shows is that if one attempts to improve their energy recovery by using dual shot as often as its available, you will end up spending more energy to do so than you would by using other skills. However, if you're applying a preparation that improves the damage done by those dual shot arrows, you can weigh the benefits yourself.

Also note that this assumes a 100% hit ratio.

I've run a bunch of numbers and I've done in-game testing on a variety of bows (both slow and fast) and have determined that the energy gain vice the energy degen from the zealous bow string is about a breakeven, provided you're using a fast bow with a short flight time. However, it is very close, and in most cases I've just opted out of the whole zealous bow string situation in favor of the +1 energy regen.

Barrage can be situationally beneficial for zealous bow strings, but it's hit and miss (literally) due to the way barrage works.

Overall I generally opt to use other bow strings, maintaining the extra +1 energy regen, which allows me to not depend on dual shot if I don't want to use it. For my anti-caster ranger, for example, I opt for interrupts and energy depletion over dual shot.

In the end it all comes down to what one is comfortable using. I agree with you about the fast bow comment though. That's right on the money.

You need to re-read Ensign's post. Flight time is only relevant to your chances to hit and interrupt. Refire rate and flight time don't interact in any way at all: they're totally independant of each other. For example, read the wind won't increase the number of arrows you're firing off in a given period, just reduce the time from firing to hitting. Refire rate is the only thing that you need to worry about when trying to figure out if you'll break even with a zealous string. As long as you're firing constantly, any bow will give you a net gain of energy with a zealous string.

Yup, my math is off based on the time-to-target values I posted. With a longbow, every 2.4 seconds you're firing an arrow. Without modifiers, they will always require an addition .75 seconds to reach the target. Editing my post with correct numbers based on the intervals.

I redid the numbers. Unless you're using dual shot for preparations in your build, it looks like in most cases it's ill-advised to use it because the energy cost starts adding up quickly. Basically you're losing energy in an attempt to gain energy. However, I do know there are builds that use it, I just don't know if spamming dual shot is the intent.

With some basic calculations and a 20% miss guess (completely a guess), with a longbow not using dual shot is a push. In fact you'd gain more energy by not having a zealous bow string. With a shortbow, it the gain is only slightly higher than the basic 1 pip of regen (0.38 energy/sec versus 0.33 pip regen). This also assumes that all you're doing during doing the entire battle is popping off arrows. Since I'm usually quite mobil during fights, it rarely (if ever) suits my interest to use a zealous bow string.

I guess it all depends on how good you are at weapon set management as well. During mobility you could always switch to a different bow and get the extra +1 regen.