B/P groups getting as bad as IWAY groups now

Most of them will learn if they played through their rangers. The problem is, just like with any other popular build where you can farm or get rewards, is that people hear about them, make a character and get rushed through without the experience of having played them.

Not to say that everyone is like that, when I first started doing B/P I hardly ever used my pet, but because I played my ranger through my learning curve was much more shallow.

Nothing you can really do to fight it. BTW minions aren't inherently a bad idea, as they can provide a nice mele wall where fiends alone are backline and leave the team open to break throughs. Just use them properly.

As for the MM "tanking" well my guildmate uses the minions to pull and it works very nicely. She moves up until her circle i just outside the mobs, then the minions do their normal forming of a perimiter around her, at that point, the minion's agro triggers the mobs and they move in. May have been what they were trying to do.

What is really irritating (at least to me) is that for ages Rangers have been bitching about not being included in groups for SF, PvE missions, etc. Rangers were always the kid picked last in a sandlot baseball game, if at all.

We (Rangers) FINALLY get an area and build we can rule at - and the rangers act like babies. They drop all the time, especially when they die. They don't know how to stay back and let minions/pets tank. They don't bring the right skills, or have their attributes set improperly. They don't rez their pets. They heal their pets during a fight.

So.....for all of you that don't know how to be a proper B/P:

Attributes:
Marksmanship: 16 (12+3+1)
Wilderness: 9 (8+1)
Expertise: 11 (10+1)
Beast: 0

Gear:
Armor - Drakescale is the best. As a barrage ranger, energy isn't an issue. Barrage is completely spammable, and having the added fire protection is a lifesaver when dealing with multiple terrorwebs.
Bows - any fast short-medium range bow is fine - the BEST bow (IMO) is Elswyth's Recurve Bow (5:1 Vamp, 15%>50, +30 health) or any other 4:1 or 5:1 vamp fast bow. Remember to bring a second NON-vamp bow, so you can switch back and forth and not have the constant -1 health drain. I use Drago's Flat Bow (sundering) but to each his own.

Skills:

Keep in mind this is MY particular build, which works for me. Others may prefer slightly different skills, but there are a few key skills everyone needs to have:

Barrage
Charm Animal
Comfort Animal
Rebirth (or Res, but B/P rangers SHOULD be R/Mo)
Concussion, Savage or Distracting shot (some interrupt) for wurms in levels 3 and 4 and terrorwebs everywhere. I prefer Concussion because it deals with the terrorwebs very nicely.

That leaves three skill slots you can tailor, BUT:

One slot needs to be either a spirit (Favorable Winds or Winnowing) *OR* Throw Dirt. Throw Dirt will save your life.

For my last two slots, I carry Ignite Arrows and Dual Shot. There are plenty of times where barrage isn't the ideal skill to use when killing monsters. Wurms for one. Single monsters, or when the enemy mob scatters and barrage is only hitting a single target. Terrorwebs in level 2 sitting up on mounds that can only be hit singly. When the monk is running around impersonating a chicken with no head being chased by a monster and someone needs to kill it for him. Long range sniping.

I also use Ignite Arrow/dual Shot when I rez my pet and my skills are blacked out, especially at the beginning of a map, so the MM can reuse my pet's corpse repeatedly. I normally don't rez my pet immediately, I usually wait until most of the pets are dead, then I will apply preparation, rez pet, and continue doing single shot damage until my barrage is available again. It makes the whole team more effective, at least from my perspective.

Other rangers bring something like Apply Poison, or a trap, that's up to them.

Again, this is how *I* approach B/P play in Tombs. It's not an end all be all guide, but it is fairly effective, at least for me. Others may disagree, that's their perogative.

I haven't done B/P groups for a while, because I only want/need the Bulwark...which seems to become increasingly rare to drop...

Tried yesterday...it was a nightmare. 3 people say ready and someone goes through the portal...This leaves one Ranger without a pet....nobody has Winnowing...and both the MM and Orders are N/Me...

Of course this leads to a lot of bitching the whole time, and in the end a nice wipe when despite the warnings that we still have another worm to kill, they continue on to the next section...we wipe...try rebirthing when you've just aggroed a worm...

Sounds like a good build to me.

I carry on my Ranger:

Winnowing or FW
Barrage
Distracting shot
Savage Shot
Charm Animal
Comfort Animal
Troll Unguent
Rez. Sig

I take the unguent for those times when things get hairy and the Monk is struggling a bit - it happens. I use a 4:1 vamp. shortbow for close in work, and a storm bow for pulling & ranged attacking.

Couple of nice things about Rez. Brings player back to full health & doesn't take all your energy to do so the dead guy doesn't have to wait until the battle is over for someone to bring him/her back. And you get it back after each map.

Poison Arrow is a good one for someone to equip as well - helps out a whole bunch with them dang wurms, especially the ones that don't want to stay up for more than 2 seconds!

I've tired using Read the Wind to increase attack speed, but it gets stripped, so it's useless in Tombs.

Why??? Just why?

Were they using Mesmer skills? ....besides AE?

Talk about newbies: I PUGed with a b/p ranger who brought both Chain Lightning and Firestorm. Go figure.

conjure lightning i've seen used -_-

I tried a few times, then bought my own victo's bulwark and axe, so no real reason to return. Only way I'll go back is if a guildie needs me.

How is that just like as bad as IWAY? people do that in any group

Once while doing a B/P run I saw a guy ask why Read the Wind kept getting taken off.

Myself, I do B/P in Tombs every now and then just because it's fun. Or if I need to salvage a bunch of wood for something; you get tons of staves in there. But most of the groups I've gotten into have been able to get through to the end. And most of them that haven't have wiped in the first area.

I just wish more rangers would bring Throw Dirt. The last few runs I've been on, I've found myself having to use it on Grasps that were attacking other rangers because no one else had it.

Oh, and Bone Minions + Death Nova can result in some serious ownage in Tombs when you've got a skilled minion master. I've seen it done and I've always wondered why more MMs don't use Death Nova on the minions/horrors. ~100 armor ignoring AoE damage plus poison when the minion dies, for only 5 extra energy, is nothing to scoff at.

Last time I tried to gain some skill points for my ranger (b/p's pretty easy and I might get lucky)

all the monks that where around was... Mo/W

I ask what does /W give you for being a better healer? no response

well we get two Mo/W, run thru the portal... and theres 7 players 1 Mo/W left the game on purpose? what a dick...

well then the other rangers didnt grab as many pets (3 pets total)

after the pets died then rangers start dying, i was like how could this be? click the monk and I see that.... he is a 55 monk who use's HEALING BREEZE on others... I bet that just does wonders on top of my own 7~9 regen troll...

well I wont go back there for awhile... atleast never again at 3 in the morning.

Because it is already a chaotic mess in the KZ. Death Nova requires you to first figure out which minion is about to die and cast nova on it, all the while raising more minions, maybe doing some healing. If you put have your minion targetted, you may not notice how much life the grasp has that is attacking it, so your minion might not die due to damage.

It is too much switching and keeping track of for many people.

If We could get a new window with a minion listing their health bards (and spirits for Ritualists) that would go a long way to helping. I know it can be difficult with potentially no maximum limit to the size of that window, but there could be creative ways around that.

It id easier to put nova on a pet that is about to die than a minion.

Well part of the problem is accepting them in the first place, even without making an assumption that a Mo/W is going to be a 55 monk. Warrior in any part of your profession = horrible conditions from fingers of chaos. Most monks will go Mo/Me down there for energy management and negation of fingers effects (they don't have any conditions on mesmers).

Don't give up on the zone, just form/join parties smarter. A good B/P group is doing some interviewing prior to going in. If you ask a question of someone and they don't respond to direct questions, get rid of them.

Mostly as Cherno said, DN is a bitch to apply when you start getting significant numbers of minions. It doesn't self-apply, you have to target the specific minion. And that takes time.

CLICK.... "No, the other minion."
CLICK.... "No, the OTHER minion."
CLICK.... "No, not the monster!"
CLICK.... "No, not the damn monster!"
CLICK.... "No, damnit the sick minion, the one I'm pointing directly at!!!!!!!"
(Minion dies)
(other minions die because you aren't healing or raising)

I didn't bother to ask. I wanted to see how it went. Orders were up half the time. We typically had around 5 minions at a time, and she left bodies lying there.

Of every MM and Orders in Tombs...we end up with both that have no clue what they are doing...

I think this is classic in and of itself.
So you replace a b/p ranger with... a ranger.

My ex-guild went with the classic build, the 1 extra ranger they picked up dropped early, think floor 1, we went the whole way and didn't miss him at all. Meanwhile just another confirmation for me I'm not a fan of 'fotm' or bust, and I'd rather have an extra smart guildie or two (or more) than worry about matching what the new 'only' way to go is. Uh huh.

But that's me, I'm odd that way

edit - wanted to add yeah you're definately in trouble if your group wipes on the first floor, I've gone farther with all henchys heh

well if anyone is looking for a good group to go with the Guild im in usualy does at least one run per night and i would say our succuss rate is around 96% or higher. everyone knows thier job and what to bring and we have exelent pullers, mm's and orders. we always have more than enough guildies to go in as a team but if you see us standing around give me a holler and dont get excited when you see a Ele in the group, he owns dryders in the blink of an eye. my ign is Rancid Goat and the Guild tag is [MM].

I prefer to do it with my guild because we can get through fast and sometimes with no DP whatsoever.

However, I have done it a quite a few times with PUGs. I don't mind noobs as long as they let someone know up front that they are new. 1 or 2 noobs is fine and you can still get through even if they don't bring a pet/res. But, the problem I run into the most is people who THINK they know how to pull, when they just aggro evey damn pop-up or pull too many groups on level 3 or 4. It pisses me off, because my guild always asks me to pull and I do a good job of it. If everyone would put their ego on a shelf for an hour, we could get through in very fast order. I have seen the opposite way too many times, though. Or someone will sit there an argue that I'm doing it wrong just because I do it in a different order (usually level 3). But, *shrug*, if I don't make it through, I just find another group and keep trying.

I normally do 1-2 runs every night, just because I find it fairly relaxing from GvG earlier in the evening. I've been in PUGs that die at the first set of popups from poor aggro/pulling.

But a really really good PUG is rare, but a blast when it happens. About a week ago, I switched to MM simply because I needed the change from spamming Barrage. Normally I'll bring minions and horrors, blood of the master, vent sacrifice, life siphon, blood ritual, order of pain, and rebirth.

I bring OOP and BR "just in case" the other necro drops.

Well, I've never been on a group, guild or PUG, that has tore through Tombs so fast. We were done in about 40 minutes. First map probably took five. And the Orders necro dropped during the 3rd map. I never ran out of energy we were killing so fast. I had so many minions it was ridiculous.

Sniff. It was awesome.

Got squat out of the run, but it was fun anyway.

Is it just me or are Europe the only ones who do b/p groups in FoW?

I was a big fan of B/P in the tombs when the greens were worth getting, now i leave that place well alone and stick to ToA.

The number of noobs is definatly increasing. My very first B/P to FoW cleared the ENTIRE place, not a single leaver, very few problems. Every other group since then haven't even come close.

Rangers forgetting pets
Rangers bringing barrage but spamming Power Shot for some stupid reason
Rangers bringing spirits but never actually casting them!
Ranger whining about the lack of spirits when they haven't given it chance to recharge
Rangers not bringing an interrupt!!!!!!!!!!
MMs trying to do both the Order and MMs jobs (he really did suck)
MMs not having lvl16 death magic
Orders not bringing both orders (i know they dont stack so stfu! Exception is when they know what they're doing, eg. enchant mods/recharge staff)
Orders using Life Transfer and Demonic Flesh and not actually casting Orders.... (what a moron)
Orders (this may just be me) spending there excess skill points on somet utterly useless. I do fine with my points on Blood, SR, Healing (10) rest on Curses ( Enfeebling Blood/Enfeeble)
Monks going 55
Monks not having 15/16 healing (if they said they're going pure healer, best monk i've had was healer/prot, managed to keep my berserker magnet of an order necro alive)

And the new one for FoW
Stance tanks instead of the MM..... they just suck. The plan, take all the damage when we get the book, reality just die alot and get the rest of the team killed because we have no Minions blocking the way

/rant