PvE Barrage R/W

I see a lot of Rangers running Longbows and Recurves with Barrage, so I tried it, and it just seemed so lazy. So I came up with this. Don't know if it's something that everyone runs behind my back or something, but I've not come across it out there in the game.

R/W
-Expertise 13 (12+1), Marksmanship 16 (12+1+3), Tactics 3
-Barrage*, Frenzy, Watch Yourself, Lightning Reflexes, Dual Shot, Distracting Shot, Favorable Winds, Res Sig.
-Flatbow! Please don't try this with a Shortbow!

The idea being that with Frenzy and the Flatbow, you get very nearly twice the refire as the Longbow and the Recurve, meaning you get the same amount of Barrage but you also get a shot off in between. That level of Expertise means you can do it all day long, and that level of Marksmanship means it gives you very nice output.

It has its downs as well as ups; Frenzy is a privelege, not a right. That's why you're running Watch Yourself and Lightning Reflexes, and I advise keeping a Longbow in your sack for when you just can't afford that extra damage. You are running a Flatbow, though, so you're way back in the ranks, even out of aggro range, and Barrage generates so much adrenaline that Watch Yourself should never run out despite the low level of Tactics. I even advise picking up Drago's Vampiric Flatbow, which is +5 AL in addition to being max-Vamp and +15 in a stance; it's relatively cheap as far as greens go, what with Factions being out and all.

"Don't you miss a lot? Flatbows miss a lot." No, not really. I do see an occaisonal Stray that I wouldn't with the Longbow or the Shortbow (don't do this with a Shortbow if you care at all about your Monks), but all in all I am coming out on top by leaps and bounds, even without Favorable Winds. This is PvE, not PvP, and Mobs don't run around the way real people do.

honesly, i kiinda prefer elswyth recurve bow. ranger is still decent and you do a constant+5 dmg with vamp mode

and you get monk love ;p

honesly, i kiinda prefer elswyth recurve bow. ranger is still decent and you do a constant+5 dmg with vamp mode

and you get monk love ;p

if not, im using horn bows

I kind of agree with Maria, but I'll also say that your build is quite similar to the R/- Barrage build I came up with. I just subbed Tiger's Fury for Frenzy, dropped my Marksmanship to 10+1+3, and bumped my Beast Mastery up to 8+1.

Granted, if you're using Tiger's Fury, you can't use "Watch Yourself!", but the effect is the same. You still get that extra arrow between Barrages and your refresh rate allows for interrupting.

And, yeah, I agree that most Barrage builds are just stupid lazy, but this one is actually kind of fun to play. It's a bit more involved. It also seems to do better damage on a single target, but I don't think that's by very much.

short bows are fine imo, 1.6 refire rate with serpents quickness ftw. i dunno what the heck your talking about not using short bows, monks have to be in range to heal the tanks and im pretty sure a short bow won't bring you out of that range unless your being a fool. stop being so hypocritical please. your talking about not using shortbows if you care about your monks. is it so hard to add some wilderness survival and put troll unguent in there? If your going to be running frenzy its a simple courtesy of bringing some self heal. I'm pretty sure troll unguent would help your monks out more than not using a short bow. if you can't justify putting anything in wilderness survival for troll unguent then put in serpents quickness in as well.

personally i'd take out frenzy and put in serpents quickness and lightning reflexes for troll unguent. if you insist to have a attack increase skill tigers fury is good too/instead of serpents quickness. for pve it isnt necessary to dish out 97 AP on max marksmanship. I'd put a sup rune for expertise and minor on marksmanship. keep expertise at 13 (9+3+1), marksmanship at 10-12, wilderness survival around 8 (or whatever is breakpoint for +7regen).

hornbows work decently as well with built in 10% armor piercing.

>edit<
btw, i find dual shot rather useless when you don't have additional damage buffers like kindle+conjure, if your running serpents quickness you could take out dual shot and put in savage shot. whether or not you decide to actually use these interupts wisely with the decreased cooldown. i usually just spam them after every barrage unless i know the enemy has something important to interupt.

Ya know, I've found that with my Longbow I almost never get targeted, let alone find a need for self healing. So, I usually just leave Troll Ungent at home and bring Wilderness down to nothing.

And yeah, a Shortbow works, but I don't know why you wouldn't prefer to stand way back and let them have it rather than get right on them. That just seems like giving the mobs too much of a chance to target you. And that's what the OP is talking about, since he's got Frenzy in there. I tried Frenzy with Barrage as well, and it works great, but you have to learn from our Warrior brethren to take an additional stance to quickly remove Frenzy should things go badly.

Which, I'm sure is why he's got Serpent's Quickness in there. I think I'd actually prefer to have something like Flurry instead, just because of recharge times though.

Dual Shot is useless imo. Like VG said, you need something to immediatly cancel Frenzy off if you come under fire, Lightning Reflexes is all good but its recharge severely limits its cancelling power. I think you'd be better bringing Rush. Its adren powered so you will most likely have it available anytime you want it (its attribute been Strength is irrelevant).

Where would you use it though? Its true that at that range, your pretty much never a target, but if you take it to FoW/Tombs and you have Orders on you constantly, Shatter Enchantments will rip you a new one. Everytime an Energy Surge, Deep Freeze or basically anything with an area can dent your health. SS or Empathy could be devasting if you get it just before you fire.

I am tempted to try out Frenzy w/ Watch Yourself, the next time i'm in an FoW barrage team, but i'll probably end up missing my Judges Insight ALOT.

Barrage
Throw Dirt/Concussion Shot (not space for both)
Savage Shot/Distracting Shot (whatever takes your fancy)
Frenzy
Rush
Watch Yourself
FW (probably better to try and avoid bringing a spirit) and using Concussion Shot (personally i think you need Throw Dirt ALOT more if you didn't pick it)
Res Signet

Vampiric with the occasional switching to a Zealous if you need energy. Since both Frenzy and Barrage cost 2 each.

I'm not really a fan of Tigers Fury. It needs you to stack points into a 3rd attribute and costs a hell of a lot over time. Plus the lack of skills is annoying enough when your pet dies at inconvenient times.

I'll agree, TF can really mess you up if you're b/p'ing. I've had that happen to me on occasion, and it stinks waiting 4.75 seconds just to wait another 10.

Here's how I'd run a Frenzy Barrage build, assuming 13 Expertice, 12+ Marksmanship, and all remaining into Wilderness Survival:

Serpent's Quickness (90% of the use on this skill is just to get back FW a bit quicker. if someone else has FW, swap this with Troll Ungent or Watch Yourself)
Savage Shot/Distracting Shot (backup Int)
Distracting Shot/Concusion Shot (primary Int)
Flurry/Rush (pick your poison, they have the same effect)
Barrage
Frenzy
FW (if you use a Longbow like I do, this becomes quite a bit more important if you wanna interrupt anything at long range. also, it does help a lot if you've got more Rangers on your team. swap with Throw Dirt if someone else is bringing it)
Res Sig

Just my oppinion on the matter. This is also a simple adaptation of my TF build.

im still quite comfy with recurve bows, i just cant get into using frenzy, more of a personal hate then anything i just hate that dbl dmg thingie, it really bothers me. and then to add it on with a ranger who doesnt have the best armor just seems dangerous to me, and besides a ranger shoudnt have anything to worrie about, that two second instead of 1.3 or w/e it is shouldnt make that big of a deal.

Sorry Nivryx, you missed the point by about as much as a point can possibly be missed. Maxed damage, pure and simple. I'm not self healing because my purpose is to churn as much hurt as possible as fast as possible for as long as possible. I'm trying not to be stupid about it, which is why I'm using Watch Yourself and Lightning Reflexes, but I'm just going for the perfect sustainable DPS machine.

That being said, the reason for the Flatbow over the Shortbow was, as VGJustice so astutely noticed, to keep me out of aggro range while I'm using Frenzy. If I'm twice as far away from the fight as anybody else, I'm less likely to need healing anyway. I couldn't care less where Monks stand (that's a lie, I play Monk a lot as well, and it really peeves me when my "partner" stands all-up-on and tanks). So really, is it hypocracy to run a heavy-handed offense but still stay away from all the hurt and take more defense than most damage dealers do in PvE? Nah.

I'm really liking that idea about swapping the Dual Shot for Flurry, though. Lightning Reflexes has the best recharge for what it is, and it maintains the attack rate, but I'm not at all adverse to swapping Dual Shot for the more reliable shut-off. If you weigh out damage bought per pound of energy, Dual Shot isn't very hot on this bar, though I still defy you to tell me it's not decent at Max Marksmanship and with a max Vamp mod.

Anyhoo, that's that.

And anyway, I'm not even running the R/W now. Pure Ranger, Max Barrage with Interrupts.

R/Whatever
Beast Mastery 4(3+1), Expertise 14(12+2), Marksmanship 16(12+1+3)
Barrage*, Tiger's Fury, Bestial Fury, Distracting Shot, Savage Shot, Lightning Reflexes, Favorable Winds, Res Sig.

So I noticed that they changed the health-hit on the major runes, which got me thinking. I also noticed a juicy green Shortbow, in particular Graygore's Shortbow which is max Vamp and 20% Marksmanship, which could inch my damage up a little over what I'm getting with the Drago's Vamp Flatbow and it's +5 AL, and that got me getting greedy.

So er um yeah, toss the Frenzy and the Watch Yourself, pop on BOTH Beast Mastery attack speed buffs, and suddenly your points in BM don't really matter; they're only there for lack of any better place to put them. You don't have the double-damage worry Frenzy gives you, so Shortbow all you want. I do find, for energy management purposes, that 13 Expertise is not enough, but 14 gets it done, and I still weigh in at more than 400 health despite the heavier runes.

The only problem left here, that dirty-RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO feeling I get running that duplicate skill on my bar. It does everything I want it to, though, so I guess I'll get over it. I'm still looking over skills for something other than the second interrupt, but at this point I feel it's plenty.