beastmaster suggestion

Thanks for all the feedback so far, guys. I still feel like I could use some more, though. Namely, while I appreciate the builds, they're not really what I said I was looking for. Please keep in mind I still want to be doing decent bow damage. I understand that enraged lunge would be doing the most consistent high damage, but still feel like the use of the elite spot is a hindrance. Barrage is pretty much self sustaining for my desires to do bow damage.

So, if you could keep the suggestions coming, here's a bit more focus:
I want to leave my attributes at:
16 beast
9 exp.
11 marks.

I will leave the following on my skillbar
charm
comfort
call of haste
call of prot.

What I'm looking for is the best output for the last 4 spots on combined damage between me and my elder black widow. Be that enraged lunge and 3 bow attacks, or barrage with 3 pet attacks, or anything in between. Thanks again. Based on your strict parameters, the best build I could suggest would be

Barrage {E}
Predator's Pounce
Disrupting Lunge
Call of Haste
Call of Protection
Charm Animal
Comfort Animal
Res Sig

If you're going to go with Barrage as your elite, you limit your choices of pet attack skills somewhat heavily. Predator's Pounce is hands down the best low-cost pet attack skill as it not only gives a high DPS (when compared to the non-elite pet attack skills) but also heals your pet, leaving more energy free for further attacks. Disrupting Lunge is also a great pet attack skill to have under these circumstances. It has an average DPS, but also has the added benefit of working like a Distracting Shot when it hits enemies using skills. The key of this one is that it does increase your DPS, so you should be using it as often as possible. Of course, if you're using it as often as possible, it becomes very akin to a slower version of Choking Gas (firing every ~5 seconds instead of every 2) which also disables any skills it catches. Also, with the quickly recharging Predator's Pounce and Disrupting Lunge you're coming very close to covering all of your pet's attacks with an attack skill.

Also, since you are using Barrage quite heavily, I would suggest considering a Superior-Major rune combo so that your Marksmanship would reach 12 instead of 11.

Thanks for all the feedback so far, guys. I still feel like I could use some more, though. Namely, while I appreciate the builds, they're not really what I said I was looking for. Please keep in mind I still want to be doing decent bow damage. I understand that enraged lunge would be doing the most consistent high damage, but still feel like the use of the elite spot is a hindrance. Barrage is pretty much self sustaining for my desires to do bow damage.

So, if you could keep the suggestions coming, here's a bit more focus:
I want to leave my attributes at:
16 beast
9 exp.
11 marks.

I will leave the following on my skillbar
charm
comfort
call of haste
call of prot.

What I'm looking for is the best output for the last 4 spots on combined damage between me and my elder black widow. Be that enraged lunge and 3 bow attacks, or barrage with 3 pet attacks, or anything in between. Thanks again. I would say combine expertise, WS, and BM

WS would give you some good bow attacks poison arrow, ignite arrow, etc, along with healing and some spirits to support your pet.
Of course BM for your pet and of course Expertise for you

I would say combine expertise, WS, and BM

WS would give you some good bow attacks poison arrow, ignite arrow, etc, along with healing and some spirits to support your pet.
Of course BM for your pet and of course Expertise for you Problem with that is I need at least 9 (8+1) in marksmanship to do the bow damage I mentioned. Then I'm spread between 4 attributes, which I don't want to do. Also, the spirits in WS add very little to a pet build, and while the preps would be good, I again cite the bow requirement. Poison Arrow is a good idea, except that it steals the elite, and I don't think it would be better than enraged lunge or barrage.

Charm Animal
Comfort Animal
Call of Protection
Symbiothic Bond
Predatory Bond
Call of Haste
Enraged Lounge
Tiger's Fury

Attribute points:
Beast Mastery 16
Marksmanship 11
Expertise 10

This is the build I use as a beast master. With a long bow I'm always out of range of enemy's attacks and I can keep dishing out bow damage quite quickly thanks to Tiger's Fury, in the meantime my pet is dishing high dps thanks to Enraged Lounge (it's always completely charged due to the high recharge of Calls and Bonds, Tiger's Fury gives a little help if needed).

I find it quite useful, the only drawback is if my pet is blinded I become completely useless! Not a bad build, to be sure, but I can offer a few points.

First, Enraged Lunge will count as one of the four skills you need recharging to get the full power out of it, so you only need three other skills to keep in recharge. You have four pet buff shouts, and thus could feel free to remove one for something else if it became needed. I'd suggest Symbiotic Bond be the one to go, but then I tend to dislike Symbiotic Bond more than most people.

Secondly, as a ranger in the backline you'll be one of the last people to fall usually and thus yours is a prime spot for a res. If you can squeeze one in it'd be quite helpful to your team, especially since in a pinch you can res while your pet continues to dish out the high damage of Enraged Lunge.

Thirdly, if you're in PvE then switch out your Longbow for a Flatbow (a vampiric one works beautifully). The faster attack speed of the Flatbow will combo with Tiger's Fury and a Vampiric mod incredibly nicely. Most people go the longbow route because they fear misses with the Flatbow's arc. However, in PvE your first targets tend to be the softies - the casters. In PvE casters rarely move, and a still target can be hit by all bows equally thus making the Flatbow outperform the Longbow in this instance. Then, by the time all the casters have fallen the warriors and such should have settled on a single target which again means they'll be a still target. Additionally, they tend to be near enough to you to negate any difference in flight-time so that kiting teammates and moving warriors doesn't hurt your ability to hit. Afterall, a high arc doesn't hurt at all if the enemy is standing nearby.

From personal experience, I can say that an Enraged Lunge ranger is one of the few builds that can throw the soft-targets-first rule out the window. Enraged Lunge does damage equally to all armor ranges, and you'll kill warriors just as fast as you'll kill anything else. Thus, it can sometimes be advantages to put your pet in the enemy warriors faces 1) because its a very hard target among the casters to possible absorbe some damage for them 2) because by the time your teammates kill all of the casters you'll have several warriors down 3) taking out the warriors early means less damage your monk has to be healing.

And last but not least, if you choose to still not put a res on your bar (such as you're using this for a solo build or know your team already has plenty of reses for what they'll need), then I would highly suggest sticking RTW on your bar. With your attribute spread RTW will add some nice damage, especially in combination with Tiger's Fury. My favorite pet solo build relies on a pet damager plus a Tiger's Fury - RTW bowman. Then, if you can further add a Vampiric Flatbow to the mix, you'll be amazed at the damage your bow can deal without a single bow attack on your bar.

Thanks for the tips!

Any advice for the blinded pet? I don't want to rely on a monk secondary to take care of it, is there any other way? Not really at the current point in time... I keep hoping that someday Comfort Animal will remove conditions too, but I'm not holding my breath. In the mean time, I've been lucky enough to have a monk who I can play with regularly who knows how much my pet can do and usually protects it better than he protects me.

I'd suggest Symbiotic Bond be the one to go, but then I tend to dislike Symbiotic Bond more than most people. hehee, we all have different biases I agree with basically everything Jenosavel says, she's spot on about targeting - I'll just post another enraged lunge build as food for thought - the build Jeno posted is great, I just run a slightly different version.

BM 15
Marks 12
Exp 9

Read the Wind
Tiger's Fury
Predator's Pounce
Enraged Lunge
Predatory Bond
Symbiotic Bond
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal

As you can see, it's very similar;
With Predatory and Symbiotic recharging you can get maximum damage simply by having Predator's Pounce recharging when you attack; thus you can open by using RtW for yourself, the two pet buffs and hitting TF and Enraged Lunge, gives a full damage hit; then alternate Predator's and Enraged; since Predator's will then be recharging whenever you use Enraged you get 4 recharging with every attack, so you have +80 each time you use Enraged.

While I used to feel negatively about Symbiotic Bond I've grown to like it, in part thanks to the Predatory Bond - it helps a great deal with the damage from Symbiotic Bond. The other reason I like it is that the Canthan bosses hit HARD. Call of Protection is great versus the zerging hordes that you often face, but the deadly spiking that occurs in Cantha is just nasty - waves of afflicted exploding, Canthan bosses opening fire with double damage attacks... these are hard things to deal with as a monk. Symbiotic Bond spreads that damage across two people, halving the spikiness of the damage really; giving a double sized health pool in effect.

Of course, taking damage myself isn't always a good thing, and I have no self preservation in the build save my pet's bond to me, but I find that monks often aren't great at watching the pet, but will deal with my health - this forces them in effect to be healing my pet's damage, since it shows up on me :P

The Predator's Pounce is one of the strongest attacks out there, in terms of usefulness. You'll note Jenosavel includes it in her builds too - it's simply amazing. At 15 BM it does a huge +35 damage for 3 energy (thanks to expertise) which is already a good ratio, but it also heals for 50. That's an 85 damage differential on 5 energy (3 energy really) which is insane - if it were a necro life steal it'd be on everyone's skillbar; to put it into perspective, Vamp Touch would deliver a ~128 health steal at that price, or Vamp Gaze would be 85 or so damage. It's a seriously effective skill. Between half damage to the pet, the self heal from PP and a Comfort Animal here and there the pet is pretty resilient.

Edit: Yeah, there's no res signet; I don't tend to have much trouble though, this build got Master's on Arborstone for example with an all henchman party. Provided you have sufficient rezzes in the party it isn't needed. If you really want a rez you can sacrifice a skill. Not sure which, it'd take some choosing - probably a toss up between the Predatory Bond (if you are comfortable with your healing from the team) and the RtW.

Whats all this exp 9 business?

If we multiply 9 by 4 and get 36, the multiply by 5 or 10 (skill costs) and divide by 100, we get either 1.8 or 3.6 off of the skill cost. Why not simply put another point into BM, to get 2 or 4 off of the energy cost?
...
I've also been experimenting with the BM KD skill combinations in AB. It is kind of hard to get the timing down (especially with bears' brutal mauling), but it works great at confusing single enemies... Costs round, thus not bothering with even numbers. 1.8 off a 5 cost skill is 3.2, rounded to 3. Likewise, 3.6 off of 10 leaves 6.4, which rounds to 6.

As for bears, don't use them :P Unless you really like the look they are simply reduced damage pets.

Costs round, thus not bothering with even numbers. 1.8 off a 5 cost skill is 3.2, rounded to 3. Likewise, 3.6 off of 10 leaves 6.4, which rounds to 6.

As for bears, don't use them :P Unless you really like the look they are simply reduced damage pets. Oh thats right, that was the update that nerfed B/P farming

And yeah, I know the whole bear thing (actually, there could be some bonus to the attack, even though it hasn't been found yet)... But they fit my guild theme and are just really fat

Imagine group of four or five hearty bears running down a target. Its a beautiful thing...