HELP- good ranger build

yes you guys have all been helpful,
i wanted to get a black widow in uw, but
12 atributes takes a hole lot of 97 points, so im canceling that.
heres my build wich i have come up with:

marksmanship: 10 + major rune + archers mask
expertise: 10 + sup rune
wildernes: 8 + major/sup rune (for traps and healing)
fire: 8 (do i need that much in fire, dose 8 change alot on conjure of flame? )

im afraid that ill have too litle health if i have alot of sups,
cauz i cant afford a sup vigor
but can you have two major vigors or only one?

why does everyone says expertise is a must for a ranger I find it TOTALY USELESS. My R/N is currently 11 BM (10+1) 12 WS (11+1) and 13 marks (10+2+1) Sometimes I use death magic so i take 2 off marks and 1 each off the others and have 10 death too. So you could do the same for fire. I would surgest you have at least 1 fire aoe spell on your skill bar ie firestorm or metor shower.

Oh and No you can't stack runs

No, you can not stack runes.

Expertise is so coveted because of the cost of Ranger skills compared to their energy pool. Penetrating Attack is 10 mana, with a 3 second recharge. Rangers only have about 30 mana, with Druid's Armor. That means that I can use up all of my mana in 9 seconds, if all I do is use that one skill to it's fullest. With 13 expertise that becomes 5 mana, so I can shoot it a good number of times before my mana runs down. Now, personally, I spam Penetrating Attak and Tiger's Fury all the time, so I need the lowered costs.

A lot of Rangers spam, which is why Expertise is so necessary.

If you use spammable bow attacks or stances with short durations, expertise is a must. If you use mostly spells or stuff that takes long to recharge, it will make no difference... And in this case, why did you go ranger primary in the first place? A little extra armor and one less energy pip?

well thanx alot for the replies,
ill use the build that i wrote about
and if im the only ele on my team,
ill boost fire up and take some good AoE
skills with me (probaly fire storm and meteor storm)

PS:
can you have a sup vigor and a major vigor?
or is that also stacking runes?

A Sup Vigor and a Major Vigor are of the same type of rune, so they won't stack. You'd only get the bonus of the Superior one.

Quote:

I'd think 60% cheaper costs is a good squeeze, so the breakpoint of 14 expertise is a good way to leave it -if you have lots of 5 energy skills, stick with 13, but above 14, you get diminishing returns. You might want to stick to 1 superior rune: having 125 less health can become a burden.

in reply to comman:

i dont bother to bring oath shot, makes little sense to bring it when you're in the UW spamming traps before the monsters are aggro. not to mention i use a staff for that bonus to energy . in PvE (non-UW) oath shot might be useful to bring along

The standard set up in UW (at least with my normal group) is one carries QZ, another EW, everyone has serpents quickness, and the lurer a defensive skill. the rest of the skills slots are traps (3 of them), rebirth, troll unguent, and throw dirt (other people's build varies somewhat)

i believe my standard bow spammer during the PvE section of the game was a bit more versatile then you might think. a bow attack or two, throw dirt, an interrupt, defensive skill, troll unguent, some kind of res. it worked rather well, and yes it will be expertise heavy (just about every ranger build is lol)

yes fire slinger is in the bulds directory but cannot rely on fire damage alone. i'd prefer to have my morksmanship at 12, so i can do full dmage with my bow, and have fire damage as a supplement

as for a BM build, it'll need alot of tweaking before a good one shows up

and you arent very helpful at all :P

Oath shot is usually used for whirling defence, throw dirt, and healing spring for the ranger that tanks.

I must confess I never understood the point of bow spamming with the uber high expertise and abuse of penetrating shot. I mean, if you want to deal out as much damage as possible... isn't there a class for that? Umm... begins with an "E" ends with "lementalist". I mean the only up you have on an elementalist is better armor and more HP... well, actually, that's a negative on the HP... with all those major runes you probably have!

If you're going to use your bow a lot, at least lace it with a preparation and a conjure flames. Then shoot a poison arrow to top it all off. If you are using fire magic, bring Mark of Rodgort, you'll light them on fire for 3 seconds everytime they get hit by you (assuming you have conjure flames on). This is how you distinguish yourself from a gimped up elementalist.

And I have to confess that I dislike the idea of rangers being the obedient support characters, who get a pat on the back when they do a few parlor tricks to please. I've tested and retested; certain ranger builds completely obliterate air elementalists in terms of damage. AND, once they kill someone, they don't have to shrink away and regain energy.

No one needs to tank in UW, at least on smite runs/wrathful spirits runs. If you just keep everything crippled constantly (pin down is more useful than throw dirt for this reason), there's no excuse for letting an ataxe even swing at you. The edraining ghosts do piddly damage and die real fast to traps. Smites will die instantly on a half-decent trap wall (have achieved instant smite death as a lone trapper with only barbed, flame, and spike traps and no SQ/rituals), with a second trap cluster for damage control. The IW spirits, again, come in small groups and can be crippled/kited, and WD/oath shot will do absolutely nothing to them. Coldfires and terrorwebs can't be tanked with WD/oath shot in the first place, and are easily dispatched with arrows and combat trapping as ranger armor stops their attacks dead. Behemoths will shoot at whoever they want. The mesmer degen ghosts won't be phased by WD/oath shot.

I think that covers most of the mobs I've run into in UW. Throw dirt and whirling defense are nothing there. Bring barbed trap and pin down. Oh, and 12marks/15WS/9exp helps. I don't even bring dust trap anymore because blinding things is so much less effective than crippling them.

I have 7 expertise and only minor runes (except vigor). I have come down to much less health than people with all superior runes and stuff and lived to tell the tale. If you have 14 expertise, it means your skills will be cheaper, but less effective. Either you have taken atributes from the skills expertise is effecting, or you have so many superiors on you die from putting your foot down too hard. I'm a happy camper, PvP and PvE.