Expertise Ranger Attribute

Hi, I hope someone can enlighten me.

I'm a Ranger/Elementalist. Rangers have the primary attribute Expertise. Official documentation is a bit vague about the exact function of this attribute. They say it reduces the energy cost of "your skills". Does that also mean that it reduces the energy cost of all my skills, including my secondary Elementalist skills? Then it will become very interesting.

And I believe it also reduces skill recharge times and maybe other things? Maybe anyone here has a lot of experience with this vaguely documented attribute. I invested my attribute points mainly in Markmanship, Beast Mastery and Fire Magic.

Expertise

There are "skills" "signets" "spells" and stuff like that... it states all attacks preperations and skills... Things like, Vampiric touch, or Lightning touch, state that they are "skills" and therefore, are not considered spells, and also wont be effected by things like backfire, obviously.

I know about the discrete jumps of reduction. But I want to know if Expertise also reduces the energy cost of my Fire Magic skills from my secondary Elementalist profession...

expertise does NOT effect spells and unless you want to waste over half your Ap on it, its pointless. My ranger does'nt bother to use it and works just fine.

Are pet skills like feral lunge affected by expertise? o.o.... it is a RANGER skill ya know.

I know its a attack skill but its a PET attack skill technically, so I am not sure.

Read the description of the Skill. It will usually say things like: Signet, Skill, Spell, Hex Spell etc.

well i have my expertise at 12 and it halfs costs off skills and when it comes to like 12.5 as half it goes down to 12 wich is great to have

I guess nobody knows the answer to my question, if expertise also affects the skills of a secondary profession?

It absolutely works on your secondary skills. To my knowledge expertise reduces the mana cost of everything. The exception would be signets, but they dont cost mana to begin with.

I know it reduces the energy cost of all of your Ranger skills, but in my experience, not any of the spells and such of your secondary class. Pet skills, attack skills, preparations, spirits, etc. are all affected by Expertise. I've yet to try it, but it might affect Warrior's attack skills as well...

Thanks for the replies guys. But your replies were completely contrary

expertise is basically mandatory for most rangers. its awesome, with a level of 10, thats 30% off most of your ranger skills, that makes 10 = 7, or 5 = 3. the higher the better and the expertise skills are awesome.

Expertise will affect attack skills from - for example - warrior secondary - but will not affect spell skills, such as 99% of elementalist skills.

Sorry - no low cost mojo for you.

I said it reduced the cost on "everything" I may have been overboard, I meant everything 'attack' I have never tried it with heals or such. Definately works with warrior skills though.

Aaah thanks, now it's starting to clear up. That would be very unfair if only certain secondary professions profit from Expertise. Talking about lousy and vague official documentation! They definitely should warn people for that beforehand. But isn't Elementalist also an attack profession? I mean Fire Magic seems to have many attack skills... I guess it depends on the definition of "attack skill".

Sigh. Read again:

If you read the description of a skill it will say: Hex Spell, Spell, Enchantment Spell, Skill, Elite Skill, Elite Spell, Attack Skill, etc.

All skills described as "Skills" are affected by expertise. This affects mostly Warrior and Ranger skills, but also a few other skills, e.g. Vampiric Touch (and most other touch skills).

Wow so I spend half my AP and can save a whole 2 or 3 energy which I could regen in a about second anyway. Seems pointless to me, hence why I don't use it. Would much rather put the points in something usefull. Like healing prayers if your a r/mo.

expertise is the most usefull of the ranger attributes....I for one would hate to spend 25 energy every time I wanted to drop a dust trap...so with my expertise boosted to max I spend half that. It costs me 4 energy to drop 10 energy skills...how you can not see that as being usefull is beyond me.

Please note that a ranger has an energy regeneration of 3 "pips", which means that 1 energy is generated per second. With an Expertise rank of 9, skills that cost 10 energy are reduced to 6, which means that you can perform almost twice as many skill atacks until you're out of energy, and after that you can perform your next skill attack 4 seconds earlier than without expertise. In the middle of a battle 4 seconds is an eternity.

Any good ranger in these forums will tell you that a high expertise (at least 9) is crucial for an effective ranger.

The only way I can see expertise not being high is if you have Barrage + Zealous String or constantly prep Marksman's Wager. Other than doing that, Expertise is the ONLY way we can effectively save energy. Yes, 3 pips of energy regen is great (2nd best in the game), but couple that with our small vat of energy...and it isn't enough. I'd rather wait for my skills to recharge, rather than waiting for my mana to refill itself.

Of course, if one is not concentrating on the Ranger Primary, then I can *sort* of understand why Expertise isn't on someone's "to-do" list. However, if you want to be an effective RANGER (i.e. use that bow to good use)...Expertise is almost a must.

A bow cannot do enough damage on its own (especially against warriors), thus we need those spamming skills (Penetrating Attack, Tiger's, Hunter's, Quick Shot) to keep damage high. However, each Penetrating Attack uses 10 energy regularly...which can only be used 3 times in a span of 9 seconds...and even with the 3 pips, that's still not enough to throw a 4th one for another second. With my expertise as it is now (14, or something near there, I believe) I can spam Penetrating, Hunter's, and Tiger's for a good minute before I run out.

If you increase the attribute to 11, then have your hat increase it by another 1, you are spending 77 skill points to HALVE the mana cost every your ranger skills. This means you can cast twice as many spells before running out of energy. With 2-3 attack skills, you can constantly spam each one, hardly ever using your regular attack, and maintain a decent level of energy.

Here's the better way of looking at it. Having expertise at 13 (which is really halving energy costs) is basically the same as doubling your max energy and energy regen, if you use almost all non-spells.

It's actually kind of a sad statement when the only of the superior ranger runes that's worth more than like 300g at the trader is Marksmanship, which is about 1.5 plat. Superior Expertise is the one that should be used by almost everyone.

Um. No. Its quite a bit more significant reduction than that. Expertise is basically the lifeblood of the Ranger class.

No, you spend enough to get 10+4, gain 60% off your skills, and still have a ton of points left over for Marksmanship and another skill category of your choice.
If you can't see the benefits of paying 4 energy for something that costs 10 (coughTiger'sFurycough), then you're not a very good player. With the right setup and good Expertise, Rangers never run out of energy.

Healing Prayers is far, far more of a waste for a Ranger than Expertise. Expertise is the best primary attribute in Guild Wars, and leave the healing to the Monks, even henchman ones. They still heal far better than you could ever hope to.

I've always thought the same thing. Shows how many people really don't know how to play Rangers.

The runes in most cases are in a sad state, minor runes are usually worth more because people don't like to take the HP hit.

I basicly never run out of energy and do NOT use expertise. I find its about as much use to my ranger as tactics was to my warrior. IE completly useless. I can see the bennfits of paying 4 for a 10 skill I just don't think its worth spending half my AP on.

my build varies form BM/WS/marks to BM/WS/marks/death or blood. I may change from R/N to R/Mo in which case I may use WS/Marks/healing or WS/BM/Marks/Healing. My Rangers currently at the 2nd to last mission and has been working very well thank you.

If you think that a player with secondry monk skills should not use them your complely clueless. I wonder who can cast more heal spells a monk/? or an ele/monk. The monk/? will at best have 50 mana if they find a very good wand and icon. my ele currently has 103.

Energy storage is by far and way the best primary skill in the game. Expertise is a tie for the worst with soul reaping. tactics and divine favour are a distant second.

you should find every single person you have ever grouped with and give them each a 1 plat bonus for carrying you through the game...

An ele/monk is *not* the same as a r/monk, sorry. I don't know about you, but my Ranger with Druid's only has 32 mana with a bow. Not discounting a staff...that's not a lot of casting leeway at all. And even then, with a staff, that's still only....40 ~ 45 mana.

However, I'm curious to see how you can afford Marks if your expertise isn't high. The only useful low-cost Marksmanship attack is Hunter's. Other than that, it's 10 energy each time. Stack to that, Blood/Death spells, and I don't see where energy is maintained. Then again, I may be missing something.

Of course, I could understand if you went all BM with no Marks, and some Death *and* Blood to even out, since petskills don't cost much...but, even then, I don't see that happening WELL because the pet takes up so many slots.

my ranger can have up to 55 energy

With a bow?

This guy has points in Marksmanship also...and I personally dont see the point unless he uses it to utilize a high req bow. I'd just forgo it completely and put more in BM/Death/Blood. A bow to a BM Ranger is only a pointing stick for Fido/Garfield/Babe/Boco/Spidey anyway. =P

no..with a staff + protective icon...it's for trapping

I don't think Expertise is the Holy Grail for every Ranger. Especially when you're an Elementalist too. I simply put my focus on my Fire Magic, Markmanship and my pet. I adore my pet and he's very strong. I use my pet as a tank and give my enemies hell with fire and arrows. Right now I only use very few skills that benefit from Expertise. I would be insane too invest all my attributes in Expertise. It's also not my style. There are so many ways to distribute your attributes and every type of Ranger has his advantages and disadvantages. Everyone must pick the style he feels most comfortable with and has the most fun with.

Expertise to a ranger is like Fast casting to a mesmer. You only need enough of it to make a difference. 8 is good enough for most practical purposes.

BTW, each point in expertise reduces energy cost 5%. Not 3% which is for mesmer's fast casting.

The original build for my Ranger/Mesmer was 12 Domination Magic and 13+ Marksmanship, with points remaining spread between Beast Mastery and Wilderness Survival for my healing and the benefit of my level 20 pet. I really didn't see a point to Expertise, and got along fine without it.

Then I got bored and decided to try out the Underworld one day while America had favor.

An all-ranger group invited me and insisted that if I were to come along I would need to bring traps. I never used traps before that, but I figured, why argue? They know what they're talking about. So I dropped a tiny bit of Marksmanship and bumped my Wilderness Survival enough to effectively use a few traps. First group of enemies we fought I felt totally useless, because I laid one or two traps and I was spent. And mine sucked compared to theirs. But I was wowed when I saw the monsters crumble to dust from the bang of the traps, and asked how I could be more effective at them. Their reply? Drop the Mesmer magic entirely and respec to a trapper build, with 12 Expertise. Now I was rather fond of my Chaos Storm and Shatter Hex, I'm an AoE maniac. But I played along, and dropped all of my Domination Magic points and skills for 12 Expertise. After that, coupled with Serpent's Quickness, and the fact that my teammates were laying down Quickening Zephyr, Energizing Wind, and Favorable Winds, meant that I was laying down trap after trap with speed and ease, and hardly EVER running out of energy. I was in love. I later dropped even more Marksmanship (down to 7, I even bought a lower requirement bow just for this build) to max out my Expertise and Wilderness Survival. Four 10k-gp Ectoplasms and god knows how much experience later, Underworld Trapper groups are now my favorite thing in all of Guild Wars.

I seriously reccommend it to anyone with an ascended Ranger and some free time. My build, for reference:

13 Expertise (with Minor Rune)
12 Wilderness Survival (With Minor Rune)
8 Marksmanship (With Minor Rune)
With some points added here and there, and of course at least a Minor Vigor.

Barrage (Useful for picking off the remains of groups when they don't die from the traps right away)
A Spirit (Quickening Zephyr or Energizing Wind, whichever the group wants me to bring)
Serpent's Quickness (Best cast after the spirit, but before the traps)
Barbed Trap (Some prefer Flame Trap, I want to get Spike Trap but don't have it yet)
Dust Trap (Absolutely neccessary, blind will save you against the Aatxes)
Throw Dirt (Ditto, in case one survives or you get ambushed)
Troll Unguent (Just in case)
Ressurrect Signet (In case the R/Mo's die)

I've completed The Monk's Path recently and I'm considering changing my secondary to Monk and replacing Ressurrect Signet with Rebirth. Not going to put any points into Healing Prayers at all, I'm just doing it for the unlimited res.

Why Expertise Is Good:

Makes the expensive skills more *possible* (epsecially for someone with a bow).
In long battles, allows you to use twice as many skills. It doesn't matter whether the skill costs 5 or 50; if you cut the cost in half, you can use it twice as much/often.

Obviously, Rangers are the most flexible class in terms of builds, and it's not required that you use Expertise. But I'm not sure why you'd bother making a Ranger Primary without using Expertise, at least some. That would be like having a primary Elementalist and deciding that Energy Storage wasn't worth any attribute points.

Runes certainly aren't enough for me to make a primary Ranger. It's all about the Expertise, for me.

I like the looks of the ranger alot more than the monk. Plus a rune of markmanship is enough for me to be a ranger

The only reason I have points in marksmen is so I can use my storm bow and favorable winds, other wise all my current skills relay on is WS and the 2 skills for my pet BM.

I might be switching to R/Mo since I seem to usualy be the last one left alive if things go wrong and then i can rez more then the 1 time i can now with the signet.

As for you algern you clearly have NO idea how good a ranger can be. I'm the one that usualy does the carrying if anything.

I find NO need for expertise in my primary ranger but I don't see how you can play a ele with out energy storage. Expertise and Energy storage are only similar because thier primary attributes. Other than that thiers nothing.
Where as my ranger is perfectly playable with OUT expertise, My ele would not be with out energy storage.

.Let me rephrase. Can you 'never run out of energy" while making every one of your bow attacks an attack skill, while at the same time constantly looping Tiger's Fury? Not without Expertise.

My Monk has 66 mana with focus, rod and a few pieces of tattoo armor.

And I wonder who can heal for twice as much as the Elementalist and thereby operate in a far more mana efficient mana? A Monk, perhaps? A Monk with 13 Divine Favor and 16 Healing Prayers will cast an Orison that heals for ~120 HP, for 5 energy. An Elementalist/Monk with 12 Healing Prayers will heal for 63. Similarly, a cast of Heal Other by an 12 Healing Prayers El/Mo heals 151. The same Monk from above heals for 231 with it.

In short, Divine Favor + the ability to use runes makes a Monk outclass an El/Mo any day as far as healing goes, regardless of the energy gap.

Tactics isn't a Primary Attribute. Primary attributes are unique to their class.
Furthermore, the fact that you consider Divine Favor and Expertise two of the worst lines in the game only shows further ignorance on your part. Divine Favor has skills alone which make it worth investing in, in addition to the significant healing boost.

More energy does not immediately equal better. A Ranger's energy usage runs far smoother and steadier than an Elementalist. An Elementalist, without using double Attunements or Ether Renewal, cannot spam their skills nonstop without bottoming out on energy. Energy Storage is good, certainly, but it doesn't have nearly a tremendous impact as Expertise.

I disagree. Its still incredibly useful if you're a Ranger/Elementalist. For example, if you run a Conjure Flame + Kindle + Dual Shot + Quick Shot build, you're far more effective than you would be. would casting AoE spells as a ranger. That's a much better usage of the Elementalist side of Ranger, which, if you ask me, having played one primarily at first, doesn't have very good synergy with Ranger outside of that combo, since Elementalist spells are too expensive as a Ranger, and an Elementalist is just flat out better at them than you. Barrage + Conjure or Barrage + JI is what you want if you want to do AoE damage as a Ranger.

Well I don't use tiger fury and constantly spam bow attacks so I don't run out of energy. Therefore I don't need expertise. I put down 2 sprits before hand then use ignite arrows and poison arrow now and again.

I conside divine favour 2nd best not the worst trying reading my post again.

Sorry how do you get 66 energy as a monk? Is it with this fabled +27 energy icon which I have never seen or hear of before a couple of day ago? and I been playing since the game went retail.

So basically you do gimpy damage and poison?

66 energy for a monk is all tattoos plus collector's pants from the desert, and the +15 +12 icon.

What a coincidence! I've also been playing the game since retail! Ok, now that we've got our completely irrelevant statements out of the way, there's several +27 energy (which appears as +15 energy, +12 energy), -1 regen icons on Collectors in the Desert. I'll be more than willing to post a screenshot tonight, considering I'm leaving for work shortly. But if you don't want to wait, head Northeast of Dunes (toward the Skyward Reach exit) and look for a long ridge of mountains with two teleporters on either side and a collector named Kraviec the Cursed. He takes 5 Iridescent Griffin Wings for a Healing Ankh version of the FFocus.