Quick word about QS builds

For a while now I have been trying out the various versions of the quickshot build in random PvP.

While they all succeed to some degree in doing the basic spiking deal to casters, they are all relatively unstable against warriors and especially rangers, or even people with one of those as a secondary. Once they put on a stance, that's it. Most of the better QS builds require some short lived, perhaps even costly buff like JI or TF. A lot of the stances last for more than 10 seconds and of course, most QS have little or no defense, the other person with basic ranger or warrior skills will be bringing you down beyond rescue before his stance is over.

I mean what it boils down to is this: with no interrupts, no stance breakers, no hex removal, no healing, no energy draining, no degen. Relying on pure physical on hit damage is too easily countered.

Even the old IW build is better because it requires no "if hit"

I don't doubt that spike builds like QS will drop tons of people who not prepared, especially casters.

There's no perfect build, but I think a good build should attack the enemy in more than one way. For example, if you spike, degen is a good thing to throw in because it will kill the enemy when he inevitably decides to run or stance.

The average QS ranger will pack attack skills, TF, buffs, and Troll Unguent. It's quite effective in arenas. For GvG and the HoH, the point you're bringing up basically sums it up, save for a few overlooked skills like Choking Gas and Distracting Shot.

You seem to picture this as one on one combat, which is not the case even in the random arenas. If your target uses a stance, switch targets until the stance is over.

Most stances have short durations and horribly long recycle times (unless it's an Oath Shot Ranger, which an X/Ran can't be). You can turn your attention back to that stance user and kill him after his stance is over, during the recycle period.

But ofcourse it's not really true that QS builds have no defenses. High expertise (13) gives access to 10 second duration Lightning Reflexes, which you can use to protect yourself while maintaining your attack speed boost. Whirling Defense is another expertise based stance. It's duration is longer (18 sec), for which you pay with reduced attack rate.
If one really needs defense that badly, there are options.

But I usually do just fine without it, simply because nobody can cover themselves with stances 100% of the time (without gimping their character's damage output), wards don't affect bow Rangers, and Aegis cannot be kept up 100% of the time (but we bring Nature's Renewal anyway, so it's difficult to use without interruption).

I'm of the school of thought against WS in QS builds (so no troll) this makes me painfully vulnerable to all kinds of fun degens. How do you propose to act against those in PUG?

In random PvP all normal rules go out the window. Never use it to draw conclusions about how good something is.

Distracting shot works well with QS builds. With QZ, you can hit it every 5 seconds, and you can really screw over a monk that way.

QZ will ruin your Quick Shot's spammability, and more than likely it'll cause problems for your team.