Ranger/Mesmer concept

ok so ive got the game waiting for me at a shop 20mins away, just killing time before i can leave hehe

Ranger/Mesmer
11 Expertise (+1 minor = 12)
10 Marksmanship (+1 minor +1 mask = 12)
10 Inspiration (+1 minor = 11)
1 wilderness (+1 minor = 2)

Energy Tap
Epidemic
Punishing Shot {E}
Read the Wind
Pin Down
Hunters Shot
Lightning Reflexes
Troll Unguent

RtW and LS are your first actions, with a flatbow youll have heaps of range, and be able to really whip out attacks fast with hard to dodge arrows.

You focus on casters, PS anything that is even looking like casting.

Once the enemies have started to close the distance, ie. about 80 away. You pump out a Hunters Shot and Pin Down on a central target.

Once you land these you cast epidemic to spread it to every other enemy trying to get closer.

Then you PS on monks to prevent recovering.

If your energy is getting low -> ET, if youve been hurt -> TU.

As a support the idea is to basically prevent the enemy from closing the distance to your casters without bringing their own casters in closer to aid recovery. Because your strategy works from 100 away, the only things able to interfere should be other Rangers. And if youre attacking at such a high rate:

2s refire -*33% = 1.33s
1s flight -*33% = 0.66s (im assuming its 33%, coz it doesnt mention a number in the skill listing on this site)

so you should be able to pump out the hurt fairly regularly and accurately.

As a solo, youll be relying a bit more on luck, ie. if youre swamped by a group of all casters you might not be able to keep them all busy. But if youre swamped by a group of warriors you could probably slow them down enough to kite them around.

Anyway, this is the build i plan to aim for when i start my first character, however it was hard to prune the skills down to this selection, very hard.

Any comments/criticisms (constructive please)?

Well there is a sort of flaw in ur build...

Because LR is only a 10 second cast and you need 60 seconds to recharge it... so u'll be without the extra speed for 50 seconds...

Next... long range can be good, but the problem with long range is that casters will be able to see the arrows comming and will be able to dodge it...

And maybe more important... if you want to disrupt (which you want most of the time as a R/Me, you only have a short window of oppertunity ... so you need the disruptive arrow to be there asap... so long range isnt good in that case...

Which brings me to the last point: maybe you want to switch a disruption skill in like disrupti

But i suggest that you just play some error and trial, and try it out in the game... i suggest you look up some other builds so you can try it out to compare your build with it.