Near-Pure Ranger... Advice please?

Hi all,

I've started a R/Me, and I like him... but the thing is this - The Ranger skillset is wonderful.. I want pets, but I also want traps and preps, and of course there's expertise and marksmanship. Of course, putting points in ALL the ranger lines is going to seriously limit the usefulness of my secondary class.


My question is this: What are some useful unlinked skills from other classes that could make this sort of build interesting. My thought is:

R/Mo

Mark 11
Expertise 10
Wilderness 7
Smiting 7
Beast 3

Read the Winds or Apply Poison
Hunter's Shot
Savage Shot
Barbed Trap or Pinning Shot
Zealot's Fire or Judge's Insight
Charm Animal
Troll's Unguent
Comfort Animal or Resurrect


---

The main strategy here is to buff your pet with Zealot's Fire and hang back with Winds and bow attacks, healing your pet from time to time with comfort animal.. Every time you heal, Zealot's Flames do fire damage to everybody mobbing your pet. Alternately, you can swap Zealot's with Judge's Insight or a Call skill.

If you're adventuring with a party, swap zealot's with judge's insight and comfort animal with rez... If your pet dies.. well, too bad. The nice thing about resurrect is it's effective with 0 points in healing prayers.


Eventually, Melandru's Arrows becomes the prep of choice.


Thoughts? Am I headed in the right direction? I'm thinking my animal healing isn't effective enough cause of low beast score... so:

- Beast 7, Smite 3?
- Pure Ranger - no smite? Use Calls instead to buff animal companions, and Rez as a swappable skill when adventuring with party?
- Different Secondary class?

Stick with your Ranger/Me, no need to start over. All he really needs is one skill from a secondary, and a me is a good way to ensure that. Perhaps just backfire or empathy, depending on what your going after, then just ranger skills.

I have a R/Ele and I still don't have any Ele skills on my skillbar yet.