R/N touch Build

The more I read about this build the more kick ass it seems. Just because I'm too protective of my pure ranger to shift around stats, would it be feasable to go with the touch build from the get go at pre-searing? Not really, you will have a hard time with Expertise+Blood being very high BUT I did just do a quick stint with a N/W from pre-sear over to Post and I must say I never considered Blood so strong that early. If an N/W can do it a R/N could as well. Just have your expertise as high as possible up to a break point then have a high blood. In the very early game, unless you get rushed, I would augment the early few skills with Blood Renewal.

By the way, way way back in May this was how I was playing my Necro (game finished long ago). She ran Death/Blood all touches with a few select group spells.

My R/N build does not differ too much from the usual and it's a lot of fun in CA and even TA's...

16 Expertise
14 Blood
rest is up to you

Barbed Signet - Sacrifice 8% maximum health. You steal 18-52 health - no nrg costs, 2 sec casting time, 20 sec recharge time

Life Siphon (hex spell) - For 12-22 seconds, target suffers health degeneration of 1-3, and you gain health regeneration of 1-3.
- 10 nrg, 2 sec casting time, and 2 sec recharge time

Touch of Agony (skill) Sacrifice 10% of maximum health. Target touched foe takes 20-50 shadow damage - 5, 2, 2

Vamp Touch (skill) Touch target foe to steal up to 29-65 health.
- 15, 3/4, 2

Throw Dirt
Whirling Defense
Escape
Rez Sig

Expertise reduces the costs of all Attack Skills, Preparations, Traps, Stances, Rituals, Glyphs, and Shouts by 4% per attribute level. This effect rounds the cost of the skill to the nearest energy, however, so instead of getting a continuous reduction you get several discrete jumps in effectiveness.

w/ expertise at 16:

15 nrg > 5 nrg
10 nrg > 4 nrg
5 nrg > 2 nrg

w/ druids armor and the right combination of wands/off-hand items, you can have nrg of 60+ ...i currently have around 62 nrg

of course, you can swap other spells at your discretion..e.g. strip enchantment, plague touch etc...so whatever floats your boat...

...it's not invincible but it is very effective due to the low nrg costs and recharge times ...especially w/ all the evades and blinds it owns direct dmg dlrs...but as previous posters have said, it can be susceptible to degen and nrg robbing builds...it's a game...

Have fun!!

=D How can you have 14 in Blood? 12 is the max you can get.

@jibikao
I'm using almost the same skills as in your build (pets just rock if your skill withe them is high) but in my opinion its a must for any necromancer secondary to bring rend entchanments. its they key to iw, eles and monks.
as trappers are easy to avoid and if u know how to kill traps with pet they are kinda useless, so I'm wondering where is the problems with them ? Hi there.

Yup, pet rocks! In fact, I built a bow ranger the other day for fun and I miss my pet already. lol

As for rend enchantment... all I can say you can't have everything. I chose Whirling Defense because most warriors love going after rangers and I don't know how many distracting + punishing + savage shot rangers I've seen in CA/Team. Whirling really gives me the protection I need to handle warriors and to rez without getting distracted by Rangers.

Ele is not that hard for me. In fact, I rock against Ele except for Earth Ele who stands in Ward. I am very good at interrupting with Disrupting. Ele's spells do the least damage on Ranger so as long as I can get close to him, my vamp touch will offset the damage I take. Ele is actually one of the easiest target for me.

Monk can be hard for any class besides shut down Monk. I don't think Monk is the reason why the pet build sucks because chances are any pet build is bad against Monk since pet attacks are based on "melee, physical". I can harrase the monk to the point that he doesn't heal his party member. That will give our team a chance to win. And if we have a team of R/N, one of us usually brings Strip Enchantment and I think that's good enough.

Again, my build is great for faction earning. The pet build is great against most conventional builds in CA/Team.


As for Trappers... I need melee range to leech so naturally I step on traps. I usually send my pet in to trigger the traps but if it's Mantra of Resolve trapper, it's hard to interrupt them.

2 probelms here. blood can only go up to 12 on a ranger secondary. expertise if you didnt konw is for RANGER skills only. you will get killed by the energy costs of this build. necro primary is a much better option here. although this build is kind of a spoof of blood spike. Plague Touch, Vamp Touch and Touch of Agony are TOUCH SKILLS. Not SPELLS. They are affected by Expertise. Furthermore so are Shouts, I haven't checked but I believe Stances are as well.

Vamp Touch with 16 expertise costs 5 energy. Touch of Agony costs 2. It works for Blackout, the Smite touch skill, Lightning Touch, etc.

2 probelms here. blood can only go up to 12 on a ranger secondary. expertise if you didnt konw is for RANGER skills only. you will get killed by the energy costs of this build. necro primary is a much better option here. although this build is kind of a spoof of blood spike. Vamp Touch costs 15E. No class other than Ranger can spam that, trust me.

I've dueled with an Ele who keeps spamming Vamp Touch and Vamp Gaze, she lost in the end. You just can't compete with Expertise's reduction in energy cost.

Necro primary has pros and cons. First of all, you need melee range for those touches, that means the Necro has to get close to the target. This puts Necro in much worse danger than Ranger since Ranger has much better armor.

In 4v4 situation (I believe that's where most touchy rangers are), Necro's Soul Reaping does not shine enough. You need the snow-balling effect from 8v8 and Tomb (and PvE) to make Soul Reaping worthwhile.


I have a feeling that you haven't tried a Touchy Ranger. Energy is the last thing touchy ranger worries about IMO.

Heh...not really, dude. I've seen doens of builds which reduce out-class skill costs with Expertise. Besides, why would Expertise say it reduced Glyph energy cost if it only affected Ranger skills? Rangers don't get Glyphs :-P

As for Pet Touchies, I suppose I'm just generally biased against pets since they're so bloody dumb. I've tried Beast Mastery, but the inability of the pet do actually...ye know, think...is just a staggering turn-off. Heh...not to mention that for an effective pet, you need high Beast Mastery. Unless you go 12 Blood, 10 Expertise, and 8 BM, and lose some serious HP with Superior runes, you couldn't get Blood where it needs to be while also running high Expertise and Beast.

Ah well. Maybe I'm just dumb and not seeing something I should. Actually, I've been playing with attribute points and my favorite setup is:

10 Blood
12 BM
13 Expertise

First of all, my build does not use any other Blood skill besides Vamp Touch. I use Vamp Touch to heal and to damage through all kinds of defense/armor. 59 damage is NOT BAD at all in comparison with 65 damage (lvl 12 Blood). Most touchy ranger has 12 Blood because there's nothing else they want to use besides maxing out Expertise.

Expertise at lvl 13 can cut Vamp Touch cost to 7E. That's good enough for me.

Ferocious Strike can leech +9 energy at lvl 12 and do decent damage.

Energy is rarely my problem. Damage-wise, the build is diverse enough. I have Call of Haste so my pet can catch up almost any running foe. I know there is a bug that the pet won't attack when it follows but in most cases, Call of Haste can get the job done.

I can handle most bow rangers, touchy rangers, warriors and almost ALL Ele, Necro. Mesmer with crippling hex can be really annoying and IW Me/W with Distortion is tough.

You need to feel comfort with pet for this build to work. I've been using pet for over 5 months now. lol

2 probelms here. blood can only go up to 12 on a ranger secondary. expertise if you didnt konw is for RANGER skills only. you will get killed by the energy costs of this build. necro primary is a much better option here. although this build is kind of a spoof of blood spike. sorry for the double post but man.......this is just plain wrong. thought a 'master' ranger would know better.

How can you have 14 in Blood? 12 is the max you can get. My bad..you're absolutely right...but I have figured a way you can have 14 in blood...that is if you use Awaken the Blood..but u would have to consider not using any "sacrifce" skills...if anyone tries it, pls let me know if this a viable option...ty

2 probelms here. blood can only go up to 12 on a ranger secondary. expertise if you didnt konw is for RANGER skills only. you will get killed by the energy costs of this build. necro primary is a much better option here. although this build is kind of a spoof of blood spike. Again to quote the GWGuru expertise guide:

" Expertise reduces the costs of all Attack Skills, Preparations, Traps, Stances, Rituals, Glyphs, and Shouts by 4% per attribute level. This effect rounds the cost of the skill to the nearest energy, however, so instead of getting a continuous reduction you get several discrete jumps in effectiveness. "

w/ expertise at 16:

15 nrg > 5 nrg
10 nrg > 4 nrg
5 nrg > 2 nrg

How can you have 14 in Blood? 12 is the max you can get. Spell lets you add +2 to blood and curse for it's duration with the cost that any sacrifice skills require 50% more sacrifice.

What would you guys think about using Marksman's Wager to recoup energy when you're running low?
if you already have blood cranked up why not use Offering of Blood to gain back energy.

What would you guys think about using Marksman's Wager to recoup energy when you're running low? It's too conditional for me. I'd rather have energy and forget about it, than spending time not dealing much damage, and hoping all my arrows hit.