Ranger Fu Hustle: A different take on Poison & Whirling Defense.

Poison Arrow (Elite Skill)
Energy Cost: 5
Casting time: 0
Cooldown: 1

Bow Attack. If Poison Arrow hits, your target becomes "Poisoned," receiving a health degeneration of -4 for 17 seconds. (Wilderness Survival 12) A poisoner's bow string increases this length by 25%, to 21 seconds.

Think about this: In 4-8 shots, I can have an entire party suffering from -4 health degeneration for 21 seconds. This is pure life degeneration that ignores all types of armor, and stacks with all other degeneration conditions. It only takes two buttons to send an onslaught of poison at the enemy team, "Next Target" and "Poison Arrow."

When people laugh about how many options they use to dispell conditions, they are lying. Almost nobody carries or uses spells to remove poisons, and few that do are mostly monks who are too busy spamming Orison of Healing. In the rare event that my poison is dispelled, I immediatley cast it again. It's a cheap spell with no real startup or cooldown, and it can be spammed relentlessly.



Whirling Defense
Energy Cost: 10
Casting Time: 0
Cooldown: 60
For 16 seconds, you have a 75% chance to "Block" attacks. When you block a projectile in this way, adjacent foes take 9 piercing damage. (Expertise 10)

How do rangers block without a shield? I don't know, but with this stance activated you have a 75% chance to evade physical attacks, taking no damage. It also appears that the direction an attack is coming from affects your chances on evasion. Still, I can literally activate this skill in front of two warriors and lay traps without being interrupted. You can also use this skill in conjunction with Oath shot(both skills are Expertise) and keep the 75% evade running every 16 out of 20 seconds.


I made a post commenting on these two skills because of how rare I see other rangers using them. These are two of the best skills a ranger can equip in their arsenal, yet people so often overlook them.

I now have both of these in my ranger PvP build. I agree they are BOTH very useful. I have always seen the use of poison arrow. Particularly, when used with cripple and hunters shot to cause bleeding, you can severely limit a Warrior monk, and if you use kindle arrows you can have a shot at actually taking him down by yourself.

The whirling defense is wondeful and allows you the chance to stand toe to toe with a warrior and WIN. Yes, as he runs to you he should already be poisoned, crippled and bleeding. You tap on whirling defense, drop a troll ungeunt if you need, and start hacking away at him with exploding arrows or some other damage modified skill. If he tried to heal, savage shot or debilitating shot him.

Two WONDERFUL skills

Yeah but for 15 base energy you can have "Apply poison" which lasts for a lot longer than 3 strikes. So it's more power efficient in the long run. There is the cast time, however... And in place of (or in addition to) whirling defense you can use serpent's quickness (or something like that) which has 75% evasion and increases your refire rate by 33% instead of doing ~8ish dmg to nearby foes on received missile attacks. Increased refire rate means faster pumping out of poison arrows before the buff wears off and needs to be recast... (Im still trying to figure out if new poison dmg stacks with old or just replaces it?).. In any case, you can top that off with feral lunge from pet for bleed damage, or hunter's shot...

You might want to use Poison Shot instead, though, because 1.) Apply Poison takes a few seconds to use, in which time you can be interrupted, which is sometimes often in PvP, 2.) Apply Poison eventually wears off, at which point you have to apply it again, taking MORE time in which you can be rendered useless, and 3.) Apply Poison takes 15 energy, I believe, which means if you don't have alot to spare, it can be awhile before you can use it, while Poison Shot is only 5 energy, almost always available, and it's very unlikely that a mesmer is going to somehow be able to deny you that 5 measly energy.

It really is a gamble. Apply Poison is more efficient energy-wise, that's undeniable. Poison Shot is also more reliable. It's a tradeoff of sorts, you just have to determine which one you are more comfortable with, or which one seems to work better from experience.

Quote: Originally Posted by Zodiakos

Sure its a tradeoff, but also keep in mind that by not using poison arrow you have freed up your elite skill slot.

I love this build, I was doing similiar with a necro/war and life siphon but it is only 3 health degen for 10 energy, not nearly as efficient.. however the other side is that you can tank anything with the energy you are draining from four opponents.

I would like to try out this build because I have a lot of fun dotting people and it seems to infuriate someone to watch themselves die to poison (especially when they have a monk)

How far along do you need to go to unlock poison arrow?

It's found in Whitman's Folley, which is right after the Dragon's lair and ascension quests. I posted a link to the elite skills thread next to the skill name in my post.