[Rylkan]

So, the first of a bunch of ranger builds I plan to post. Now, to preface this one, I must warn everyone that this is totally untested. I do not have the skills at the moment to use this build, and though I could get them easily enough, I don't have the time right now to test it out. So if you feel it has a flaw, let me know. Or better yet, if you find a way to improve upon it, please let me know.

Alrighty, so, to explain the title of this thread. This is a Ranger/Assassin build, so I apologize to those without factions in advance. Concept for this skill set is simple, repeated knockdowns while causing heavy degen through conditions.


Needed Skills:
Leaping Mantis - Dagger Mastery - Assassin
Entangling Asp - Deadly Arts - Assassin
Scorpion Wire - Deadly Arts - Assassin
Escape - Elite Expertise - Ranger
Toxicity - Beast Mastery - Ranger
Brambles - Wilderness Survival - Ranger
Troll Unguent - Wilderness Survival - Ranger
Ressurection Signet


Breakdown of the Points:
High Expertise
High Deadly Arts
Moderate Wilderness Survival
Whatever you can get into Beast

Note: I have not tested this build so I cannot say an exact point distribution, but look at it this way. With a high expertise, the cost of the assassin skills will be reasonable on a ranger energy budget, as well as buffing up the time for Dodge, which I will get into the use of next. The deadly arts has to do with the duration of the effects. Simple reasoning, but never underestimate those few extra seconds of degen, and since it controls both poison AND bleeding time, it is well worth it. Wild Survival is for your self heal and to keep Brambles alive longer, given in a PvP situation people make sure to kill spirits quickly. Finally, Beast Mastery. Though the same applies for the spirit in this class, we all know that spreading points beyond 3 areas is a bit thin for most builds. So I would reccomend you follow my strategy to make up for this lack of spirit power. *Though, I am not talking of runes yet to help with these things*. No Dagger mastery needed. Though this means you wont have any normal attack power, you will not be spending much front line time in this build, and as such, will have time to gain energy back as you wait outside the battle, and not waste points into a overall non useful attribute.

Strategy
At the start of the match, you will want to place the spirits. I find placing them further apart will obviously help avoiding AoE damage to the spirits, thus making the damage dealt by this build much more ineffective.

Start by getting in close to your opponent and opening with a Leaping Mantis skill. I choose this skill because it can cause crippling on an opponent, and though with no Dagger Mastery it is only three seconds, you will be following up very quickly, and as such, you merely want to keep them there long enough to use your follow up attack of Entangling Asp. This skill will cause poison to occur as well as knockdown. Thanks to the spirits we placed, this means that the opponent is now bleeding from brambles, and experiencing an additional minus 2 degen thanks to toxicity.

It's at this point that you begin to run for all your worth, though not without reason. Before you escape, case Scorpion Wire on your opponent. Make sure to do this quickly, as knockdown only gives you two seconds of their being knocked down and it is a one second cast time. Now, cast Escape and run away to activate the hex for Scorpion Wire. When you reach around 1.2 times the Aggro circle radius, they will be knocked down again. Try to make sure you move fast, as if they have purge conditions, this is a very fast spell, though at the worst, they will now be without that skill and will once again begin bleeding from the fall.

This is your time to heal with troll unguent as well, while you have Escape on you and you can afford a three second cast time with a 75& evasion on you. You could also bring Healing Spring if you want your party to benefit more as well, though if they do get the 1/4 hit, you are now without a heal for 20 seconds at least.

Rinse and Repeat as you wish.

Notes
Makes sure to warn your party about the spirits. This is not a solo build persay, though strong, there are warrior stances to avoid knockdown, and monks can mess you up very easily, as well as mesmers stopping your use of skills. I reccomend going after monks first, since they are soft, and that means they cannot heal the whole party for around 5 seconds on the low side, and they will take lots of damage as well. This can shut down a good monk very easily, and if you arrange it with your group, 5 seconds of someone being on the ground is more than enough time to cause massive amounts of damage. I have seen very strong players who got knocked down be beaten very quickly and easily when people concentrate their firepower on them.

I can see a few variations and possible changes, but that is the basic concept, if you have any thoughts on it, feel free to post them.

[Goto]

Well I was going to point out that it would be very easy to counter, but you already said so yourself. And it could be quite useful at taking out monks or other soft targets long enough to get kills.

My thoughts are that it seems like too much of a 1v1 build to be particularly useful in PvP, I could well be wrong though. This might not matter so much in the arenas when there are only 4 people, but in anything with 6 or 8 people a side I think it would fall apart very quickly. A balanced team of that size is much more likely to have multiple people capable of healing or countering your build. There's more people that can take out your spirits quickly, too. Also your spirits could well work against you if someone on the other team is using a lot of knockdowns or poison. You're devoting your entire build to taking out one enemy, in my experience unless it's a particularly quick kill (like most of the Assassins you'll find in PvP) it's too easy for someone to counter your build or heal your target, leaving your team at a disadvantage with one less effective person. I don't have a lot of experience in PvP, but my gut instinct is that single-target pressure builds aren't usually too effective against a competent team.

It's an interesting idea and might well work very well in practice, bit hard to tell without some trial runs. My thoughts are that if it does work it'd probably only be particularly effective in small teams, or 1v1.

[Rylkan]

Yeah, I see counters, but it's not as easy to block at it may seem, since only warriors usually bring anti knock down skills, since they are front liners and experience it more often.

As for the other stuff, I do agree. As I said, need to tell the team that the spirits can effect them too, as well as that you need to concentrate fire. But a quick death to a monk can totally throw the pace for the opposite team.

And I was actually thinking this more a random arena build anyways. 8 vs 8, it is a bit too one on one. I can see it working, but not anywhere near as effective.