User:CHIPS/sandbox

A variant version of the famous Touch Ranger. Bow Touch Ranger uses bow attacks on top of necromancer touch skills, allowing it to deal damage both from range and in melee. Simliar to the Touch Ranger, Bow Touch Ranger make uses of high expertise to reduce the energy cost of its skills.

Bow Touch Ranger is a cross between a full time bow using ranger and an full time Toucher. Relative to a bow ranger, Bow Touch Ranger deals slightly less bow damage but thanks to its touch skills it is more resistant to conditions and  hexes. Relative to a Toucher, Bow Touch Ranger drains slightly less health from its enemy but can attack from range when the target starts kiting.

Attributes and Skills
[build prof=range/necro Expertise=11+1+3 Marksmanship=10+1 BloodMagic=10][Marksman's Wager][Point Blank Shot][Zojun's Shot][Hunter's Shot][Vampiric Touch][Vampiric Bite][Resurrection Signet][Lightning Reflexes][/build]

Equipment

 * Weapons: max possible damage and health
 * Sundering Flatbow of  Fortitude with  Strength and Honor Inscription.
 * Armor: balance between starting energy and health
 * 1X Survivor Insignia on leggings
 * 4X Radiant Insignia on rest of body armor
 * 1X Rune of Superior Vigor
 * 2X  Rune of Attunement

Starting Health and Energy

 * Health: 515
 * Energy: 31

Usage

 * The backbone idea of this build is to use constant damage to pressure and chase down enemy targets in close-quarter combat until they die, and at the same time prevent yourself from dying too fast with necromancer touch skills.
 * Bow attacks allows you to do more damage than and cost less energy than touch skills. Even high armor targets like Warriors do not benefit much from their armor when hit with largely armor ignoring "Point Black Shot" and "Zojun's Shot".  Their damage on soft targets are very devastating.  Try to attack only with bow attacks unless you are taking damage, your target can  block your attacks, or hexes and conditions prevents you from attacking.
 * When you start taking large amount of damage, attacks getting blocked, or hexes and conditions prevent you from attacking, spam "Vampiric Touch" and Vampiric Bite" in turn to deal damage and to keep yourself alive. If possible use the touch skills on the primary target of your team.  If you are cripple or cannot get that target within melee range just use the touch skills on the nearest target.
 * Use bow attacks again as soon as possible, specially when target starts running from your touches and hence will take extra damage from your bow attacks. "Hunter's Shot" is very useful against kiting enemies.  But even randomly spamming this skill is not bad, since it only cost 2 energy with this build.
 * Try to run for a step after every bow attack. This may allow you to close in on your target faster, dodge ranged attacks and even dodge nukes like  Lightning Orb.
 * Use "Lightning Reflexes" then taking damage from melee attackers, enemy Ranger and Paragons.
 * When your energy gets low, use "Marksman's Wager" and attack targets to increase your energy. While under this preparation try not to let your attacks miss since you will end up losing energy instead.  Don't bother with blocking foes and change target.  Feel free to keep using bow attack skills at will, since they are very low energy cost.
 * If the enemy have interrupting ranger(s), use "Lighting Reflexes" before using "Marksman's Wager" to increase the chance of its successful cast.
 * At all times, watch out for Diversion.  Scan the enemies to see if any of them have this skill as soon as possible.

Counters

 * Use anti- spammer strategies, such as Diversion or Distracting Shot.
 * Focus fire to overcome Bow Touch Ranger 's life stealing.
 * Elementalists spike or armor ignoring damage, to take advantage of Bow Touch Ranger 's relatively low maximum health.
 * Conditions like blindness and hexes like  Empathy can prevent this build 's range attack, forcing it to rely on its touch skills.  The effectiveness of "Marksman's Wager" will also be greatly reduced.
 * Blackout.
 * "Can't Touch This!".
 * Atrophy. can be used to reduce the toucher energy very quickly
 * Wail of Doom
 * Spiteful Spirit

Variants

 * "Hunter's Shot" can be replaced with Distracting Shot,  Savage Shot,  Pin Down,  Whirling Defense or  Plague Touch.
 * In AB, "Resurrection Signet" can be replaced with any of the skills listed above.
 * The energy cost of the Touches can be reduced from 7 to 6 if the expertise attribute is increased from 14 to 15. This however requires you to use a Superior Rune of Expertise, which will reduce your maximum health by 40 (on top of the 35 health lost from the Major Rune of Expertise).