User:Malokai92/Guide Index/Merging Rangers

What's the problem?
When you search for Ranger builds on wiki here's what you notice:
 * 1) Archive:R/Mo PvP Burning Arrow
 * 2) Build:R/any PvP Concussion Shot
 * 3) Archive:R/Mo PvP Crippling Shot
 * 4) Archive:R/Mo PvP Incendiary Arrows
 * 5) Archive:R/any PvP Magebane Shot
 * 6) Archive:R/Mo PvP Melandru's Shot
 * 7) Archive:R/Mo Broad Head Arrow Ranger
 * 8) Archive:R/Mo Degen Spammer
 * 9) Archive:R/Mo TA Empathic Ranger
 * 10) Archive:R/Mo Escape Ranger
 * 11) Archive:R/Mo Melandru's Archer
 * 12) Archive:R/Me Domination Magebane

Which gives you this: [build prof=r/any exp=12+1+1 mark=9+1 wild=9+1][optional][distracting shot][savage shot][apply poison][optional][troll unguent][natural stride][resurrection signet][/build] With minor derivations in a couple.

Merging
Seeing this, people would like to merge all the Ranger builds into one comprehensive one. So why not? Well there is this little problem about what Rangers are suppose to do. Putting in a bunch of attack skills on a Ranger is bad, why? Because the Ranger loses focus and becomes less effective than he could be.

Focus
Rangers are suppose to provide utility for a team, by interrupting skills, spread conditions, not dieing, or other utility and generally be a pain in the ass for the other team.
 * Distracting Shot is in every Ranger build with a bow because disabling any skill for 20 seconds can either shutdown the Warrior or make a whole build lose much of its effectiveness, and the skill isn't even Elite.
 * Savage Shot - Recharges in 5 seconds, making it a very cheap and fast interrupt, making you almost invulnerable to one enemy.
 * Apply Poison - will last about 15 seconds from just autoattacking and is almost impossible to remove since it is reapplied every time you attacked a foe! This also means you can spread Poison across all the players essentially pressuring them to death.
 * Troll Unguent - A cheap heal that makes you impossible to degen to death from hexes or from autoattacking.
 * Natural Stride - How much can you say about this skill? For 6 seconds, you taunt all melee. It is also useful to prevent Troll Unguent from being interrupted.
 * Mending Touch - Used in all the R/Mo builds, Mending Touch can be used to remove conditions from yourself and allies and is reduced by Expertise, which means you can spam it all you want.

So all this means you're going to be difficult to kill from melee and casters. When you have these skills to use, why use anything else while using a bow? An exception are spike rangers, which are very effective with 2 or 3 in places like HA but lose effective in arenas and such where utility will achieve more than outright killing. This is why Rangers have 10-11 Marksmanship, it loses focus to waste anymore attributes than is necessary.

This means Rangers are suppose to provide utility for a team, by interrupting skills, spread conditions, not dieing, or other utility and generally be a pain in the ass for the other team is what Rangers should focus on because they do these things best.

Elites
So now that we have established why all the rangers use these skills, let's discuss the Elite skills.

In the above builds, we have assorted Elites from all three attribute lines. In all the builds, Expertise reflects the cost of the Elite if it is a bow skill, which is 13 expertise for 5 energy skills, and 14 for 10 energy skills. Prepared Shot provides the Ranger's energy management, and therefore trades Expertise for Marksmanship because it saves you more energy. Marksmanship, you will note, does not make much of a difference between 10 or 13 points for these skills, making it negligible.

Incendiary Arrows has a slightly different attribute spread due to it's elite being in the Wilderness Survival line, but maintains 13 expertise due to Incendiary Arrows costing 5 energy and trades some damage for extraordinary pressure.

Note that since you'll spam your Elite skill most often, Expertise needs to meet the breakpoint for the Elite's cost so you don't run out of energy.

Function
Every Elite serves a slightly different purpose, whether it's snaring, interruption, conditions, or utility. Since each Elite functions differently, each build will be used differently, the core skills that makes a Ranger impossible to kill complement each skill differently.

Conclusion
The skill bar doesn't make the build, the utility and effectiveness it yields makes it the most effective way to wield the Elites properly and thus wield the Ranger properly to dominate the opposing side. Thus it is counterproductive and pointless to merge them all into one build.