Your opinion of Ranger edenial?

[evillorderic]

I have recently fallen in love with a variation of the Mursaat Tower Build, but I have gotten mixed reactions from many people. Some laugh when they see it in use, and others tell me how effective it is. As the masters of edenial, I thought I would ask the mesmer community about their thoughts on the effectiveness of a Ranger running an edenial Build.

Expertise 11+1+3
Domination Magic 12
Wilderness Survival 6+1

Oath Shot
Debilitating Shot
Signet of Weariness
Shame
Antidote Signet
Whirling Defense
Serpent's Quickness
Rez Sig

Ok, I personally find this build to be very effective and believe it has many Pros that make it more worthwhile then playing as a mesmer primary. First off and most notable is AL. Rangers are much more hearty than your average mesmer (I know there are defenses to change this, but I mean at the core). Also, rangers are typically not the prime target for the opposing team, so you get almost an element of surprise, and will most likely not get ganked by 3 warriors.

The figures are pretty impressive when you look at the rate energy can be denied. You start off with Serpent's, then use shame on your chosen enemy. Shame is first so you can be guaranteed to drain the max of 12 energy from them. Follow up with signet of weariness, debilitating shot, Oath Shot, debilitating, weariness. Shame should only be used to interrupt from now on, or for example after a boon/prot uses OoB and you know they have enough energy to make it worthwhile. Totaled on the first wave you successfully drain 31 energy, not to mention the energy they have burned by themselves. You then hit the with the second wave and thats another 31 energy gone. You can manage to do all this in under 12 seconds if all goes right (there's always things that get in the way like guardian, or blind).

I know many will say that it is just too risky to base such a key build to the team around Oath Shot, because if it misses what then? In my opinion this just comes with the territory, just as constantly being attacked, energy management, and missed interrupts can occur when playing a mesmer primary.

I am not sure about the figures on the "average" Mesmer edenial build, but would love someone to let me know so we can compare.

Basically I want to know if you think a ranger playing an edenial role is more effective, equally effective, less effective, or other (depends on the circumstances)

[The Boz]

I think Debilitating Shot is an overlooked skill that works miracles. Especially in that build of yours, with SQ, Oath and high Expertise. You can be sure that whoever you target won't have energy for much longer.

[David Holtzman]

Ranger edenial is very effective at denying energy, but it's lacking in other ways. For example, it is shut down more easily. Edenial on the ranger will take him out, as will blind, and of course LOS. He also lacks the pressure damage that a Surge mesmer has in abundance. Of course, in return for this he denies more mana than the mesmer does.

[Crazy Moo]

I came across a build like that in CA, and let me just say that it was really annoying, lol. I really had no energy throughout the whole battle, I think I might have gotten a few skills off before I finally told the team to start killing the stupid ranger. And I was trying to play an energy denial mesmer too, but I didnt notice the ranger until it was too late and I ended up with no energy.

[evillorderic]

Yeah I think with the greater rate of denial, higher AL, and general low target priority of the ranger, it is more than a viable build. As far as blind goes, that's why I take the Antidote sig. Blind is fairly common in TA, so I knew that it would be a life savor to take antidote sig.

[Ubermancer]

The Mursaat Tower build remains my single favorite build. I personally use Throw Dirt in it.

It is absurdly effective, and equally unpopular!

Disregard any nay-say'ers.

[ehanks]

/agree with Ubermancer...the Mursaat Tower build is the best energy denial build I've played.

[MaximumSquid]

This looks like an awesome setup.

I think most Oath shot builds are garbage, but this looks really solid.

Could someone post the original Mursaat Tower Build too? i'd be curious to see what kind of evolution it had.

[Patccmoi]

This looks like an awesome setup.

I think most Oath shot builds are garbage, but this looks really solid.

Could someone post the original Mursaat Tower Build too? i'd be curious to see what kind of evolution it had.

Here's the original setup (personally i still prefer it):

10 Domination (required for -8E from SoW)
10 + 4 Expertise
10 + 1 Marksmanship
5-6 Inspiration (don't remember how much is left)

Debilitating Shot
Mantra of Signet
Signet of Weariness
Throw Dirt
Drain Enchantment
Serpent's Quickness
Oath Shot
Rez Signet

You do the following cycle:

SQ-Oath Shot
Debilitating Shot
Mantra of Signet
Signet of Weariness
Signet of Weariness
Debilitating Shot
Drain Enchantment
Serpent's Quickness-Oath Shot

Drain Enchant allows to take out guardians/aegis before throwing your Oath Shot (you don't wanna miss that) as well as getting your energy back up (the net energy cost of your cycle, considering natural regen, is nearly 0)

Throw Dirt is there just anytime you need it, 14 sec duration with 13 sec cooldown (can you ask for more? Basically an AOE Signet of Midnight that doesn't blind you). Can be used to take out a warrior on you or from one of your allies.

I've been considering Blackout lately instead of Throw Dirt tough. No blind, but resetting adrenal of a warrior is potentially worse. Would screw up your cycle, but it might be worth it.

And while a counter to it might be to drain the energy of the ranger, the problem for that is that the ranger is never the primary target for EDenial, and by the time a Mesmer realizes that the ranger is a threat, usually that Mesmer has long hit 0E, and it's not coming back up anytime soon.

Blind can potentially be a problem, but i use this in 8v8 with enough condition control in the team not to worry about it, just don't throw an Oath Shot through blind, you can still do more than half your cycle blinded (the 2 SoW and Drain Enchant).

The advantage of this build over Mesmer primary is that it's MUCH more EDenial (especially AOE EDenial, Mesmer primary can't come close to this), can blind steadily, and can remove enchantment at a good pace. It also offers a potential COMPLETE lockdown. By that i mean i can keep a target below 5E AT ALL TIME, meaning they won't ever get a single spell off, and that's maintained as long as the target isn't running away from the fight out of my bow range (but also out of spell range of anyone else).

The advantage of Mesmer is the pressure damage. This build has around 10-15DPS, with my bow shots dealing 25-40 damage and that's it. But locking a monk 100% can make up for the pressure damage, and in places where people tend to be packed (think HA on altars or with everyone sticking in wards) you can drain the full team at a steady pace, it's just insane.

[Ju Smurph]

Nothing wrong with it... though i honestly think mesmer will be moving more towards e denial than a ranger will, with the new skills on their way. Rangers are more "Jack of all trades". Though this build is very good.

[IMMORTAlMITCH]

Line of Sight, good players will kite your arrows, sure weariness will still work but you can use that with a mesmer too (mantra weariness and either echo or keystone)

The added damage from surge/burn more then make up for the (slightly) less effective draining imo.

I can solo pretty much any monk with my ED mes in 1 combo (if he doesnt receive any healing from other people)

[Patccmoi]

Line of Sight, good players will kite your arrows, sure weariness will still work but you can use that with a mesmer too (mantra weariness and either echo or keystone)

The added damage from surge/burn more then make up for the (slightly) less effective draining imo.

I can solo pretty much any monk with my ED mes in 1 combo (if he doesnt receive any healing from other people)

Hrm, don't theorycraft (lol long time i didn't use that word =p) over the build.

You can't strafe against a recurve bow. Line of Sight in most situations is easy to maintain. With Drain Enchant you can remove any block enchant every cycle.

A Mesmer primary can't do that many Weariness without QZ behind, even with Echo, MoI, whatever you want for more than 20 sec (you could Echo + Mantra of Signet + Mantra of Inscription after and use around 5 over 15 sec, but you can only do that once in a while and you sacrifice a lot of your build to it).

The draining is not slightly more effective, it's drastically more effective. A Mesmer can't keep a target below 5E for a long duration, and keeping it below 5E is what makes this build so great as no spell/skill EVER get off. Your enemy can't even activate Distortion once you made him hit 0, he won't ever get back to this point. A traditional ESurge-EBurn-SoW-Mind Wrack (sometimes add Power Leak) can drop someone to 0E in no time, but you can't keep them there.

The damage ESurge/EBurn combo does is nice, but as i said it depends on what you need. If your team requires pressure damage more than having someone 100% locked, then Mesmer will do better. But for EDenial i never saw a single Mesmer build that can come close to this, and i ran quite a bit.

I'm curious tough about what build you do that could solo a boon-prot in 1 combo. Cause if you can honestly kill 1 in one combo, you could pretty much win any split in GvG. Mind sharing?

[IMMORTAlMITCH]

Well, it depends on the amount of energy the monk starts off with and on his health, but my (GvG) ED build is:

Surge
Burn
Weariness
Wrack
Shatter Enchant
Shame
Wastrels
Res Sig/Ressurect

It might not technically be one combo since you use wastrel every 3 seconds but I can usually drop a monk before surge/burn recharge or at least keep him <5 energy.

The ranger builds works very well for ED but adds no significant damage and has some weaknesses, it is very relient on oath shot, theres a lot of stuff that can make oath shot miss.

Good players WILL kite your arrows even if you use a recurve bow, you can simply move behind a wall or other obstacle, I'm not saying this is gonna happen ALL the time, but it's definately a weakness.

In conclusion, both builds get the job done, I just prefer the mesmer one.