Pastori = The Ranger Nerfer

E/Me Touchbane

Fire magic 16 (12 + sup rune + headgear)
Domination Magic 11
Energy Storage 7 (6+rune)

Skills:
Aura of Restoration
Arcane Theivery
Energy Burn
Lava Font
Bed of Coals
Inferno
Meteor
Star Burst (E)

This build takes advantage of two things that touch rangers are known for:

1. They do not normally have interrupts.
2. Although they are casters, there are only two spells on their skillbar-- Order of Blood (E) and Vampiric Gaze.

First things first-- enchant yourself with AoR. Next, hit that toucher with Theivery-- you have a 50% shot of stealing his elite. If you steal Vamp Gaze, just run, because he can't do anything to you at range.

However, if you steal OoB, immediately hit with Energy Burn. Why? So he'll think you're trying to go e-denial on him. Then the toucher will run in, maybe casting Vamp Gaze (don't worry about that one). Cast your spells in this order: Bed of Coals, Meteor, Lava Font, Inferno, Star Burst. Here's why: BoC causes 29 dps while not moving. Touchers don't move unless chasing you. It also causes foes to be set on fire for 7 seconds if knocked down-- hence Meteor. That will also interrupt the ranger with the knockdown.

Next comes Lava Font-- you are now doing 75 dps in your concentrated area (29 from BoC, 7 from being set on fire, 39 from Lava Font) for 5 seconds. In those 5 seconds, hit with Inferno (142) and Star Burst (119). Congrats, you've just done a total of 636 damage to an already slightly damaged foe in 5 seconds (75*5+142+119). Against the ranger, whose armor level is 100 against elemental attacks, that translates into 318 damage.

Let's assume that in those 5 seconds a toucher can get off two 65 health steals. Your net damage is 318-130, or 188. Not too impressive.

HOWEVER, add ele #2 versus a second ranger, and this is the math: 636-130= 506 damage to each ranger. Why? All of my spells are AoE, all of the ranger's are single target. Add a third ele and the math is 954-130=824 to each ranger. In an AvA situation, 4v4, your team using this strategy does a total of 1272-130= 1142 damage to each member of a well coordinated 4 man touch team.

Special thanks to Derk for helping me test this build, and to Andrew for introducing me to close range eles.

Yay for dead touch ranger. Wow I thought we would never nerf the touch ranger.

What touch ranger build were you using?

Vampiric bite
Vampiric touch
Vampiric Gaze
Distracting Lunge - forgot to use this
Offering of Blood
Call of Haste - should replace with comfort animal
Whirling Defence - useless against Ele
Charm Animal

The idea was to get the distract with the animal, but since I've never used it, I didn't have the timing down. Also, the down side is that when the pet dies, it has the same effect as blackout. I saw several R/N's with pets during the RA/TA weekend event. I didn't get the exact build they were using, but liked the idea of adding an interrupt into the build without dropping the staff.

That being said, it was a close match and he got me to less than 50 health at one point.

For a 4 player AvA team, 2 touchbane ele's and 2 others would be a good counter to the touch ranger. 2 others could be some anti-caster or crowd control to keep other player types in the close range AoE.

Hmm, interesting. I've been using the one from GuildWiki:

Vamp Bite
Vamp Touch
Offering Of Blood
Throw Dirt
Whirling Defense
Dodge
Plague Touch
Res Sig

Although, I usually swap out res sig for Zojun's Haste (Dodge's clone) unless I'm doing HoH or GvG.

The pet thing sounds cool, though, I think I'll try that. (I'm gonna try swapping Vamp Gaze w/ Throw Dirt though.)

Dropping Vamp Gaze plays right into Pastori's build - He'll steal OoB.

Although to be fair, it seemed to favor OoB last night anyway, we tried it 4 times and it didn't take Gaze until the 4th try.

I like the throw dirt use though, kinda puts a damper on those pesky warriors, assassins and even those more traditional rangers who still rely on a bow.

Hmm. Good point. Well, a way to counter that would be to run in, spam the touches until you run out of energy and OoB is gone, then Dodge out of there and wait for your energy to come back. Really only works when there's a warrior or someone else pounding on the ele in the meantime, though.

And yes, I've found Throw Dirt to be very nice against those 3 classes.