Massive Blinding Ranger (Survivalist)

[Johnny Madhouse]

This build makes an excellent party addition, as well as being an excellent build for soloing the well-known lonely warrior bosses in the Factions campaign. The only difficult part about assembling this build is finding an Ebon bow string.

The premise is simple. Using Volley instead of Barrage, a lovely elite slot can be opened to play with, leading to this:

Ranger/Dervish
Earth Prayers: 12
Marksmanship: 8+1
Expertise: 10+4

Ebon Dust Aura - At twelve earth prayers, this skill can easily be kept up indefinitely, with 9 seconds of blindness every time you strike.
Volley - The delivery of massive blindness. Spammable because of high expertise.
After those two skills, your discretion can be used. I will list my preferred build, however.
Distracting Shot
Antidote Signet (just incase you get blinded)
Shield of Force (Adds to the pwning of warrior bosses)
Throw Dirt (Just in case Dust Aura is removed, and on heros it gets them close enough to the action to do good interrupts)
Rez Sig
Storm Chaser/Serpent's Quickness

This build works well on heros. Acolyte Jin has become an indespensable member of my party, and a good thing. I don't use tanks, to avoid stupid aggros, so my party builds tend to center on avoiding getting hit in the first place. Monster AI tends to gather around one party member at a time, which is most excellent for a Volley Blinder. I can't count the times Mhenlo has been surrounded by melee destroyers to the point where he can't move and he survives without a scratch.

[IIIBNIII]

Nice idea, though I'm thinking Called Shot should find its way into the bar...

[Saphatorael]

13 Expertise is enough to make 5 Energy skills cost only 2, I'd put the rest in Marksmanship if I were you... or just go for more hp and change the sup expertise to a major.

[Squishy ftw]

Nice build, but personally I'd probably exchange throw dirt, already enough blind in there :p

[Pericles]

Well done,
i must tell you i was thinking fo the exact same thing but you beat me to it ;) , Throw Dust is definitely overkill on the blind, Shield of Force isn't that good, i'd drop that if i were you. I'd throw in Concussion shot, and Trolls would be fien for a selfheal. Also throw in another interrupt like savage shot.

[Johnny Madhouse]

Thanks for the tips all!

I do realize that for a human player, throw dirt is indeed overkill. However, on a ranger hero, it's an excellent way to boost the hero's accuracy with interrupts, due to them having to move in close. Pericles, I have taken to using savage shot, but concussion shot takes enough energy (even at high expertise) to render the Ebon Dust Aura a little less constant, at least for hero AI that does what it can with what energy it has. Heroes don't save energy the way a human player does.

Also, Daze infliction in my team is handled mainly by me, with Spear Swipe and Epidemic. This synergizes well with the volley, because packed casters can't get spells off nearly as well. I know that my method is not an option for everyone, due to Spear Swipe being a Leadership skill, but it works very, very well for me. However, I have not tested this method on heroes yet. Perhaps that would work well, particularly when fighting destroyers! The TOF tank is useless against Destroyers, and with the addition of a second para hero maybe I could set up a mass dazer, with Fevered Dreams and Spear Swipe... something to look into, at any rate.

Troll's Unguent wouldn't be a very good self-heal, due to the low wilderness survival att. Instead, perhaps shield of force could be replaced with vital boon? The higher max hp would make the user less of a priority, and the self healing is a nice bonus.

[Johnny Madhouse]

While I'm thinking of it, another nice Earth Prayers skill is Conviction, which provides either +24 armor while enchanted or +3 health regen while not enchanted. Expertise applies to it, too.