A-R Critical Barrager

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This build has been successfully vetted by the GuildWiki community according to the vetting procedure.

This build has been designed for the following use:

The Critical Barrager uses the Assassin primary Attribute of Critical Strikes, and the skill Critical Eye to increase the chance of critical hits. Coupled with a zealous bow string, this character has to hit just 2 enemies per Barrage (on average) to recover the energy cost.

Attributes and Skills

A zealous bow is required, a Flatbow like the Ironwing Flatbow or Chkkr's Flatbow is generally preferred for Barragers.

Set up with Favorable Winds.
Aim Barrage in the middle of tightly packed groups to maximize damage and condition spread.
Keep Critical Eye up constantly and spam Barrage.
Use Shadow Refuge to maintain your health and to counter Health Degeneration.
Distracting Shot and Savage Shot are used to interrupt enemies, particularly ones that spam a single skill, allowing for easy interrupts through the spamming. The increased recharge time imposed by Distracting Shot is especially useful against Wurms using Wurm Siege.

Antidote Signet or Assassin's Remedy for condition removal.
Barbed Trap and Serpent's Quickness are optional skills. Set the trap under Serpent's Quickness right before engaging the foes.
Sharpen Daggers for spreading Bleeding to foes.
Way of Perfection can be used for impressive self-healing when Barraging into clumped foes.
This build can be adapted for a Barrage/Pet group. Take Charm Animal and Comfort Animal instead of Shadow Refuge, moving attribute points from Shadow Arts do Beast Mastery.
Critical Defenses for extra defense.
Keen Arrow to deal additional spike damage

A Barrage ranger deals more consistent damage with higher levels of Marksmanship. However, this build allows for more frequent spike damage thanks to a much higher chance of critical hits.
A zealous bow string greatly helps with energy management, as hitting just two foes on average per Barrage is enough to fully recover the energy cost of Barrage.

The Skills Template for this build is:
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