User:Attackofthecold/Build:R/Me Famine Farmer

The Famine Farmer is a Ranger build meant to easily solo many bosses in the Factions and Nightfall campaigns by using Famine combined with energy denial provided by Mesmer skills.

Equipment

 * Druid's Armor, with a Rune of Superior Wilderness Survival and a mask with +1 Wilderness Survival.
 * For the weapon set I suggest both of the following:
 * A weapon that provides Activation Time and Recharge modifiers for Inspiration magic, such as the Handsmasher.
 * A flatbow or longbow on which the modifiers do not matter (this bow is merely to pull some bosses with).

Usage

 * Run to the boss and pull him into a location where he and his mob cannot hit you with their attacks (Behind a tree, around a ledge, etc).
 * Set Famine and put Spirit Shackles, Spirit of Failure, and Empathy on the boss. Refresh these as needed.
 * If the boss can cast spells on you, keep Troll Unguent up during this time.
 * Once the boss is out of energy due to Spirit Shackles begin to spam Mind Wrack on him in addition to the hexes.
 * Most bosses fall very quickly after their energy is gone, in under a minute.

Counters

 * Because of the nature of how the build works it is only effective against bosses that use ranged attacks and have poor spell damage.

Variants

 * Replace Storm Chaser with Illusion of Haste and allocate some attributes into Illusion magic if the threat of being Crippled on the way to the boss is high, as in Arborstone (explorable)
 * Drop Troll Unguent and/or Whirling Defense for more pressure if you know you won't need them for the run.
 * Some replacements include:
 * Serpent's Quickness (spam Mind Wrack faster)
 * Wastrel's Worry (more spammable damage)
 * Backfire (for spell caster bosses)
 * Energy Tap (for quicker draining)
 * Diversion (for Zarnas Stonewrath, to disable his Stone Daggers)