With the recent buff to sigil of intelligence, this build is now viable. It’s even better thanks to the buff to Runes of the Wurm. Traits are 30/30//10//
II, IV, XI
IV, VI, XIII (or XII)
V
This build is tricky because of how easy maul is to dodge. In honesty this build plays like a cross between a 100b war and valk backstab thief.
It’s a simple synergy: GS has 3 big attacks. Sigil of int gives you 3 100% crits.
You have a alpha burst using Sigils of the Hunt and Wild in conjunction. You have a beta burst of just using SotH. Finally you have a standard burst from just criting. Timing sigil usage to weapon swap to attack is also tricky, but very rewarding. Like 20k damage in 2-3 seconds rewarding. Aoe cleave damage at that…and a awesome tank that can let you charge in, drop your burst, and walk out with just scratches. Kinda like a warrior :p
There are some downsides though: GS has kitten poor CC. One dinky little cripple with a short range. You could slot entangle instead of RaO but y’know life as melee without stability is a kittene. Ask any necro. My answer to this issue is to use spiders, and use Malicious Training trait. Of course spiders like all pets can’t hit a target that’s running away from them. So this requires my enemy come at me. Easy enough to achieve, I’m a ranger after all. A few /waves and a /laugh and soon they will be charging right at me
Side note: I have thought of a variation of this build. Axe/Axe + GS. I think this variation wouldn’t be as strong since the axe set only has 1 big hit (which hits twice and is unreliable.). So really you would only be able to burst every 20 seconds, instead of every 10 with GS/GS. But then you would have range and CC, which this build lacks.