I play my spirit ranger a little differently and it seems to work (and will work even better post 10th).
I use Settler’s and apothecary. You can’t really compensate for low health/toughness but you can stack might for condition damage!
My condition damage is lower than it might be if I used rabid. . . AT FIRST.
And I tend to always use a horn.
I use 4 runes of altruism and 2 of water. That gives me +30% boon and 3 stacks of might on using a heal. That 3 stacks of might will give you 105 condition damage.
Ultimately, I play to stack might to get more condition damage and use my extremely high healing and toughness to outlast WHILE doing just about the same damage as when I have my trapper build with rapid. . . . ASSUMING conditions work on your foe as you still won’t have power.
On the 10th, you will be able to quickly do the following:
1. Get 5 stacks with Stalker (think I have the F2 working most of the time now)
2. Enter a fight with another 3 stacks from the heal
3. Immediately in the fight get with another 3 stacks from swapping pets.
4. Immediately in the fight get another 3 stacks from swapping weapons (with rune of battle on the offhand).
5. Get a stack of might from call of the wild (Horn #5).
Meanwhile, you have your pet getting to 25 stacks because anytime you get a stack they get one too (and many of the skills already give them stacks and are “you and your pet”0.
So you get quite good condition damage and quite decent power very quickly.
All the +boon duration means your might stacks don’t tend to drop while you are fighting. You can refresh most of the skills that stack might in fight with almost no dropping. OF course that time lost on those button mashes will reduce your dps so it is situational which way you play it.
Remember, 25 stacks is 875 additional condition damage. Only works because the stacks have such good duration. Now. . . I don’t see how in most situations changing the runes and ability to stack might with +boon can compete for damage over any sensible time (not to mention the defense). Getting even 10 stacks of might with high duration beats what you can do otherwise. I’m not losing much more than 350 condition to go apoth/settler.
AND, the pet hits quite a bit harder this way too.
When I get jumped (for a lot of reasons) I tend to use RAO. The elite spirits just are too small of a radius and have too much “wind up time” for their specials. RAO done right will juice your and your pet’s might to max quickly too. And when you are in trouble it helps to have extremely long stability and near perma quickness. RUN.
You simply Hunter’s Call (Horn #4). That is 16 attacks right there to refresh pet might (and you still have lots of near instant increases after that).
Using the Lashtail devourer, you can get a fast 7 stacks on yourself plus a heal pop and horn blow and you are back to good damage.
I also like horns with this build because it is near permanent (you lose about 2 seconds per 28) of quickness so you can keep 3 spirits when roaming with no need for SotH for the 25% movement buff).
The build counts on your being able to get abilities fired to provide stacks.
