Ask a Bowman Thread.

Between the strafe build and arrow rain build, which one helps a ranger level faster? I'm kind of leaning towards the arrow rain build since it mobs, but would the strafe build be able to compete with the arrow rain build even though strafe only hits 1 monster?

Yeah, you're much better off maxing your mob skills first. You don't even need to max Strafe anymore once Big Bang comes along. Not that it matters right NOW, you get a full SP reset anyway, but even still, mob skills first make for much faster training.