The Spirit Realm

Ah!

Reading is fundamental.

You know your a ranger when: Your affraid to pull with your bow because you might crit, get summoned and die.

Bandolier nonmagical bow. Silly ranger.

You could be naked and still function well enough, as long as you manage your agro.

If you need to slow the mob before it gets into camp, chances are that your tank is out of his/her depth in that content and your group is going to come to a sticky end. Other than that you should be able to get a feel for when to slow without pulling agro. A decent tank will be using their hate modifiers on incoming, so nowdays you shouldnt have too wait long before doing your job. A good shaman will dance on the line of speed/avoiding agro.

Btw, when I tank I hate debuffers who cast early routinely when they don't need to with a passion, because their "fun" means that I am constantly having to do unneccesary work to compensate for their lack of skill/indifference. When it comes to timing shaman generally tend to be the best slowers in my experience. Chanters used to have problems when they had to tash first. Many BLs are just a huge pain in the ass to tank in front of.