Guild Wars 2

I have been playing the GW2 now for about 2 months casually, but more or less daily. Often times it is just a quick log in for the pve dailies and maybe a few quick global events and then call it a night. So far I have played an elementalist to 80 and now a ranger to 80 and my insta-boost 80 was a guardian that has been on the shelf and unplayed.

For the most part I play solo and I seem to rotate between completing dailies, global boss chain (again solo) and kittening around in Silverwastes or Drytop to casually farm crests and geodes. I have spent a grand total of 20 minutes in the WvW instance and would certainly consider going back and looking for a zerg to join (seems tough to play WvW solo?) and I have done a small handful of fractals and dungeons but nothing consistently and always with PUGs.

Finally I did manage to get my cooking and artificing on my Ranger “main” to 400. All my Ranger/Ele/Guardian gear are exotics and I have bought a few ascended trinkets with the laurel login rewards. For the most part I have salvaged and sold everything I could get my hands on to build up some gold, and then played the TP arbitrage game (always had a bit of merchant in me) to build up a small nest egg of coin.

While I still enjoy the game, my pattern has gotten a bit stale so I am looking for thoughts on what I might try now that I have a little more experience with the game mechanics in general and my characters in particular. Honestly I hate the idea of PUGing as I am terrified of being the reason for a wipe or failure. While I am willing to group, guess I just prefer the thought of being able to simply walk away and not having it adversely affect anyone else.

Finally, the ranger that I have gravitated to is a full condition damage build mostly modeled off of this guy’s idea.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger-_Full_condition_damage

I have no basis for comparison and it is hard to judge individual performance in a world boss global zerg so maybe it totally sucks. Just messing around solo it “feels” like I mow through trash mobs with simultaneous bleeding/poisoning/burning combined with pets and traps, it feels like stuff is just dying around me while I run around harvesting resource nodes. The lacerating slash on a 6 second CD for the Hawk and Eagle really stacks the bleeds FAST too.

So there you have my background and my two simple questions are:

1. how terrible is that build compared to something I could be playing (yes I realize I could play ANYTHING and still complete world boss events)

2. Throw me a few suggestions for shaking up my routine.

Thank you for your time, totally impressed with the GW2 community at large

Neurik.1624:

2. Throw me a few suggestions for shaking up my routine.

The first idea that pops into my head is to challenge yourself to do dungeons/fractals solo. At least, those dungeons/fractals that don’t absolutely require multiple players (like 3 players stand simultaneously on pressure plates, etc.).

It takes a lot of time, effort, dying, and build(s) consideration to conquer them solo… but it feels really good when you succeed.

~EW

There’s a reason that build doesn’t feature on the main ranger page of metabattle (http://metabattle.com/wiki/Ranger) That ranger build is considered a selfish build i.e. It maximizes personal DPS but reduces your usefulness in 5 or 10 man content because ranger’s strengths are buffing your team’s offense, not personal DPS. Have a look at the more highly rated builds… most will have explanations why certain options are best.

Have you got your elites specs? More powerful options for all classes will open up when you do.

It is actually on that page, at the bottom of “Fractals” but yes I realize it is a selfish build but I have also not been doing any 5-10 man content. I have not finished my elite specs and would more than likely swap to one of the druid builds for utility at that time (although that would depend on whether or not I was looking to find groups to play with). I actually do not mind playing a supporting role and tend to gravitate toward that role in most of the recent games I have played. I suppose I should just buckle down and gather the remaining hero points but I find it annoying to navigate in the heart of Maguma, probably because I am lacking a lot of the comfort and convenient masteries.

Oops, my bad. I had only glanced at the PvP and WvW parts when I made that statement… looking at the build, I assumed no one would consider suggesting that for 5 or 10 man PvE. The A/T condition build just above it makes more sense.

I’d strongly encourage you to go into the jungle… what you find stale in the core game will definitely shaken up in HoT. It’s a lot more challenging, but you’ll get used to it. Look at dulfy.net for the guides for HPs and mastery points.

I’m a condi ranger fan as well xD or rather, was.. While I am no expert, here’s my opinion:
The build is not bad at all for solo play; overall I think it’s as good as you can get to solo condi ranger
As onevstheworld stated, http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_A/T_Condition is a bit better in terms of group support and was very close to what I found that worked out best for organized content. I used to run that build in fractals with no issues and even killed the first raid boss a couple of times Also, I found that lynx pet had a lot better dps than the other pets, so I’d suggest you give that a try as well.

Personally I’d say avoiding organized content is gonna make you miss the best part of gw2. If you don’t like pugging, finding a guild or simply like-minded players should help. Dungeons and fractals are fun,they push you to become better and should shake up your routine quite a bit. Training in raids should provide a change of scenery too :p

Since you mentioned wvw, I’d suggest trying to follow a commander at some point preferrably on a tanky class/build till you learn the ropes. A good time to do that is reset night, when borderlands usually get a spike in population. And yes solo isn’t easy in wvw. There are 2 types of play in wvw, roaming solo and raiding; roaming relies on mobility, high dps and pvp skillz, while raiding relies on group synergy, survivability and following the commander. Both use different builds and different tactics and if you go unprepared to either, you can easily get rekt xD
Sorry if I ranted too long, hope it helps

Solo play or world boss or open world pve or wvw zerg it does not matter what build or weapon you use.

Your build low on the dps side and lacking support. If your grouping with others your main role is dps then support. GW2 is different from other mmo’s, evenyone can be support. But you should not be SO much support you do no dps. GW2 does a very poor job in getting people ready for grouping.

Getting in a few guilds will help you learn the game easier. And you get to meet so people 2. The HOT specs offer you a lot more dps and support skills. So getting into those zones is a good idea.