Guild Wars 2

So I think it is at the edge to being really viable. I am playing it at ~ rank 650 right now exclusively solo queuing. This is not high but I have the feeling with a coordinated team the build just becomes better. I run a LB/GS spec with 30-30-5-0-5.

Pros:

• huge DPS that can be applied in AoE at a rather safe distance (Barrage hits for up to 10k in a huge circle)
• thief hunting (Rapid Fire can nuke them hard and there is little they can do about it) while being relatively safe to their burst with traited SoS
• relatively high survivability for a berserker build (signet passives, invulnerability on decent cooldown) which makes you decent in 1on1s (very dependent on the matchup though)
• ability to debunker points in biggerfights and with knockbacks/ccs that other ranger builds lack
• very mobile (Swoop, Signet of the Hunt)

Cons:

• no good condition removal due to lack of Empathic Bond, having disengage when facing condition specs and fight on max range at best
• while stability with Signet of the Wild you cannot rezz or stomp with it
• loses 1on1s versus strong 1on1 classes (exspecially conditions)
• dependent on actual bunkers that put their body on the point so you can barrage the kitten out of enemies that try to get them down there

Another point is that I have the feeling right now people dont expect the build when they see a Ranger which gives kind of an advantage. Once it would be more known it could be easier to outplay (waiting for SoS pop, etc)

So did anyone run something like that in 5on5 turneys? I lack a real team and propably that wont change in the future either so I would like to know if anyone else has experimented with that.

SoS is a 64 sec cd with trait. You’ll be getting nuked much more often than that. You have no teleports like thief or ele or mesmer, or stealth to drop targets from focus fire. While your SoS is on cd you have 180 less toughness on a glass cannon spec.

All your burst cooldowns are still upwards of 45+ seconds, and when your signets are not up you are doing crappy burst/damage compared to other builds. You sacrifice tons of survivability in order to only benefit half of the damage equation, since your pet is the other half of your damage and does not benefit from that gear change that just cost you a lot of survival.

A counterattack every 15 seconds isn’t going to save you from group focus fire while signet of stone is on cd.

Maybe using sword + dagger instead of GS would help increase your survivability? The 2,3 and 4 skills offer extra evades. If you time those well with dodges, you can stay up against focus fire much better.

Zenith.7301:

SoS is a 64 sec cd with trait. You’ll be getting nuked much more often than that. You have no teleports like thief or ele or mesmer, or stealth to drop targets from focus fire. While your SoS is on cd you have 180 less toughness on a glass cannon spec.

All your burst cooldowns are still upwards of 45+ seconds, and when your signets are not up you are doing crappy burst/damage compared to other builds. You sacrifice tons of survivability in order to only benefit half of the damage equation, since your pet is the other half of your damage and does not benefit from that gear change that just cost you a lot of survival.

A counterattack every 15 seconds isn’t going to save you from group focus fire while signet of stone is on cd.

You don’t get focussed all that often to be honest because you operate on range. And the tools you have are usually enough to disengage in a way that they waste a ot of time if they want you down.

Burst cooldown on 45 seconds? What do you mean with that? While boosting your damage to the maximum by activating everything is fun this isn’t necessary at all. Your weapon skills hit like a truck by themself on low cooldowns.

Again all my knowledge comes from actually playing this build over 100+ matches now and it works surprisingly well.

Kharr.5746:

Maybe using sword + dagger instead of GS would help increase your survivability? The 2,3 and 4 skills offer extra evades. If you time those well with dodges, you can stay up against focus fire much better.

The survivability is about the same with the evades. The way you play the build GS somehow works better for most situations, it is hard to explain. For example when you barrage a point from offpoint if you start taking too much damage the biggest part of it will still be ranged and the blocking works well. And while you have to be careful of when to actually go into melee hiltbash, maul and the GS autoattack chain outdps sword+x. Especially with Moment of Clarity.

The biggest problem I see people having with this build is that in their mind they directly compare it to bm/trappers and how it would perform in the same situations. The thing is that it plays completly different and is closer to thieves or warrior. You shouldn’t even come into these situations. When you dps a point you are actually most comparable to a direct DPS version of a grenade engi.

Again I would especially be interested if someone actually tested it in turney matches. This isn’t so much about discussin the theory behind it.

Ya. The build works until you get to higher play and then its more positioning and personal skill. Personally I go for 30/10 /30 since quickness is pointless and EB is too good to pass up.

i tried…
but what do u whant to do with this build?

with dps ranger u have not much dmg like other classes based on dps
also u dont have so much survive like other classes and at least u have not much aoe
edit: and you can do nothing when a ele start to chase you, and it will happen.. or a thief

there are classes can do much much more dps and its aoe… and they have also more survive…

only nice thing join tournament with this build is the surprise effect, because nobody think there will be a dps ranger

but as soon they see ur longbow u will be the first target… and then a fast death is incomming…
with sigil 6 second dont die but then gg
with longbow u have 0 survive (also less dmg and this with full berserk…)
take the gs give u one block and each 3. hit a dodge, but its sounds better then it is…

the 2. weapon set should be sword/dagger for try to survie, but when u start kite and survie u do no dmg like as trapper…

this build is just not working because 0 survive and not much dmg as other dps builds
because the rest of the dmg have to do the pet which die fast like hell at teamfight without beastmastery

ranger trait design is just a bad joke
nice idea whould be when u can play without pet as ranger and have
other skills instead of the pet ones then
like engi can go with kits…
just a idea

A good way to deal with survivability is to do some variation of X/X/o/o/X and use DPS pets so it is like there is DPS x2. and you can stay out of the fight. Sadly…. pet nerf might make that unviable.

Dojo.1867:

Zenith.7301:

SoS is a 64 sec cd with trait. You’ll be getting nuked much more often than that. You have no teleports like thief or ele or mesmer, or stealth to drop targets from focus fire. While your SoS is on cd you have 180 less toughness on a glass cannon spec.

All your burst cooldowns are still upwards of 45+ seconds, and when your signets are not up you are doing crappy burst/damage compared to other builds. You sacrifice tons of survivability in order to only benefit half of the damage equation, since your pet is the other half of your damage and does not benefit from that gear change that just cost you a lot of survival.

A counterattack every 15 seconds isn’t going to save you from group focus fire while signet of stone is on cd.

You don’t get focussed all that often to be honest because you operate on range. And the tools you have are usually enough to disengage in a way that they waste a ot of time if they want you down.

Burst cooldown on 45 seconds? What do you mean with that? While boosting your damage to the maximum by activating everything is fun this isn’t necessary at all. Your weapon skills hit like a truck by themself on low cooldowns.

Again all my knowledge comes from actually playing this build over 100+ matches now and it works surprisingly well.

Kharr.5746:

Maybe using sword + dagger instead of GS would help increase your survivability? The 2,3 and 4 skills offer extra evades. If you time those well with dodges, you can stay up against focus fire much better.

The survivability is about the same with the evades. The way you play the build GS somehow works better for most situations, it is hard to explain. For example when you barrage a point from offpoint if you start taking too much damage the biggest part of it will still be ranged and the blocking works well. And while you have to be careful of when to actually go into melee hiltbash, maul and the GS autoattack chain outdps sword+x. Especially with Moment of Clarity.

The biggest problem I see people having with this build is that in their mind they directly compare it to bm/trappers and how it would perform in the same situations. The thing is that it plays completly different and is closer to thieves or warrior. You shouldn’t even come into these situations. When you dps a point you are actually most comparable to a direct DPS version of a grenade engi.

Again I would especially be interested if someone actually tested it in turney matches. This isn’t so much about discussin the theory behind it.

If they want you down, they will get you down. You think they’re gonna let you or any clusterbomb thief just merrily bombard a point with aoe without sending a mesmer to toss you down or kill you off the spot?

Why run this when a BM ranger is just as effective yet way more survivabilty ?

fakeblood.2576:

Why run this when a BM ranger is just as effective yet way more survivabilty ?

BM rangers don’t have aoe. BM rangers don’t burst unless you’re willing to call an AI tied, pathing attack that takes a couple of seconds to deliver half a shatter’s damage “burst”.

because there are rangers who whant more builds get working on ranger…
i like this topic because there is a ranger trying new stuff

but if u try for some time to create builds which sounds good in the description and then go to test them they are just so bad…

i hope anet whould make more builds viable for the ranger at least, because every one hate the beastmaster here, i see it at the last much topics…

but i think more at next patch ranger will be nerft into ground again, hes allrdy there
well warriors have more bad feeling atm, but after the warrior
the ranger have also so much useless skills, traits and weapons…

Oidmetala.8426:

because there are rangers who whant more builds get working on ranger…
i like this topic because there is a ranger trying new stuff

but if u try for some time to create builds which sounds good in the description and then go to test them they are just so bad…

i hope anet whould make more builds viable for the ranger at least, because every one hate the beastmaster here, i see it at the last much topics…

but i think more at next patch ranger will be nerft into ground again, hes allrdy there
well warriors have more bad feeling atm, but after the warrior
the ranger have also so much useless skills, traits and weapons…

I’ve tried it before it is not as effective as BM a dead ranger is NO DPS so going BM is just more effective and serker your dmg just isn’t THAT much better . Sorry to tell you

well u should read full topic first and then post, pls…
i have allrdy write the build is not effectiv, so u dont need to tell me that Oo

i have create topic about how sad it is, that a ranger can only run a tank build with pets, but not much intersesting there
a topic with ideas what anet should change on ranger whould be nice, to have more viable builds working…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/pvp/ranger-on-tpvp-anet-pls-read/first#post2131961

I am not on my ranger atm but I am pretty sure that’s the traits I play. I made a in depth guide for the guild forums if someone sends me 5g ill post it here lol. You should not have to pull out of any fight 1/1 and really the worse thing I run into is the fight being decided by downed state as long as I don’t make any mistakes.

lol oid are you kidding we have 3 very viable specs atm trap dd and bunk.

@Thesilentflute
no im not kidding… we have only beastmaster working well for teampvp
trapper is not bad, but its to weak at make enough condition dmg, its sad how much better engi can do it and win vs the eles easy where trapper just have to die…
and dps ranger is just… well a joke

Lol it must be a skill lv thing cause I played dd before we got the buff and it rocked then even more so now.

“There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.” ? Aldous Huxley.

Zenith.7301:

fakeblood.2576:

Why run this when a BM ranger is just as effective yet way more survivabilty ?

BM rangers don’t have aoe. BM rangers don’t burst unless you’re willing to call an AI tied, pathing attack that takes a couple of seconds to deliver half a shatter’s damage “burst”.

Exactly. Also atleast 2 or 3 times every match we get the decap due to a well timed point blank shot (I have to admit though that you have to watch their buffbar and movement like crazy and need some experience to actually make it connect especially vs guardians). The builds are very much different and instead of asking why to run this instead of a BM it would be more appropriate if this could successfully take the spot of a backcapping thief or something like that.

The “getting focussed” argument might be legit. Right now it is still not happening at all but if a premade team on TS gives the shoutout “someone kill the dps ranger” I usually have to do the following:

• try to land my Pointblank Shot on them
• when they reached/startet hitting me pop my SoS
• during those 6 seconds they either decide to do something else or I see that they really want me
• I soon switch to GS and use GS4 when SoS effect ends, try to hilt bash them, do some autoattack chains to randomly evade their stuff, burn my endurance
• at some point I will just Swoop away and make them waste time

Right now this makes them waste atleast 20 seconds and at a 70% rate the person that decided to go for me actually gives up. Even if I die I am back to the action very fast due to Swoop/SotH. I am going to see how much longer it works.

Overall I would say if you are the kind of guy that would play a warrior at this level you might as well play this ranger. It is not top tier but you can do fine with it for a long time.

EDIT:
Another important aspect for this build is map layout. Currently playing on Forest I do the same start every match. Guardian + x goes mid and I go the longway to be able to attack from this edge above on keep and support they guys actually fighting on the point. If I see 2+ enemies on the point I decide to do a fully boosted Barrage into Rapid Fire (pop signet of the wild which also helps against getting pulled down and I currently even experiment with red moa for the 15 sec fury). This is extreme pressure on the point and together with laying down my Spirit of Nature makes this initial fight a win most of the time. If someone goes for me I can actually knock dem down with Point Blank shot. So using layout is another way of becoming “hard to focuss” while doing top DPS and this works on many maps. On some more, on some less.
Played like this you become a grenade kit engi that can be faster at locations where you want him and instead of getting countered by thieves hardcounters them.