I’ve mained a thief since release and decided to experiment with rangers for a change of pace. I’m fairly new to rangers and the community in general so I’m not up to date on the usual builds, but during the work days iv been passively theory crafting I’ve been stuck on a build I made(I doubt it’s unique) that’s served me really well for roaming and dueling in a WvW setting, and wanted to see what you guys thought. It focuses on using LB as a prime weapon, and GS for minor damage and creating distance.
6/0/2/6
Weapons: Zerker -> Air + Blood
Armor: Soldier -> Runes of Pack
Trinkets: Knights
Food: Omnom pie + Maintenance Oil
The build itself has a high health pool, armor, power, and 50% crit with a lot of fury uptime and condi clears. I tried zerker which laid down great damage but I had a ton of problems with thieves nearly instant bursting me down.. So I traded a little damage for more toughness. The critical rate also helps slap down extra damage between the sigils and omnom pie, giving you the ability to leech on top of your regen.
The fights are straight forward by opening up with LB attacks and retaining distance between you and the target for as long as humanly possible, using wolf/dog pets F2 and knockback, then stealth to re-positioning. GS is used to create a little downtime with AA attacking, mauling, dazing, then deselecting target to swoop away, and switch back to LB.
I hope you saved your zerker set, because once you really get familiar with the build and fighting thieves with it, you will LOVE that extra damage you have and will collect many a thief tear when u kite and avoid their burst while dishing it right back at them just as fast. Happy hunting my friend.
Human Warrior, Ranger and dedicated Scout of Yaks bend
The Pinnacle of Resposibility [Mom]
I play this build with a 50/50 zerk knight mix but traveller runes (i cant stand normal walking speed).Atm i feel qz is a must have for lb cuz rapidfire is sooo slow. Next update will be Great for this built. Guess my utilities will be sos , muddy and lightning reflexes.
Quick update! It’s almost impossible not to get hit by a seasoned thief, so the tankyness is a plus over just a little damage lose imo.
Went through some weekly duels at OS without losing any, best-two-out-of-three duels. The notable competition was condi rangers, condi engi, necro, med guard, axe/sh war, and d/p thieves.
I have lots of trouble with p/d condi thieves though…
Hàrlèy Quínn – Power S/D / D/P – Northern Shiverpeaks
Interesting, every time i tried to go with tanky power build(knight/soldeir) it felt like i cant pass the the substain of other tank/healing builds like d\d ele, gurdians, hammer warrior etc… how do you deal with that?
why using the “Two-handed training” trait? Between RAO/SOTF/pack rune you have 100% fury uptime and “strengh of spirit” trait will give you same bonus to damge for both GS and LG.
Wouldnt it better to cahnge predator’s instict trait to “malicious training” trait and play with wolf\jungle spider?
Interesting, every time i tried to go with tanky power build(knight/soldeir) it felt like i cant pass the the substain of other tank/healing builds like d\d ele, gurdians, hammer warrior etc… how do you deal with that?
why using the “Two-handed training” trait? Between RAO/SOTF/pack rune you have 100% fury uptime and “strengh of spirit” trait will give you same bonus to damge for both GS and LG.
Wouldnt it better to cahnge predator’s instict trait to “malicious training” trait and play with wolf\jungle spider?
two handed training is really not good so i pick either that vit to strength trait or evasive purity which is great (so your survival skills cleanse the most damaging condies).
Interesting, every time i tried to go with tanky power build(knight/soldeir) it felt like i cant pass the the substain of other tank/healing builds like d\d ele, gurdians, hammer warrior etc… how do you deal with that?
why using the “Two-handed training” trait? Between RAO/SOTF/pack rune you have 100% fury uptime and “strengh of spirit” trait will give you same bonus to damge for both GS and LG.
Wouldnt it better to cahnge predator’s instict trait to “malicious training” trait and play with wolf\jungle spider?
Admittedly the tankier classes can take a little time/space to kite down. The upcoming patch will address this nicely! I came up with a few fun combinations to try and speed up the process. I typically try to use mud between the opponent and myself such that it affects them right on the edge of mud so they must walk/jump through it. A quick barrage over the mud follows this and if they get close i knock them back into the barrage/mud, followed by a quickened rapid fire. I realized this factoid too late but sometimes switching out gs -> s/d for poison uptime is also nice(3-> 4 -> 5 -> 2 -> switch to lb). Entangle also burns tanks down pretty quickly
Those are good ideas for the traits! I’m going to try them out when I get off work.
It isn’t a duel build for OS. You need a lot of open space and begin the fight on maximum range. Sigil of Ice helps.
The fights start within 900 range. I had a few fights at max range and it was a complete slaughter in most cases. Luckily starting a fight up close isn’t bad with the given skills and utility.
Hàrlèy Quínn – Power S/D / D/P – Northern Shiverpeaks
I’ve been stuck on a build I made(I doubt it’s unique) that’s served me really well for roaming and dueling in a WvW setting, and wanted to see what you guys thought. It focuses on using LB as a prime weapon, and GS for minor damage and creating distance.