Guild Wars 2

Heya, ranger forum. I deleted my ele today to give the ranger a try, and was hoping some of you would be willing to help keep me from botching the attempt.

I have precisely zero experience playing a ranger, but a fair bit of experience fighting them. And when I say zero experience playing one, I mean it… I made the character, leveled entirely with tomes, and have neither equipped nor played it at all.

I main a warrior and tend to gravitate toward high damage mobile builds (hence what you see below), but am aware that playing a different class the way I tend to run my warrior could be a mistake (learned that the hard way when I made my thief).

On to the show… I made this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9Ci1CCuCCctgh8gaDgSYt/6YJee+gL4TIFgetKNA-TFyHABMpEUP1f6R53yXAAlPCAAcIA8SXgK7PQKgAXGB-w

Concept is simple, a fast moving damage platform with decent cc and healing. Looks to me like it has a pretty serious weakness to condis, but I’m not sure if that’s something I should address through a build change or play style (e.g. keep condi-based enemies at range).

This will be almost exclusively for roaming and small havoc in wvw, and I’m currently just interested in core ranger. I am open to radically different builds though if they can roam (e.g. condi, or whatever).

Thanks for any and all advice.

Re: Condis… old core LB builds typically took Wilderness Knowledge. The survival skills are all really kitten good, and you can even easily combine them with a couple shouts if you want the swiftness.

Another option is to keep it like you have and take signet of renewal, using the passive for casual condi clear and the active when things get bad. LB doesn’t need a lot of condi clear in WvW.

Soldier runes are another option.

All these would also allow you to get rid of that stupid bear (which I assume you took for “Guard!”, but… there are better pets.)

Fluffball.8307:

Re: Condis… old core LB builds typically took Wilderness Knowledge. The survival skills are all really kitten good, and you can even easily combine them with a couple shouts if you want the swiftness.

Another option is to keep it like you have and take signet of renewal, using the passive for casual condi clear and the active when things get bad. LB doesn’t need a lot of condi clear in WvW.

Soldier runes are another option.

All these would also allow you to get rid of that stupid bear (which I assume you took for “Guard!”, but… there are better pets.)

Thanks for the advice!

I partially took the bear for condi removal, but also for the short cd on F2 to get the taunt and the general tankiness for Guard. The short F2 cd is also one of the reasons I took the Drakehound. That said, I’m totally open to suggestions… tbh, I’m not even clear yet how they work (figure it’s pretty straightforward though).

As for a survival build, is something like this what you’re talking about? (Plus better pets, of course)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQHL2yCmsAVLGyDK+gL4TYDgSYt7EOIOiU0AoqeF-TVyHABepLgJlg6p+zyXAAAOEAKfEAg/BAoy+D9o8jUABuMC-w

This is probably the best core ranger skirmishing build atm.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAT8YjEqQLLWyCOsAXLGYEqecr1Q4fihtl5w9oDgC0WB-TlCEABEcBASUFiHOIAbpEEgjAATK/aT3wkqvQ0+DI8AA2MMAMCCBYm3dnRERESBMwyI-w

With this build you posted:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQHL2yCmsAVLGyDK+gL4TYDgSYt7EOIOiU0AoqeF-TVyHABepLgJlg6p+zyXAAAOEAKfEAg/BAoy+D9o8jUABuMC-w

You could change muddy terrain to signet of stone for emergencies, or signet of renewal for some extra condi clear. Muddy terrain is useful, but it does have a cast time which can make it difficult to use in some situations.

Also, I noticed all your gear is berserker’s. You might want a bit more toughness and vitality, as even though you are at range you WILL get hit. I use soldiers armor (cause I’m poor and you can get it with WvW badges) and the rest berserker’s. With your weapon sigils, on the longbow you might want to use air or fire (maybe even both) to help with ranged pressure.

As for pets, the raven or owl are popular choices as they deal decent damage, apply soft CC, and their F2 skills have short cooldowns.

Hope it helps!

Edited: Spelling

@Choppy

Here is my Celestial Trapper build.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAV8fjMqQ3KWuCurAVLWcEM4k6UNryEAmcVumv1FoDkysApcVA-T1RAABpp8b99HOV9nIVCawVAAgHAQAHEgAAIAWuyVuyVuyZmzcmzcmzsUAPqsC-w

Its build to be right up in the thick of the fight creating as much condition havoc as possible. I strongly recommend combat camera with it. The basics are simple enough. Keep moving and drop your traps in a circle, use your pets abilities, then swap to the next pet. Keep your pet on passive because they will keep you alive.

your best combo is Spike trap, entangle, Vipers nest, Fire trap, hornet sting, Swap to shortbow mid leap, concussion shot crossfire.

Almost forgot. Celestial avatar is useful for sustaining in a fight as you can still use your traps while its going.

If you are goin more power ranger i can’t help you because i hate power ranger.

@Choppy I think all the posts in the thread have great suggestions. Your new build is plenty good enough to work, so just experiment with it until you find what you like. Some things like signet of renewal, muddy terrain, and sword/dagger are difficult to use at first but are extremely good with some practice. That may or may not be worth it or fun to you. Dive in, and use LB3 often!

If you’re looking for a Ranger Build (not druid) for your generic player. Probably something like this would work better: Longbow Zerker. This provides some condi cleanse on dodging (Evasive Purity) and additional condi cleanse from survival skills (wilderness knowledge).

If you’re gung ho on the whole shout or beast mastery theme (like your build seems to favour), there is a DRUID build I recommend: Roaming Smokescale.

For a full list of my builds check out United Chi’s Ranger/Druid Builds.

Thanks for the great advice everyone!

I gave my first build a try last night to test things out and, as per the theme of a lot of your feedback, when focused I was lit up like a Christmas tree and dead in moments (so fast that the combat log couldn’t even tell me what happened). Some of that is bound to be standard l2p stuff as I still have to develop muscle memory, learn defensive tools and strategies, etc., but some of it was just lack of defense in the build, as you’ve said. Signet of Stone, as most of you have mentioned, is worth working in. I’ll also be working in everything else you’ve recommended in pieces to see what sticks for me as I learn the class and what doesn’t.

Questions:

1. For the skirmisher build shadowpass linked, I read “apply as much ranged pressure as possible, become a high damage evasive fighter up close”. While that seems like it would be a much more effective build for a fight, it looks like it’s escape options are limited if things get too hot. Is that about right? (Note: I’ll probably play it anyway, just trying to understand how and when I should play it in wvw)
2. A number of you have recommended or linked builds with more toughness and vitality. I’ve personally found toughness in particular to be of such limited value since HoT that I’ve completely abandoned it and vitality with my warrior in favour of evades, blocks, invulns combined with max damage. With all of the evades, cc, etc on the ranger, wouldn’t I still be better off going full glass and then learning to play?
3. Thanks for the condi build, emkelley, it’s good to see you on the ranger forum! While I expect to test out condi builds next, I’m loathe to put in the work to get a celestial set (soooo lazy). Are their good ranger condi builds that don’t use celestial?

Thanks again, everyone. You’ve given me tonnes of great advice already.

quick draw – sword 2 may not be direct get-out-of-jail card but it can buy you a lot of time.

Don’t abandon toughness. Even +180 from Signet of stone is the world of difference. You are a glass cannon too and if you have a little toughness and can still put out great dmg you will have a fair chance to come out on top.

My suggestion, get an ascended set of zerker armor with +5 armor infusions. That there is another 84 armor. Get a toughness main stat (maybe nomads) on sword/dagger so when it gets deadly you have yet another ~250 armor on swap. Suddenly you are not so glass when its important.

You can still run OP condi regen BM. Check my sig for vids. I still have a blast with it from time to time.

This is what I run, you can swap runes to Dwayne for more op regen and use TU, but I like having some shout boons and Stab.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAsf3YnUqAtsgVsA2CCctgBMh6vhVti7ldACA/wXgHH-T1RHABKp8TOlgupfIR1fA4hAEwZAAm9HIFwiitA-w

Choppy.4183:

With all of the evades, cc, etc on the ranger, wouldn’t I still be better off going full glass and then learning to play?

It’s not necessarily better, but that is how you play glass LB. A lot of non-rangers think of LB as being a brute force weapon, but it’s played almost like a thief. Stealth often, chain CC (when someone stunbreaks out of a wolf knockdown follow up with howl and RF simultaneously then hit them with the knockback as they come out of fear and try to heal or stealth) use unexpected movement (i.e. my standard move when I lose someone in their stealth is to sword2 in 2 random directions), hit people unexpectedly (a lot of people will automatically dodge roll when they get close to avoid the PBS 99% of rangers use at that point, so delay it and then entangle right after the dodge or whatever, maul them from LB stealth, etc.)

Rambling aside, LB is one of our best utility weapons and the toughness is either nice to have or unnecessary depending on your preferences.

This is the build I’ve been running lately and I enjoy it alot. Maybe with some small variation in gear, etc.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9CitsAmsActgBOh6fhCoh9/eAO8eY77AoEnnG-TVyDABvrLQuLBAUK/+X1CEUCqwTAAATQ5omS87PQKgAHGB-w

It focuses on boon duration with perma swiftness and regen, very high uptime of fury and protection, fairly easy to get 25 stacks of might and a decent amount of quickness.
I sometimes swap out Oakheart Salve for Soften the Fall when running around desert borderlands.
Bountiful Hunter can also be swapped for Instinctive Reaction, but I have no idea which gives more DPS. :P

It’s pretty weak against condis though, so I also swap out SotP for Entangle now and then. I’ve also though about switching Sigil of Strength for Purity. Or maybe have Generosity on one weapon and Purity on the other…
I had the Sigil that gives quickness once, but after dying too fast to condis one time, I figured I needed more condi clear.

If you don’t feel like farming for Runes of Durability, then Runes of the Water work just fine.

Smokescale and/or Bristleback are very easy to find if you have HoT and would like to try them. There is a nice guide here somewhere. I’ve found that they can actually hit other players and wont switch them out any time soon.

combat advise if using a sword Sword 2 isn’t just a leap out and in again, you can Detarget after the leap out or before in leap in portion to ether shoot past your target or leapout + detarget turn camara 180 and leap away (Now imagin that with the Quickdraw trait) you’ll have plenty of escaping with LR+muddy terrain on the bar.

ranger is about the uses of skills people have been posting builds but are missing to tell you the core fundamentals of what our weapons can really do beyond just reading tooltips.

with the sword mind you practicing Detargeting and Manual AA makes sword into a much stronger skirmish weapon than trying to use it for its dps value , you’ll scream , cry and abuse sword falling off cliffs before you master it , its one of the hardest weapons in the game to control but has so much combat ability crammed into 3 skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbNuv4T8J1I

Choppy.4183:

Thanks for the great advice everyone!

I gave my first build a try last night to test things out and, as per the theme of a lot of your feedback, when focused I was lit up like a Christmas tree and dead in moments (so fast that the combat log couldn’t even tell me what happened). Some of that is bound to be standard l2p stuff as I still have to develop muscle memory, learn defensive tools and strategies, etc., but some of it was just lack of defense in the build, as you’ve said. Signet of Stone, as most of you have mentioned, is worth working in. I’ll also be working in everything else you’ve recommended in pieces to see what sticks for me as I learn the class and what doesn’t.

Questions:

1. For the skirmisher build shadowpass linked, I read “apply as much ranged pressure as possible, become a high damage evasive fighter up close”. While that seems like it would be a much more effective build for a fight, it looks like it’s escape options are limited if things get too hot. Is that about right? (Note: I’ll probably play it anyway, just trying to understand how and when I should play it in wvw)
2. A number of you have recommended or linked builds with more toughness and vitality. I’ve personally found toughness in particular to be of such limited value since HoT that I’ve completely abandoned it and vitality with my warrior in favour of evades, blocks, invulns combined with max damage. With all of the evades, cc, etc on the ranger, wouldn’t I still be better off going full glass and then learning to play?
3. Thanks for the condi build, emkelley, it’s good to see you on the ranger forum! While I expect to test out condi builds next, I’m loathe to put in the work to get a celestial set (soooo lazy). Are their good ranger condi builds that don’t use celestial?

Thanks again, everyone. You’ve given me tonnes of great advice already.

If you’re looking for quick kills and don’t care much about fair fights. Positioning is key for any glassy ranged builds. I do the same on my staff ele, I do the same on my LB ranger. Good positioning allows you to run away/kite from unfavorable fights or after failing to burst a target down. Use your 1500+ range to your advantage.

Target thieves, mesmers, (staff) eles as first priority. While targeting, check for their food. If its condi food, chances are they are tanky and you might wanna think about disengaging or keeping a safe distance from them.

You’re gonna need condi clear somewhere, so take Signet of Renewal and that should be enough if you want more take trooper runes as well. Lose the bear and take the fear wolf as well as the drake hound. With proper pet control you can kill anything 1 v 1. Or, since you have beastly warden drop the bear for raven and consider switching drakehound to the fear wolf. You will gain a lot of damage from the raven while maintaining some CC with beastly warden.

Choppy.4183
Thanks for the great advice everyone!

My build does not require Celestial, i just personally use it. If you don’t go Celestial just run anycondi stats. Start with high toughness then as you get better, you can lower the amout oftoughness you use until you are running full Sinister.