Guild Wars 2

Is it just me , or does ranger get insane utility out of Celestial trinkets . I mean , there is not much difference between 950 and 1000 condition damage or 1300 and 1400 healing power .

Celestial trinkets, if worn as a whole pair, give 216 per stat (+10% crit damage and +20% magic find).

Specializing gives about 486 major stat and two 330 minor stat bonuses (at full exotic level not counting backpiece). You’re missing out on 270 of a major stat (healing) and 114 on two minor stats (toughness, condition) by going celestial. Sure, overall there’s more points all around, but they are being tossed into stats that don’t benefit your build as much.

Plus, the whole “well 1300 is close enough to 1400” mindset is a bad one to have when you are theorycrafting. Good enough usually means that there is better. You start with “1300 is close enough” and soon it’s “well, 1200 is close enough” and then “well, 1000 is close enough”.

Keep your major stats as high as you can. They are called “major stats” because they are the centerpiece of your build. Borrow from your minors if you are really intent on dividing up the points a bit.

Chokolata.1870:

Is it just me , or does ranger get insane utility out of Celestial trinkets . I mean , there is not much difference between 950 and 1000 condition damage or 1300 and 1400 healing power .

No. You need an axe/torch for condi but they are bad with power. Sword dagger are decent. Greatsword is good with power, bad with condis. Rangers also dont make great use of crit damage. I run celestial trinkets on my ele, cavalier backpiece all ascend. Then cleric weapons and knight armor. It works well because i use all the stats on it and the condi is just extra bonus.

TLDR. Rangers dont have 2 weapons sets that can take advantage of power/condi at the same time and crit damage is not that great.

well u might lose out on some toughness, but you do get vitality, which is a defensive stat as well . Healing power , percentually there is a minor difference between 1300 and 1400 because you are using ungent and regeneration which dont have full benefits from healing power anyway .

Chopps.5047:

Ozymandias.5704:

Interesting interesting, mind sharing your build Chopps? I am still learning the ropes as a new ranger myself.

I run apothecary regen ranger like this (people tailor this to their playstyle and there are several other iterations of this build)

0/10 (agility training)/20 (shared anguish + oakheart salve)/15 (nature’s bounty)/25 (mighty swap, commanding voice, or master’s bond if I want to get nasty)

Frost trap / signet of renewal (muddy terrain in a zerg) / signet of the wild

Apothecary or clerics (in today’s meta I prefer apothecary)/ Superior dwyana runes

Greatsword of Life / Rox’s :p Shortbow of Chilling (100% projectile finish chance in ice field from frost trap)

Pets: One cat and one miscellanious (siamoth is good in zergs, dog is good when roaming, drakes are good in aoe and zergs, red moa is good in zergs, etc)

Thanks! I was toying a little bit with shortbow and bleeds, but I am still low level and just getting the hang of it

Well actually I don’t use the SB for the bleeds really. I use the projectile finishers to keep my enemy cold because my cat prefers stopping to eat and chilled food. Otherwise Chuck has a hard time landing hits.

Chopps, I see you posts quite often and always find what you say interesting. What kind of build do you generally use in PvE at the moment?

Puandro.3245:

Xsorus.2507:

Zenith.7301:

You can get an apothecary ascended backpiece now. Do the 25 Southsun achievs and get the exotic version, and then in the mystic forge you use it+250 karka shells, 100 passion flowers, and 50 ectos.

Besides that, use laurels and guild commendations for ascended apothecary gear. There’s no point in getting ascended stat combos that you can get with exotics since the stat difference is not that big.

I just need 1 more week to have full ascended Apothecary.

Glad you said something, i would of never bothered with the Southsun thing, guess i know what i’ll be doing now.

I did it for the flower backpiece. Looks awesome on my ranger. Ascended backpiece doesnt have an infussion slot ive read. Cant confirm atm.

It has an infusion slot, as does the Fervid Censer (flower backpack).

BTW to those asking for weapon choices for apothecary, I much prefer shortbow over axe/offhand.

Axe has very poor sustained, while shortbow does much better sustain even without power, it hits more reliably, and it applies bleeds on its auto instead of relying to be point blank on someone;s face to land a splitblade. Shortbow also has extra bleeding from the crippling shot, then you still get poison if well timed, and the daze/stun is really great for denying heals.

In general most rangers in tpvp run shortbow due to the greater sustained damage of it and with good flanking you can keep 4-6 bleeding stacks up most of the time and occassionally burst for 9 bleeding stacks or 10.

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Xsorus.2507:

Zenith.7301:

You can get an apothecary ascended backpiece now. Do the 25 Southsun achievs and get the exotic version, and then in the mystic forge you use it+250 karka shells, 100 passion flowers, and 50 ectos.

Besides that, use laurels and guild commendations for ascended apothecary gear. There’s no point in getting ascended stat combos that you can get with exotics since the stat difference is not that big.

I just need 1 more week to have full ascended Apothecary.

Glad you said something, i would of never bothered with the Southsun thing, guess i know what i’ll be doing now.

I did it for the flower backpiece. Looks awesome on my ranger. Ascended backpiece doesnt have an infussion slot ive read. Cant confirm atm.

It has an infusion slot, as does the Fervid Censer (flower backpack).

BTW to those asking for weapon choices for apothecary, I much prefer shortbow over axe/offhand.

Axe has very poor sustained, while shortbow does much better sustain even without power, it hits more reliably, and it applies bleeds on its auto instead of relying to be point blank on someone;s face to land a splitblade. Shortbow also has extra bleeding from the crippling shot, then you still get poison if well timed, and the daze/stun is really great for denying heals.

In general most rangers in tpvp run shortbow due to the greater sustained damage of it and with good flanking you can keep 4-6 bleeding stacks up most of the time and occassionally burst for 9 bleeding stacks or 10.

Who are “most rangers?”

I’m just curious, I have only watched Battosai and Symbolic, and they’re both from the EU meta I believe. I haven’t watched Gasmask in awhile but I doubt he switched away from traps.
But most of the BM rangers I’ve come in contact with are running axe/torch and sword/dagger with offhand training, so I’m really curious if there is somebody I could observe (can’t really observe myself unless I record, and would want to watch higher tier footage than myself) running the shortbow.

Maybe Blu caught it on one of his streams, I’ll have to check since I’m behind.

I love my RRR for roaming, gs and sword/torch (Apoth). I love mobility. I will never give up the GS. Swoop, block, stun and evade on 1 attack is just nasty. I don’t see a need to chill people for the pet to hit. Then roaming community seems to be 80% thief and they will stand in melee until death like kitten Good mesmers still make me angry, but very few of them around.

2 sigils of Geo (bleed on swap) on GS and torch + gs 2 bleeds work out fine and give me options to disengage when needed. I just never really enjoyed Axe.

jcbroe.4329:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Xsorus.2507:

Zenith.7301:

You can get an apothecary ascended backpiece now. Do the 25 Southsun achievs and get the exotic version, and then in the mystic forge you use it+250 karka shells, 100 passion flowers, and 50 ectos.

Besides that, use laurels and guild commendations for ascended apothecary gear. There’s no point in getting ascended stat combos that you can get with exotics since the stat difference is not that big.

I just need 1 more week to have full ascended Apothecary.

Glad you said something, i would of never bothered with the Southsun thing, guess i know what i’ll be doing now.

I did it for the flower backpiece. Looks awesome on my ranger. Ascended backpiece doesnt have an infussion slot ive read. Cant confirm atm.

It has an infusion slot, as does the Fervid Censer (flower backpack).

BTW to those asking for weapon choices for apothecary, I much prefer shortbow over axe/offhand.

Axe has very poor sustained, while shortbow does much better sustain even without power, it hits more reliably, and it applies bleeds on its auto instead of relying to be point blank on someone;s face to land a splitblade. Shortbow also has extra bleeding from the crippling shot, then you still get poison if well timed, and the daze/stun is really great for denying heals.

In general most rangers in tpvp run shortbow due to the greater sustained damage of it and with good flanking you can keep 4-6 bleeding stacks up most of the time and occassionally burst for 9 bleeding stacks or 10.

Who are “most rangers?”

I’m just curious, I have only watched Battosai and Symbolic, and they’re both from the EU meta I believe. I haven’t watched Gasmask in awhile but I doubt he switched away from traps.
But most of the BM rangers I’ve come in contact with are running axe/torch and sword/dagger with offhand training, so I’m really curious if there is somebody I could observe (can’t really observe myself unless I record, and would want to watch higher tier footage than myself) running the shortbow.

Maybe Blu caught it on one of his streams, I’ll have to check since I’m behind.

Another guy you can follow.

Zenith.7301:

jcbroe.4329:

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Xsorus.2507:

Zenith.7301:

You can get an apothecary ascended backpiece now. Do the 25 Southsun achievs and get the exotic version, and then in the mystic forge you use it+250 karka shells, 100 passion flowers, and 50 ectos.

Besides that, use laurels and guild commendations for ascended apothecary gear. There’s no point in getting ascended stat combos that you can get with exotics since the stat difference is not that big.

I just need 1 more week to have full ascended Apothecary.

Glad you said something, i would of never bothered with the Southsun thing, guess i know what i’ll be doing now.

I did it for the flower backpiece. Looks awesome on my ranger. Ascended backpiece doesnt have an infussion slot ive read. Cant confirm atm.

It has an infusion slot, as does the Fervid Censer (flower backpack).

BTW to those asking for weapon choices for apothecary, I much prefer shortbow over axe/offhand.

Axe has very poor sustained, while shortbow does much better sustain even without power, it hits more reliably, and it applies bleeds on its auto instead of relying to be point blank on someone;s face to land a splitblade. Shortbow also has extra bleeding from the crippling shot, then you still get poison if well timed, and the daze/stun is really great for denying heals.

In general most rangers in tpvp run shortbow due to the greater sustained damage of it and with good flanking you can keep 4-6 bleeding stacks up most of the time and occassionally burst for 9 bleeding stacks or 10.

Who are “most rangers?”

I’m just curious, I have only watched Battosai and Symbolic, and they’re both from the EU meta I believe. I haven’t watched Gasmask in awhile but I doubt he switched away from traps.
But most of the BM rangers I’ve come in contact with are running axe/torch and sword/dagger with offhand training, so I’m really curious if there is somebody I could observe (can’t really observe myself unless I record, and would want to watch higher tier footage than myself) running the shortbow.

Maybe Blu caught it on one of his streams, I’ll have to check since I’m behind.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn3tUnkCDAk

Another guy you can follow.

I really don’t like that build lol. Especially since Ovi “didn’t share his actual build for fear of it being nerfed,” as I remember reading in the original topic that video was posted. Not that the build doesn’t have it’s strengths, I just have a general gripe with the foundation of that vid.

I mean, if the premise of the series is to feature a player with the build they use in competitive with details on why and how it’s effective, it should probably be the build the person uses, and not some vanilla build they come up with because they’re afraid of sharing information with the community on the grounds that the build they invented is so OP it might be nerfed.

There’s just such a mix of paranoia and self-serving ego behind it that I can’t take it seriously lol.

Most of the builds out there are either Trap Build, or BM Bunker build with a slightly different name.

That build in that video is fairly close to BM Bunker, He just got rid of Natural Regen for the extra Crit damage

It’s an elitist attitude thats present in spvp for some reason. I’ve seen GasMask out in wvwv get completely thrashed.

Xsorus.2507:

Most of the builds out there are either Trap Build, or BM Bunker build with a slightly different name.

That build in that video is fairly close to BM Bunker, He just got rid of Natural Regen for the extra Crit damage

I mean, obviously. The point is, that going back to the forum post for that, apparently “that isn’t Ovi’s real build, he didn’t want to share that because he’s afraid it will get nerfed.”

As if there could be some incredibly godly variant (since the community as a whole has probably tried most of the logical BM variants there are) that warranted such a silly sentiment.

Bottom line, so what if you don’t want your build nerfed. If it’s broken, it will get fixed eventually. Until then, if that’s going to be the excuse for people so that they can compete for “Community’s Most Useless Participant,” then I don’t feel they deserve any of my attention or respect when they try to share information (without actually sharing anything of value for fear of nerf).

Anyhow, back to the OP, hopefully these prices drop sooner than later. Patience may be a virtue, but it doesn’t keep waiting from being frustrating lol.

Furajir.3815:

It’s an elitist attitude thats present in spvp for some reason. I’ve seen GasMask out in wvwv get completely thrashed.

Everyone runs into some people they can’t beat..

When I finish my new videos i’m going to put up one of me fighting a Trap Ranger, in which I lose… and I lost 4 in a row to this guy.

But yea, nothing annoys me more then some SPvP kitten saying “Well everyone in World vs World is bad”

jcbroe.4329:

Xsorus.2507:

Most of the builds out there are either Trap Build, or BM Bunker build with a slightly different name.

That build in that video is fairly close to BM Bunker, He just got rid of Natural Regen for the extra Crit damage

I mean, obviously. The point is, that going back to the forum post for that, apparently “that isn’t Ovi’s real build, he didn’t want to share that because he’s afraid it will get nerfed.”

As if there could be some incredibly godly variant (since the community as a whole has probably tried most of the logical BM variants there are) that warranted such a silly sentiment.

Bottom line, so what if you don’t want your build nerfed. If it’s broken, it will get fixed eventually. Until then, if that’s going to be the excuse for people so that they can compete for “Community’s Most Useless Participant,” then I don’t feel they deserve any of my attention or respect when they try to share information (without actually sharing anything of value for fear of nerf).

Anyhow, back to the OP, hopefully these prices drop sooner than later. Patience may be a virtue, but it doesn’t keep waiting from being frustrating lol.

I’m willing to bet its a BM Bunker variant or a Trap Build one…

Ya, hes not reinventing the wheel, although he may feel like he is. And yeah, I haven’t had any issues with any class of any build so far till I dueled an engi in my guild, his condition dmg was over 2200, too much burst. Regen wan’t enough, win some, lose some.

Xsorus.2507:

jcbroe.4329:

Xsorus.2507:

Most of the builds out there are either Trap Build, or BM Bunker build with a slightly different name.

That build in that video is fairly close to BM Bunker, He just got rid of Natural Regen for the extra Crit damage

I mean, obviously. The point is, that going back to the forum post for that, apparently “that isn’t Ovi’s real build, he didn’t want to share that because he’s afraid it will get nerfed.”

As if there could be some incredibly godly variant (since the community as a whole has probably tried most of the logical BM variants there are) that warranted such a silly sentiment.

Bottom line, so what if you don’t want your build nerfed. If it’s broken, it will get fixed eventually. Until then, if that’s going to be the excuse for people so that they can compete for “Community’s Most Useless Participant,” then I don’t feel they deserve any of my attention or respect when they try to share information (without actually sharing anything of value for fear of nerf).

Anyhow, back to the OP, hopefully these prices drop sooner than later. Patience may be a virtue, but it doesn’t keep waiting from being frustrating lol.

I’m willing to bet its a BM Bunker variant or a Trap Build one…

I’m positive it is. I’d be willing to bet more than anything that the most unique thing about it is an uncommon mixture of amulet/jewel, or rune choice, that works well from the perspective of the person who “invented” it.

There is nothing wrong with his build. Some people run BM to 30 for natural regen and use signet of the hunt. He instead went for agility training, so his pet is moving 5% faster than with signet of the hunt, and he gains swiftness whenever he switches weapons, which on a BM bunker is pretty often.

That gives him room to take signet of the wild, which is KEY against classes like engineers because empathic bond won’t come close to coping with engineer condi application.

Either way, in your build you MUST have either signet of the hunt or agility training. Even with those two competent people outside necros and warriors will kite your pet most of the time, and if you don’t have either of those you might as well stow your pet because it will never hit a good opponent that knows how to move.

I mean, what other ranger build can you run traitwise besides trapper? All those traits are standard. You have some variation in either offhand training and shared anguish, or 33% extra regen duration or 5 sec prot upon taking damage greater than 10% of your HP, or between vigor from raven or bleed trait for jaguar.

But the trait allocation is pretty much standard as far as it goes for a BM bunker build.

Zenith.7301:

There is nothing wrong with his build. Some people run BM to 30 for natural regen and use signet of the hunt. He instead went for agility training, so his pet is moving 5% faster than with signet of the hunt, and he gains swiftness whenever he switches weapons, which on a BM bunker is pretty often.

That gives him room to take signet of the wild, which is KEY against classes like engineers because empathic bond won’t come close to coping with engineer condi application.

Either way, in your build you MUST have either signet of the hunt or agility training. Even with those two competent people outside necros and warriors will kite your pet most of the time, and if you don’t have either of those you might as well stow your pet because it will never hit a good opponent that knows how to move.

I mean, what other ranger build can you run traitwise besides trapper? All those traits are standard. You have some variation in either offhand training and shared anguish, or 33% extra regen duration or 5 sec prot upon taking damage greater than 10% of your HP, or between vigor from raven or bleed trait for jaguar.

But the trait allocation is pretty much as far as it goes for a BM bunker build.

One thing immediately wrong is exactly that, taking Signet of the Hunt and Agility Training. They don’t stack, so either the utility slot needs to be taken, or Pet’s Prowess needs to be taken. The optimal setup would be Pet’s Prowess with Signet of the Hunt, since that is going to net the highest damage output and shortest kill times on a moving target.
And if using canines, the difference is literally only about 2s shorter in terms of kill times, which means that Pet’s Prowess would really only be super beneficial for one of the two pet choices.

This means that unless he is flawlessly executing his setups and swaps with his pets, he’s not using the full potential of those 10 points in Skirmishing IF Pet’s Prowess was chosen. But, since it isn’t, AND signet of the hunt was chosen, the build has already lost it’s ability to reach it’s full potential, and I consider it dead in the water.

Without Offhand Training, torch no longer has the ability to cover an entire node, meaning that you can’t use it effectively to pressure them off the node. Instead, he chose Oakheart Salve, which is going to last roughly 8s, every 20s, but is only maybe going to be useful against bleeding, since poison and burning both out pressure regen if the person applying them is using condition damage.

Shortbow functions more as a utility weapon than a damage weapon, because you aren’t going to get flanking bleeds on most opponents. Without being able to splitblade 5 bleeds onto a person at once, it means that more damage has been lost than utility has been gained, since sword/dagger already provides more than enough evades, as well as 100% poison uptime. The only thing unique shortbow does for the BM build is work at 1200 and have an interrupt. Again, strong utility, but sacrificing the stronger damage/pressure that could have been attained.

Glossing over it, everything else seems to be in order. I think I’ve nitpicked it enough.

He mentioned signet of the hunt not only for mobility, but for his burst, and he said it was optional.

I don’t know what you’re doing wrong, but shortbow flanking is ridiculously easy to pull off. The arc is actually pretty kitten generous and you don’t need to hit from the side so much as at a bit of an angle on the opponent, which you can do by strafing. It’s sort of how backstab makes it seem like you need to land it on the back but actually you can land it on the sides since the positional requirement in truth is very lenient.

He doesn’t need offhand training because the torch isn’t only used to pressure someone off a node. You use monarch’s leap to combo into a fire aura, which forces them to stop attacking or stack burning on themselves or give you might.

Shortbow on any build outdamages the axe in sustained condition and power damage, and has no range limitations in effectiveness to boot.

I’d take axe/dagger over sb ina condition build that has low power anyday.

Zenith.7301:

He mentioned signet of the hunt not only for mobility, but for his burst, and he said it was optional.

I don’t know what you’re doing wrong, but shortbow flanking is ridiculously easy to pull off. The arc is actually pretty kitten generous and you don’t need to hit from the side so much as at a bit of an angle on the opponent, which you can do by strafing. It’s sort of how backstab makes it seem like you need to land it on the back but actually you can land it on the sides since the positional requirement in truth is very lenient.

He doesn’t need offhand training because the torch isn’t only used to pressure someone off a node. You use monarch’s leap to combo into a fire aura, which forces them to stop attacking or stack burning on themselves or give you might.

Shortbow on any build outdamages the axe in sustained condition and power damage, and has no range limitations in effectiveness to boot.

I would LOVE to see a video of a person who is able to maintain bleed stacks with the shortbow on a target who is actively engaging them, and has more than half a brain.

Yes, autoattacking with the shortbow nets higher DPS. But Axe has the ability to put more stacks of bleed up at a time than shortbow, making it able to burst damage better.

On top of that you get chill, which, on top of the movement, increased the cooldown of enemy skills by 66%, AND your pet applies weakness, so that now the enemy is glancing 50% of their attacks, which increases your survival.

Also, you can still get fire aura with axe/torch and sword/dagger. You just have to weapon swap, which isn’t a problem. Axe 5, swap, sword2→2. So that’s a non-issue, but offhand training makes it even stronger, since it has the radius of fire trap with the same cooldown. Combine this with geomancy sigils and the only damage loss between a trap build and a BM build is essentially the level of condition damage.

Activating Signet of the Hunt serves little purpose unless Birds are being taken, generally because they have the easier to control burst attack. Otherwise, activating Signet of the Hunt hurts damage over time, and taking Agility Training over Pet’s Prowess has already capped that damage lower than what it could’ve been. I wouldn’t sacrifice 10 trait points AND a utility slot just to keep pressure up after hitting 1 attack 50% harder, when my pet could hit 30% harder every time it crits, AND keep it’s pressure up through sustained mobility to catch up and attack.

We shouldn’t keep this going though, since it really is just a difference of opinions. Somebody else should either chime in, or we should just agree to disagree since we are kind of extremely derailing the topic lol.

Nope that pretty much sums it up. Axe/Dagger is superior for controlling an enemy, not too mention Sb untraited w/o piercing arrows etc sucks kitten.

It’s as if your opponents were too stupid to press dodge when they saw you closing in for a splitblade or saw a slow frosty projectile lobbed at them.

Axe is a one trick pony. If you don’t land either of those skills, its damage is nonexistent.

Zenith.7301:

It’s as if your opponents where too stupid to press dodge when they saw you closing in for a splitblade or saw a slow frosty projectile lobbed at them.

Axe is a one trick pony. If you don’t land either of those skills, its damage is nonexistent.

Well axe 3 has a tad bit of homing, the way the thief shortbow did pre-update. And splitblade is on a 6 second cooldown, so you’re going to be able to throw it more than they can dodge against most enemies. They also have to make the subconscious decision whether or not to dodge a pet’s attack (wolfs leap for instance) or a splitblade.

I haven’t had issue landing my splitblade since like, October of last year when I really got into Axe though. So I’m going to biased towards it. I love the shortbow as well, just not in a Shaman/Apothecary BM build.

In WvW I personally would probably run Shortbow on a BM build just for the 1200 damage and shortbow 4. I can’t live without the control of the shortbow in WvW. It’s the closest thing I have to a guild wars 1 cripshot/melsShot.

Whenever someone sees you running axe they know they can stay at 600+ ranger and crap on your damage since you need splitblade at enough a close range to get stacks, and the pet is easily kited with swiftness.

The ele I was dueling just simply walked out of the wolf’s knockdown because the wolf’s leap, like any leap, is reduced in travel distance depending on cripples/chill fields.

Axe requires too many things to go well to pay off. It’s good as a weapon to punish melee getting in your face, but that’s about it.

Zenith.7301:

Whenever someone sees you running axe they know they can stay at 600+ ranger and crap on your damage since you need splitblade at enough a close range to get stacks, and the pet is easily kited with swiftness.

The ele I was dueling just simply walked out of the wolf’s knockdown because the wolf’s leap, like any leap, is reduced in travel distance depending on cripples/chill fields.

Axe requires too many things to go well to pay off. It’s good as a weapon to punish melee getting in your face, but that’s about it.

I feel like I’ve only ever gone up against 3 classes smart enough to do that, other rangers, mesmers, and necros.

At that point, I’m usually holding home point, and I’ll send the pet to attack and then I’ll hug the point but I’ll back off of it trying to get out of their range, or bait them in thinking they can neutralize since I’m not on the point. Then I just jump back on point with a few as necessary weapon evades if they try to knock me off point(ranger longbow, mesmer greatsword, necro fear, etc) and now they’re in axe range.

The only class I don’t feel comfortable baiting in like that is a guardian, because they can build to have massive amounts of node control and they generally have to get in your range to be effective.

This is actually the situation I can see where a shortbow would be a boon. If I was playing against the strategy I just described, I would want a shortbow to keep poking at the person on point while I sent my pet in at them, the same as they’d do to me. Eventually, I believe they would be forced to have to close the gap to be effective, most likely being baited off point, so that I could hop on it real quick and start contesting, putting them on the defensive.

Hmmm, based on my own anecdotal recreation of how I would play, I would definitely opt for shortbow and sword/torch on a more roaming oriented build in s/tpvp.

Puandro.3245:

No. You need an axe/torch for condi but they are bad with power. Sword dagger are decent. Greatsword is good with power, bad with condis. Rangers also dont make great use of crit damage. I run celestial trinkets on my ele, cavalier backpiece all ascend. Then cleric weapons and knight armor. It works well because i use all the stats on it and the condi is just extra bonus.

TLDR. Rangers dont have 2 weapons sets that can take advantage of power/condi at the same time and crit damage is not that great.

Just quoting this because it caught my interest, anyone should chime in. I’m investing in Power builds right now on my Ranger. Sword and Dagger and Greatsword are my favorite, but do I have a ranged option since the rest seems Condi? Smart Longbow play seems to be it, yarr? I find the Longbow could as a quick swap tool, especially for Hunter’s Shot.

For the PVE and DubVeeDub scrub antics. Although if I can step into Hot Join with a Cleric Bunker and do okay, I would do so.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

PsionicDingo.2065:

Puandro.3245:

Condition gear is bad in PvE because direct damage is always superior. The condition cap is just another nail in the coffin but not the main culprit.

That’s how I’ve been…conditioned.

I love you

I love you, too. In a Beastmaster’s Bond, 25 stacks sort of intensity.

Zenith.7301:

Whenever someone sees you running axe they know they can stay at 600+ ranger and crap on your damage since you need splitblade at enough a close range to get stacks, and the pet is easily kited with swiftness.

The ele I was dueling just simply walked out of the wolf’s knockdown because the wolf’s leap, like any leap, is reduced in travel distance depending on cripples/chill fields.

Axe requires too many things to go well to pay off. It’s good as a weapon to punish melee getting in your face, but that’s about it.

I’m sorry but…lol. Please tell me how your foe will be constantly dodging you or your pet while they are -50% endurance regen debuffed the entire fight?

Please tell me how you don’t know how to control the fight and kite around your opponent for your pet to have easy access?

Please tell me after viewing either myself or Faux’s video how axe can’t burn someone down?

Please tell me how you fail to have your pet keep up with your enemy between Leap/winter’s bite/ and crippling talon?

You’re probably one of those kids that is a fire and forget guy with his pet. I can gurantee you don’t swap pets in situations when you need a particular pet skill, judging by how easily your pet gets kited, and your lack of movement around a player that allows your pet to have constant access to your opponent.

You don’t have to be mean to Zenith. Basically, Zenith, he’s telling you to throw winter’s bite and then land a hit with the pet. Weakness will really hurt other rangers, ele’s, and, what else? Guardians or engi’s? Anyone casting or using vigor will be at a disadvantage. Also, if chilled they can’t move so fast. It’s like “Dodge the dog with chill and weakness on you? I don’t think so.”

Mean comments from pompous morons don’t hurt me much, Chopps.

Winter’s Bite is stupidly easy to dodge, and it’s your only source of weakness so to have that -50% endurance regen debuff you need to land it on the first place.

And quite frankly these professors strike me as people who haven’t fought anyone worth their salt with condition clear. You will not keep conditions up on an ele or guardian or D/P thief unless you are an engineer. Their condition cleanses are pretty low cd and can be chained.

Well timed attacks have a near constant uptime of at least two conditions on d/d eles and bunker guards, even those “worth their salt.” Of course, this also requires the right weaponset, skills, and pets. I’m going by the ones I use.

The key word is “well timed”. I also feel that sigil of geomancy plays a huge role in the mix as well.

That’s true Zenith but the axe just got 34% faster projectiles. I’ve heard some say that it’s still too slow. Is that the case? I’m landing more with it, that’s for sure. You could always trait the range on it too. Or you already did and that won’t cut it?

apothecary ranger is one of the better builds i have seen

Zenith, you act like every single winter’s bite or skill axe has is dodged an entire fight.

Again, proof is in the numerous videos myself, and others including Faux have up on these forums. Alot of which were recorded before eles got hit harder in the condi cleanse department, and there are at least 2-3 fights where they are a non-issue in both of our videos vs all 3 classes you used as an example, they can keep cleansing, we can keep re-applying just as quickly. I have zero issue landing anything, as long as your timing is there.

Seems like another case of, “Well I can’t do it, so the class sucks, or that weapon sucks” etc syndrome.

Your points are moot.

But then again, you could always record yourself in a 1vx situation and post on those forums to prove us otherwise, but I’m going to go out on a limb here and say you won’t.

I’m going to go on a limb and guess you’re pwning random elementalists in WvW. I love when people like you pretend like it means anything.

@Faux

You can have uptime, but bleeds need to be of enough intensity throughout the fight to be outhealing an ele’s regeneration.

I’m still waiting for people here contesting the idea that our pets aren’t the majority of our damage. Or that they can’t be easily kited by someone with swiftness.

Chopps.5047:

That’s true Zenith but the axe just got 34% faster projectiles. I’ve heard some say that it’s still too slow. Is that the case? I’m landing more with it, that’s for sure. You could always trait the range on it too. Or you already did and that won’t cut it?

It’s the projectile property. It’s very bad at hitting people from range, because it still has a projectile speed similar to the newly nerfed thief shortbow, and you can see all the crying thieves are doing at the moment.

The weapon itself has a horrible autoattack, so you’re relying on a 6 sec cd close range ability to do any damage for the axe mainhand. Your other bleed on that axe/dagger is a 12 sec cd. Your throw torch is a 12 sec cd.

I don’t think people understand how well a good ele can cleanse conditions. He’s got a condition clear from skill 5 offhand water dagger, another from evasive arcana on a 10 sec icd mirroring the skill 5 water dagger, a clear on attunement swap to water (10 sec cd), 3 from Cleansing Fire, another on top of that cleansing fire for cantrip regen application (5 sec icd, the nerf barely changed anything they just need to stagger can trips in between 5 seconds).

In order to cope with this your pet needs to hit, but your pet won’t hit any ele running frost aura/aoe chill while he’s got swiftness on himself. All he needs to do is keep moving instead of standing still or walking backwards like the random noobs did In Fura’s video.

Zenith.7301:

I’m going to go on a limb and guess you’re pwning random elementalists in WvW. I love when people like you pretend like it means anything.

@Faux

You can have uptime, but bleeds need to be of enough intensity throughout the fight to be outhealing an ele’s regeneration.

I’m still waiting for people here contesting the idea that our pets aren’t the majority of our damage. Or that they can’t be easily kited by someone with swiftness.

Most people are bad at video games due to not really caring or not be able to improve. Few % of the people are average. Then on few rare cases people are really good at video due to playing games with goal to be better than anyone else or are just naturally good.

I cant count the number of people ive fought at random in WvW that i thought wete really good since release on 1 hand. I usually have to set up “duels” to fight good people. You act like everyone knows how to play perfectly when in reallity if you are actually any good you will faceroll anyone 1v1 with little or no effort in WvW.

Booohooo you couldnt kill a bunker ele. If you are any good then neither will he kill you so its a stalemate. If you are dying then you need to take a look at your tactics.

Yes pet have issues hitting targets but you shouldnt have issues keeping targets perma crippled for your pet with your sword auto attack.

Zenith.7301:

I’m going to go on a limb and guess you’re pwning random elementalists in WvW. I love when people like you pretend like it means anything.

@Faux

You can have uptime, but bleeds need to be of enough intensity throughout the fight to be outhealing an ele’s regeneration.

I’m still waiting for people here contesting the idea that our pets aren’t the majority of our damage. Or that they can’t be easily kited by someone with swiftness.

No, I play against elementalists in WvW who know what they are doing plenty as well. Just because conditions can kill them doesn’t mean they suck. You need to give the player a bit of credit there.

Regarding bleeds, that’s why I mentioned specifically sigils of geomancy. It’s 3k DoT on my build every time you swap weapons near them. Since I swap weapons as often as possible and apply bleeds, poison (just about constantly even with boon removal), and slightly less frequent burnings through well-timed skill spam, they still die most of the time*. If they were running lemongrass food, then it’d be a different story and we’ll very likely stalemate… but how many d/d eles do you see using that?

When it comes down to it, you need two things more than anything to kill a d/d ele: frequent chills/cripples and constant poison. The poison is pretty easy to do, and that 33% reduction in healing ability kills them quicker than any quickly cleansed bleed will. Eles don’t remove chills and cripples frequently.

*when it all comes down to it, it really depends on the ele… but even the best will die, and that goes for anyone running any build in any class.

Puandro.3245:

Zenith.7301:

I’m going to go on a limb and guess you’re pwning random elementalists in WvW. I love when people like you pretend like it means anything.

@Faux

You can have uptime, but bleeds need to be of enough intensity throughout the fight to be outhealing an ele’s regeneration.

I’m still waiting for people here contesting the idea that our pets aren’t the majority of our damage. Or that they can’t be easily kited by someone with swiftness.

Most people are bad at video games due to not really caring or not be able to improve. Few % of the people are average. Then on few rare cases people are really good at video due to playing games with goal to be better than anyone else or are just naturally good.

I cant count the number of people ive fought at random in WvW that i thought wete really good since release on 1 hand. I usually have to set up “duels” to fight good people. You act like everyone knows how to play perfectly when in reallity if you are actually any good you will faceroll anyone 1v1 with little or no effort in WvW.

Booohooo you couldnt kill a bunker ele. If you are any good then neither will he kill you so its a stalemate. If you are dying then you need to take a look at your tactics.

Yes pet have issues hitting targets but you shouldnt have issues keeping targets perma crippled for your pet with your sword auto attack.

Maybe you’re fine with stalemates, but I’m not.

I don’t accept a stalemate where I know that if my pet could actually stop being terrible AI and didn’t selfroot while attacking and was able to hit a target, I’d win.

Because I win when the ele is bad and doesn’t move and the pet can hit him.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Zenith.7301:

I’m going to go on a limb and guess you’re pwning random elementalists in WvW. I love when people like you pretend like it means anything.

@Faux

You can have uptime, but bleeds need to be of enough intensity throughout the fight to be outhealing an ele’s regeneration.

I’m still waiting for people here contesting the idea that our pets aren’t the majority of our damage. Or that they can’t be easily kited by someone with swiftness.

No, I play against elementalists in WvW who know what they are doing plenty as well. Just because conditions can kill them doesn’t mean they suck. You need to give the player a bit of credit there.

Regarding bleeds, that’s why I mentioned specifically sigils of geomancy. It’s 3k DoT on my build every time you swap weapons near them. Since I swap weapons as often as possible and apply bleeds, poison (just about constantly even with boon removal), and slightly less frequent burnings through well-timed skill spam, they still die most of the time*. If they were running lemongrass food, then it’d be a different story and we’ll very likely stalemate… but how many d/d eles do you see using that?

When it comes down to it, you need two things more than anything to kill a d/d ele: frequent chills/cripples and constant poison. The poison is pretty easy to do, and that 33% reduction in healing ability kills them quicker than any quickly cleansed bleed will. Eles don’t remove chills and cripples frequently.

*when it all comes down to it, it really depends on the ele… but even the best will die, and that goes for anyone running any build in any class.

Lucky you because the eles I come across in tpvp cleanse my chills and cripples, since that’s what will do them in. The majority of a bunker ranger damage is the pet, and if they don’t cleanse cripple/chill, my pet will be able to hit them and they WILL die.

Guys, stop ripping on Zenith because he’s making a decent point, I think. I’m convinced swiftness is one of the best boons around. Being able to get into position faster is so important in this game. Therefore I will think outside the box: storm spirit build with high swiftness uptime, Zenith? I’m prepared to get slammed for suggesting that but I’m also convinced that spirits aren’t as bad as people say. Give it a shot in testing?

With the amount of aoe cleave in tpvp your spirit won’t stay up for long.

Maybe i should go QQ that i cant kill BM Regen rangers when i play Bunker ele on the Ele forum? Nah i think ill just change my build and my tactics if i want to kill a class instead of going to go QQ on the forums.

Puandro.3245:

Maybe i should go QQ that i cant kill BM Regen rangers when i play Bunker ele on the Ele forum? Nah i think ill just change my build and my tactics if i want to kill a class instead of going to go QQ on the forums.

Do what you will, tough guy. I can’t be bothered with e-thugs.

Zenith.7301:

With the amount of aoe cleave in tpvp your spirit won’t stay up for long.

Test it and come back. I bet it stays up longer than you think unless you trait spirits unbound (spirits too squishy for that grandmaster is my current thought for melee builds but one working build—ranged / LB? Gap closing with axe?—could change my opinion there.

Simply drop the spirit out of the way. If the want to go across the room to kill it and waste time, fine.

Zenith.7301:

Puandro.3245:

Maybe i should go QQ that i cant kill BM Regen rangers when i play Bunker ele on the Ele forum? Nah i think ill just change my build and my tactics if i want to kill a class instead of going to go QQ on the forums.

Do what you will, tough guy. I can’t be bothered with e-thugs.

Bunch of people have suggested things to change and/or try and you keep saying that it doesnt work. Apperently your way is the best way but it doesnt cut it so i dont know why you keep discussing it with us. Do you want us to agree with the problems you are having when have found ways to work around them?

Just to add to that, right now, the biggest problem with spirits is people being afraid to test them, leading to you all missing out on four nice group buffs. I use them in dungeons except vs bosses with 30k+ aoe. The boon is almost always up. The CD for losing one isn’t terrible and the buff will stick for a decent duration even after spirit death. Is it a banner? No, in fact, it works differently. Could the spirit mechanic be more interesting? Maybe but right now frost/stone are better than most think in dungeons and storm spirit seems viable for when you just aren’t fast enough.

Try it before you slam it. Most rangers I know never try spirits because they’re afraid of looking like a noob. I had fun with storm spirit the other day in wvw but I didn’t have time to rigorously test. But it’s another aoe in zergs, I just wish the secondary was a static field.

Yup. He pulled the E-Thug card. I think I know what to expect from him for the rest of the thread.

And your’e complaining about Tpvp? Weren’t we discussing WvW? Who knows, but just like anyone else that complains you don’t try to fix it, you just complain more.

I’ve had one 17 minute long fight with an ele named Seviryn from Rekz on Ehmry Bay. It ended in a draw, pre-patch, I’d rather have an insanely good duel vs 1 good player a day and call it a draw, than steamroll through 97% of the player base as usual.

tPvP is different because of the food factor. In tPvP, you should be stalemating d/d eles. They are a broken build.

This thread is about apothecary gear and how it affects our gameplay though. One build from one class that it has issues with shouldn’t be cause to derail the thread into yet another “to kill a d/d ele” discussion :/

Where you guys were going was good before this escalated into argument for whatever reason it did. Swiftness is a huge deal in condition builds since enemies that can kite you are the ones who are most dangerous.