Guild Wars 2

All I ever see these days in PvP are hyper bunker / healing power rangers who win not through skill of combat but rather through a passive tenacity where all you have to do is sit there and not die while your pet goes at it. Is that really the only viable build in this meta? I tried several sets and builds with melee DPS based strategies but it simply cannot keep up with the stubborn power of bunker / healing rangers.

Is the DPS ranger dead? Does anyone have a build that works – which IS NOT OUTCLASSED by a healbunk ranger?

To put it simply.

Power was never alive.

Ryan.9387:

To put it simply.

Power was never alive.

Hmmm im not sure about this..
I remember a time when Zerker SB with QZ was very good…
Before the “animation glitch” nerf
Before the global haste nerf
Before the range nerf

All power builds died with the nerf to quickness. So it has been an age since it was viable.

Its true that Power Builds are not quite there yet..They are not bad but not viable…
I think tho that they are balanced..
I dont understand how Anet kittened up so much with balance..

Every build should have some strong elements and some weakness..Till now if you get countered by a all-around build you are out of the meta.
See Hambow Warriors.They have everything..Defense against cond and power dmg, damage, condition dmg through bleeds and a huge burn aoe, cc and stability..
This is what Anet can do, this is their work..

So to make Power Ranger viable they should make him OP..thats the only way they know..

I run power build for my ranger. 30/20/20 with LB and GS. This is for WvW and PvP. Works just fine for me. I hit like a truck and play well enough to position and pretty active in moving around.

100% understand it is not the best build, but it is a fun build for me. But I have 6 level 80’s of various specs so this is my glass cannon one. If you have just one class, you might want to avoid it

if you want a challenge only spec that we have that is semi-viable is trap ranger. Even though its a condi build you are still pretty vulnerable since you don’t have any on demand condi removal, no boon spam and passive healing.
I find this build fun since its little more active then the beastmaster build and spirit ranger.

Huh always thought DD builds are dead all the way back in Betas.

I posted my power build in this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/How-Do-i-play-PvP-WvW-With-Ranger/first#post3406388

So no, power builds on rangers are not dead. It does take more thought / planning than condition builds to be effective though.

The issue with power specs for rangers isn’t really the damage output so much as it is breaking through the opponents defenses. We really don’t have any way to stop or remove enemies stability/protection/regen and we don’t really do enough damage to burn through those boons, so at the end of the day, there are classes and setups that are literally unbeatable for power setups, outside of being a better player than your opponent.

Power builds either need a little more damage or some sort of access to boon removal. Then they will become immediately more useful and better in almost every way.

I prefer playing SB/LB with power Ranger…Since i dont have any boon removal i can poison and bleed bunkers

I remember puandro used power build effectively. Where is he now?

I am running my double bow power build for quite a long time on WvWvW. 20/20/30/0/0, I believe I’ve posted it somewhere in the past, should be in my post history. It isn’t perfect because you have to be careful picking fights(no hard disengage from zerg), but 1v1, 1v2, it proves to be viable. Knowledge on kiting is a must.
For tPvP, well. You could run some kind of CC Ranger, taking SB, GS, Moment of Clarity, Wolf/Spider+Boar. Personaly I run semi-trap build, 10/30/30/0/0 with Flame Trap, Spike Trap and Signet of the Wild + TU and RaO. Utilizing Axe/Dagger+Sword/Torch, Settler’s amulet with Rabid or Barbarian gem. I find it quite nice and fun to play, it works really good when you’re guarding point for a while and excells in covering/defending small radius, like most of points. Lynx is useful in here, coupled with Malicious Training + Weakness spider, both have decent damage, conditions and control. It isn’t any super-duper build like Spirit one which provides very huge buffs to entire team and excells in groupfights, but it’s useful, viable and fun.