Guild Wars 2

I prefer to play solo while picking off stragglers and reinforcements to the Zerg. Lately it seems that no one wants to stick around and fight but would rather just continue running to safety. Thus, my PvT BM build just isn’t cutting it anymore.

So I’m looking for a build that has more pop to it. I don’t want glass cannon, but I do need to drop players much more quickly. Maybe this doesn’t exist on a ranger ATM.

It did; Not Anymore, Since last Patch Nerf.

Yes use a mix of knight/berserker and shortbow and sword+dagger/greatsword it will give a good base of survivability from toughness and damage from crits the build can probably be made very diffrently depending on how much survivability/damage you’re after make one you find has enough if the two for you.

edit: a warhorn might be better if you’re chasing people down.

I would suggest 0/30/30/5/5, rabid gear from TA, and run spike trap, viper’s nest, and flame trap. If you’re running around solo’g camps, replace flame trap with signet of hunt while you run. If someone follows you, drop spike trap and run away. Use superior rune of the undead and get the gear from twilight arbor and this is one of the cheapest builds around. Use greatsword and another weapon of your choice (usually sword/dagger). This build, with tuning crystal and pizza, will make you throw out so many conditions it’s sick. It’s sort of a cheese build but hey it’s powerful. You can usually dominate because a lot of people run berserker type specs in wvw since that’s what they have for pve. Be sure to use the greatsword leap Swoop for motion.

I should mention that you get rabid trinkets from a karma vender in Orr (can’t recall which…Dwyana?) or you can use laurels or pristine relics on rabid ascended gear, which has almost the same stats, maybe 10% increase per trinket.

0-30-30-5-5 isn’t really meant to be for condition build. It works way better with knight set and trinkets with berserkers jewel on them. Other way you finish with ~15-16k hp and 2.3k toughness.
Weapons: Shortbow, sword&warhorn.
Even after patch greatsword isn’t really more viable than sword.

Lert.6287:

0-30-30-5-5 isn’t really meant to be for condition build. It works way better with knight set and trinkets with berserkers jewel on them. Other way you finish with ~15-16k hp and 2.3k toughness.
Weapons: Shortbow, sword&warhorn.
Even after patch greatsword isn’t really more viable than sword.

How not? There’s tons of bleed on crit in the game, not that thats what the build does. That’s the build gasmask used in spvp, believe me, it is for conditions. Remember: most of your stats come from armor, not traits.

State of OP is to:
1. Kill people faster
2. Not being cannon
He won’t kill people even close to being fast with ~2k attack. That’s like 300dmg under critical? And how much bleeding? 90, maybe 100?
It’s pretty obvious enemy will try to do his best to face you (hell, to hit you he has to be facing you), so it’s low chance for bleeding by shortbow.
Now compare ranger’s condition damage to engi, necro, warrior. Warrior has insane bleeding with F1 sword and #1. Stacks it easly to 15+ and keep it. Can ranger do it? – Meh, cmon >.< Now engi – has every possible condition damage and with his best will keep every of it on his opponent while ranger can do few stacks of bleed, sometimes poision and periodicaly burning.
Running with knight set (2900attack, ~60critical damage, 60% chance, 3k armor) gives stable and fast damage each shot, still with traits dealing 60condition from bleed.
My opinion is that condition ranger is nowhere close to knight ranger. It’s gap like burst matter between thief and ranger.

Lert, I think it’s interesting that you never cite condition damage numbers anywhere in your post. Do you think it is inconsequential? If you don’t have high condition damage, stacks of bleed don’t matter, they just look cool (numbers flying off).

It is my opinion that Rangers are better at DoTing in pvp settings, but believe what you want. Traps are unblockable. And this build does 1500 condition damage or more with crystal/pizza and with stacks of corruption I’ve got up to 1950 condition damage. The greatsword is used to stun and apply bleeds, the constant poison is used to mitigate enemy healing, and the burning just plain old hurts. At this point, a full entangle—not impossible to achieve in the wvw setting—does almost 30,000 damage. I have had tons of solo success with it too, from 2v1s to camp capping. It’s a solid, all around build. If you’re going for conditions, why care about power? Ya know? Condition damage hurts big time. And this build is great for teamplay too because the traps pulse.

The best thing about it is you can get rabid armor from TA, buy the super cheap runes of undead (superior) and get your rabid trinkets with karma from Orr. You can’t really lose even if you just want to test the build in wvw because TA is a cool dungeon that negates a lot of the cheese that goes on in CoF. I feel useful in TA.

Is the build not really viable in crafted gear? Never have done TA and sadly do not see doing it any time soon.

Why would you buy Rabid Armor from TA when you can buy a full set of it + jewelry from Karma Merchants in Cursed Shore.

Xsorus.2507:

Why would you buy Rabid Armor from TA when you can buy a full set of it + jewelry from Karma Merchants in Cursed Shore.

I wasn’t aware the venders sold karma armor with rabid stats. In general, I like the look of TA armor and was pretty hardcore into dungeons runs with ranger for a long time so I had the tokens. The only set I haven’t finished is basically Arah and that’s because I’ve been buying weapons instead with tokens.

Go buy it from the vendors in Cursed shore, you’ll need to put carrion jewels on the jewelry but other then that, all you need is weapons, which you can use Carrion

So a condition/trap build is the way to go these days?

I don’t really like condition builds for Ranger. There are too many ways to dump conditions. Direct damage is only really thwarted by evade and toughness, which is why I tend to go power/crit. There is a natural synergy in condition damage and bunker traits though. It seems to me the usual tradeoff holds…if you can take a punch, you can not really give a punch. I would rather go heavier on the offensive stats (knights or zerk), and rely more upon evading and sneakyness and perching and hit and run tactics. I can not really advise on melee builds, but for ranged you definately want piercing with superior runes of fire.

Blackbird.4382:

So a condition/trap build is the way to go these days?

Solo Roaming Conditions usually better, for zerging, go power build.

Xsorus.2507:

Go buy it from the vendors in Cursed shore, you’ll need to put carrion jewels on the jewelry but other then that, all you need is weapons, which you can use Carrion

Crest of the rabid is the “rabid” version of jewels fwiw.

Xsorus.2507:

Blackbird.4382:

So a condition/trap build is the way to go these days?

Solo Roaming Conditions usually better, for zerging, go power build.

That’s good advice. Just to add to that, I would characterize that regen/apothecary build along with zerging, even though you’re not hitting hard, you’re healing support. It’s also interesting to run a cat beastmaster build solo, wouldn’t you say xsorsus? You could deal conditions while your pet dealt solid physical damage, in theory. This is in terms of roaming / solo.

Catmaster build is basically Beastmaster Bunker build, just using Cats instead of Birds.

Thing about Apothecary/Regen builds in Zerg fights is you don’t get credit unless you hit the people with something…Healing isn’t like other games that rewarded you for it (and really all we can do is throw down healing field)

You’re better off using a Longbow build and 1500 range and firing Barrage at people..

Our class really isn’t super for zerg fights to be honest, Thieves/Ele’s/Engineer’s/Necro’s all have a much easier time tagging people.

Yeah, on necro night my guild is up to their ears in bags. Piercing arrows and barrage (or traps) helps a lot for tagging but, yeah. Necros.

I used to run a power ranger (quickness nerf ended that). Just built a trap ranger with just over 1500 conditioin damage (not fully geared with no ascended) and I dominate people in wvw in both small and large fights. The aoe and cc on the traps rips almost every profession apart and the constant evades+reapplication of conditions ensure your damage will be dealt while you stay pretty safe. I personally, find it a kitten near OP build in every situation. In zergvzerg, i run flame/frost/spike for heavy cc and damage. in small groups i run flame/viper/spike for higher damage. If the kitten hits the fan, entangle at the proper moment decimates solo players and groups alike (Don’t blow it too early! Make sure they can’t evade it before casting and don’t be blinded when casted.).

Indoles.1467:

I used to run a power ranger (quickness nerf ended that). Just built a trap ranger with just over 1500 conditioin damage (not fully geared with no ascended) and I dominate people in wvw in both small and large fights. The aoe and cc on the traps rips almost every profession apart and the constant evades+reapplication of conditions ensure your damage will be dealt while you stay pretty safe. I personally, find it a kitten near OP build in every situation. In zergvzerg, i run flame/frost/spike for heavy cc and damage. in small groups i run flame/viper/spike for higher damage. If the kitten hits the fan, entangle at the proper moment decimates solo players and groups alike (Don’t blow it too early! Make sure they can’t evade it before casting and don’t be blinded when casted.).

Yeah the build is pretty sick.

Anyone have a link to a guide for this trap build?

Blackbird.4382:

Anyone have a link to a guide for this trap build?

Well, you place traps and do damage/evade damage, that’s it.

Indoles.1467:

I used to run a power ranger (quickness nerf ended that). Just built a trap ranger with just over 1500 conditioin damage (not fully geared with no ascended) and I dominate people in wvw in both small and large fights. The aoe and cc on the traps rips almost every profession apart and the constant evades+reapplication of conditions ensure your damage will be dealt while you stay pretty safe. I personally, find it a kitten near OP build in every situation. In zergvzerg, i run flame/frost/spike for heavy cc and damage. in small groups i run flame/viper/spike for higher damage. If the kitten hits the fan, entangle at the proper moment decimates solo players and groups alike (Don’t blow it too early! Make sure they can’t evade it before casting and don’t be blinded when casted.).

I’m very interested in this build, can you share build + equips?
I love traps but I think I’m doing something wrong, I end trying to have much of everything (cond, crit, toughness and heal) at same time but I end with low stats in everything …

kokiman.2364:

Blackbird.4382:

Anyone have a link to a guide for this trap build?

Well, you place traps and do damage/evade damage, that’s it.

This is pretty much perfectly correct, but I’ll edit a link into this post momentarily. I’ll make two separate viable trap builds.

My Current build (paste link into address bar):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjEV11tVyVo2Bi2DNZeMxewfH9IXB/XyGiC;T4AAzCpoay0koJbTumkNt+Ykx5j9CvPmEA
Another build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAV11tVyVoWCi2DNZeMxUwfH9KELXB/XwmK;T4AAzCpoay0koJbTumkNt+YUx5j9CvPmEA

I didn’t bother with setting up the underwater skills sin this build doesn’t work underwater. Also, the pets are subject to change. I prefer pets with a lot of cc. Controlling the fights is a huge part of winning, and these builds have plenty of cc. I use rabid gear for this build, but many people also use carrion instead. It really depends on your playstyle.

Indoles.1467:

kokiman.2364:

Blackbird.4382:

Anyone have a link to a guide for this trap build?

Well, you place traps and do damage/evade damage, that’s it.

This is pretty much perfectly correct, but I’ll edit a link into this post momentarily. I’ll make two separate viable trap builds.

My Current build (paste link into address bar):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjEV11tVyVo2Bi2DNZeMxewfH9IXB/XyGiC;T4AAzCpoay0koJbTumkNt+Ykx5j9CvPmEA
Another build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAV11tVyVoWCi2DNZeMxUwfH9KELXB/XwmK;T4AAzCpoay0koJbTumkNt+YUx5j9CvPmEA

I didn’t bother with setting up the underwater skills sin this build doesn’t work underwater. Also, the pets are subject to change. I prefer pets with a lot of cc. Controlling the fights is a huge part of winning, and these builds have plenty of cc. I use rabid gear for this build, but many people also use carrion instead. It really depends on your playstyle.

Looks very interesting for a PvP scenario. Not sure about WvW without either Hunt or Warhorn. I would feel very vulnerable going out as a solo roamer with no speed.

Chopps.5047:

Lert, I think it’s interesting that you never cite condition damage numbers anywhere in your post. Do you think it is inconsequential? If you don’t have high condition damage, stacks of bleed don’t matter, they just look cool (numbers flying off).

It is my opinion that Rangers are better at DoTing in pvp settings, but believe what you want. Traps are unblockable. And this build does 1500 condition damage or more with crystal/pizza and with stacks of corruption I’ve got up to 1950 condition damage. The greatsword is used to stun and apply bleeds, the constant poison is used to mitigate enemy healing, and the burning just plain old hurts. At this point, a full entangle—not impossible to achieve in the wvw setting—does almost 30,000 damage. I have had tons of solo success with it too, from 2v1s to camp capping. It’s a solid, all around build. If you’re going for conditions, why care about power? Ya know? Condition damage hurts big time. And this build is great for teamplay too because the traps pulse.

The best thing about it is you can get rabid armor from TA, buy the super cheap runes of undead (superior) and get your rabid trinkets with karma from Orr. You can’t really lose even if you just want to test the build in wvw because TA is a cool dungeon that negates a lot of the cheese that goes on in CoF. I feel useful in TA.

Of course you can with the right traits your pets will stack up to 18-22 stacks of bleed with BM build traits.