Guild Wars 2

Folks,

I love my glass LB ranger as I’ve always used him as a sniper or single target support in a zerg. Still, let’s be honest though, if a thief or warrior get in close and you make one mistake, it’s pretty much over. Course, that’s the way it should be if your dishing out that amount of DPS.

Anyways, my hope was to change that around a bit and bring down the massive burst for enough survival (armor) that I could take more of a beating and still get away. With that, can you all look over this build and let me know if it it’s worth changing out the DPS to buff the defense? It’s running with LB/GS now but I often change over to sword/axe too.

Survival Sniper

Hey! I am currently trying to accomplish the same, like many other rangers aswell it seems.
With the Longbow buffs I finally fell in love with this class. Still trying to find the optimal setup though.

Maybe we can figure out something great with the help of the community.

• First of all, have you tried the sigil of blood yet? Is the lifesteal any good?
  I wanted to try it out a long time ago but I always forgot about it again

• Personally, I dont like your trait choices. I admit I ran the same in the beginning but I swapped to 6 in Survival.
  If we look at the Skirmishing trait line. Quick draw is not really needed imo, your AA deals great damage on its own during the couple of seconds of cooldown you have to deal with without quick draw. The pet crit damage, meh. And moment of clarity is really situational.
  Going 6 into survival you gain the same amount of toughness with a lot more zerky gear.
  The traits I chose in survival are awesome, too. Especially the off Hand mastery. Great for the long range dagger cripple and even for Axe #4 if you prefer Axe. This one has been my favourite so far.
  Some vigor never fails and the Master traits are great aswell. Either condi-removal or 5000+ Effective HP with bark skin. (Saved me a couple of times!)

• Food Choice. The anti-condi food any day. I main a warrior and this is the best food ever. Considering we lack condi-removal and have low HP its even better.

• I also prefer Sword/X over GS these days. Dodge on demad ftw and more incombat mobility.

• The traveler runes are a tricky subject. I’d like to get rid of the run-speed signet myself but at this time its not really a great thing to do. I rather have the signet equipped for anything thats not a thief. I actually use it for a first strike. +50% damage is awesome.
  If I see a thief approaching I swap it with Sic’em, just like you have it.
  Been doing this a few days now, works great.

• I also have a second longbow in my inventory that I equip when taking a tower or camp. It has currently bloodlust slotted but I am thinking of swapping it to the precision one. I wont loose stacks if I swap longbows because I have those sigil on my underwater weapons.

And here it is, my current noobish/unexperienced attempt to achieve what you stated:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQNAT8YjEq0yaDLGsw1ag9gadAUAnd7f4azWXHMA-TVDBABQt/QHHBguUi0wBCAiLAQlq/glyp0UCCwDAwLlE5pbghDQwGHEgAAIAG6QH6QH6Q7m7coDdnDtMAMjB-w
(Note: Its all ascended because I happen to have all the jewellery and weapons lying around and crafting a set of armor is no big deal for me atm)

- I am considering swapping the first trait in marksmanship ‘Steady focus’ with signet mastery. Not sure at this point.

- Not sure if I stick with bark skin either. I have 5000 HP left if I reach 25% life. Double that and its 10000HP. So you basically gain 5k extra HP.
The thing is if you are sitting at 6k and get hit for 2k you really loose 2k HP and not 1.5k, sadly. Its again pretty situational. I really dont like the RNG condi remove from Empathic Bond either. And I’d like to make space for signet of renewal but there’s just no space for it.
Then again with Bark skin and Portection + some regen or even trolls unguent pumping you are hard to bring down for power specs below 25% HP. Works nicely with the naturally high armor, too.

Lets see what everyone has to say

Edit: Sigil of leeching is seriously underrated btw.
Jump down a small step and take fall damage, swap to sword/x and gain the leeching effect permanently until you attack someone. I ALWAYS do that. You can trigger it on some mobs, too. It essentially 1k extra damge on your first hit, whats not to love.

Edit2: I forgot to mention and include pets.
Wolf – obvious choice. Fear and 2 seconds knockdown are awesome tools.
Siamoth – Dat plasma aegis and pretty much every boon
The stealth items work great, too! Easy opening with longbow #4 out of stealth. Wont ever see that one comming.
Not to forget the siamoth has a 3(!) second knockdown. (If it actually lands)

Flitzie.6082:

And here it is, my current noobish/unexperienced attempt to achieve what you stated:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQNAT8YjEq0yaDLGsw1ag9gadAUAnd7f4azWXHMA-TVDBABQt/QHHBguUi0wBCAiLAQlq/glyp0UCCwDAwLlE5pbghDQwGHEgAAIAG6QH6QH6Q7m7coDdnDtMAMjB-w
(Note: Its all ascended because I happen to have all the jewellery and weapons lying around and crafting a set of armor is no big deal for me atm)

Wow… You’ve given me quite a bit to think about with your response! Thanks for posting all this here. I’ll actually have some time later today to review over everything and then get back to you.

As for those sigils, I’ve been using them in tPvP and they do help a good bit on the LB. I think the normal return was around 268 health per tick. It’s not huge but adds up quickly.

Hi, some builds with different mobility solutions( you already covered traveler and SOTH)
1. Rune of the pack, i think its one of best value rune for power ranger, it a great filler for swiftness, fury and even buff your pet if in range.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAT8YjMq0yaFLOsQ1ag+ga9CEAjdrfwdTEEpdJj6A-TVyEABspb46jAgbPAgAuAAYpEMJlf2s/AAHEAFV/hUAVsMC-w
while out of combat just kill few mobs with s/d and stack 4min swiftnees in 30 sec, from there just play normal, u’ll be suprised how much random killing u’r doing during roaming. Your swifntees wont drop below 1-2 min. while in combat, pack and bird give you 100% swiftness uptime+ swiftnees you already stacked. Build is tanky and doesnt sacrifice to much dps due to 100% fury uptime. You have big flexsebility with utilities, you can change entangle to RAO and SOTW to muddy terrain. very good stats, defence utilities and anti -condi defence.

2. Trap power ranger, rangers that use it, love it. Super speed+swoop can take you long way, and the stealth can help you escape bad situation like no other build. You fill the lack of damage with long poison durations and some burns. You can also take sharpened adges if you like it. less defence utilities but stealth and mobility.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0ya3KurQ1ag+ga9BEAjdrfg9/OClQJjqC-TVCEABZfEAi7CAw9+DE8AAaS5HgKBB4QA0o6PupLgUAmJMC-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAT8YnEqQLLWLIWsAXLGYPoWHAFwZ3uHehdg1FUyomA-TlCFABVfQAA4CAUo6PIpMKLlgOp0pm9HST3wAPAgFOCABAQAu5NzmtZwRP6RP6RPa38m385O35kCQQhRA-w

This is the build I would use if I had full ascended. Mostly for dueling and roaming. 2,700 armor and a bit of vit seems to be tanky enough for me. Protect me for damage invuln, LR for stun break and kiting, signet of wild for stability. RaO for extra stability, and swiftness. Also I get shared anguish, it really comes in handy to mitigate the first CC that comes at you. When I first engage with rapid fire people try to CC me to interrupt it and to their detriment they didn’t interrupt my Rapid fire and just wasted a CC. Also Hide in Plain sight tends to throw people off a bit.

Also some people would put the 2 points in skirmishing into Nature for Power, however my build doesn’t have the Vitality to really benefit much from it. This gives me more precision and crit damage, more uptime on swiftness.

A questionable trait for most people would be Sharpened Edges. However, I feel like it adds decent overall DPS. Your 300 condition damage from Wilderness goes to waste without it pretty much. And with rapid fire you can stack about 3 bleeds on average. that is an extra 345 damage damage possibly. This may not seem like much, but at the same time the power boost from Nature Magic isn’t much either.

I can 1vX alot with this build, due to the fact I have a get out of CC free card every 90 seconds, another 2 every 40 and 60 seconds and 2 sources of stability. It allows me the opportunity to stomp opponents and attack relatively unhindered.

Conditions are a weakness no doubt, as you have no control over it’s removal. I try to offset it with a Sigil of Cleansing, however that is only 1 removal every 20 seconds pretty much. However, you can use your range, kiting and stealth to your advantage.

I prefer RaO over Entangle for Power builds, I may switch it in group fights, but that extra stab really does help as well as swiftness.

Alright I want to report back with some more testing.

- The last two days I ran bark skin for around 50~ sPvP matches to further test it.
Simply put its just amazing. The incomming damage is laughable and really safed my life uncountable times where I was sitting at below 25% life.

The most remarkable moment was a hammer/axe warrior attacking me as I was at some 30%~ Life. I soon dropped into the threshold to proc bark skin and I had to check the combat log because I was just laughing my kitten off while sword dancing him to death.
A warriors skills are easy to dodge, especially if you played one for over 1k hours. The few times he did land a skill it was like 300-500 hammer damage. some 160 shield bash.
A 820 Eviscerate. (I dodged the kittening shield stun but the burst still connected.)
Must have been a level 1 Evis without crit. With crit its usually around 4-4.5k on my warrior. So 2k non crit with bark skin and protection around 800…
Pop your heal and voila.
Thats unbelievably awesome!

- Of course in sPvP I can easily swap the run speed signet for a condi remove one and since I have no anti-condi food those conditions still are kind of a problem with only one cleanse. Anything power based is doomed however!

- Signet Mastery trait is pretty cool, too! Not sure If I want it while roaming though.
Ugh, the decisions are hard. Ranger has so many cool tratis and skills to pick

@LughLongArm.
I always had trapper runes in the back of my head. On paper they seem really strong and useful. I should give it a shot someday. Sadly I cannot test them in sPvP.

The Pack runes are looking very nice aswell and perma fury and swiftness would be absoluetly worth the loss in crit damage and the 7% damage. I am not really convinced on how easy it is to keep all those effects up though.
Atleast, if it works I could take the condi signet.

Edit:
@killahmayne:
I am surprised you go for pack runes, too. I should really try them out now I guess.

Are you comfortable with “Hide in plain sight?” Imo this one is really useless ?!
Everyone will know you just stand there if they see you going invis without a longbow.
Then again, I cannot even control it since I move constantly I’d break it immediatly anyway, lol.
I really dont like the bleeding trait and neither the vita to power trait in nature magic.
I’d rather choose the 5 1/2 seconds of protection in nature magic.

Edit2: Forget it. Empathic Bons needs to be in the build. Conditions are a real threat.
Btw, why is it that mesmer and thief still reman my worst nightmares? I though I’d be somewhat of a counter to thiefes with ranger but I keep dieing to them the most still.

Flitzie.6082
Just curious if you’re testing in WvW or sPvP?

The above was tested in PvP. I do most of my testing in PvP as fights are just way more accessible. The final build is for WvW though.

Power ranger in PvP is really kinda underwhelming though.
The only good thing is abusing terrain and shooting people on a capture point.
I am still wondering how a power ranger is listed under “meta” in meta battle. They are so easily shut down.

I hope power based LB rangers we’ll be getting a boost at some point. Especially to make them more viable in roaming and PvP.
Roaming is already okaish but in PvP its pretty hard to play efficiently on higher levels.

In every other MMO that I played so far, Archers were one of the top 1v1 PvP classes. Its sad enough we dont even have such a profession in Gw2. I hope the ranger will fill that role someday.

I haven’t had a problem with playing Power based Ranger in PvP, LB and GS – especially since the changes, as long as you manage your cc’s, dodges and combo signets with big hits and positioning, rangers are awesome.
I usually play a pressure role, flipping points or keeping the opponent off a point constantly with cc’s so the team needs to use more man power to focus a point.
imo Bark Skin is amazing, and I will likely never swap this trait out – having Signet of Renewal and Sigil of Purity is enough I find.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0vaFLOsw1aA/gadDEAhd7cIGmWXBcBbqA-TFyEABBt/gb6CMU9HsUCmkyvHOCAS8AAA4SAQIgFzBA-w

Each to their own though, Ranger is my favourite class and amazing fun to play :P
So many different builds.

For WvW I usually run Condis or if I’m in a zerg I’ll switch our some traits (Eagle Eye) and utilities – also swap out the Knights gear for Soldiers

Ignore the food buffs on that link, that’s from an engi build I was looking at :P

I haven’t had a ton of time to test this but I thought it’d be cool to do as a full melee ranger. Hey, it could potentially be rather strong and the off hand axe can be changed to dag or warhorn depending on preference.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNUQNAR8XjEq0yaDLGsQ1agEhq9IkufA7zNAaaX/QBreA-T1BFABC8EAQS53hq/kmuha2fAgLCwVKBDAgAczbmNbzghO0hO0hO0u5Qv5Qv5QLFgFLjA-w

Let me know what ya think. I put it together really quick so there is probably room for improvement.

Ario.8964:

I haven’t had a ton of time to test this but I thought it’d be cool to do as a full melee ranger. Hey, it could potentially be rather strong and the off hand axe can be changed to dag or warhorn depending on preference.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNUQNAR8XjEq0yaDLGsQ1agEhq9IkufA7zNAaaX/QBreA-T1BFABC8EAQS53hq/kmuha2fAgLCwVKBDAgAczbmNbzghO0hO0hO0u5Qv5Qv5QLFgFLjA-w

Let me know what ya think. I put it together really quick so there is probably room for improvement.

I think using an offhand warhorn would free up a valuable utility spot (taking away Signet of the Hunt) Warhorn applying swiftness along with your runes of the pack go very well together so the signet imo isn’t needed.

Changes I’ve made;

• Offhand Dagger to Warhorn
• Signet of Hunt changed for Renewal
• Elite changed to RAO
• Skirmishing GM trait changed to XII “Moment of Clarity”
  – This change I feel goes well with the GS,
  stun with 5, followed by
  skill 2, maul – to gain full benefit of the 150% DMG from the trait

I dislike the destroy projectiles “Strider’s Defense” while in melee for 2 reasons

• Only a 20% chance to trigger
• In PvP/WvW, most people when facing a Ranger will try to go “toe2toe” with you anyway, so not many projectiles flying around, it’s nice to have a trait you can knowingly proc yourself then have a 20% random chance.

Hope these points help
Really enjoying this thread

Edit 1: (Corrected grammar, fixed bullet points)

I took the strider’s defense for wvw, everywhere else you can change for whatever purposes you want but in wvw it helps a ton in outnumbered situations where some melee you while others try to range you to death.

Love the other suggestions, thanks for the input

6/0/2/6/0 with lr, sos, mt and entangle (or rao but i think Its only good vs rifle engi, vs hamwar Its Not needed because They are easy kills. Thief, mes and Nec will eat your rao).
Armor and trinkets 50/50 knights and zerk with zerk weapons.
Rune of traveller.
Sigils i use air and blood on lb, intelligence and leeching on gs.
Works very good for me.