(edited by nldixon.8514)
Building for survivabilty AND damage!
Utilities:
Another aspect of the build that is fairly fluid is the use of utilities. Survivability can be increased through Signet of Stone and Signet of the Wild. The usefulness of Stone, with a 35 point increase to toughness, is debatable. The 120 point increase to the pet is much more noticeable, but due to constant swapping, may not be necessary. Signet of the Wild will heal the Ranger for around 100 points and the pet for around 225 points per tick.
Traps can be used for more offensive or utility if preferred, however with low condition damage and no traits to support them, they may be a little underwhelming. The same is true for Sharpening Stone.
Rangers have two stun breaks: Lightning Reflexes and Signet of Renewal. One or both should be used in PvP. Signet of Renewal doubles as the only reliable condition cleansers available to Rangers. Human Rangers can alternatively use Prayer of Kormir.
For the elite utility, Rage as One is practically a must. The base critical chance for the build is relatively low, but with fury on weapon swap, Call of the Wild, and Rage as One, you can keep fury up for a large portion of the time. A red moa will increase the uptime even further. In addition, the stability on RoA is the only way for Rangers to self apply the boon and can be a life saver.
Drawbacks:
The major drawback of this build is the sword. While it provides most of the damage and a lot of the survivability, it can also lead to being killed. The AA chain on the sword supersedes a manual dodge or even movement. Breaking the AA chain can be done in several ways. Hornet Sting will launch the Ranger out of melee range, effectively breaking the chain and allowing a dodge, movement, or weapon swap. Alternatively, a weapon swap will instantly break the chain and allow movement or dodging. Finally, simply putting away the weapon away (via the sheathe hotkey) will break the AA chain, but can sometimes require several key presses to accomplish.
A minor drawback is that some ranged power is given up for melee offense. There is also a significant amount of utility that is lost, but that can be balanced out a little by different utility skill selection (at the cost of a small loss to survivability).
(edited by nldixon.8514)
How to play this build:
This build is highly focused on two things: pet swapping (and to a lesser degree weapon swapping) and evasion. Pet swapping increases the damage for both Ranger and pet and does double duty in keeping your pet alive.
The goal is to keep quickness up as often as possible to maximize your damage. Two seconds of quickness every 15 seconds through Zephyr’s Speed and four seconds every 48 seconds though Quickening Zephyr. This allows opponents to be “burst” down very quickly. The majority of the damage comes from the sword auto attack chain which fires off very quickly and possibly the pet. It’s important to use F2 within a second or two of pet swapping. If used instantly, it will “misfire” and go into cooldown, sometimes for three seconds, sometimes for the full duration. With a DPS pet an extra bit of burst will be added and since the Ranger is already in melee Ranger, the pet doesn’t need to chase anything and F2 has a much higher chance of landing.
Optionally, a support pet can be chosen to increase survivability or damage. Fern hounds, black or brown bears, and blue moas provide excellent survival options. For increased damage output a jungle stalker or a red moa are good options.
It’s important to note that pets with long cooldowns can still be used. The pet swap resets the cooldown on the special abilities, meaning that the weakening roar of a black bear, for instance, can be used every 15 seconds instead of every 45. This may not be intended, so don’t get too used to it as it may be fixed in the future.
Survivability is accomplished through two means: evasion and Troll Unguent. First thing first, I have to stress that TU should not be used during Quickening Zephyr. Up to four seconds of healing can be wasted while the healing debuff is active. There is no healing debuff associated with Zephyr’s Speed, however.
Evasion is the second aspect of survivability in this build. There are three abilities that have evasion built into them: Hornet Sting, Serpent’s Strike, and Stalker’s Strike. All three of these abilities have cast times, so they can be a little difficult to use and require lots of practice AND the ability to read opponents so the abilities can be activated at the right time.
It’s critically important that the abilities are not just used as soon as they’re ready. In order to maximize survivability, they must be used intelligently.
Hornet Sting has a 0.5 second cast time before the evasion occurs. This requires some practice in order to use effectively. It has a very short cooldown, meaning it can be used frequently. It excels at avoiding PBAoE effects. After using Hornet Sting you can swap to your secondary weapon set for swiftness and fury to do a bit of ranged damage before your target returns to melee range.
Serpent’s Strike has a one second cast time, during which time the Ranger is effectively evading. The cooldown is a bit longer and should generally be used to avoid heavy attacks that are directional (cone attacks, for instance). Between the poison effect on Serpent’s Strike and Stalker’s Strike, healing can be reduced indefinitely on a target, making it extremely effective in PvP situation.
Stalker’s Strike has a 0.5 cast time, during which evasion occurs. Stalker’s Strike is great for avoiding attacks that are slow and heavy hitting. Timing can be difficult as the ability must be activated during that 0.5 second window. With a 10 second cooldown, the ability can be used pretty frequently.
Troll Unguent is the heal of choice for this build for two reasons. When used proactively it effectively increases the health pool of the Ranger or acts to mitigate damage. It should be used BEFORE a heal is needed, around 75% health or so. With a 10 second duration and a 25 second cooldown, it can be kept up for a good portion of any fight. Second, it cannot be stripped or stolen, unlike the regeneration boon from Healing Spring. It does, however, lack the condition removal, which can be a pain.
Outro!
This build is extremely dependent on knowing when to evade and what to evade. This only comes with practice and patience, especially in PvP. Take the time to learn the animations for bosses, mobs, and the hard hitting player attacks, and you’ll excel with this build as you can avoid almost anything consistently. Once you have a handle on what to dodge and when to do it, the rest of it is cake. Timing the burst from quickness will come naturally and you’ll find that once a player is around half health a pet swap followed by QZ will mow them down in no time.
Hopefully this build can alleviate a little bit of the frustration some Rangers are experiencing and make things a little more enjoyable.
[Note: I intended to post this a week ago, but due to a mystery forum suspension I was unable to do so. Posting the day before the (alleged) Ranger fixes may defeat the entire build and play style. Hopefully someone can get some use out of it! Maybe sword will be changed to allow dodging during the AA chain, which would make the build even better!]
Sword is indeed one of the biggest if not the biggest DPS/Burst sources we have coupled with quickness. I do this myself with my full berseker build except i only use sword with QZ/quickness and then switch back to shortbow.
What i don’t like it’s the pets, birds have great damage but they waste too much time using the speed buff and most of the time the 2 seconds quickness are wasted.
Sword is indeed one of the biggest if not the biggest DPS/Burst sources we have coupled with quickness. I do this myself with my full berseker build except i only use sword with QZ/quickness and then switch back to shortbow.
What i don’t like it’s the pets, birds have great damage but they waste too much time using the speed buff and most of the time the 2 seconds quickness are wasted.
This build will work with just about any weapon setup, but with all the quickness you get from pet swapping, I’ve found that sticking with sword/dagger has the best results. I’ve run pretty much all of the combinations and like sword/dagger and longbow or axe/warhorn the best, depending on the situation. Sword/dagger and axe/axe is a very close second, especially in AoE heavy fights.
I’m on the fence with birds. I don’t actually use them very often because of the reason you mentioned. What I’ve been running with lately is either a black bear and drake for AoE heavy fights (it’s especially nice in dungeons) or two canines. The two canines are especially awesome in PvP.
The one MAJOR advantage of running hawk/eagle is that you can get a lot of burst out of them in those 15 seconds as you can get off two specials before you swap again, but it requires swapping out Mighty Swap for Speed Training.
-Not viable in serious PvP
-As you said… sword
-Longbow to soften up? Shortbow does it better, other than the AoE cripple; which means you shouldn’t be running in melee anyway
-If it’s a dodging build, it really can’t be great offence, QZ “burst” isn’t enough
-Build is dependent on pets WORKING as INTENDED
Bad build overall, not really a competitor in PvP, WvW or dungeons
Dungeon Master 8/8 | Fractal 50
80Rng – 80Wa – 80Thief – 80Grd – 80Ele – 80Engi – 80Necro
80Rng – 80Wa – 80Thief – 80Grd – 80Ele – 80Engi – 80Necro
Bravo sir. My own build focuses around most of the same principles as yours (frequent swaps for buffs, damage avoidance), but uses a very different trait breakdown, so I’m glad to see even more diversity available than I thought there was.
One quick comment about pets that may help. My technique with pets is to take pets with more passive F2 skills (AoE condition roars, boons, etc.), and trigger their special immediately after swapping so that those long cast skills are fired off right kitten now. It’s especially effective when using a melee weapon since the pets summon right next to you.
By doing so, I have found a renewed love for my pets since I now actually find them to be mostly useful instead of a ball and chain. Even the birds only take about .5s to get to attacking using this technique. At least until we see some pet improvements, it’s a great way to squeeze more utility out of your pets.
Edit: I must have missed the paragraph where you describe this exact technique. Whoops! nm… Regardless, nice build.
(edited by RummyTheMad.7290)
One quick comment about pets that may help. My technique with pets is to take pets with more passive F2 skills (AoE condition roars, boons, etc.), and trigger their special immediately after swapping so that those long cast skills are fired off right kitten now. It’s especially effective when using a melee weapon since the pets summon right next to you.
By doing so, I have found a renewed love for my pets since I now actually find them to be mostly useful instead of a ball and chain. Even the birds only take about .5s to get to attacking using this technique. At least until we see some pet improvements, it’s a great way to squeeze more utility out of your pets.
If someone doesn’t want to have to manage the F2 abilities on pets, birds and felines are easily the best choice as they attack much quicker than most other pets. For someone comfortable with all the weapon and pet swapping, other pets start to shine.
In PvE my favorite setup (at the moment, it tends to change pretty frequently) is black bear and river drake. The weakness from the bear is amazing (it’s good in PvP too, but there are better options in my opinion) and the burst from river drake is pretty impressive.
In PvP I can’t get away from running a drakehound and a wolf or fern hound. Canines are just too good in PvP.
2 questions.
1. why are you running both hawk and eagle? (seems a tad redundant?)
the other is more relevant:
2. Why are you running exactly 15 points in the Beastmastery trait line? IMO, there’s better places to put those points(then again, I don’t really enjoy buffing pets, so it’s up to you)
2 questions.
1. why are you running both hawk and eagle? (seems a tad redundant?)
the other is more relevant:
2. Why are you running exactly 15 points in the Beastmastery trait line? IMO, there’s better places to put those points(then again, I don’t really enjoy buffing pets, so it’s up to you)
Explained the reasoning behind hawk/eagle in a previous post, but to be honest I don’t actually run with two birds most the time.
The 15 points in Beastmastery isn’t for buffing the pets. It’s for more quickness.
i would actually run 2 dogs the dogs interrupt is the perfect time to burst someone down.
for some reason my dogs love to knock down just as they get stunned with a sb5. if my rune of rage kicks in even better.
Although I don’t believe your build is as strong/effective as you make it sound to be (I’ll have to give it a go before I judge), it IS nice to read something enthusiastic rather than something about the ranger’s lackluster abilities. I’m frustrated about the state of the ranger but it was good to see other rangers like yourself providing their own positive insight with the intention of helping other players.
+1
No animals were harmed during the typing of this post.
Interesting build, but not my cuppa …
Just 2 suggestions
I see you using 2 signets but nothing in Marks for signet mastery and/or signet of the beastmaster. These 2 trait bonuses are pretty crucial for a signet heavy build, plus you get some much need power that this build lacks.
I find building for vitality more useful than toughness, but YMMV …
Lvl 80’s: Ranger; Guardian; Mesmer; Necromancer; Thief
Gandara Megaserver
Although I don’t believe your build is as strong/effective as you make it sound to be (I’ll have to give it a go before I judge), it IS nice to read something enthusiastic rather than something about the ranger’s lackluster abilities. I’m frustrated about the state of the ranger but it was good to see other rangers like yourself providing their own positive insight with the intention of helping other players.
+1
It’s actually surprisingly effective, despite the way it looks on paper. It’s been a slow process to get it to where it is. Lots of tinkering and adjusting. “Okay, this works, but I’m not getting the most use out of X. I wonder what would happen if I put points into Y?” The hardest part is getting the timing down pat.
Interesting build, but not my cuppa …
Just 2 suggestions
I see you using 2 signets but nothing in Marks for signet mastery and/or signet of the beastmaster. These 2 trait bonuses are pretty crucial for a signet heavy build, plus you get some much need power that this build lacks.I find building for vitality more useful than toughness, but YMMV …
The signets are only used for the passive effects, extra toughness and healing for both you and your pet. Since the build relies on lots of pet swapping to gain quickness, it’s imperative that not only you stay alive, but your pet does too. Those two signets provide that little extra bit of staying power the pet needs.
Sadly, there really aren’t a lot of great options as far as utility skills go. Especially for this build and play style.
Toughness and vitality kind of go hand in hand. If you have a lot of toughness, but no vitality, you can’t be spiked as easily but condition builds eat you alive and vice versa. With both, you suddenly become much sturdier coupled with the health regen through traits, the signet, and TU.
As you are only using stone for the passive and focusing on maximizing damage during haste periods I’ld think that utility skill is changeable.
For Damage – Sick-em to be timed with a swap sickem QZ period or SOTH for those pets that when summoned predictably spike early.
For mobility survivability keeping your target pinned down for consistent pet damage application – muddy terrain.
35 extra toughness really isn’t anything if your not at least using the 6 second invuln on the pet regularly.
Pretty much outside the condition builds I’ve found beastmastery/self heal monster pet builds that work and builds armoring stating in the vein you describe here. They are functional not OP. Key really is durable enough to work with our damage envelope and balancing those two factors.
Arrys Shaikin
OoS
A whittling ranger becomes viable by forcing his opponent to whittle
OoS
A whittling ranger becomes viable by forcing his opponent to whittle
We call that an evasion tank, sure its damage is at the medium lvl because of the eagle but its not what Id call building for damage and survivability. Its more like building for survivability and throwing in a damage pet to carry the offense. I have 1300-1400 more attack and I still dont hit that hard with my crap, so I cant really imagine this one hitting too terribly hard. The eagle is a nice pet with its short cd but its f2 is more for constant damage which I guess is good for a outlast them build.
The pet isn’t the main source of damage. The pet is supplemental damage and mainly a tool to provide the quickness buff. The quickness buff every 15 seconds is where the vast majority of your damage is coming from. You don’t want to trait or slot utilities to improve your pet damage because your pet isn’t going to be doing a whole lot except for providing buffs (if defensive/support pets are chosen) or tossing in a little extra damage.
In order to get that buff every 15 seconds your pet has to be alive. In order to keep your pet alive you pretty much have to slot Signet of the Wild and Stone. If you run this build and you find that you’re not having as much trouble keeping your pet up, by all means, swap them out. If your pet dies, however, you’re stuck waiting for pet swap and quickness. It’s not the toughness and healing for you that matters, it’s the toughness and healing for your pet (to keep them alive long enough for the next pet swap) that matters.
The damage output isn’t medium. It’s pretty high. The survivability is also extremely high. Most champions are able to be soloed.
The MAJOR function of your pet in this build is to provide the quickness buff. Extra burst from pet specials or boons from support/defensive pets are just icing on the cake.
Damage (and lots of it) comes from sword, quickness, and fury. Survivability comes from TU, toughness and vitality, and the myriad of evades.
I would recommend actually trying the build instead of just talking about it. It doesn’t look pretty on paper, but it’s killer in practice.
Hello, i’m going for a pow. thoug. vit. armor atm, but i really don’t know what damage runes should be better for it, runes of the ranger or runes of the scholar, as for trinkets and weapons i have berserker’s and i will trait 30/30/10/0/0, what you guys think…and in the OP i didn’t saw what kind of runes are you running with?
I am thinking, without any runes i have around 40% Crit chance and 70 Crit dmg, so the buttom line is do i need more crit chance provided by the runes of the ranger(around 8% more) or just go for constant damage increased by the scholar.
Thank you in advance.
I don’t have enough experience to comment on the build, but I praise you for taking the time and explaining so well your build.
I may never use it, but I learned a great deal from the Ranger just be reading it. Thanks.
Hey Dixon, did you play DAoC? I used to know someone who went by the same handle on Tintagel and Killibury.
O Chit! – Melee Power Ranger
Vol I – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9klT6bLDew
Vol II – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqgHkV327sM
Vol I – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9klT6bLDew
Vol II – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqgHkV327sM
For Runes I’m currently using Ogre. I tend to switch them up a lot.
Sarlack, I played DAoC, but on Gwen. And under the name Geoffin.
Why would you not choose empathic bond? that’s like a no brainer
Why would you not choose empathic bond? that’s like a no brainer
It’s mainly for PvE. Condition removal isn’t nearly as crucial in PvE as it is in PvP. I don’t really run this in PvP, but if I did, I would definitely swap Bark Skin for Empathic Bond.
Ah i thought this was a PvP Build.
Nevermind then :P
Ah i thought this was a PvP Build.
Nevermind then :P
It works in PvP pretty well. It’s just not specifically for PvP.