Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone.

I’ll preface this topic by saying this is my first build post on the forums, and ordinarily I find enough enjoyment in just playing ranger without having to worry too much about what is or isn’t meta, thus formally making builds and posting them here wasn’t much of a desire of mine.

However, since the patch things have gotten pretty exciting and despite what people are writing I’ve found that we’re far from weak/nerfed. I’ve been trying out new stuff – one such build is this one and I’m keen to hear what you guys think about it. Since I’ve never really seen any viable Longbow/condi mix builds I thought I’d throw my idea into the mix for those who enjoy those weapons types but don’t enjoy power builds.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J;5Fkx-e2JEF-0;9V-0;1_Zb;0137056036;4T-17a;1JH8_JH8_P0kb5-asS5;0Vz91f3A6f8ABf0eWPk4R0f

Before the patch I’d never considered the LB to be particuarly viable in a condition build, however with a number of traits being baked into the LB itself (the bonus range and velocity) I figured it was time to try it out, and what I’ve found is that this build can deliver huge bursts of condition damage with such a low cooldown that it can even out pressure builds with substantial condi cleanse.

Utilising Quick Draw the options for dueling are huge – for dealing burst damage with Rapid Fire into Bonfire/Splitblade OR with Point Blank Shot/Hunter’s Shot as a means of escape and evasion. Personal condition cleanse is also substantial with 4 of 5 utility skills triggering Wilderness Knowledge. The combination of Hawk/Eagle (with the alternative to either being Wolf) grant blind/weakness spam on a 4.75 second cooldown.

I wont go into the specifics of rotations, but note that I wouldn’t post this build if I hadn’t had particular success with it, and I encourage people to play around with it because it’s been dominant in many matchups. It’s primarily designed for WvW application but I’ve been running it in sPvP and had decent results.

Cheers.

I tried a condi build with the longbow for a little bit as well, but I found shortbow with Light on your feet more useful (in sPvP).

Been running this in wvw too and it works well. The Quick Draw trait is fun and makes the gameplay a lot more active. A Bonfire+Entangle burst is just as good as it always has been too.

Well.. not to be a downer or anything, but here’s why I don’t want to try using the lb in a condition spec. On its own, there’s all of 0 damaging conditions that it can apply from untraited weapon skills. So that’s pretty rough. However, you do have the ability to blast out a rapid fire and stack some bleeds. So let’s consider that for a second. There’s 10 shots so 10 chances to bleed. But there’s a 66% chance to get the bleed proc on crit. Now we’re down to 6-7 stacks of bleed. But then there’s the whole crit chance thing. Even with fury that build is going to be roughly 60% to crit I’d say. That knocks your bleeds down to about 4 stacks. That’s not really that good in the way of damage especially when the sb autoattack can 100% get one from flanking and that’s not even on a cd and it can still proc those on crit bleeds too! In addition it also has poison on it’s 2 skill that will benefit from your condition damage. I don’t think the ability to get the free couple of hits at 1500 range will justify all the other shortcomings that are associated with using the lb. For those reasons, I think you would find greater success in using the shortbow!

Cele could make it work i guess. With a more dps Lb and more condi A/T it should works.

singinggecko.5736:

Well.. not to be a downer or anything, but here’s why I don’t want to try using the lb in a condition spec. On its own, there’s all of 0 damaging conditions that it can apply from untraited weapon skills. So that’s pretty rough. However, you do have the ability to blast out a rapid fire and stack some bleeds. So let’s consider that for a second. There’s 10 shots so 10 chances to bleed. But there’s a 66% chance to get the bleed proc on crit. Now we’re down to 6-7 stacks of bleed. But then there’s the whole crit chance thing. Even with fury that build is going to be roughly 60% to crit I’d say. That knocks your bleeds down to about 4 stacks. That’s not really that good in the way of damage especially when the sb autoattack can 100% get one from flanking and that’s not even on a cd and it can still proc those on crit bleeds too! In addition it also has poison on it’s 2 skill that will benefit from your condition damage. I don’t think the ability to get the free couple of hits at 1500 range will justify all the other shortcomings that are associated with using the lb. For those reasons, I think you would find greater success in using the shortbow!

I used to agree with this too, but the utility of the stealth and knockback are just too good to pass up. Stealth into Entangle is a great way of avoiding dodges, and the double knockbacks you can get with Quick Draw really limit aggressive players mobility. Not to mention the condition stacking on the axe/torch are insane right now and generally make up for the lack of condi application from LB.

I considered a couple of variants of this.
Rampages, sharpening stone instead of sos.

*A general purpose focus on bleed with lb, sw/axe. Idea is obviously burst condi on target with sharpening stone and 100% crit chance. Why axe offhand? Cause reflecting all those enemy rapidfire and triggering sharpening stone ;-) Also 12 aoe dmg tic and vulnerability.

*Other is +100% bleed AND burn with lb, sw/torch. More for pewpew in wvw using +% condi food and giver’s bow.

I will probably just stick with bleeder as even 100% burn duration is still only giving ~2k burn dmg on a rapidfire.

I run a condition build for WvW using LB, Axe, and Torch. Rabid armor, trapper ruins, celestial ascended accessories. Skirmish, Wilderness, and Nature Magic are the trait lines with flame/spike traps, sun spirit, and entangle. Healing spring, eagle, and wolf.

Works well regardless of party size but seems to excel for me with 5. Solo roaming has been easy peasy. Loving sun spirit and most people don’t know what to do with it.