Guild Wars 2

On opening day for GW2, I created myself a Sylvari ranger – Sylviana. So, she’s had a couple of birthdays, but I’ve not yet earned myself 2500 achievement points, so that might point at how casually I’ve been playing the game. But, I did build her up enough so that she’d have an assortment of cultural armor, Twilight Arbor add-ons and cultural weapons.

Since Sylvari/Twilight Arbor gear gives specific stat bonuses, I figured I’d be favoring critical hit and condition builds. Typically, I have Sylviana fight with shortbow/sword+warhorn… but she’s got an assortment of rare “warden” weapons, like twin axes, a greatsword, a dagger and also a longbow. I had Runes of the Ranger, but I found them underwhelming and went for Traveler runes – being speedy is fun.

That’s how she was set up a couple of months ago when the living story went on hiatus.

And recently, I logged in to play Echoes of the Past. Whee

Except, less “wheee” – Sylviana is getting slaughtered! Solo story instances have Mordrem wolves rushing her and turning her into so much cabbagy twigs and kindling.

Thing is, Sylviana isn’t my only character anymore. I’d a level 30ish Mesmer and a 40ish Guardian too. The mesmer’s romanticized much, but I don’t enjoy the class all that much. But Guardian… I was shocked about how that class was pretty much GW2-easymode. Not that I’m dissing Guardian players, but the Guardians has so many tricks up his sleeve to slug it out and decide the pace of a fight that my max level ranger seems to pale in comparison. All Sylviana amounts to by contrast is dashing desperately around to not get killed, rattle off her shortbow like some machinegun or spin like crazy in melee with her sword and hope flaling the thing around madly/blindly will work out.

While I like swords/bows, the shortbow-machinegun and the clumsy-melee-whirlwind got kind of old. I’ve axes (never saw what people liked about them), a dagger (cool looks, doesn’t accomplish much), a greatsword (better control than sword, not sure it does better) and a longbow (my favorite weapon looks-wise, but everything gets too close too fast!) – I’m wondering if there’s a way to use them ‘right’; my condition build certainly doesn’t seem to get much out of them (especially the greatsword/longbow).

And then, there’s the pet (Arctodus or Fern Hound) which is kind of there… and kind of not (No, don’t die… no no no no… err, it’s dead). Spiders are my goto pets in dungeons, since they have ranged attacks and might live longer thanks to that.

I’m trying to puzzle out how my beloved, but rather impotent-feeling ranger character can come into her own… because what I’m doing with her is clearly not working. It’s like she has all the inconvenients of being a glass cannon without the good points of being able to kill stuff before it downs her.

I’ve been pondering getting Celestial gear to get better rounded stats (along with more staying power), but despite my 400 in tailoring, it proved far grandeur an undertaking than I first expected (I’m looking at you, charged quartz thingies – have 1, need 30… ugh).

So, I’m wondering what can be done to make Sylviana be a good ranger that can actually hold her own. If you other ranger people have ideas and input, I’m all ears.

Well to start with, the new enemies are quite dangerous in their mechanics. That’s what’s killing you, not your play style, weapons or gear. Those wolves can 1-hit down you if they hit you from behind, and a pack of them will still easily down you if they hit from the front. I don’t remember if some of the other nasties are in the story instances, but they’re far worse than the wolves. Pay attention to what they actually do, read the text under their names and it will start to get easier.

As far as your build, it can work. If you want to use conditions, you can’t use longbow or greatsword. Maybe try shortbow + sword or axe/torch.

The standard PvE build is full berserker, but that’s for playing with other people. On your own, anything will work. Berserker is the easiest way to play on your own because of the huge damage (and LB can trivialize all content), but if you don’t want to invest in it, definitely don’t.

As for your pet, try to pay more attention and swap when they get low. If you really can’t keep them alive, use a drake or two. River is the best drake. They’re tough, and do reasonable damage. The pure glass pet would be the cat line. I’d probably skip all the other pets for PvE unless you want a specific boon/special ability.

Hm, maybe more details are in order?

What runes/sigils are you running with? This could make a fair difference in how you control a battlefield.

As for weapons, greatsword is good for melee groupings (auto attack has evade in it), and axe is good for mid-range groups with bouncing attacks. Both are more Power based, but I’m not sure how attached you are to conditions for damage.

Utilities are going to be a large part of your control as well. I haven’t played much with traps, but I think they linger after triggering, so if you can keep a cripple on enemy groups, that will help you from getting overwhelmed.

If there’s a particular LS fight that was getting to you, I might know of a few that are just.. a little unfair. :P Drag a buddy along to help out.

Would you be able to put your character into a builder so we have a better idea of what you’re working with?
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

Like Fluffball said if you wanna stick with conditions Shortbow is fine paired with Sword or Axe/Torch. For pets Drakes are tough and do decent damage. Spiders are also an option that you can manually keep out of harms way and still maintain dps. With Spiders you still have to pay attention though because they’re not smart enough not to stand in a mobs attack range or the red circles without you telling them to do so.

Since you mentioned not seeing what others do in Axes, Axe auto attack on 2+ targets coupled with the trait Fortifying Bond will make your pets hit pretty freakin’ hard. Axe #2 pierces which works well with on hit/crit sigils. Perma Weakness on Axe #3. Axe #4 hits like a truck and interrupts. And the reflect Axe #5 is really nice when you need it.

(Part 1)
Thanks for answering guys.

Firstly, I did what Sagramor asked and put up Sylviana’s stats. Here’s the link
Disclaimer: it’s more complimentary than it actually is; the only ‘superior’ stuff I have on Sylviana are the six Runes of the Traveler, the rest are Major. 4 pieces of armor are Exotics, the rest are Rares.

Secondly, gear;
What leapt to my eyes while building in the editor was the lack of upgrades on my items. Another is how my trinkets, despite two ascended (Bud of the Pale Tree, Vine of the Pale Tree), kind of suck – they were whatever I could pick up as dropped loot overtime.

This said, most of Sylviana’s items are “Rabid”; they tend to give boosts to Precision, Toughness and Condition damage – sometimes, there’s some Ferocity too. Her weapons – “Warden” Sylvari cultural Tier 3 stuff – look like “Berserker” already.

I’m not especially attached to the Rabid setup. The only reason I built around it was because I was trying to make the most of the Sylvari cultural gear. This is significantly less important in light of: a) Sylviana’s getting her butt kicked, b) I can transmute other gear to look as leafy as I want. Changing to something else does carry the price of rendering my Ascended amulet and ring obsolete, but other than that I feel pretty flexible.

Third;
I’m stumbling over jargon.
I’m guessing LS means Living Story.
As for LB… longbow? I never found a way to trivialize content with the longbow, though! Whatever LB is, I sure wish I knew more of it!

(Part 2)
Fourth, choices;
The pets I typically resort to are the Fern Hound and the Arctodus
Arctodus: I spent some time looking at the stats of that thing, and it seemed like one of the best mix of stats for a sidekick that would hit like a truck, and take a lot of abuse as well. It’s F2 move caused bleeding, which seemed to go well with what the bleeding the shortbow did.
Fern Hound: Visually the sidekick I like having around the most, seeing it’s leafy, has been with Sylviana since the beginning, and whatnot. It only ever struck me as being very average, and its F2 regen never really seemed to ever make a difference.

As for weapons…
I originally started out with the Longbow. The look and feel of the longbow made it my favorite weapon at first.

But the closer I got to Orr, the more the battles got significantly harder. Then entered the Arctodus rather than the Lynx. Then I looked to places like Guildwars2guru and found out about condition builds – which were all the rage. That’s when I started using the shortbow… and PvP/dungeon people swore by the People praised the sword for its ability to blender things to pieces, and the warhorn for Call of the Wild… so I went that way.

To reiterate, however, I’m quite disenchanted with the sword and it being a blender-y deathtrap for its inability to allow proper movement and dodging (other classes use swords so much more intuitively T_T ). I’ve nothing against the warhorn, but neither is it a weapon I’m very thrilled to be using – mostly from a looks/thematic perspective.

I contemplated the axes (I have two, mostly after the Sylvari NPCs having two). I understand what you’re saying about it… I just never made it work. The axes feel… awkwardly lackluster. It’s like I don,t quite control where it might bounce and take more aggro than I might be able to handle. I did watch youtube videos discussing axe builds and how to trait them… but they seemed like needing to jump through several fiery hoops in order to get something nice – as in, overspecialization.

I’ll admit, a lot of it has to do with boons… and if I have a glaring flaw in my understanding of GW2 as a game… it’s how significant boons can be. Someone could tell me, “this thing is awesome, it gives 3 stacks of might” and I’d go “So?” because I’ve not really been able to quantify the stats in this game (so, in my head: 3 × 0 = 0). It doesn’t mean I don’t care to learn – just admitting that I’m kind of clueless.

I’d love to go back to the longbow – presently, as you’ve confirmed in the above posts – my condition builds makes it pale in comparison to the shortbow.

Also, recently, I got the Warden Greatsword, and though I didn’t picture myself going for big swords, it does a lot of things I wish the sword did. I’ve hardly mastered what combinations could come from it, but I like the autoattack (can move while swinging, can dodge-roll – whee!) and the 3 (nice gap-closer).

If I can make the above two work, I think I could be fairly happy. The rest is learn-to-play stuff I figure I’ll eventually pick up.

I’ve read the mentions of Berserker gear. I know it’s common, and often brought up in Dungeon context. I think I heard that ArenaNet’s latest patches devalued Berserker some – but I’ve only hearsay on that. If going Berserker evokes any worry, it’s to not have the staying power to deliver the damage it might possibly bring.

I already heard – hearsay again – that there’s a stigma against rangers whom use bears. I seem to come pretty close to that with my Arctodus bear-wolf, so, I’ll give the river drake a try. Actually, I’m looking at it chomping at a training dummy right now. Average power and precision, good toughness and high vitality – and it’s amphibious! That could get handy.

Your build and gear is not so bad that you can’t do the LS as is, the new enemies just require you to dodge or relocate at the right times. That said:

Yes, LB is longbow. The PvE meta (read: biggest possible damage because vets care about speed above all else) is berserker, and it just so happens LB got recently buffed back in to that meta. Its doubly powerful for PvE solo because not only is berserker longbow + sword crazy damage, if you camp longbow at massive range and let your cat or drake distract enemies, you can easily solo anything, including champs.

If you want to go that berserker route, exotic armor is relatively cheap (of any stat combo actually.) You have a few options, and you can combine the methods to make the most of the currency you do have.

If you have some saved up karma you can buy it at the god temples in Orr. Check the wiki for where exactly. You can use dungeon tokens if you’ve ever run dungeons. You can buy it relatively cheaply off the trading post (I’m guessing off the top of my head like 3 gold per piece.) You can craft if.

When you pick your weaopns, be sure you pick one that compliments your build. Greatsword and longbow are 100% pure power weapons. It sounds like you already prefer LB + GS, so you’d want to look in to getting berserker armor/trinkets.

Your arctodus doesn’t do good damage, it’s actually one of the lowest possible damage pets. The stock PvE pet would be a drake. Damage pets are cats.

I think I addressed most of what you brought up…

I wouldn’t advice going longbow as a main weapon ( as it teaches bad habits of spamming at range without actually playing the game). The wolves in the new ls are indeed annoying if you don’t have aoe blinds. For most difficult encounters, signet of stone provides a handy invul long enough to kill all the trash mobs. Thing is, the lower your dps is, the harder it is to kill stuff in time and/or rally off a mob you’re about to kill. Going full offensive with berserker gear takes some time getting used to but at least the wolves or any mob you find difficult will die quicker, resulting in a lower chance to miss a dodge or a block. If you take down that road, you want to get a sword, a axe, a warhorn, a greatsword and a longbow at least. The typical dungeon setup for bosses is longbow+sword/axe, but for open world, sword axe+ greatsword would work better. YOu engage the fight with gs 3 and 2, use a block if you need it, then swap to sword and auto attack, using sword 3 if you need an evade and axe 5 for projectile reflect. Sword is a power based weapon, you only have access to cripple and poison, so your damage with a condi build will be lower than usual. Sword is used in pvp meta builds for its great kiting capacities. With a condi sword build, you lack cleave damage, and it’s probably the most important thing for hoard of mobs. You can also get a mix between berserker and tankier gear to achieve a balance between offense and defense, but the “stack-use invul-dps like crazy” method works great in contents like the living story. Hope this helps.

Just some comments on your build and responses (to your response).

You have a mix of condition and power gear which I’m sure you are now aware. At some point you’re going to want to pick one. Hybrid is an option, but tricky to find a balance that works.
You have no condition clears that I can see. This is may be a huge contributor to your feeling squishy. I haven’t played the LS yet so I’m not sure.
You have Travelers Runes so you can probably drop SotH for another utility.
Sword can have a pretty steep learning curve. Step 1 is to turn off auto attack. I prefer GS though because I’m lazy and enjoy having an auto attack.
If you want to get an idea of how boons work the builder actually has a function to show you what your Power and Cond Damage would be with Might stacks in increments of 5. The rest of the boons just mouse-over and read. Axe #1 works very well alongside the trait Fortifying Bond as I had said. This is because while you get 3 sec (base) of might every hit from Axe #1 your pet will get 10 sec (base) of might allowing it to stack up much higher.
Regarding going full Berserker you can usually get away with it if you’re good at positioning and knowing what and when to dodge. If you’ve been relying on toughness, vitality, healing, boons, etc. to stay alive then going Berserker probably isn’t for you yet.

That aside you’re going to have to ask yourself two questions just to get started.
Power/Conditions? Generally conditions are not optimal in Dungeons or WvW zergs. Just about everywhere else in the game they’re fine.
Which weapons? If you’re not doing Dungeons or WvW zerging your choices are less restricted by what damage type they do. I’d suggest going into the mists and testing out different weapon types and builds to get a feel for the different weapons.

Again, I appreciate all the input you guys have been giving me.

I’ve been spending the better part of the weekend overhauling Sylviana. The rest was spent having my butt handed to me repeatedly in the last leg of the Living Story by the multiple bosses involved. =P

I went and salvaged my Rabid gear so I could keep the Superior Traveler runes. Then I crafted my own satchel of Berserker’s Emblazoned gear and slotted the runes back in. Justifying that I could keep my Bud/Vine of the Pale Tree since they were Berserker/Valkyrie statted, I got myself an exotic Berserker’s ring, two ruby orichalcum earrings and slotted Exquisite Ruby Jewels in them. For my back slot, I splurged on making a Quiver of Swift Flight.

Following that, I then I got myself a Berserker’s greatsword and longbow. I slapped Superior Sigil of Force on them, noticed I could actually add another sigil on two-handed weapons.

At first, I went for superior accuracy – having both weapons slotted so gave Sylviana a whopping 54% critical chance.

Later, I tried replacing them with Superior Sigils of Blood… but found the result (as far as sustainability) to be very underwhelming. I went back to the Accuracy ones.

As for my Talent Trees, for lack of having a better idea, I went:
Marksmanship: 6
Signet Mastery, Eagle Eye, Read the Wind
Skirmishing: 4
Companion’s Might, Quickdraw
Wilderness Survival: 4
Wilderness Knowledge, Martial Mastery

The general idea here was first to shorten my weapon cooldowns, then I spotted a chance to make my pet benefit from my high crit chance, splurged in traits that would help with my handling of the bow… and out of whimsy picked up Signets/Survival cooldown reductions.

The reason I combine Signet of the Hunt and Superior Traveler Runes was because I was under the impression both stacked. If that’s not the case, I’ll have to find something else to replace it (drawing a blank presently).

…

Here’s how I fared after that.

Like I said, Living Story stuff generally knocked me on my butt. The bosses on the way to the end of the chapter were difficult enough for me to wonder if the achievements are really in my reach.

In the Silverwastes, I tend to fare better, and that’s mostly thanks to the distance the longbow can afford me. There are two brands of enemies that give me trouble; the thrashers can be tricky, but if I can catch them by behind, they’re as good as dead. The Teragriffs are my bogeymen, though; it typically takes everything I have to take one down – and then I’m usually in poor shape near the end. If there’s more than just the Teragriff, it usually ends badly for Sylviana.

As far as content elsewhere, the impact of the gear change is much more significant. My Longbow’s 2 typically takes care of everything I usually had to handle with Call of the Wild and sword-blender-action, and with much less of a fuss (it’s a 3k vs 7k damage difference that I can see on average). The numbers I have with the longbow actually makes using its autoattack point-blank slightly more attractive to the greatsword’s autoattack in 1vs1. The greatsword’s mostly for fighting multiple opponents, or to use immediately after my longbow skills have been expended to finish a fight faster (the greasword’s 3, then 2, makes for a very nice damage spike).

Another thing I ran Sylviana through was a round of world bosses, like the Jungle Wyrm, the Claw of Jormag, the Mega Destroyer, the Fire Elemental, Tequalt and finally the Shadow Beast. All in all, the experience had me rather pleased with my investment into Berserker gear because I could use the longbow on the bosses more effectively (I used the longbow on bosses before becuase I like to play it safe, so it’s nice to keep doing that and know that I’m making a better contribution), and the greatsword gives me a nice melee weapon which isn’t a pain to use.

you have made some pretty wise choices, one suggestion consider sigils of Air over Accuracy. I’m glad that you are seeming the improvements

in traits, experiment with spotter in the marks line, and consider fortifying bond in the Natures magic (3 points) these are some of the rangers strongest traits.

keep in mind that you don’t have to set and forget, experiment and learn what different combinations do.

Zoberraz.2694:

Again, I appreciate all the input you guys have been giving me.

I’ve been spending the better part of the weekend overhauling Sylviana. The rest was spent having my butt handed to me repeatedly in the last leg of the Living Story by the multiple bosses involved. =P

I went and salvaged my Rabid gear so I could keep the Superior Traveler runes. Then I crafted my own satchel of Berserker’s Emblazoned gear and slotted the runes back in. Justifying that I could keep my Bud/Vine of the Pale Tree since they were Berserker/Valkyrie statted, I got myself an exotic Berserker’s ring, two ruby orichalcum earrings and slotted Exquisite Ruby Jewels in them. For my back slot, I splurged on making a Quiver of Swift Flight.

Following that, I then I got myself a Berserker’s greatsword and longbow. I slapped Superior Sigil of Force on them, noticed I could actually add another sigil on two-handed weapons.

At first, I went for superior accuracy – having both weapons slotted so gave Sylviana a whopping 54% critical chance.

Later, I tried replacing them with Superior Sigils of Blood… but found the result (as far as sustainability) to be very underwhelming. I went back to the Accuracy ones.

As for my Talent Trees, for lack of having a better idea, I went:
Marksmanship: 6
Signet Mastery, Eagle Eye, Read the Wind
Skirmishing: 4
Companion’s Might, Quickdraw
Wilderness Survival: 4
Wilderness Knowledge, Martial Mastery

The general idea here was first to shorten my weapon cooldowns, then I spotted a chance to make my pet benefit from my high crit chance, splurged in traits that would help with my handling of the bow… and out of whimsy picked up Signets/Survival cooldown reductions.

The reason I combine Signet of the Hunt and Superior Traveler Runes was because I was under the impression both stacked. If that’s not the case, I’ll have to find something else to replace it (drawing a blank presently).

…

Here’s how I fared after that.

Like I said, Living Story stuff generally knocked me on my butt. The bosses on the way to the end of the chapter were difficult enough for me to wonder if the achievements are really in my reach.

In the Silverwastes, I tend to fare better, and that’s mostly thanks to the distance the longbow can afford me. There are two brands of enemies that give me trouble; the thrashers can be tricky, but if I can catch them by behind, they’re as good as dead. The Teragriffs are my bogeymen, though; it typically takes everything I have to take one down – and then I’m usually in poor shape near the end. If there’s more than just the Teragriff, it usually ends badly for Sylviana.

As far as content elsewhere, the impact of the gear change is much more significant. My Longbow’s 2 typically takes care of everything I usually had to handle with Call of the Wild and sword-blender-action, and with much less of a fuss (it’s a 3k vs 7k damage difference that I can see on average). The numbers I have with the longbow actually makes using its autoattack point-blank slightly more attractive to the greatsword’s autoattack in 1vs1. The greatsword’s mostly for fighting multiple opponents, or to use immediately after my longbow skills have been expended to finish a fight faster (the greasword’s 3, then 2, makes for a very nice damage spike).

Another thing I ran Sylviana through was a round of world bosses, like the Jungle Wyrm, the Claw of Jormag, the Mega Destroyer, the Fire Elemental, Tequalt and finally the Shadow Beast. All in all, the experience had me rather pleased with my investment into Berserker gear because I could use the longbow on the bosses more effectively (I used the longbow on bosses before becuase I like to play it safe, so it’s nice to keep doing that and know that I’m making a better contribution), and the greatsword gives me a nice melee weapon which isn’t a pain to use.

Good to know. Few things to note:
don’t use longbow in melee range for the damage. Longbow autoattack isn’t strong in melee, has a huge cast time, and is single target. Auto attacking with sword/greatsword is far better. You should carry a berserker sword, axe, and warhorn just in case.
As far as living story goes, since the bosses one shot you with the fragile debuff, you have to use actice defense to survive. It means using gs to block or sword to evade instead of just going in and bursting before getting hit.
For your sig+ runes stacking, you can either swap the runes for scholar or ranger ( that would give you more damage) or dropping signet of the hunt for something like quickening zephyr, signet of the wild or whatever.

And I’m back! Hopefully there’s no harm in reusing my own thread even if it’s two months old.

I’m running with Ranger runes now, and generally happy with how my Ranger handles herself in PvE. I still find my healing lacking, but at least I’ve achieved the status of being a real glass cannon (before, Sylviana was flimsy and did poor damage too). Sylviana actually did very well against the Shadow of the Dragon at the end of the living story.

Lately, my interest in working toward a legendary weapon increased. I was vaguely targeting Kudzu or one of the greatswords (whom are, namely, the only legendaries I think look cool enough to go after as a ranger anyways).

With Heart of Thorns, more legendaries are coming out. It’s likely the new ones – especially if plant/jungle-themed – will have me be far more interested in getting them for my Sylvari ranger. So, I may as well work on the items common to all legendary weapons in the meantime that the expansion comes/I get to learn more specifics on new legendaries.

My first way of toeing that was world completion.

I was in the 90%ish, and not understanding why I couldn’t get the last 10% until I realized it was all in world versus world. Which puts the added complication that getting all those points of interest/vistas/skillpoints involves potentially contending with other players. And that my server (Crystal Desert presently) won’t magically go and conquer the forts I want conquered – same for the borderlands.

It may require that I wait for my server to change ‘home zones’ so that it’d give me a chance to get objectives inaccessible for me. But being that passive doesn’t strike me as ideal, and I need the Gift of Battle anyways so I might as well explore Guild Wars 2’s PvP side. Some people comment it’s pretty nice.

And I found out that if I get in fights, I consistently lose. Well, I’m okay if I’m not alone, but I’ll lose just about every 1vs1 fights I get into. I’ve ambushed people and seen them do huge comebacks against me.

Things I’ve learned so far include the use of certain skills/combos. Longbow -3- lets rangers stealth… something rival rangers seem to use much better than me. Longbow -4- is a controlling power in its knockback, and it makes a good opening for Greatsword -3- to pounce in, followed by greatsword -5- and then -2-.

I’ve tweaked the pets I use, and gotten hold of the Wolf for its Fear-inducing howl, and the Owl for its Chilling Rend slowdown.

Applying this to good use is, however, not working out all that well. If there’s someone with a Commander tag moving about, I can join the zerg and contribute without my lack of skill/savvy/experience being too much of an issue. Low-population roaming is more frustrating, though, as I know that if I run into another player, I’ve not much chance to win. Being basically on my own (the two guilds I can be part of in my listing don’t really have any population in them) doesn’t help either.

Sound like you are doing well! If you ever need help or have questions on your ranger, you are always welcome in [Wind]. =]

We’d be more than happy to help you out with your ranger.

WvW takes practice, especially if you go the power / LB route. If you are just after the vistas and such you do not need to roam, just wait it out as you said. If you want to roam, well you’ll die for a while, no real way around that.

Oh and if you have not figured this out already, you NEED at least one stunbreaker for any pvp. Lightning reflexes is probably the go to choice.

Well, don’t worry about loosing in WvW too much just yet. If you are running around by yourself, you are technically “roaming” and would do better with a build spec’d for roaming. Your current build works great in zerg or 5vX kind of battles but is a little weak for 1v1 against someone who is spec’d for it.

I took a look at you build and wanted to suggest you use Healing Spring instead of heal as one. In PvE you can fight inside the spring and get a nice regen boost off it. Even better, if you swap to GS and hit 3 you will get a leap finisher off it which will give you extra healing. If you ever decide to go back to Warhorn and sword, you can blast your Warhorn inside the spring for a finisher that heals you and frinds and double tap 2 to get another leap finisher. The Spring also removes conditions which will help in the silverwastes. Good Luck!

You can significantly up your fights-per-hour by practicing in a PvP duel server. You could even take a friend in and just working on fighting him over and over until you figure things out. Try to think things through and not just spam buttons, like use your stealth to set up a maul or entangle, etc.

For starters would you care to post a build link to what you’re currently using in WvW? If the only changes to what you last reported are what you listed in this latest post it’s probably just a combination of making a few tweaks to make your build more WvW friendly and practice.

You should join the ranger guild [Wind]. We are a nice group!

Again, thanks for the replies guys.

@Sagramor.7395
I can’t make heads or tails of the build site that was pointed to me before – it’s in another language now, and I’m not icon savvy enough to figure it out.

But yeah, I’m basically mostly the same. Except I’ve swapped one of my utilities for Lightning Reflexes (which has turned out being far more useful in pitched battle than I gave it credit for). Healing Spring is kind of lackluster – my healing stat is unfortunately really weak and it has a fairly long cooldown.

@Gotejjeken.1267
Thank you for the mention of Lightning Reflexes. I went and did some PvPing and it turned out to be pivotal in my prolonged survival.

There was a point where I was in a minute(s) long battle against two warriors going for my team’s Lord and while I spent most of that fight low health, all my skills just kind of clicked and I not only saved my lord singlehandedly, but also downed and defeated one of the warriors and forced the other to flee.

I think I owe that particular victory to the extra dodge rolls Lightning Reflexes granted me, in addition to more judicious use of my Longbow -3- skill as well as making more inventive uses of the Greatsword’s -3-4-5-

That said, that was this one moment of brilliance. Out of the 9 PvP matches I have so far, I’ve only won 3. It still feels like Sylviana gets her leafy butt handed to her most of the time.

@Fluffball.8307
Spamming buttons was something I was prone to doing. I’ve been trying to find more tactical uses of my skills, like the greatsword -3- to leap from one target to another if I want to keep both occupied/attack someone unsuspecting/get out of dodge if my present opponent is giving me too much trouble. The Longbow -3- ends up going at the end of a rotation, as a way to buy me time to think and have my skill rotations recover; I try not to attack while it is in effect (and it’ll attempt to get my pet to draw attention then by use of its skill so my opponent is opened up when I emerge from stealth, or distracted so I can scurry off).

@shadowpass.4236
@Archon.6480

I appreciate the invite and certainly would like to join up with [Wind]. However, I haven’t been able to come into contact with anyone from your guild in-game.

I do suck at combo-fields/finishers. The times I’ve tried to exploit those, I screwed up/didn’t amount to much. It made me kind of ignore them altogether.

Regarding the build site that was shown to you, it is often bugged so the results show up in German. On the upper left, there is an image of the German flag and to its right is a smaller the US flag. Click on the US flag.

Regarding map completion, the Borderlands switch every week. So even if you don’t take their keep, it might be your home base next week.

Sounds like you’ve really improved in 2 months. Good luck.

When facing mordrem i would make two suggestions for your ranger.

Firstly consider slotting muddy terrain for those teragriffs. It’s a nice aoe cripple field that’s ranged on top of that.

Second is, that if you’re going longbow why not trait piercing shots? That way with correct positioning you can nail yourself double the damage if there’s two or more mordrem (heck you can even get 3 at a time, but that’s too situational to make a valid reason of it).

And I return! Again, it doesn’t seem like there’s much point starting a new thread… so, I’m bumping this one.

Though, to be honest, thanks to the people that helped guide me in this thread… my ranger has been saved.

Here’s where I’m at right now.

Guild: So, I’ve joined Favorable Winds [Wind] whom have a beevy of people that are active and to whom I’ve been able to talk to regarding many a ranger topics. I’ve yet to really go and group up with them doing stuff, though.

Gift of Mastery: World Completion was my goal for… pretty much the time I’ve had the game (launch day) and it’s finally over. I have my two Gifts of Exploration… and this opened up the path to preparing to make my first legendary weapon.

Then I did some more WvW until I got to level 14 and got my Gift of Battle (alas, Tomes of Knowledge were no help here). I splurged on my Karma (and a sundry of other currencies) to amass more obsidians, and used up my hoarded skillpoints until I could complete the Gift of Mastery.

That makes for 1/4 of my first Legendary Weapon done. My goal is to get half done before Hearts of Thorn in order to be ready for whatever new legendaries crop up (with me hoping for something nicely sylvari/ranger themed, otherwise I’ll likely default for Kudzu).

I’m not too concerned with the Mystic clovers – I’ve already managed through monthly rewards and reward track completion to get 1/3 of what I need already. It’s the components for the Gift of Magic/Gift of Might that concerns me more – it’s not something I can just buy from the auction house – waaaayyy too expensive for my means… which means cobbling them up overtime in one way or another.

Gear: I’m still berserker/berserker everything, with all of my trinkets ascended and exotic medium armor. From a stroke of luck, I found a Zojja ascended armor chest, and I selected the coat for it (the ‘chest’ requires a Vision crystal – so it’s the hardest to craft). From advice given by the [Wind] guild, I switched out my Force and Accuracy sigils in favor of Air and Fire for extra burst damage.

But at the time, I’m not really aiming to craft ascended gear before I get to my objective for preparing my Legendary Weapon. The stat gain looks to be minimal/hardly worth the bother.

Crafting Mawdrey: One side activity I do have going on is trying to craft Mawdrey – I’m at the Cultivated Vine stage now. I’m mostly stuck by my inability to obtain pristine relics from the fractals. I’m not necessarily in a hurry, though, as the amount of ascended components (i.e.: bloodstone dust) isn’t enough to complete it you anyways (according to the recipe list I see over the wiki, anyhow).

Day-to-Day: I mostly end up logging in and doing sPvP to get some of my daily achievements. Then I switch to another game mode (usually PvE) and complete the daily. It gives me some loot and a steady increase in achievement points, some advancement in my reward track and the daily reward on login.

So, that’s where I’m at now. Now, about what I want to do next…

(continued)

Personnal gameplay goals:
So, lately, I’m mostly playing PvP. At the time of this post, I’ve grown to be a rank 23 Dolyak. I’ve nearly a hundred games up my belt, I lost more than half, but win or lose, I’ve also nearly a hundred mentions of being a top scorer in some way or another.

There are a lot of skilled players out there, many better than I whom have served me Sylviana’s cabbagy rear-end on a platter. On the other hand, I’m not as easy a kill as I was, I can hold my own in a few fights, or at least make my opponents work for it even if I’ll lose – and that even when attacked by superior numbers.

At least, I know I’m capable in PvP with my Ranger. Not necessarily competent, or great. But then, I’ve been reading on Reddit that playing with a ranger included two layers, one of comfort within one’s own playstyle and the other where you worked to master the class and get rid of your own bad habits.

I’m at the point where I feel I’d like to master my class more. As far as greatsword/longbow goes, I know how to defend myself, I know how to do some pretty good combos – I’m in a pretty good comfort zone there. I still fumble like I did in the beginning, but that happens less, thanks to my being slightly more seasoned (salad dressing pun?) and able to make better judgment calls. Time will surely yield more of that.

But the Ranger offers a lot more stuff that I’ve not yet tried. So far, I’ve scorned shouts, spirits and traps. I don’t know a whole lot about them. I heard the value of boons for the ranger but I’ve no way of really generating them (though I think I’ve heard about the axe being linked to that somehow when I read other posts).

For instance, if I want to go and do dungeons, I’ve heard Rangers don’t give much to their parties. So, I was thinking “If I’m going to go do dungeons, should I go for a spirit build?” Being able to heal people effectively with some of the regen boosts I’ve seen in the ranger masteries could potentially be nice… if that’s at all feasible.

Some people over Reddit swear by traps. I’ve tried reading more at length about how they performed, but a lot of what they say seems meant to people whom already understand more than me. They seem better when a ranger is pursued/wants to control terrain (could be potentially great for roaming in WvW or taking points in sPvP Conquest?) but they seem heavily leaning on condition damage, the thing I moved out from in favor of power/crit/crit severity with the Berseker gear.

(I do have 30 charged lodestones… so it wouldn’t be too much trouble to craft myself a Celestial armor set)

Then, there’s the boon stacking, of which I’m largely clueless. I know might boons were nerfed lately, so obviously they were very useful (+30 seemed small to me when my power stat is in the 2200…)

I’m not sure how to start on this. I’m kind of scared to try something I won’t be able to use when and then have the people depending on me – either in dungeons or sPvP – brought down because I’m a liability. Is there anyway I can get that information so that I can be at least cognizant in what I’m doing? The build sites I found have a parlance mostly meant for people whom already understand more than me so they don’t feel very accessible.

Thank you for your consideration!

This thread helped put me on track to fixing my own ranger. I had a ‘tank boon’ build and was getting utterly slaughtered.

Thanks OP & contributors.

You do not need to craft/obtion any gear in spvp as all the stats are the same. You can choose where you want to specialize with the amulet.
WvW wise generally condition bunkers are a lot more common “roamers” personally i don’t think Celestial is worth it for ranger.
PvE conditions are generally pretty bad, the DoT is a lot slower compared to raw power dps.
If you want to do dungeons
http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_S/A_LB_Spotter
is a pretty standard build.
General pugs will expect you to be a LB camper, u can surprise them with this build. The tips are pretty good, and u could consider swapping the LB for something else as in dungeons the meta is to stack, Line of sight, and dps the boss down.

You might have a whole lot more money than you realize. Look at your crafting materials and get a rough value of their prices on the TP if you were to sell them.

Stuff like iron and ori you can easily gather yourself over time, and the rare T6 mats can be bought with other useless mats you have saved up. Some T6 mats you don’t need sell for a lot, and selling lower tier mats in bulk can quickly net you a few dozen gold.

There might be more efficient uses for unnecessary mats like crafting and forging things or whatever, but selling is a quick and easy way to get gold.

And on your PvP subject, I personally believe LB has no place at all in solo queue. I’m probably in a large minority, but I think it doesn’t fit conquest at all; it barely has a place in an organized team comp.

On daily ranger winner days, I take the s/t + a/d build out and just farm the ever loving kitten out of bad LB rangers.

My bank is pretty much empty of materials, so, my riches come from what I get from now on. I was already mostly in the habit of selling to the Trade House every material I found so I’m pretty much starting to hoard things for the Gift of Might and Magic from scratch.

As for PvP… I went and tried this: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_S/T_%2B_A/D_Condition

To which, right now, I can only comment on as to how much I hate this build! There, the vitriol’s out, though I’m no less sincere about the urge to grab my keyboard and smash IT AROUND UNTIL PIECES FLY-

There I go again. Sorry. It was a very agravating evening of trying to stick with ‘practice gets perfect’ but ending up as the lowest scorer of pretty much all my sPvP matches.

It’s slow moving, it doesn’t have much range, it barely has any good defenses, it- it makes my hands want to curl into claws.

However, one of my guildmates (Saethe) – also praising the build – took over an hour of his time to demosntrate the potential for it, how to place the skills, how to chain them. What counter-CCs to watch out for. How to use the Sword -2- skill to pursue/make escapes, how to About Face.

Then, I went back for another sPvP match, and it went back to Sylviana’s cabbage butt being burnt, knocked about, sliced and diced. The only difference was that some of my muddy terrain and splitblades did land as intended. It’s just that the execution of all of that didn’t seem to go at a pace sufficient to be competitive. I also fumbled – a lot.

I’m frustrated, but not ungrateful. I asked for advice on how to explore the ranger class and try to get better at it. I was probably a bad LB ranger, and I’m trying not to be.

Somehow. I really miss my LB/GS and it’s only been an evening. T_T

Condi rangers are more versatile than LB rangers, so you have to slightly shift your viewpoint. You’re not necessarily meant to just +1 fights from the outskirts with your axe. If you see someone about to take your point, you now have a build to go sit on the point and duke it out with them. It’s interesting you think it doesn’t have good defense, coming from a LB build, especially since your linked build also uses signet of stone. You’re wrong in thinking that, so you probably need to play with the skills a bit.

Perhaps try customizing the build to your liking. For example rabid +undead rune with sharpening stone instead of carrion with scavenging and keen edge is a popular option. That will provide you a lot more toughness, which can help with the popularity of berserker amulets.

I use the celestial amulet with condition enhancing runes and sigils to round out my stats and get some good damage out of my sword, but it sounds like you might prefer rabid and getting the damage from torch and splitblade.

Seek the light and you can be saved…

Seriously though, what is the wrong with the Ranger? Didn’t we just have a thread get locked that LB is broke? Now we want to be saved? REPENT I say!

Just kidding. Man, we are never happy are we?

The people posting LB is OP are never ranger forum goers.

I did it without issues as full berserker greatsword+LB ranger with sic em, signet of stone, and signet of the wild with Healing Spring heal.

damage+ when full endurance, spotter, predator’s onslaught, and 20 into skirmish line with 30% pet crit bonus and might for pet on crit. the rest goes into nature magic, power conversion from vitality trait and boons shared with pet.

Take drake+jaguar/jungle stalker or double drakes.

for packs open with barrage and then switch to jungle drake>f2 lightning spreay+ greatsword maul and aoe them down.

Don’t engage the floating flower looking mordrem in melee, range them down. Use longbow stealth to peel mobs off you when you need.

Blast on your healing spring with swoop.

Ranger is an inferior class to warrior/guardian/ele/thief, don’t bother. Even engineer is better.

Ranger is on the bottom tier with mesmer and necro, they only bring you for frost spirit.

You play ranger because it’s fun to you, otherwise if you’re looking for an optimal class, the pet/condition classes are not it.

there’s not much to do as ranger currently, and I speak from a lot of experience in wvw and pvp. the most solid build atm is glassbow because it gives you most demonstrable results. condi/bunker rangers are in a pretty bad shape in the cele meta. in wvw though, they remain strong for dueling.

in pve, rangers are beastly. some of the highest damage in the game, and decent utility.

just wait for the xpac info…I think they improved the ranger a lot based on our CDI feedback.

mistsim.2748:

there’s not much to do as ranger currently, and I speak from a lot of experience in wvw and pvp. the most solid build atm is glassbow because it gives you most demonstrable results. condi/bunker rangers are in a pretty bad shape in the cele meta. in wvw though, they remain strong for dueling.

in pve, rangers are beastly. some of the highest damage in the game, and decent utility.

just wait for the xpac info…I think they improved the ranger a lot based on our CDI feedback.

Ranger PvE damage pales in comparison to what an ele or thief can pull off. And you bring terrible aoe to boot as outside of drakes your pets don’t cleave and barrage is a terrible aoe damage skill. You also bring less boons to a group, and the frost spirit isn’t that amazing that people won’t just bring another frostbow ele or an extra thief.

Open world PvE sure ranger does well but open world pve is braindead you just pluck at things with your bow.

It’s nice to read about someone’s journey through ups and downs and I’m happy you didn’t give up on your ranger.

I’m not a thread necromancer, I’m just a druid that did Search & Rescue on it!;

Sylviana’s doing pretty well since Hearts of Thorns. I had her start the expansion going with all Celestial gear to have her prepared for anything, and I felt it paid off – she’s likely the character that went through the story content of the expansion the most easily in my stable. Went most of the way with Greatsword/Longbow.

I also completed the Kudzu legendary I spoke of before. Went the traditional way. I’m currently partway done with the Legendary journey for Chuka & Champawat; the Heart of Thorn completion requisites are still in the way (especially the Masteries).

Based on information I got from this Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4g7y77/heres_a_dps_comparison_of_43_ranger_builds/
I created myself another set of ascended equipment, Viper medium armor and all the ranger’s condi oriented weapons (shortbow, torch, axe, sword, dagger) and went for a druid\wilderness lore-based condi build with axe/torch and shortbow. It’s more vulnerable, but I’m making short work of a lot of nastier HoT encounters (Pack Raptors are much easier to deal with!). Since I don’t have access to Raid-obtained gear, Celestial accessories are rounding that out for the moment (I kind of like this hybrid too, to be honest. More forgiving). The latest nerf that hit me hard-ish is the loss of the axe second-bounce; it was certainly useful in crowds of weaker monsters, but I liked it more for how it granted might to my allies; much less of that now.

I also converted my celestial gear into a mix of Cleric/Magi that should serve decently in Raids. I stockpiled consumables appropriate for raiding too. And yet, getting into raiding seems as arduous are job hunting for an entry post “searching for newly graduated students” + “please have 3 years of experience in a big company”… so, yeah, not there yet. Sent feelers to guilds that teach guilds, but most have gone unanswered.

Sylvi is also faring “okay” in sPvP. I’m by no means a clutch player, I lose my 1v1 more than I like to admit but my guildmates still seem to value me for being a good team player (and to realize on my own when I do screw up). I run my variant of Metabattle Druid Bunker build; I replace Signet of Renewal and “Protect Me!” by Glyph of Tides and Glyph of Equality for the extra crowd-control and stunbreak… but I mostly wanted them for the ability to stop stomps on downed allies.

I really liked Search & Rescue during the PvP league’s second season, but since they nerfed it hard, increasing the cooldown and the range, I end up finding that it misfires very often (likely a range issue, and then I’m stuck unable to use it again until 2 minutes later). I wish the skill, like Staff ¹, would only be useable when there was a downed friendly target in range to avoid it being wasted.

Another skill I want to like, because it can be useful (and because I find most ranger Elite skills underwhelming anyways), is Glyph of Unity (against chronophantasma mesmers, minion necros, especially). Only, Glyph of Unity misfires most of the time. I’ve done tests to make sure I was uninterrupted and wasn,t interrupting the casting by spamming other skills… and often, just -nothing-

Finally, a picture of Sylvi in attachment for you guys. Bask in her purpleness!

Good to see you are still enjoying your ranger.

Worth mentioning that you can obtain viper(or any stat) accessories , rings, back and amulet without doing raids via the new maps . Bloodstone fen has amulet , back and rings while you can grab accessories from ember bay and also another back item.