Guild Wars 2

A few videos of my build in action, these are not show off videos, I’m not claiming superior skill levels or that my opponents were all skillful masters, it’s just a few videos of my build in action. They were taken on the fly, mildly edited for length and then stuck on YouTube, my enemies make more than a few mistakes and I make more than a few of my own.

I’ve been told a few times from group requests, by enemy servers that I’ve become known as the dodging Ranger, my general rule for battle is to engage into battle hot and fast, I use my TU offensively and use it the very second I draw attention (so almost right away in 1v1), when my TU is on cooldown and the effect isn’t running, if I’m taking damage that I consider too hot, I drop to sword and dagger and evade out the cooldown. When my TU is up again, either sticking with my sword or swapping back to shortbow depending on the situation I’ll pop TU right away and go full crazy offensive again.

It took a while to reach this point with my build, I ran heavy condition damage with high healing previously and started to add to my critical chance in order to apply more bleeds, as I did this I slowly started to add more power and noticed it working well with my shortbow. At this point now, I’m sat at 2000 power (more with bloodlust stacks), 50% chance to critical, 2000 toughness and 0 healing. I consider it an advanced build with a high learning curve that I wouldn’t have run from day one.

These are mostly skirmish videos, I don’t often take videos of zergs but I’m happy with my build in those situations. The main point of my videos is the constant “evasion” popping up at just the right moment, a keystone to my build is evasion and high vigor while trying to lead the target into me where I will pet swap and land burst, I don’t hit like a truck but I hit hard and fast.

I run Mango Pie food which doubles the effectiveness of SoW, something I couldn’t get even with 900 healing power as well as Sharpening Stones. I run Sigil of Fire on my shortbow.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAVJ2BWWWs2Bi2DOZJMxUwfG5U4fUB

These videos are post and pre quickness nurf.

A section of the video at the start shows some nice evasion of a group of enemies that closed the gap on me – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ8KgnWrYgs

Towards the end I get locked down and almost die but pull it back again with some defensive footwork, heh (ie if in doubt, evade like a monkey) – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTDD68RwivY

The fight at the start of this video vs the Mesmer and then an Elemental and a Ranger isn’t the main part of the video, it’s more the fast evasion escape and run from a larger group (2:05 minutes in) which some of the more vocal critics of Rangers have often told me is impossible to do in PMs – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZncCzs2hL2o

I’ll patch a few sPVP videos together at some point.

Nice vids. Didn’t notice many mistakes on your side and your mechanics with evades, leaps, LR are solid. I think the “hard to learn” part is one of the biggest reasons why people think ranger is bad.

That’s very kind, I do make some mistakes though, I miss time a few evades/over assume their attack and evade where it’s not needed wasting an evade but then when it comes to evades it’s an art not always a science.

There were a few times when I could have finished someone faster and at one point two of us finish someone while I could have been attacking the other Elemental.

Main problem with Rangers I find is that when Elemental and Thieves screw up they have a face roll way out of it, we don’t so you have to be perfect everytime.

Like I said though, they are just random videos, not cherry picked just to show off my build, glad you enjoyed.

MONKEY? MONKEY?! But those are warriors :P LOL!

Seriously though, very nice vids. So from what I see, you use the shortbow for offense, and switch to sword/dagger for defense. I rarely see you go on the offensive with the sword. I should really learn how to use the sword. I’ve stuck with the GS for too long. XD

Hope you don’t mind, I’ll add this in to the list of videos I’m compiling

Yes that’s pretty much it, when I’m offensive I run TU then drop to sword if I need to be defensive while my TU is on cooldown, with TU running I can go full balls out with my shortbow letting my 2000 toughness and TU take the edge of the incoming damage.

This will change depending on the situation and the enemy but that’s my general rule.

I do go offensive with the sword and I have a few sPVP videos of that but right now I’m re-thinking that as my main sword offensive tactic would be to lock on with sword #1 (the thing people hate about sword but I think is amazing) then hit pet swap F4 and then F2 for pet burst with my sword #1 hitting buffed from the quickness from the pet change. It’s like a blender of death.

BUT, quickness has suffered a nerf of course and I changed my build slightly.

jubskie.3152:

Hope you don’t mind, I’ll add this in to the list of videos I’m compiling

Sure, not at all, go for it.

Nice vid, I made something similar for my new ranger only I couldn’t let go of the massively powerful BM pet I have 0/20/20/0/30 about same stats as you but more healing less health and I’m using greatsword instead of sword+dagger but that is mainly cause I haven’t used it very much and wanted something new, I’m liking it alot though, I think the only other diffrence is I use spring and omnom pies.

Maybe that would work better if I dropped to 20bm and picked up emphatic bond and troll instead to be more mobile and still have some cleansing what do you think?

I ran with a BM pet for sometime but you just end up hindering your damage when you can’t apply your pet to the zerg as easily. I moved away from it slowly, classes like Thieves and Elemental get a faceroll, “I suck so I’ll just smash my head on the keypad” get out of jail free card that they can just keep applying over and over when they screw up and we totally lack that so when you lower your survivability it gets a lot harder for Rangers.

It’s interesting though that a lot of classes moan about our pets and yet we also moan about our pets, the up side to a pet is that outside of the zerg they give us the highest range in the game by a huge amount, it’s always a way of splitting our damage, while I focus on hitting one target a bird can easily finish a down target that I can’t get to.

The only thing about my build that I hate is my cleansing, I think you could try out emphatic bond and see how it goes for you.

My build in action during sPVP, my power and critical chance is lower than in my W3 mode but healing is up to compensate. The build was also slightly different as it had pet swap haste as this was pre the latest patch.

Please note the trolling thief at the start who was utterly owned and out “evaded” when he tried to lock me down, and then claimed “lol wasting haste on a flag finish, noob”, totally not understanding our pet swap mechanic.

Sword is used more offensively in this video.

Again, these are just random videos, not my best moments or greatest fights (always forget to start the cam running on those, ha!) but some of my more interesting evade and dodge moments which is why I call it my Capuchin build.

Thanks for watching again.

I run a similar build in WvW, with the exception of putting more emphasis on crit damage and using a GS instead of SB. Since the patch and updated ranger GS damage on 2 and 3, if you spec into the Moment of clarity trait and hit a crit with either of those skills after an interrupt you can deal out some decent damage.

Hey, Capuchin. Any chance of going into more detail with your gear load out? I’m actually quite tempted to try this style of play. Would be the first time I’ve never specced into BM at all on my main (ranger).

Does emphatic bond still work if your pet is dead? it’s a great trait for you but it’s also an absolute petslayer even with 20 in BM and a relatively high health pet in a wolf he will literally go down in a few seconds unless you have troll up and that’s without being focused by enemies at all, it annoys me to the point of rage how some of these are designed.

I’ve tried it (the setup I was considering earlier in here) I love the mobility troll offers you, not only offensively I feel it’s just as good while having to retreat but emphatic bond and pets don’t get along at all unless you enjoy seeing them die… what to do…

Manekk.6981:

Does emphatic bond still work if your pet is dead? it’s a great trait for you but it’s also an absolute petslayer even with 20 in BM and a relatively high health pet in a wolf he will literally go down in a few seconds unless you have troll up and that’s without being focused by enemies at all, it annoys me to the point of rage how some of these are designed.

I’ve tried it (the setup I was considering earlier in here) I love the mobility troll offers you, not only offensively I feel it’s just as good while having to retreat but emphatic bond and pets don’t get along at all unless you enjoy seeing them die… what to do…

Drop emphatic bond and use healing spring instead of troll unguent. If you use a sword or greatsword healing spring outheals troll unguent as long as you use the leap finishers.

It seems a bit silly that you spend all that time just dodging (allowing your foe’s healing skill to recharge), when you would get much better results by simply using Entangle or traps, to hold your foe in place. It’s also a bit of a shame that you don’t use your sword to lock down your foe, when they try to escape. Also, since you either only use the sword to run away, or the shortbow to chase, the warhorns swiftness would help you a lot more then a dagger.

Nugget.8031:

Manekk.6981:

Does emphatic bond still work if your pet is dead? it’s a great trait for you but it’s also an absolute petslayer even with 20 in BM and a relatively high health pet in a wolf he will literally go down in a few seconds unless you have troll up and that’s without being focused by enemies at all, it annoys me to the point of rage how some of these are designed.

I’ve tried it (the setup I was considering earlier in here) I love the mobility troll offers you, not only offensively I feel it’s just as good while having to retreat but emphatic bond and pets don’t get along at all unless you enjoy seeing them die… what to do…

Drop emphatic bond and use healing spring instead of troll unguent. If you use a sword or greatsword healing spring outheals troll unguent as long as you use the leap finishers.

I had that to begin with but I find it’s pretty weak without the 33% increased regens allowing it to stack up and you don’t have nearly as much mobility, I find it very hard to stay in it when you have multiple opponents, dodging like a monkey while using terrain is absolutely necessary sometimes and especially if you need to bolt when they are too many troll will often keep you alive where spring just wouldn’t be enough.

Good points, but..

Kasama.8941:

It seems a bit silly that you spend all that time just dodging (allowing your foe’s healing skill to recharge).

..? My dodging is done when I’m either locked down or being attacked by 4 or more people, that was the point of the videos. Yes Muddy Terrain is very good and wouldn’t say it isn’t, my traits are what I most often find useful for me.

Kasama.8941:

It’s also a bit of a shame that you don’t use your sword to lock down your foe, when they try to escape.

..? I do, in the video alone I lock down an Engineer while a Warrior tries to attack me and have a number of videos of me doing the same, I didn’t say I use the sword for defence alone, I even say above I “drop to sword if I need to be defensive while my TU is on cooldown” and “I do go offensive with the sword” detailing my pet swap sword attack.

There are a few times when I could have locked someone down with sword #1 and didn’t but the few times I can think of, there was a reason I was trying to stay at range.

Kasama.8941:

the warhorns swiftness would help you a lot more then a dagger.

I often use the warhorn, it’s very useful. If I’m showing off for videos though I prefer the dagger for the cripple and dodge.

Manekk.6981:

I had that to begin with but I find it’s pretty weak without the 33% increased regens allowing it to stack up and you don’t have nearly as much mobility, I find it very hard to stay in it when you have multiple opponents, dodging like a monkey while using terrain is absolutely necessary sometimes and especially if you need to bolt when they are too many troll will often keep you alive where spring just wouldn’t be enough.

I agree, HS is very useful and I love the condition removal but without points in healing I find it too limiting and I can run TU with nothing in healing and it will still heal like a truck and leave me with my mobility.

It DOES leave me exposed to conditions though, I wouldn’t deny that. Exposed though, not totally vulnerable, EB will take the edge off and TU will heal through them.

Good video and fairly entertaining. Unfortunately WvW has a lot of factors involved that make make it imposable for class balancing. It’s a shame Rangers cannot achieve similar results in Tpvp without having to run the trap build.