A guildie of mine has been looking into “chill heavy” builds since chill is such a mean condition (reduced movement and increased skill cooldown speed). As such, I tried my hand at maximizing chill from a Ranger.
Ranger – gw2buildcraft.com
Ranger – gw2skills.net
Ah, what a coininkydink! I just got done trying one.
I’m actually going through and trying out mono-condition and boon focused builds in dungeon PvE.
I just wanted to say I find your rune choice delicious.
And I wanted to add, Ice Drake’s Frost Breath cooldown is surprisingly fast for the family and due to the movement impairment nature of working with a perma-chill build I found it alot easier to land the F2. I don’t know how translatable that is to sPvP (which is what I think this build is for?), but I thought it was worth mentioning.
WvW. You can’t take Giver’s weapons nor Mad King runes in sPvP.
Ahhhh. Shows how much I sPvP and WvW. :p
Ahhhh. Shows how much I sPvP and WvW. :p
No worries :-)
The thing about this build that really interests me is the +100% condition duration when it has access to chill (in abundance!), bleeding, burning, poison, cripple, immobilize, and vulnerability. It’s not lacking in defense either with the evasions from dagger and sword.
you might wanna test the pet condition duration trait, i recently filed bug report because it doesn’t effect the active of most drakes (works on reef) but the only one i didn’t test was ice drake as it wasn’t relevant to my build, also might be worth checking if it will work on owl/wolf etc.
You could also use 4 runes of grenth, 2 svanir – will give +40% (unless it’s been changed) freeze duration and a 5% chance to cause a 3sec chill on hit (30 sec CD).
Another source of Chill is the food Ghost Pepper Popper, which gives 40% of Chill on Crit at Night, and 40% chance of Might on Crit during the day. I use them along with a SB with Sup Sigil of Ice at night in WvW. While I generally prefer canines during the day because of their CC, I switch to cats for more damage at night since I get tons of CC from my bow’s Chills.
you might wanna test the pet condition duration trait, i recently filed bug report because it doesn’t effect the active of most drakes (works on reef) but the only one i didn’t test was ice drake as it wasn’t relevant to my build, also might be worth checking if it will work on owl/wolf etc.
You could also use 4 runes of grenth, 2 svanir – will give +40% (unless it’s been changed) freeze duration and a 5% chance to cause a 3sec chill on hit (30 sec CD).
While you could use those for “only chill duration”, I opted to instead for go “all conditions duration”. Ranger has access to several conditions, so it seemed like a stronger way to go.
I had this crazy idea long time before.I noticed that there was a lot of access in Chill for Rangers.I also used the Frost Spirit,I got deeper in the Natures Magic traitline..For tPvP only.With Rune of Ice at my armor slots..I abandon this build cause i found it kinda boring…I had it in my mind like something supportive.Also i remember that i won 5 soloq tournaments in a row..Im not sure if it was the build or i had bad enemies
Yeah since the quickness nerf I’ve been experimenting with an Ice Ranger in sPvP, as I prepare to drop my now-defunct power ranger. I tried running 2 x Svanir, 2 x Grenth, 2 x Ice with white wolf and ice drake, but a straight up condition build with undead runes seems to work better for me in hotjoin. Maybe I just need more practice with it.
I ran a build VERY similar to this, except I used Runes of Ice for the constant 5% damage increase due to their perma chill.
you might wanna test the pet condition duration trait, i recently filed bug report because it doesn’t effect the active of most drakes (works on reef) but the only one i didn’t test was ice drake as it wasn’t relevant to my build, also might be worth checking if it will work on owl/wolf etc.
You could also use 4 runes of grenth, 2 svanir – will give +40% (unless it’s been changed) freeze duration and a 5% chance to cause a 3sec chill on hit (30 sec CD).
While you could use those for “only chill duration”, I opted to instead for go “all conditions duration”. Ranger has access to several conditions, so it seemed like a stronger way to go.
Yeah fair enough, i suppose it would depend on whether you can effectively keep up chill 100% of the time without them – if you can then you might as well go for the more damaging runes.
I also had a try at a chill build and had a go with it in spvp. Didn’t give it lots of time, for sure I’d need some adjusting to do as far as gameplay goes. What I don’t understand, why you use sword beside axe? Chill I think would be optimal at range, whether you are being chased or chasing someone. I tried axe/dagger, shortbow. I used white moa and the owl, and took the trait that gives vigor on swap. Also used 2 sigils of energy to keep distance. Guardians and warriors still managed to rush me. Maybe it was just me though.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/WvW-builds-w-new-patch/first#post1729905
Here’s my experience. I didn’t have the resources to test in WvW, but did try with soldier and knight gear with a varition in traits as well.
(edited by nagymbear.5280)
Sword because you need 2 giver weapons in each weapon set to keep your +condition duration at 100%.
Sword also because, as you stated, you can’t keep people out of melee range with you. The evasions on the sword are quite nice.
If you can’t keep someone off you while using Axe (chill) + Dagger (cripple), then I think you need to be prepared for melee.
Lastly, sword so that you can have both the dagger and torch offhands as both provide even more on-demand condition damage. Aside from flame trap and a drake pet, torch is the only other way for a Ranger to reliably inflict burning. Inflicting Bleeding, Burning, and Poison is very mean … especially with +100% condition duration.
So you would use the chill not to slow your opponent down, but to increase skill cooldown? Sounds insteresting. A sword also has the advantage that with ice trap you can have Ice aura. Having said that I’d still go with shortbow. I was narrow minded and looked down on poison for dealing lower damage compared to other conditions, but the reduction in healing is the kind of small boost a ranger needs to take down its opponnent.
I have to say this is a refreshing change of pace. Constructive suggestions and a lack of rage. Its a wonderful thing to see.
I do have to ask, is there a cooldown on the sigils of ice? I’ve never thought of it, but does it proc on crits on secondary targets with the axe?
Does this have any use in pve and dungeons?
@nagymbear.5280: You use chilled to:
Denying movement can be crippling to enemies as it better enables you to dictate the flow of a fight. Take a look at elementalists and thieves. Their speed gives them a huge advantage when it comes to dictating fights.
Increasing cooldown times means less uses of your foe’s skills. This means less uses. This can result in your foe having reduced damage/utility/healing/etc.
I don’t see any real issue with replacing sword with shortbow. Shortbow has it’s only cripple and has one built-in evasion so it’s not a bad choice. I believe shortbow can work in most any Ranger build. You will have 10% less condition duration with it though.
If you did this, I’d be somewhat torn between Axe+Torch or Axe+Dagger. Torch gives you access to burning damage from it’s #4 and #5 and allows for a fire combo field with your axes (awesome with axe auto and especially #2!). Dagger provides it with more defense (#4 evasion) poison (axe lacks this), and more bleed w/ a cripple (#5).
@Semil.8279:
I’m very glad you’re enjoying the thread. I’m enjoying the discussion quite a bit a well. It’s a refreshing breath of air :-)
According to the tooltip on gw2skills.net (I’m at work right now), there is a 10 second internal cooldown on the Superior Sigil of Ice.
One of the biggest advantages of the Ranger pet is that the Ranger can go extremely defensive, even out of attack range of their foe while their pet is still doing damage to them. By keeping your foe chilled, you can better enable yourself to dictate when you are/aren’t in range. The chill reducing movespeed by 66% also helps your pet land their hits more reliably. Chilled is even better than crippled in this area as crippled only reduces movespeed by 50% while chilled reduces it by 66%.
One thing I’ve never really tested much is if the slow from chill stacks with the slow from cripple.
Or WvW? Could be interesting in GvG kind of fights.
The only “great” use I can think for it in PvE is keeping melee bosses under control.
In WvW, I imagine it’d be better for smaller fights, but you could “screw over” one target at a time in larger fights. Chill is the meanest non-damaging condition you can have on you.
I think getting the pet skills to hit on time would be troublesome. Otherwise my quick mental math shows promising ability to keep chill on a target permanently, and 2 targets for extended periods, before including traits, gear, or food bonuses.
Reality will almost surely intervene with perfect possibility, notably needing the skills on your mainhand of one set in the midst of some situation preventing you from switching and procing the sigil of hydromancy.
In WvW it would be entertaining to use, provided you can survive. With axe ricochets randomly chilling, throwing frost traps, sending pets to attack random people. Even if you don’t chose to perma-chill one person, you could go a decent way towards inconveniencing a number of people.
I was also considering a chill / cripple build as well. On paper it looks pretty slick.
Semil.8279:
Hitting with the Owl’s F2 isn’t not too difficult. The Snow Leopard isn’t bad either. Both of those animal families have some of the more reliable F2s (bird slashes and cat leaps). Much more reliable than the other pet families anyways ;-)
I’m thinking taking Rabid gear would help with the survivability of the build quite a bit given it provides good toughness. Aside from that, the Ranger’s natural ability to evade should help it survive as well.
Anyone have feedback on how putting both chill and cripple on a target affects it?
i think you’d have to stay reasonably close to your enemy to get the effects of sigil of hydromancy, but you could certainly stay out of melee range while doing so.
The idea behind the sigil of hydromancy with the above build was that it’s there to provide another source of chill. You need that “other source” if your opponent is in melee range of you. Also, both the sword and the axe operate quite well at short range. In fact, you want to be at short range for Axe #2 to bleed your opponent with all the axes.
Interesting. Innovation is always good. Tagged for future reference.
I like this “chill build” idea. I made a similiar BM – Chill build, to ensure my bird and jag could make the hits. Concentrated on chill duration and pet dmg. Awesome!
Not suited for dungeons though, imo.
Btw. remember to make the chill combo finishers!
Edit. Sup Sigil of Chilling is also good to consider (20% chill duration)
(edited by awe extender.1908)
It would be awesome if chill and cripple stacked. Sadly they do not. I found the hite moa, alpine wolf, polar bear chills easier to land, especially if the target is moving toward you. Alpine wolf also has knockdown. Also they are aoe as far as I know. Although chill is nice I would put more points into con damage or power for more damage.
Increasing cooldown on skills sounds nice, but as far as thieves go they dont have cd on their weapon skills. I always love to watch thieves go down, so if you make some videos of some thief ownage I’d love to see that. Sad truth is a good thief with basilisk venom will down you before the immobilize ends.
But do take the build into spvp and let us know your experience.
(edited by nagymbear.5280)
Interesting. Did anyone actually test it or would be willing to provide vids? In theory ranger with 60% of his DPS failing to connect because pet hits air could benefit the most from a heavy single target CC build.
Not sure if I want to do the gear changes right now because just did some.
Imo Chill is good against melees.
Except Thieves as they use intiative, no skills cooldown.
But against Casters & another Ranger i rather go for Cond or Power.
Cause even by being constantly chilled they could still do the same damage.
Have you tried a variation with 30 in Marksmanship for an additional 15% condition duration? That might free up some weapon choices. Maybe remove the trapper traits and focus on power damage instead? (Since it is a rabid setup, it should still have enough damage)
Also, for the PvE/WvW link, how often would you be changing weapons? Sigil of Hydromancy will start the “sigil cooldown,” so Sigil of Ice won’t proc until you’re able to switch weapons. If you swap on cooldown, Sigil of Ice will never proc and would be better replaced with Sigil of Chilling for more chill duration.
EDIT: revised some suggestions
(edited by jubskie.3152)
@jub, actually sigil of ice will still proc, sigils of the same type IE weapon swap, on crit, stack per kill, are the sigils that don’t play nice with the SAME TYPE of sigil.
@jub, actually sigil of ice will still proc, sigils of the same type IE weapon swap, on crit, stack per kill, are the sigils that don’t play nice with the SAME TYPE of sigil.
Really? o_O So the wiki is wrong then?
All sigils share a cooldown; while it is active, no other sigil with a cooldown can trigger. – from the wiki
@jub, actually sigil of ice will still proc, sigils of the same type IE weapon swap, on crit, stack per kill, are the sigils that don’t play nice with the SAME TYPE of sigil.
Really? o_O So the wiki is wrong then?
All sigils share a cooldown; while it is active, no other sigil with a cooldown can trigger. – from the wiki
nope, the only sigils that share a CD are sigils of the same type, IE all weapon swap sigils share a CD all on crit proc effect sigils share a CD etc.
EDIT: It’s also wrong about the gaining and dropping of a bundle thing… because it -does- activate it when you do that so long as you’re in combat…
For the people that PvP, hows the damage in this build? Not that it is built to be damage oriented, but is it the type of build that supports and holds points, or does it have the potential to be similar to the current meta bunker ranger? (0/0/30/10/30 etc etc etc)
For the people that PvP, hows the damage in this build? Not that it is built to be damage oriented, but is it the type of build that supports and holds points, or does it have the potential to be similar to the current meta bunker ranger? (0/0/30/10/30 etc etc etc)
The build i used (not the -same- as above it used knights armor for starters..) was VERY good at 1v1s and essentially the enemy had 1 shot to get their burst off, otherwise they weren’t going to get it off again before they went down.
Not to mention it shreds guardians because their heal would have a 66% longer CD, which is already long to begin with…
For the people that PvP, hows the damage in this build? Not that it is built to be damage oriented, but is it the type of build that supports and holds points, or does it have the potential to be similar to the current meta bunker ranger? (0/0/30/10/30 etc etc etc)
The build i used (not the -same- as above it used knights armor for starters..) was VERY good at 1v1s and essentially the enemy had 1 shot to get their burst off, otherwise they weren’t going to get it off again before they went down.
Not to mention it shreds guardians because their heal would have a 66% longer CD, which is already long to begin with…
I’ll have to give it a shot. Probably with a rabid amulet to capitalize on the condition output and crits at the same time.
@jub, actually sigil of ice will still proc, sigils of the same type IE weapon swap, on crit, stack per kill, are the sigils that don’t play nice with the SAME TYPE of sigil.
On crit sigils and weapon swap sigils DO share cooldowns. Passive buff sigils and kill stacking sigils work with everything because they have no cooldown. Please test this stuff ingame before you post it to avoid spreading misinformation.
If you use two weapons and use 2 sigils , say Energy and Hydromancy , do you get the iceblast and 50% endurance on swap, or just one or the other ?
This thread is gold..I hope we get some dev response,maybe they must make chill affects also the thiefs initiate regen
If you use two weapons and use 2 sigils , say Energy and Hydromancy , do you get the iceblast and 50% endurance on swap, or just one or the other ?
you just get one effect on swap.
If you use two weapons and use 2 sigils , say Energy and Hydromancy , do you get the iceblast and 50% endurance on swap, or just one or the other ?
If you have them on the same weapon set then no they wont both proc.
If you have Hydromancy on one weapon set and Energy on the other then you will get chill or endurance on weapon swap depending wich sigil you are swapping too. The weapon swap sigils all have a cool down of 9 seconds i believe so you will always get an effect because weapon swap cool down is 10 seconds.
Was testing this build while doing duels in Wv3 and boy was it fun! Chill truly kitten es people off!
I went with Rabid gears that had 4 Grenth + 2 Svanir runes. I had axe/torch and sword/warhorn with Ice and Hydromancy sigils. Depending on the opponent I swapped the sword combo to shortbow. 30/0/30/10/0 seemed to work nicely, but could give a go for the 0/0/30/10/30 combo later. As for the pets, owl and snow leopard seemed to work best for me.
Thanks for posting this here, would have never though something this silly would actually work <3
all sigils do share a cooldown – easy to test, have one on-swap sigil (preferably with 5 sec CD) and one on-crit sigil, against the target dummy wait for an on-crit effect with ur 1st wep then swap to the set with the on-swap effect and it won’t trigger.
Basically, if you’re going with a condition damage build, take +condition duration, not just +chill duration stats, as it will benefit all of your damage as well as the chills.
If you’re going with a direct damage build, you could probably save yourself some “resources” (traits, runes, etc.) by taking +chill duration instead of +condition duration.
I’m a big fan of the +condition duration as it will affect cripple, bleeding, burning, and poison.
Chilled + Poison is horrible for a tank. Now their heal takes 66% more time to recharge and it does 33% less. That’s a drastic decrease in healing.
Chilled + Cripple is horrible for anyone relying on mobility as you have 66% reduced movespeed and 50% reduced movespeed (not sure if they stack, but if they don’t, you can cripple any time chill wears off … if ever).
Bleeding, Burning, and Poison gives you 3 damage per second conditions that really adds up quickly to some sick damage (especially if you are running with +condition damage and +condition duration).
I’ve been thinking about this a bit more … I’m curious how essential the Sigil of Ice, and thus crit chance, are.
My thinking is, if you’re tanky and regenerating quite a bit that if your opponent’s skills are recovering 66% slower that they’ll have a harder time breaking through your defenses as their big hits will be available less often.
Additionally, Ranger, condition builds aren’t as reliant on crit chance for doing damage as other classes’ cond builds (i.e Mesmer).
As such, it might be better to take points out of Skirmishing, put 30 points in Wilderness Survival, get rid of the Superior Sigil of Ice (replace with ???) , replace Rabid with Apothecary, and replace the two traps with signets and/or survival utilities.
Muddy Terrain is excellent control.
Sharpening Stone is great for additional bleeds (just don’t use with splitblade).
Quickening Zephyr is still good since it is now also a stunbreaker.
Signet of the Wild for more hp regen.
Signet of Renewal is great since it is both condition removal (passive and active) and a stunbreaker (active).
You could also take the Protect Me shout for a 6 sec invuln (at the cost of your pet).
I think this could be more difficult to contend with.
The apothecary does have less condition damage, but it is more survivable.
Your pet is unaffected and still doing the same damage, so I don’t think the drop in damage is going to be too much.
I’ve been thinking about this a bit more … I’m curious how essential the Sigil of Ice, and thus crit chance, are.
My thinking is, if you’re tanky and regenerating quite a bit that if your opponent’s skills are recovering 66% slower that they’ll have a harder time breaking through your defenses as their big hits will be available less often.
Additionally, Ranger, condition builds aren’t as reliant on crit chance for doing damage as other classes’ cond builds (i.e Mesmer).
As such, it might be better to take points out of Skirmishing, put 30 points in Wilderness Survival, get rid of the Superior Sigil of Ice (replace with ???) , replace Rabid with Apothecary, and replace the two traps with signets and/or survival utilities.
Muddy Terrain is excellent control.
Sharpening Stone is great for additional bleeds (just don’t use with splitblade).
Quickening Zephyr is still good since it is now also a stunbreaker.
Signet of the Wild for more hp regen.
Signet of Renewal is great since it is both condition removal (passive and active) and a stunbreaker (active).
You could also take the Protect Me shout for a 6 sec invuln (at the cost of your pet).I think this could be more difficult to contend with.
The apothecary does have less condition damage, but it is more survivable.
Your pet is unaffected and still doing the same damage, so I don’t think the drop in damage is going to be too much.
You could always pick up sigil of chill duration (idk actual name) and throw on some knights or soldier armor and slap on some runes of ice for that amazing 5% damage boost on chilled targets.
Durzlla, that does not take full advantage of the +100% condition duration we have. Since we have +100% condition duration, it seems optimal do rely on conditions to inflict our damage.
Semi off-topic:
Do you have the gear for this? Since you’re at 100%, can you help me out and see if 100% bleeds works on Sharpened Edges (1s bleed on crit trait) to make it 2 seconds? It’s impossible to get 100% condition duration in the mists so I’ve never been able to test if it works on Sharpened Edges.
I know you’re trying to stay away from criticals, but it’s FOR SCIENCE! :P (also, having a quasi sigil of earth with no cooldown is pretty cool)
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