Guild Wars 2

First off I have a warrior, I love my warrior, I will forever love my warrior! I do however want my second character to be something a little different so I went with a condition based ranger and now im approaching 80 im having to think of what final build I want.

My build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQNAnfVjIVx1tVaWo2Bili9IomCOZe2D+7oHdypSVL;TYAqqMVJqyWlrKZVA

Ive been playing a carrion based Axe/Torch trap build but im a little conflicted because the torch is very situational and many people recommend the warhorn. So if any of you amazing rangers could answer some questions that would be great!

1) The point of this build is decent AOE damage. Would dropping the torch in favour of the warhorn mean I lose a considerable amount of AOE damage?

2) Is full carrion the way to go considering im a lot closer to the fight than SB/LB rangers? Will this leave me short in the power needed for the axe?

3) I presume id have to swap out a utility for flame trap if I used a warhorn. Which skill would I swap out- one of the other traps or SS?

4) Is it even worth having SS? The only reason its there is because I wanted to make more use of the Wilderness Knowledge trait.

5) Empathic Bond, Bark Skin or Keen Edge?

This character is purely for PvE and dungeons and I expect i’ll be using a short-bow for the main boss fights. Answers would be great, thanks guys and gals.

Your build link didn’t work so I can’t make specific comments on your build, but I’m absolutely loving my condition ranger. I run shortbow/sword & dagger. The torch, to me, is a nice weapon but considering I use the shortbow as my primary weapon I don’t like having to swap weapons to apply a burn, which is massive damage.

Gear is sigil of earth on the shortbow, sigil of earth on the sword and the lifesteal on crit for the dagger. the bow is my main damage weapon while the blades let me dodge around anything that gets too close while still applying good condition stacks.

I use Rabid armor/weapons (can get it out of TA/CM/HotW) and Rampager (Coral) jewelry. My power is pretty much garbage, but that’s ok because the shortbow doesn’t have much upfront damage anyhow. My crit rate hovers around 55% with no buffs which means I can proc extra bleeds from Sharpened Edges and Sigil of Earth reliably. Runes are 6x Undead. The toughness from the rabid gear and wilderness survival traits feeds into the set bonus on those nicely, plus they make me a bit more durable in a fight.

For utilities, I pick 2 between flame, frost, and spike trap, depending on the group/fight i’m in and round the last slot out with either QZ for damage or Lightning reflexes for the stunbreak, again depending on the situation. For an elite i’ve almost always got Entangle, swapping to Rampage as One for big boss fights. Heal can either be spring or troll ugunate, up to personal preference.

Been running 0/30/20/0/20 for traits. I need 30 in Skirmishing for trapper’s expertise and trap potency. 20 in survival gives me a bit of toughness and condition damage, while 20 in BM pumps up the pets a bit and gives me rending attacks.

I favor cats and devourers for pets. The cats hit like mac trucks and the devourers are good reliable damage as well as reasonably tanky. Both can inflict nice amounts of condition damage on their own and with the shortbow #4. Rending attacks and expertiese training helps to capitalize on this.

As for your specific questions:

1) If you’re using the axe as a primary weapon, the torch is a nice weapon. Flame trap can replace it, so it’s really down to the utility slots.

2) Carrion and Rabid are probably your best stats for condition focused builds. Either way, you’re mostly focused on dodging rather than straight up soaking damage. Can’t answer to the power question, seeing as I rely entirely on conditions to do my damage.

3) See #1

4) I only use ss in PvP lto assassinate targets or against bosses that i can’t get close enough to throw a trap at. SS has a pretty long recharge considering it only gives you 5 bleeds

5) Empathic Bond is one of the best condition removal options the ranger has. If you have 30 in Survival it’s hard not to take.

Best of luck

Axe/torch gives you more burning dmg and if you are running carrion gear that will be a lot more dmg to a lot more targets than warhorn.

Valderius Rex.4108:

Your build link didn’t work so I can’t make specific comments on your build,

Copy/Paste it.

Yup, for some reason youre required to copy&paste.

I was tempted by the sword however I heard you might have issues when dodge-rolling as it roots you so it put me off. Im also wondering whether taking a sword would mean id be more reliant on my pet because with this being primarily a dungeon build, id expect that my pet would be out of action more often than not.

Another question- is the GS any good for dungeon’ing? I know its not great in the damage department but does it make up for that in other ways or is it just a lemon?

Got the link to work, here’s what I think:

-Steady focus is really only good if you’re a longbow sniper. You’ve got to dodge a ton in dungeons so you’ll rarely get the bonus.
-Cats die absurdly fast in dungeons, especially with 0 points in beastmastery. You’ll find they get virtually one-shot all the time.
-Vigorous Renewal in the survival tree is really good, as is Shared Anguish. One of those could replace wilderness knowledge if you decided not to use sharpening stone.
-I really don’t like SS, too long of a recharge. That’s a personal thing though. Same with Viper Trap. I find the combo fields on Flame/Frost to just be more valuable. I can see why you use it though, not having any other way to easily inflict poison.
-Consider runes of the Nightmare (condition damage/duration) over runes of the elementalist. Those will benefit your bleeds and poison as well as chill/burn.
-If you can find 5 trait points to spare somewhere, Zephyr’s Speed in the beast mastery line is REALLY good.

Thanks Valderius and everyone else, ive taken the points youve all made into account and come up with:

Dungeon mobs/PvE: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQRBHfdG2IRVcdbleFqdgYVAQtHay8Yi9QRO6RpcqswWL;TEBgyyuEcJ5S1liLKYMFJKyCjDGJMrFGLsF5twUEA

Dungeon boss: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQNBlODbEpKuOvyyi1OQsKAo2DN1fMxeooGxoUOVWYrF;TEBgyyuEcJ5S1liLKYMFJKyCjDGJMrFGBsF5twUEA

I can change between the two mid-dungeon to enable a bit of range for the boss fights. For normal mobs i’ll be weapon swapping constantly to take advantage of the Call of the Wild, Tail Wind, Furious Grip and the Might from the Battle sigil.

I went with Lyssa runes for the 10% conditions all round, and Afflicted to boost bleed and poison specifically. Fire should feed itself due to the torch having two fire skills. Pets now have high defense and condition skills.

So what do you nice people think? Its not the highest dps build but it looks to me as if it could be useful in dungeons.