Guild Wars 2

this is for ranked play:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV3YjEq0ya/KWsQ1aAMhqdCssBw7RNVrZXN7FLdkE-TZhHwAPLDM4iAA4IAE4BAAa/BA

I played the survival condi bunker as well, and for some reason I find this has quite a bit more sustain. im not sure how I feel about invigorating bond, but getting a 2k heal every 20s can be nice.

I mostly need help regarding sigils and pet choices. I tried a might stacking variation of the build with sigil of battle on the sb + stalker f2. I could maintain 9-11 stacks at all times, and as high as 15-20 for a few seconds with axe 1 spam.

in the end, I switched to the jag for more damage and I didn’t miss the might too much. stalker f2 just takes forever to go off. I find snow owl is awesome with axe 3 for keeping up chill. dogs and spider were great, but I got over the need for too many immobilizes.

In my opinion it lacks … Pressure. I mean, you don’t have any high Bleed bomb, any conditions you apply can be cleansed with ease and you need quite some time to apply them. Also, as a bunker, you won’t usually meet you enemies showing backs to you.

Truth be told, the build might feel safer if you picked Sword + Torch instead of the Shortbow. You’ll also provide a fire field > Fire aura for yourself and boost your pet DPS even further via high Might uptime.

Burning is very precious and powerful condition. If this build is meant for team-fights, SB it might be fine. You’d get more CC and you could apply more Bleeds to unaware enemies.

But if you tend to go for straightforward Bunker – than I suppose Sword+Torch just have to replace your shortbow and you have some nice Regen BM build out there. But I still have a feeling that I’d choose a different Trait than Invigoration bond. Since you are a solo bunker, you are loosing like 75% of the ability’s potential.
Heck, I’d even go for the Pet Natural regeneration rather than so little heal on such a significant cooldown.

i tried natural healing, which gave me about 180hps with my SoW. it’s more bang for the buck, but im not getting heals when i need em. with invigorating bond, u get 2k when u need it.

i find reapplying bleeds is trivial, but youre right, not too much pressure. sb allows extra utility during teamfights and i can start stacking bleeds while kiting though.

if i were to go s/t, i think condi survival would be a lot more appropriate (0/2/6/6/0), not sure.

I found 0/0/6/4/4 to be better. Fortifying bond with axe is much more valuable than invigorating bond IMO.

Also 0/0/6/6/2 is better for bunking as nature voice is perma regen, and heals for more than invigorating bond.

BM line is still too weak IMO. Only thing worth taking is mighty swap.

I haven’t been able to put my finger on it but it lacks a little something. cant complain about the sustain though, and pets hit like trucks.

I have to support Sube Dai in this one.
0/0/6/4/4 would definitely be even my way to go.

Even as a bunker – you have to constantly focus on dealing with your opponents, not “staying alive”… If you just wanted a meat stick to occupy the point – you’d take full tank Guardian.
Rangers are bunkers, but not natural point holders. We are able to deal with plenty of match-ups, but we were not made to endure long fights outnumbered. We can evade specific bursts of a person, but we are are inferior when it comes to mitigating damage.

That’s why we bet on control/utility and Hybrid Pressure via conditions and pets.

And for that role – having your pets powerful is as good as always.

thanks, i’ll give it a shot. this is still with settler’s right?

edit: that’s kinda neat, I can get my pet to 25 stacks of might easily.

Also what is everyone’s fascination with owl ATM?

3 second chill every 20 seconds? You already get 3s every 10s from axe…

I’ll take eagle or hawks might stacked f2 hitting every 6 seconds thanks.

mistsim.2748:

thanks, i’ll give it a shot. this is still with settler’s right?

Everyone was arguing settler vs celestial a few months ago. I was voting settler but have since switched to celestial :P

The stat difference is just too great. You will survive almost as long thanks to the extra HP, and the extra damage means you can still kill ppl.

Like tragic said rangers aren’t really bunkers anyway.

Sube Dai.8496:

mistsim.2748:

thanks, i’ll give it a shot. this is still with settler’s right?

Everyone was arguing settler vs celestial a few months ago. I was voting settler but have since switched to celestial :P

The stat difference is just too great. You will survive almost as long thanks to the extra HP, and the extra damage means you can still kill ppl.

Like tragic said rangers aren’t really bunkers anyway.

really? it drops my condition dmg and healing by about 300, and toughness by 500. and im still not enhancing my white damage significantly. it seems to only increase my HP.

Sube Dai.8496:

Also what is everyone’s fascination with owl ATM?

3 second chill every 20 seconds? You already get 3s every 10s from axe…

I’ll take eagle or hawks might stacked f2 hitting every 6 seconds thanks.

the first application will get cleansed instantly. owl + axe 3 kinda gives u perma chill. also hawk f2 for example hits for less to compensate for the bleed damage I guess. the most bursty bird I believe is still the raven.

any thoughts on the stalker?

Its an 834 (37%) point difference overall, with a large chunk of that going into HP, precision, and crit damage. I mean 37% more stats…that’s ridiculous! Its called the celestial meta for a reason :P

It gives you a 25% base crit chance and if you add some precision through traits/runes or fury then you will be doing a lot more direct damage.

I wouldn’t believe either but try it out. I find I live just as long and kill quicker.

I would probably take stalker over Jag. Even though the cast time is slow it provides it to your allies as well. So combined with natures voice you are providing both offensive and defensive support which is nice.

the thing i dislike about these sorts of builds is that you are going BM and you are using emphatic bond, witch will really hurt you you could use purity/genoeristy sigils and healing spring for condi removal . Also Fortifying bond is one of our best BM traits particularly if you are using MH axe.

I think that you main method for killing people in these types for builds is poison.

here are some variations that you could think about, i tried not to change to much so the builds still feel the same (play style wise). in all cases Settlers, Clestial and rabid are all appropriate ammys

0/0/6/2/6 BM

0/0/6/4/4 Might staking on pet

0/2/6/4/2 pet hits like a truck

thanks! ive settled on running raven + owl because f2’s are on a separate cd. with 25 stacks of might, both crit for 4500 on light armor. 0/0/6/4/4 is lots of fun, sustain is good. i’ll play around with 0/2/6/4/2, but im not a huge fan of giving up a second source of vigor and shortened pet swap.

ive kept the SB for the spammable cripple, which is almost necessary for pets to land their hits.

edit: just tried pet’s prowess and holy kitten…is it a gimmick build? the damage is insane (when it lands =\).

Just to throw my 2 cents about the BM empathic bond.

The truth is, that with the BM tree, you get a pet swap on 15 seconds cooldown. Which is pretty significant if you can keep the track of it (if you don’t use glassy pets like Birds or Cats as 1st pets, but rather a Swap/burst – they won’t die that easily). That means that it basically allows you not only to cleanse yourself, but still keep pets running.
The problem begins when the fight is heavy AoE oriented, but that’s not often the bunker scenario. Bunkering a point means usually 1v1 or 1v2 fights at best, usually duel oriented. Sooo, ye. The trait will definitely hinder your pet and it’s DPS – but it’s not a bad trait. It just feels wrong for pet lowers, but it’s definitely not a bad choice.

Oh, and also, about the celestial stats – they are fine, but they are fine at Might Stacking builds. I’m running a Celestial build now, myself, but it’s kinda unique and I haven’t seen anyone else run it. Anyways – a BM Ranger utilizes around evading damage and healing up, while conditions and his pet deal constant continual damage. 60% of your skirmishing time is evading. You don’t need power, neither precision or ferocity. By investing into celestial with BM build – you don’t get 37% bonus stats. You trade around 40% of your important stats for 60% of the useless ones.

For those forgoing Empathic Bond in these builds — why Poison Master over SoTF?

To be honest i made those suggestions based on no trying to change the way mistsim initial build is already set up as appose to just giving a completely new one with different utility’s and weapons.

when i do BM builds (which i haven’t for a while) i use SotF as muddy terrain is pretty good and getting you pet to land F2’s, Something like 0/2/0/6/6, 0/2/2/6/4 or other variations

just a quick report after about 30 games. im loving 0/0/6/4/4, so thanks for that feedback. you were right to drop those last 2 points from BM. ive been winning most of my games in top 300 (whatever the significance of that is, I’m a casual these days). so far there hasn’t been a single spec that’s given me problems. cele eles and warriors take the longest, but I usually edge out.

I have to admit that the two birds with 20-25 stacks of might are just nasty and probably half of my overall damage, rest is bleeds. shortbow synergizes with pets beautifully due to cripple spam and daze. SB 3 and dagger 4 are some of the best evades in the game, perfectly animated, responsive, and a joy to use.

I tried s/t but it seems to work better with brute force x/x/6/6/x rabid builds imo where most of the damage is coming from me, and the pet is an afterthought. ive noticed this build has significantly less sustain than the BM variation im using due to lower HP and vigor uptime. I also hate not having SoW for stability stomps. BM definitely feels like the stronger bunker (even though we’re not true bunkers) and the damage is very comparable if birds are controlled well.

mistsim.2748:

…
BM definitely feels like the stronger bunker (even though we’re not true bunkers) and the damage is very comparable if birds are controlled well.

Actually, Rangers are one of the better bunkers. We are just not point-holders. We can’t out-sustain or live-through a fight, but we do win most of skirmishes. That makes us fine bunkers. But not point holders.
There’s only this slight difference

While we are at it – I found a celestial way of Beast Master.
… I have to thank the creator of this thread for encouraging me to take up on Beast Mastery again. It has been my favorite specialization since I was playing MMO games.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fnMqQrgWxC+rAXLI4QoafC/6IwKA+Vs+e3LWpEJ-TZhHwAEeAAAOIABODAGLDke/BA

This build is a bit more squishy, but ridiculously deadly. There is just no way anyone is able to keep up with the damage this build provides. It also gets:
- access to Vigor through Healing Spring (AoE)
- gives lots of evades
- immunity against Condi Bombing
- 2 different ways of stability (shared anguish is not needed)
- And ridiculously deadly damage output through hybrid damage that is hard to be countered. This build easily boosts pet in 25 might uptime, and also provides around 15 might for the ranger as well.
- Defenses are over 2600 Armor and 21K HP

This build is the best variation I could come up with. Please feel free to give it a try. It’s a bit of a different game style, because offense is your most valuable defense (enemy won’t have time to attack), but you need to keep track of enemy cooldowns in order to evade the right attacks. If you learn to do that – this Build is capable of swallowing even Point Holder Guardians alone in considerably short time period.

i will definitely give it a shot. but few things… I don’t like relying on HS for vigor and condi cleansing because it’s difficult to remain in its aoe. also, LR is a must because I don’t wanna pop the heal or waste SoR whenever I get immob’d. The problem with Sic Em is its short duration, reveal is totally unnecessary, and for the crappy duration the pet will only get 2-3 hits off due to its poor tracking. lastly, this build doesn’t really benefit much from additional crit and power. youre not gonna be spamming sword 1, and axe 1 does paltry damage. in the end, we end up losing a lot of condi damage, toughness and hp.

as you said, I forsee this build having a lot less sustain than 0/0/6/4/4 + settler ammy. I also seem to be able to handle bunkers and celestial specs just fine.

oh and rune of the Mad King seems a lot more appropriate, as it increases bleed duration.

edit: damage is pretty kitten nice though.

At the moment I am mucking around with celestial a/t + a/a

Just fyi with double axe, beastmasters might and battle sigils you can easily get over 20 stacks of might during a fight.

Probably more fun than viable though.

@mistsim
I guess you are right. Settler is still the way to go even with my offensive variation.
I was probably afraid of the low HP it provided, since it’s super vulnerable against heavy condi bombing… But I seem to do just fine with the SotR.

Anyways, it’s more of a fun variation anyways. For Ranked plays there’s always the Condi/Survival stuff.