Guild Wars 2

Link: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARTjEqUxaDL+rw1aA/gaZDEAtvhYoGcGwBxBb+8A-T1RNwAHV/Bw+D1Ue0XJYRdBmUiR0EXAgDAGe4hDA-w

Not quite sure what sigils to use yet. Note that full ascended gear is out of the question as I don’t intend to grind for it.

Any advice, suggestions, critiques are welcome, especially from those who have been roaming in WvW as ranger for awhile.

As a ranger roamer since pre release and a big part of that as a Celestial Ranger, I should be able to give you some friendly advice.

First off congratulations on your choice to build a Celestial Ranger, despite what many people will tell you this works perfectly fine, and infact is even pretty kitten good, even tho it lacks the strongpoints that zerker sniper or condi bunker has, one can also view it as having parts of the best of 2 worlds.

There are a few things that is obvious when looking at the setup as is:

1. Lack of Poison. Not having poison as a ranger is a bad idea. You dont have anything really bursty, especially in celestial gear, so you would want poison to help mitigate all forms of healings out there. (Yes Maul is Bursty, but landing it without CC vs anything but NPC’s wont be easy, and sure Rapid fire does damage, but in celestial it wont be enough).

2. Very low crowd control, there is PBS and hilt bash, but its still very low on crowd control, there is no Immobilize, very little cripple etc.

3. Poor mobility (I am aware you are probably putting in Signet of the hunt while running, which gives it very decent mobility with traited GS, but when roaming i need a perma speed boost, but that might just be me

Those 3 things is the most obvious issues, and are fixable in many ways, I’ll give some examples.

1. Lack of poison, the easiest fix would be to add a Doom sigil, likely to the Longbow. This would give you some poison uptime, which will really help you, another option is to sub in a pet that gives poison but more on this under point 2.

2. Very low crowd control. This one needs some tinkering to be fixed, What i personally would do is sub in Entangle as elite, and change martial training to wilderness knowledge, that way you have a very strong soft CC on a decent enough cooldown.
I would also change the pets, Drake → Wolf, Drakehound → Jungle Spider, that way you get both CC and poison uptime, and the loss of drake hurts less since you dont have Rampage as one to use drake F" to build mights.

3. Poor mobility, this is just a personal opinion, I would never pick Divinity runes over travelers, having this passive 25% speed boost, even tho it doesnt affect your pet is jsut better imo. and if you go wit a spider, then the lack of speed on pet is not gonna matter to much.

As for sigils, in celestial gear, and using GS it NEEDS an intelligence sigil, without a crit Maul is no fun and we went over the Doom sigil somewhere, I’d place it on the LB cause ranged poison is good. That leaves 2 sigils, personally I’d place a battle on the GS and an energy on the LB.

So this would give you a template looking like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARTjEqUxaDL+rQ1aA/AZZjAtv1rmzqBPZUV4B-T1CHABgp+DAPAA12fwLdB/oErLTcGcBAcS5hlKBH4QAEwRAIAwBADP8whUA6pMC-w

Is it better? It of course depends on the situation, but it is definately weaker in the fury department, and as such it might do less damage, but you do have some more sources of conditions to take advantage of this stat on the celestial gear.

So a few pointers, use them, abuse them, ignore them, its all up to you

/Hugs Dru

Celestial GS/LB? You’d get much better stats with a combination of other sets if you want to keep your LB/GS. That Condition Dmg stat will go to waste. One reason Celestial stats is strong is that might stacks increase both normal and condition dmg. Total dmg output gained from sets that utilize both types of damage when you stack might will be far superior than anything with just one type (this is talking about single player and not party/big groups where you’re better off with power).

Longbow is a very weak weapon when you don’t trait for it. If you really want to do celestial you would be much better off going with pretty much any weapons besides what you have chosen.

Both main-hand sword and axe stack might with their auto attack and they give you condition damage. They also allow you to bring off-hand weapons for more damage/utility. Shortbow is a decent hybrid weapon and the quick rate of fire makes on hit and on crit sigils very effective.

Sword stacks might only on the pet, the ranger doesn’t get might from it.

sminkiottone.6972:

Sword stacks might only on the pet, the ranger doesn’t get might from it.

Yeah sorry, I should have clarified that

Would you recommend Shortbow over Longbow for this type of build then?

As others have said, your stats and weapon choice seem a little at odds. If you want to play Celestial (which I can highly recommend as well) you would be much better off with some combination of Sword / Dagger / Axe / Torch / SB or even maybe WH. The GS and LB are pretty much the worst options because they have no damaging conditions at all which means your Condition Damage is wasted.

Purely looking at the numbers, a standard exotic headpiece gives 109 stats spread over all 3 skills. An exotic celestial headpiece gives 105 stats when you exclude Condition Damage and Healing Power, which you’re not really using them. So, while theres no real disadvantage to using celestial in this build, you’re not really gaining anything from it either.

You can get round this by getting Skirmishing II and using on-crit sigils to proc conditions, which I have seen work surprisingly well, but I still wouldn’t recommend it personally.

Trait wise, generally OK but I really think Beastmasters Might is a waste, especially since the one signet you don’t have is the one it’s best with (SoH). You’d be better off with Spotter, or Piercing Arrows, or Eagle Eye, or frankly taking those 10 points and putting them into BM for Mighty Swap.. you’d get more Might from that anyway.

Final thing.. Strongly consider Rune of the Traveller. The +25% speed is well worth the stats drop, and if you are stacking might somehow (Runes of Battle are really great in a celestial build) then the extra boon duration doesn’t hurt either.

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Here’s an update: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARVjEqUxaDL+rQ1aAMhq9AkABwzR9UdGCNwJjqCPA-TlCHABgp+DAPAA12fwLdB/oErLTcGcJAcS5hlKBH4IAEA4AghHe4QKA9UGB-w

Zesix.4569:

Thanks for all the feedback so far. Here’s an update: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARVjEqUxaDL+rQ1aAMhq9AkABwzR9UdGCNwJjqCPA-TlCHABgp+DAPAA12fwLdB/oErLTcGcJAcS5hlKBH4IAEA4AghHe4QKA9UGB-w

Looks good.
Your original build is extremely similar to mine.

“Ranger – Roamer A (Front Line / Tank)
Good damage / Higher survivability (Suggested WvW)
http://tinyurl.com/kwqr3th”

From https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/United-Chi-s-Ranger-Builds/first#post4596179

The only difference was you removed the sigils.

Just theorycrafting:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEq0yaFL2sQ1iABhaVA0uGu3WgXC87ZLYVD-TlyCABxp+DAHEg72f4NdDQpEbATcXcBA+S5xpKBn4JAEAABgbezbGSBAzWA-w

I’d try SB + S/D if you are really adamant on going celestial. As somebody said above you can place on crit sigils to enhance the direct damage of SB while being able to place alot of bleeds on the opponent.

shadowpass, that build you posted seems very interesting to me. I don’t like the armor runes, but I find the 3 trait points in two different lines to be better than conventional ‘even numbers only’.

shadowpass.4236:

Just theorycrafting:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEq0yaFL2sQ1iABhaVA0uGu3WgXC87ZLYVD-TlyCABxp+DAHEg72f4NdDQpEbATcXcBA+S5xpKBn4JAEAABgbezbGSBAzWA-w

I really like your trait spread but I made a few tweaks to what you posted.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjEq0yaFL2sQ1iABhaVA0uGS2WgXC87ZLYVC-TlyCABxp+DAHBg30NAlSsBMxdxFB4LlHnqEciHAwM7PEAABgbezbGSBA2WA-w

Krait runes and torch for extra conditions. I moved the stacking sigil to the sword so you can situationally switch the offhand (like blasting warhorn for speed boost while moving around the map). I also replaced the dog with a bird for extra swiftness and to make use of those points in beastmastery.

You would miss out on the evades and mobility of the Sword, but Axe has it’s perks and is also a hybrid weapon. Even moreso if you’re not especially fond of Sword as some people are.

I’ve started messing around with a Trapper build in WvW, which can be played with Celestial (although probably less than ideal). Currently using Axe/Dagger + SB. Dagger #5, Axe #2, Spike Trap, Entangle, Keen Edge, and Geomancy plus whatever on crit procs you’ve built up is a huge Bleed burst. Problem here is your Traveler runes. You’d want Krait/Trapper runes for this build.

Either way worth looking into.

Some people play 6-6-x-x-x LB trappers with the new stealth-on-trap-use rune. I can’t really comment on it since I haven’t played it, but that would allow you to use LB with celestial. My one comment on that is that traps completely ruin your utility slots.

Your second build is way more condi based, so I’d lose the greatsword. The old-school roaming weapons for condis are s/t and a/d, which coincidentally works just as well with with celestial — if not better.

Is Rune of the Krait better than Rune of the Traveler in your modified build, Jim Hunter? In other words, is the extra condition damage better than +25% movespeed?

Zesix.4569:

Is Rune of the Krait better than Rune of the Traveler in your modified build, Jim Hunter? In other words, is the extra condition damage better than +25% movespeed?

Krait runes are better IMO. You can always swap in and out soth when moving around the map.

Zesix.4569:

Is Rune of the Krait better than Rune of the Traveler in your modified build, Jim Hunter? In other words, is the extra condition damage better than +25% movespeed?

Tail wind and the swiftness from the bird will keep your mobility up in combat. Out of combat you can switch out sharpening stone for signet of the hunt and/or torch for war horn.

Travelers aren’t that great on rangers because it doesn’t apply to the pet, and we have so many options for mobility.