Guild Wars 2

Just wondering what competitive rangers are using to deal with the massive amount of condition spam going on in both SPVP and WvW. I’ve namely resorted my ranger to PvE, in any other game medium she feels like dogfood to other classes that are running things like runes of perplexity or stacking immobilizes.

Everything is passive atm , so it’s pretty bad.

Renewal is okay I guess if you’re feeling manly, but the heavy cooldown and requirement for the pet to be nearby can be hard to manage. For example if a 30/30 necro just happens to ruin your day when your pet is too far, Renewal can’t really save you.

I kinda’ wish Anet gave us more options to cleanse that DIDN’T require 30 in WS. Like, oh I dunno, 2 condi-cleanse on pet swap. Wtb some active play pls.

Our vitality pool is very low too, so without gearing for vit the problem is only being compounded. Against any solid condition damage dealing, you can have 3000 toughness and still be glass because of this.

Last night I was stacked 20x confusion by an engineer for over 20seconds during a roaming duel. This was even after the pet pulled the first round of conditions off with Empathic.

At this point I am not asking for buffs or nerfs, I just realistically would like to know if any good rangers out there actually feel that they are capable of fighting a good condition damage dealer evenly.

DiamondMeteor.8345:

Everything is passive atm , so it’s pretty bad.

Renewal is okay I guess if you’re feeling manly, but the heavy cooldown and requirement for the pet to be nearby can be hard to manage. For example if a 30/30 necro just happens to ruin your day when your pet is too far, Renewal can’t really save you.

I kinda’ wish Anet gave us more options to cleanse that DIDN’T require 30 in WS. Like, oh I dunno, 2 condi-cleanse on pet swap. Wtb some active play pls.

I got 30 in WS and Empathic Bond and still I NEED healing spring.
Cleanses every 10s are just so random… if your unlucky a necro spams his conditions on you and they las for 9s and you cant do anything about it.

get on with vitality and condition damage (Carrion/Dire). Attack your foe with his strength. he has likely to few HP to survive your condition either unless he’s a carrion guy himself

And use Healing Spring, Empathic Bond and mayhaps BrownBear F2 skill. you can also dodge and interrupt him whenever you can (sword = evades / Shortbow stun + pet Knockdown)

Never really tested my build or this ideas in WvW or SPvP, though theoretically they should work.

I really wish they’d give us some active condition clearing love. The biggest problem with our class is that most of our curing, effects, etc are pretty passive. Spirits are the biggest example of the overly passive nature Anet has given our class.

lordhelmos.7623:

At this point I am not asking for buffs or nerfs, I just realistically would like to know if any good rangers out there actually feel that they are capable of fighting a good condition damage dealer evenly.

Like what someone said in another thread, it’s an uphill battle. Speaking entirely from wvw roaming experience, I mostly end up running after I blow my cd’s.
Though I feel that if anet brings back the sb’s range to 1200, fights against condi opponents wouldn’t be as bad as it is right now.

What are you all using to fight necros and mesmers?

I find that against these two, and perplexity engineers there is not much we can do but run.

i run with 22k health and have absolute no problems with conditions. 3 conditions taken away by my pet every 10 sec + 1 condition every 2 sec on demand make us pretty tough. necros have a hard time again rangers, same for engineers. our movement is by far better than theirs so we are able wo sit the conditions out while regeneration massive hp and our pet sill damaging them

Coarr.3286:

i run with 22k health and have absolute no problems with conditions. 3 conditions taken away by my pet every 10 sec + 1 condition every 2 sec on demand make us pretty tough. necros have a hard time again rangers, same for engineers. our movement is by far better than theirs so we are able wo sit the conditions out while regeneration massive hp and our pet sill damaging them

Are you running RRR in apoth/settlers? Where are you getting the 1 condition on demand every 2s? Are you talking about blind/poison remove on dodge?

lordhelmos.7623:

Coarr.3286:

i run with 22k health and have absolute no problems with conditions. 3 conditions taken away by my pet every 10 sec + 1 condition every 2 sec on demand make us pretty tough. necros have a hard time again rangers, same for engineers. our movement is by far better than theirs so we are able wo sit the conditions out while regeneration massive hp and our pet sill damaging them

Are you running RRR in apoth/settlers? Where are you getting the 1 condition on demand every 2s? Are you talking about blind/poison remove on dodge?

He’s talking about healing spring, 10s waterfield which pulses every 2 seconds.

But you cant do really a lot against condi’s, I still run BM bunker and the thing that keeps me alive is mostly my heals and dodges. But you should always kill them fast, hope someone will save you or just run lol.

I’m running a natures voice cleric/berserker build with LB/GS and I can handle conditions rather well usually.
I use melandru runset + lemongrass for -65% condition duration, empathic bond for 3 condis removed all 10 seconds, and the trait for remove blind and poison on dodge. This works really well especially since with dodging you can remove poison on demand before healing up and the 3 condi removal is more effective if you already got rid of blind/poison. Also I love the longbow 3 stealth to heal up without being interrupted.
If you want as much condition removal as possible also use signet of renewal and healing spring and if you absolutely need the highest condition removal at the cost of a large damage loss you can use the brown bear (2 condis removed every 25 sec).
Usually I don’t run signet of renewal and healing spring but if while roaming there is an insane necro leap away, get out of fight, switch to healing spring and signet of renewal and reengage. Necros are slow

i run my very own build. my armor is full celestial, weapons are apo, accessior is a mixture of celestial, apo and rabid. 0 10 30 30 0. with power stacking and might stacking i acive around 2k power, 1,2k condition dmg, 52% crit chance and 38% crit dmg. nice alrounder with 2800armor 23000hp and 75% boon duration to stack protection, regeneration, might, swiftness and fury pretty much permanent up.

I find vs a necro all you really can do it try and bait them into using their CD then push on them.. running in trying to condition overload them before they do it to you is suicide against a half decent necro.

If you run with regen you can hang on the edge of being in range of eachother and try have your pet and whatever conditions you an get on them wear them down, and your regen will keep you up from the conditions they can get on you.

I run traps and its usually a simular tactic with trying to make them chase me into traps / have my pet on them till theyve dropped some health.. then leap in and try entangle, throw all my traps on them and that should be game over.

Perplexity runners I dont usually have too much trouble will just because rangers dont really use that many channeled attack, and infact many of our attacks are built in evades.. so being interupted I dont find a huge problem as long as you’re aware that its what they are trying to do you should be able to avoid it.

Necro myself, and since we have very bad mobility the wise thing to do is use your GS and hop out of the small range of the necro scepter skills. LB has some nice skills to keep me on a distance and keep some pressure on my necro so I have to use staff on you.

In wvw, the usual. Melandru, lemongrass and high vitality. I rarely find it necessary to equip the bear, SoR and EB, but if you do, you will laugh off conditions.

In spvp I find healing spring is a must. Also sigil of renewel for when thats down.

In wvw I keep a brown bear around (shake it off every 20sec – 2 conditions) since pets are a bit of a joke there, and sigil of renewal (1 every 10 sec) or prayer to kormir (human utility – 3 cond every 40 sec).

lordhelmos.7623:

What are you all using to fight necros and mesmers?

I find that against these two, and perplexity engineers there is not much we can do but run.

Against necros lots of knockdowns work wonders. Use a dog, preferably wolf. Dont play the conditions game with them, they’ll throw it back on you. Save a knockdown for the aoe lifeforce drain channel.

Against mesmers, sick your pet on the real one (its not fooled by illusions), keep killing the illusions so the damage doesnt become too much. Lots of aoe helps.

Instead of taking Signet of Renewal, I put a Sigil of Purity (generosity is strictly better, but much more expensive and not available in sPvP) on my primary weapon. Only works well if you have decent critical chance though.

It isn’t too big of an issue for me since I run Healing Spring and Empathetic Bond. A quick rating of easiest to hardest professions to kill for me are:
Guardian<Ranger<Necromancer<Elementalist<Engineer<Mesmer<Thief<Warrior

The first 5 can practically be defeated the same way. Simply dump conditions, evade at proper times, and dump more conditions. The only problem with Engineer is that they can easily do this to you as well so you have to be very careful. Necormancer is simple if you watch animations and dodge some of his application while keeping constant pressure. The last 3 require significantly more work to defeat. Mesmer and thief both have stealth while warrior currently has insanely high regeneration, damage, and control (if you don’t keep constant pressure in these fights you will lose). I imagine for those of you running power builds that you won’t agree with me, but that’s part of the reason I rate rangers so low as I rarely see another ranger in WvW who isn’t using a power build and those fights are insanely easy.

What I’m getting at is that conditions are a problem for rangers, but with the proper build, you shouldn’t be struggling against them as much as they struggle with you. Lately I’ve been watching a new GW2 streamer running a power ranger build in pvp and it disgusts me. He runs absolutely no condition removal and gets immediately stomped by any fight that is greater than a 1v1 or where his opponent uses conditions as the main means of damage. I’m not saying that rangers can’t run power builds at the moment (although I believe that), but that if you do, you will need to sacrifice some damage for condition removal or fail against many builds.

As for perplexity madness and confusion. You will need to be able to kite until your passive condition cleansing kicks in. I’ve fought several duels where I’ve hit 18-21 stacks of confusion and I’ve won every one of them because I keep my conditions in check and counterattack when clear. Confusion is actually a bit of a l2p issue. You just need to be able to focus on both the fight and your current situation at the same time and make decisions accordingly.

I’ve been running a power build lately too just add to scenery (and i really miss running bows).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNBMhVakoqyuvywi1OQseonANImCFxIniR5/S+UDA-jUCBYLCiEEgEGQUJAZPFRjtMsIasKGY6TER1+EFRrWKgRVGB-w

I find it easier to handle necro’s and mesmers with my power set up than with my BM condition/regen set up. Of course, fighting heavy armored opponents takes a lot more time so you just have to find the right mix.

For the most part, I find that SoR and Healing Spring does more than enough condition clearing for me in a 1v1 situation. The only time I have a difficult time dealing with conditions is when the opponent is equally mobile ie BM conditon/regen rangers. For the most part, I can handle some conditions but once it overloads, all you can do is run or respawn after.

Perp engis and staff eles are still the same as most of them will have a fairly good regen. SB does a marvelous job at applying pressure since it fires pretty quick and with the build I linked, I consistently hit people with about 2500-3000 armor for about 700-1000 per hit which will wear down on you pretty fast. The way I see it, those SB hits are like a burning condition that can’t get cleared

We need heal as one to remove 2 conditions.

I have empathic bond and signet it’s enough most times I would say the only time I have trouble with conditions is if I get caught up in some zerg vs zerg and the condis kill my dumb pet that is just passive at my side wich is totally ridiculous really but it happens very frequently that even a bear dies this way without really ever being directly hit and no I’m not forgetting to swap pets on time it doesn’t matter sometimes they will just plain die anyway, I never really joined zergs before so this actually came as abit of a surprise to me just how often it does happen but it shows how terrible this design is very clearly.

My tPvP ranger has over 27k health plus 3 condi removals. So to answer your question, I completely ignore conditions.

Usually I run with Empathic Bond, Signet of Renewal, Healing Spring, and in PvP, Melandrus Runes.

In WvW I have on Travelers Runes right now and use Troll Unguent, but I also use an Apothecary setup with the rabid/apothecary ascended trinkets, and basically have to rely on Empathic Bond and Signet of Renewal along with my raw healing to deal with conditions.

Needless to say, it is just barely enough, and not even that against certain classes (skilled Necros for instance).

I run eb, hs, and melandru on a full rabid trap build. Don’t think I’ve ever lost to a necro.

Conversely, while playing my necro, I’d never met a ranger I couldnt just bulldoze without effort. There are probably some builds that work better than others.

I just had a thought… if every class had ability to simply ignore cnd dmg then why would anyone spec for cnd dmg?

But yeah, ranger needs more/better or at least more active cnd removal. And hopefully not one that requires 30 trait points…