Guild Wars 2

How will this affect your builds if all of the changes make it in?

Oh i might consider the might on pet swapping trait instead of compasion training. beside of that ill sure enjoy the bonus damage to longbow a lot

Thankfully my builds will not be heavily affected, in fact since I don’t play spirit builds I am alright with the proposed changes. I don’t think we should have a need to lose 25% of Natural Vigor since our whole combat mechanic is solely dependent on countering the enemy’s strategies, but I do get that they are trying to balance things out, so we have no choice but to continue to adapt (superior sigil of energy for the win!). I am happy they are bringing the longbow damage up, but even with all the changes listed, I still feel it’s going to be a long long long road before all the current and legitimate ranger issues are dealt with.

Well, we need to see what makes it and the new heals too but. . .

I tend to have 3 specs:
Zerker
Rampager/Rapid
Apoth

My spirit build (apoth) will now be able to quickly stack might with the changes to BM. Plus, you only need 20 pts in spirit which will allow for a 20/0/30/20/0 or 0/0/30/20/20 build. Just depends how badly you want nature’s voice.

The water spirit suggests you might have a very good group healing build. We will have to see.

Barkskin becomes extremely interesting. Perma protection when under 50% health. Will have to see if I need empathic bond with the changes and new heal.

I can see possibly taking predator instinct on a trapper so you can cripple with a longbow swap a runner. My trapper/condi build doesn’t have perma swiftness.

So there are a few initial thoughts. Oh and getting a conversion of 7% of vitality to power could be extremely interesting in power/spirit 30/0/0/30/10 builds. Could be quite the build for PvE. You will need to get toughness elsewhere but you should put out good long range damage and you can still remove some conditions with the water field (I tend to find that the more at range you are the more you can stand in the water field or swap to bear for a fast condi removal).

This is only speculations, but i think the water spirit will be a little bit more efficient than the HS for a spirit ranger (idk why they would create that new heal if it’s not). I don’t think it’ll be too broken, so other rangers builds will keep their normal heal.

Don’t kid yourself. You will be dying a lot more without that Regeneration.
Glad you like the fluff though.

Nothing groundbreaking coming with this patch, but I will be messing around with the following builds: * note I play PvE

20/10/0/20/20 – Spirit/BM build
30/10/0/20/10 – Signet/Spirit build

I run a signet build with either moment of clarity of empathic bond depending on the scenario. The patch does nothing for me other than increase longbow’s short and mid tier damage.

Did you all see the new heal skill rumored to come out? It’s a water spirit that effectively gives everyone the water projectile finisher (no idea on how much it will heal) and the activated ability heals your group. Unless they did something to magically make spirits viable in WvW, it will be useless there. But sounds pretty amazing for PvE and PVP.

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Nothing groundbreaking coming with this patch, but I will be messing around with the following builds: * note I play PvE

20/10/0/20/20 – Spirit/BM build
30/10/0/20/10 – Signet/Spirit build

Well I am glad that I am not alone when I say that this isn’t groundbreaking for builds. The updates are nice but I only see spirit builds coming from this. That isn’t really significant in my eyes. Am I missing something guys?

not much change from 30/30/10/0/0 to 30/20/0/20/0

tested out that I don’t even need the extra vigor from traits if I am careful. though I will add sigil of energy to warhorn. that’s the only change.

pho.9412:

not much change from 30/30/10/0/0 to 30/20/0/20/0

tested out that I don’t even need the extra vigor from traits if I am careful. though I will add sigil of energy to warhorn. that’s the only change.

I’ve been running that build for a while, pretty sturdy. Still not sure which trait I am going to stick in nature mastery, lots of options there now.

I had already switched to Marksmanship & Skirmish two weeks ago, mostly because of an inability to find a balance between damage and defense. Noticing the traits updates, this is probably a good thing for me.

I had traited to 30/30/5/0/5 in order to deal out more damage in conjuction with certain skills. Invariably I got 60% increase to damage.

I was EXTREMELY laughing hysterically when I saw the changes to Thieves, because Anet had said they had FIXED the ability of thieves to perma cloak. From what we all have seen in WvW, this was NOT the case. And one on one, the thief usually had Rangers in a bind. So anything that would break that cloak sooner only helps me that much more. I used to use Lyssa runes in WvW, but after the thieves would be stealing 2 boons on my #6 rune…it kinda defeated the purpose of survivability on a backstab while cloaked.

I find it hard to believe though that people are all for the “boost” in ranger abilities. Notice the changes were to Traits, not Skills. The traits do not help the ranger with speed or dodging very quickly. And since rangers can no longer shoot “backwards”, rangers constantly have to move the “body” in order to have a proper firing arc on the target. Once that arc is lost, majority of rangers have to re-position themselves to a target that is spinning or jumping circles around them.

I found the only way to effectively deal with a fast moving, and up close target, is switching to sword/dagger, which allow you to match or evade attacks quickly. And lot of those traits don’t help in the way of hand to hand weapons vs. longbow or short bow. Would have liked to see something besides bleed/poison in either ranger skills/traits.

I think most Rangers would have preferred…a balance between good damage, and decent armor. What most newcomers to rangers don’t understand is, can’t get something, without giving up something in return. You want more damage, your gonna have to give up defense. You want more defense, your going to have to give up the damage. When ranger players saw the update, they figured ALL RIGHT, finally! We got something going for us. A little, but not by much. Traits, is a long way off than the skills we use, where Traits are secondary minders to help buff/debuff skills.

For some reason, and I’m sure Anet figures it’s the correct balance…that Pets are supposed to offset any lost damage/defense put out by a ranger. But the AI on pets is not that intelligent. Heel/stay/attack/lassie go get help…. I always thought it strange, that certain players could outrun a pet, like Stalkers or Panthers. I have players who are able to outrun animals that would run a man down. Would have liked to see additional speed on certain animals to run down the opposition, not just a skill, or a trait to buff it’s speed. To many times my opposition outruns me AND my pet.

my builds will, if anything, possibly get stronger. Considering that the patch “notes” that was posted a month or so ago, was only SUGGESTED changes. I will not hold my breath, nor will i expect any miracles.
If anything, i expect more nerfs. Not because they are warranted, but because the profession is still very strong. Not over the top OP, but very strong. This means that it will most likely recieve nerfs.

Prysin.8542:

my builds will, if anything, possibly get stronger. Considering that the patch “notes” that was posted a month or so ago, was only SUGGESTED changes. I will not hold my breath, nor will i expect any miracles.
If anything, i expect more nerfs. Not because they are warranted, but because the profession is still very strong. Not over the top OP, but very strong. This means that it will most likely recieve nerfs.

The only strong builds we have are spirits and BM (which is only a good dueling spec). We still have lots of lackluster builds that need some buffing.

My wife plays a spirit build and I am trying to help her gear up. With the changes coming I am not sure which direction to take it in.

Gear wise what do you guys use or plan to use? I was thinking Clerics / Carrion mix? Going for a power / spirits build.

I also considered some sort of Celestial mix? Thoughts on this?

Nothing will change for me.

There are 2 variants of the spirit build , the offensive and defensive one . Defensive spirit builds usually use shamans (apothecary) stats , with the 10 0 30 30 0 traits or 0 0 30 30 10 traits . Offensive spirit builds are mostly rabid with 0 10 30 30 0 traits . Now , you can bea kitten and take a mix of rampager and rabid for the offensive version.

But , it seems to me that a very good option will be going 0 0 30 30 10 with sigils of battle , mighty swap and either 4 altruism+2 water or 6 runes of the noble , or 6 runes of antitoxin in the next patch . I can calculate stacking yourself with 10+ might perma solo .

0 10 30 30 0 full bersi with 4x kavalier. GS + sword horn
0 0 30 30 10 celestial with apo and bersi mix. sword horn + axe torch

both builds for wvw. run them very successful in wvw already. i hope the gs changes will make my build a little stonger. sword 1 could become interesting too.

I think they will make spirit rangers even more powerfull i dont know why really. and what about condi rangers? Our best defence to evade is also removed i wonder how much more Anet will destroy rangers.. i am disapointed.So what stun lock warr will keep us now 99% of time stunned cyz cant evade etc.. great 1 GG Anet.

they blinded you with a cookie, while they stole the steak off your plate. if your happy with this, you play too much pve and not enough wvw/spvp/end game dungeons.