Guild Wars 2

As the title says, I’m puzzled as to which one is better. While I was lvling I did a little bit of sPvP to get a feel of how the pvp flows, made the cookie cutter petting zoo (sort of) build and since pvp doesn’t offer dire, I got rabid with a 0/10/30/30/0 spec (nothing surprising), I did 5-6 quick joins and it felt ridiculously easy to execute and at teh same time incredibly fast to down people left and right. With that being said, once I would get focused by more than 2 people I’d drop dead as soon as protect me was over, more or less. So when I got to 80 few days ago I was presented with a choice and this time I went for Dire cuz I wanted to feel like a bunker. And it does feel really tough, while still being able to dish out enough condition stacks to kill people.

I’d like to hear the old guns’ opinion Rabid vs Dire in WvW and why?

Oh, while I’m at it and to avoid spamming threads, do you think the Dog pets (in general) having all the sweet looking CCs are worth taking considering the 1.5 secs cast time on their skills? Would an Eagle pet with that almost spammable 2 stacks of bleed be a viable substitute for a Wolf or a Krytan hound?

Aaaand last, How do you deal with terrormancer as spirit bunker? My first and so far last encounter with a terrormancer was a 3-4 fears while I’m comfortably sitting under all the good stuff and coming out of the last fear a split second before i drop down.

If you run condi builds, drop 10 into Marksman for Malicious Training and watch those CC skills (fear, immob, chill) on dogs, Chill on Leopard and Owl, Poison burning and confusion on drakes (entangle – then reef drake F2, its the only way to make it work but it totally destroys thieves and eles).

Or, Forest Spider with its “3 Next attacks applies Poison”. Ive seen it apply 42 seconds poison within a 9 second timeframe.

As for Rabid vs Dire. I usually mix the two up, or use Rampager + Dire. The increased sustain from Dire is very good, however i find that Rabid does fall behind in sustain. I used to run Rabid + Carrion Trapper, but changed to Rampager + Dire + Carrion mix.

in zergs dire is a good choice. when roam in wvw i think dire is just cheesemode. u get no dmg and do a lot of dmg with ur conditions.
so for roaming rabid is a good choice. ranger have good survivability in general plus the toughness of rabid. then u do okay direct dmg with precision and good passiv dmg with conditions.

regarding the pets. yes spiders are good but stacking poison so much is too much
every class can cleanse in some way conditions. one skill and all ur poison is away? i forgot the english name of the spider which gives weakness but thats the best spider imo. really annoying perma weakness for foe.
on tank build birds and stalker are really strong but in zerg fights faster dead than they can channel their attacks

i hate terrormancer its really difficult to deal with them for me no matter which build.
use the adept trait against the first fear and try to avoid the attacks
but as a ranger newbie its okay to run first with dire and when u get better u can try rabid or the interesting mix of prysin.

Rabid is better in builds that make use of the precision, sigils, traps etc. Rabid = good vs power, carrion = good vs condition.

Now Dire is the second most cheese mode armour we can use as it is it gives good defence and vitality. In WvW always take Dire > Rabid. You didn’t mention apothecary but I will anyway as an apothecary ranger is basically godmode.