Guild Wars 2

Alright Kids, Ima give you the build I use for everything from Dungeons to sPvP, to commanding WvW.

Just in advance let me throw out that I’m pushing 30k morale, deal almost 20k damage with my elite (which also perma-roots in an AoE with 120s cooldown) and absolutely STACK on the damage.

EDIT: Let me also throw out that this guide isn’t perfect. There may be some stats that are slightly off, typos, and other minor issue’s with the post and I’ll gladly fix them if they’re pointed out. This is obviously not the first trap build out there, but honestly if someone out there gains something from this thread, it’s a success. So keep the trolling to a minimum. I’m just doin’ my best to create a guide

THE CREATION OF A CHAMPION

To start with, Im going to say STEER CLEAR of the “I need vitality so I’m going to trait in the Vitality line” trap —heheh. In all honesty this is a MASSIVE mistake regardless of the stat you are trying to get.

ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS trait based on what traits work best for your playstyle. You can make up the difference with your gear very easily. You can see that I am by no means a crit-based ranger (see link), however I have 30 points in the Skirmishing/crit line. This is because some of the best traits for my playstyle are found in this line.

So. I’ll tell you everything you need to become a AWESOME ranger both in wvw and pve/dungeons but at the end of the day the most important thing is finding a build good for your playstyle.

QUICK SUMMARY OF DA BUILD:

This build is designed to give you an impressive health pool and a significant amount of damage (including condition damage)

Essentially it will give you +10% damage with full endurance, +10% damage when flanking. This is an extra 20% damage when flanking with full endurance.

As your endurance recharges 50% faster with the points in Wilderness Survival you would be surprised how often you have endurance at your disposal.

Your arrows also pierce targets which means they act like a ballista and shoot clean through your target and everything before and after it. This essentially turns every one of your bow skills into an AoE skill when youre attacking from the correct position…..ideally you target someone at the back of the group and everyone in between you gets caught in the crossfire…..quite literally when youre using a shortbow.

Additionally, your traps are 50% larger and are ground-targetable (you can choose where to put them.) This really opens up the opportunities for what you can do as far as crowd control.

The 10 points in Wilderness Survival also allow you to reduce your survival skills by 20%. This is FANTASTIC when using Entangle —EASILY one of your best skills.

Entangle is an AoE Root that cripples when (if) broken, and deals (with this build) somewhere in the ballpark of 20,000 points of bleeding damage. I’ve literally wiped squishy (and admittedly noobish) groups with this single skill. Traited, the cooldown is only 120 seconds (one of the lowest cooldowns for a ranger elite skill).

You can hopefully already see the potential this build has. Your maximum damage potential is when attacking from behind or the sides but you still have great damage from the front.

Since you’re built for mobility, high flanking damage, and crowd control, you should be able to stay well ahead of most enemies for the fight.

DETAILS:

Traits
Marksmen – 20: I, VIII
Skirmishing -30: II, VIII, X/XI (I switch these frequently)
Wilderness Survival -10: VI/I (I use VI 90% of the time)
Natural Magic -10: V

Pets: I personally use an Arctodus and Polar Bear. They are the most durable, tanky pets in game so I can rely on them in a long fight. The Arctodus skill is a potent bleed which is nice for finishing off squishy players, and the Polar Bears is an AoE chilling roar. Beautiful. Honestly though, use whatever pet suits you best!

Gear
I use the Carrion Gear for +Condition Damage, +Vitality and +Power..
Exotic Carrion Gear (Full Set):
+224 Vitality
+224 Power
+315 Condition Damage

Runes:
5 Superior Runes of Warrior
1 Superior Runes of the Elementalist
Totals:
+165 Vitality
+75 Power

Sigils:
Superior Sigil of Blood Lust: (10 power per kill, 25 max stacks, +250 potential power)
Superior Sigil of Flame: (30% chance of AoE Flame explosion around foe on crit -sick)
Superior Sigil of Corruption: (10 Condition Damage per kill, +250 max CD increase)
(These are my personal favs, but pick ones that work for YOU)
Not sure why some of these are underlined….can’t seem to fix it. Sorry!

Food:
Rare Veggie Pizza: 40% Cond Duration, +70 Cond Damage, +10 exp/kill
Plate of Fire Flank Steak: +100 Power, +70 Cond Damage, +10 exp/kill
Loaf of Omnomberry Bread: +100 Vit, +70 toughness, +10 exp/kill
Master Tuning Crystal: 6% Toughness given as bonus CD, 4% Vit given as bonus CD
Superior Sharpening Stone: 6% Toughness given as bonus Power, 4% Vit given as bonus CD

THE EXECUTION

SO: Now that you know how to build a FANTASTIC trap-based ranger with a IMPRESSIVE health pool……I’ll toss out an example on how to use it.

EDIT: As there seem to be a lot of trolls already jumping on some of the mistakes this guide, let me just qualify this by saying this is A SINGULAR scenario of how you could go about using this build. This fight-sequence is NOT guaranteed to work everytime but I have found it to be decently effective. Obviously every fight is different, and you can’t possibly summarize each one. This is simply to give new players an idea of how to use their ranger.

IMPORTANT EDIT: This is NOT a comprehensive sequence of how you should enter every battle. I wrote this based off of 2 similar fights I encountered (a 4v1 near woodhaven in which I killed 2, downed one, and nearly downed the last and a 3v1 near lowlands supply that I won.) It essentially consolidates some of the tactics I use and skill sequences I use into one cohesive scenario fight. It obviously won’t work every time but ideally, readers will get a feel for different tactics they can use for a Ranger.

-Begin with a longbow and cripple the small group charging you with Barrage.
-Pop your hunters shot (vulnerability) and Rapid Fire on the target closest to you and as he gets close to you, use your Point Blank Shot.
-Immediately switch to Shortbow and you’ll notice….he’s been knocked to the back of the group and if you’re lucky, they are still crippled.
-Here I would immediately use a Poison Volley to negate their initial heals and drop whatever “slow” trap I have on hand (I always have one) as well as my fire trap (keep your poison trap handy.)
-At this point, they are damaged, crippled, on fire, crippled again, and scratching their heads a bit.
-Next evade backwards and begin to rain death on them with crossfire (since you still have the back one targeted, anyone in front of you is in jeopardy.) By now, they should each be surprised at how a ranger has done such significant damage in a matter of seconds but you will no doubt have taken damage.
-Depending on where you’re health is at and if you have any conditions (I’d say 50-60% health or less) drop your heal (I use Healing Spring.)
-At this point I would pick out their squishiest (and probably most dangerous) looking player and burn him down.
-Next its a GOOD idea to toss your poison trap into their midst, your poison volley will have just worn off and they will be reaching for their “6” for some heals. Your trap will easily help negate these.
-Leave the squishy downed and drop your remaining traps on him and evade again to gain distance.
-Finish them with whatever skills you feel appropriate and if necassary, use Entangle.

Again, this is a hypothetical scenario condensing tactics I use frequently into one fight. DO NOT assume this is a formula to “win” every time. It’s simply here to give an idea of tactics.

I hope this was helpful to some of you! Comment and let me know what you think and your own tweaked versions of this build!

As far as I can see, your copy paste build is completely different from the build you listed at the beginning of your post.

Entangle does NOT do 20,000 damage. The tool tip is incorrect. The tool tip calculates damage as if you’re condition damage was enhancing the bleeding from entangle. However, this does not actually occur. To verify, just use entangle and observe that your bleeds from entangle do not tick for 100+ damage like your bleeds from spike trap or crossfire.

A trap build is nothing new, and yours is far from the best out there.

Superior sigs give +10, not +7. Very basic error.

I lol’d during the fight description, it’s clear they are either completely clueless or very close to it. The closest target to you is likely to be the warrior running stability who gap closes on you and knocks you down then stuns you, gl knocking them back. After that it’s all over if the small group are anything other than terrible at their professions.

So many professions have condition removals, aoe condition removals, etc that any decent group in wvw that meets you will run you over in seconds and not even notice your conditions. The only exception to this is entangle, and that has such a short effective range that you MIGHT catch one or maybe two melee in it (if it connects).

Do players on the servers you play against really fail that badly that all of them are caught in one barrage? Where I play I count myself lucky if I catch two out of five players with one tick of barrage and that’s a QZ’d one.

Last I heard you were an elite staff elementalist holding back entire zergs of complete noobs who completely failed to even use a single decent skill, now you think you’re some sort of elite ranger with a rubbish (for wvw) build..

How does your head fit through that doorway with such a large ego?

I enjoy your way of describing effects of traits and skills as if you were the one who made them work the way they do.

Your copy/paste build doesn’t match the post… not to mention they are both poo.

To be fair, even with Entangle’s bugged nature, it is still a very good Elite. I run a condition-based ranged-traps build and Entangle essentially allows me to solo Supply Camps in WvW fairly easily – providing there are not more than 1 or 2 player defenders.

It is true experienced players are unlikely to stay rooted for the duration, and it often is either removed immediately or does not even apply correctly – in cases where it is not removed, and does work, it makes a huge difference. It can in fact be a ‘game changer’ in terms of altering momentum in a field battle. For dramatic effect alone – and psychology is important on the battlefield – it has it’s uses.

IF they every fixed it…good lord. I’d be a happy man.

There DOES seem to be a glitch with the URL so I’ve removed it from the post, thanks for bringing it to my attention.

As some have mentioned Entangle does NOT deal 20k points of straight damage, it is dealt through bleeding damage and as bleeding IS a condition, it IS effected by building condition damage. As the tooltip can be bugged, (as with virtually any skill of any mmo) it is true that your condition damage does not always convert correctly. HOWEVER this is not always true.

Clearly no elite is perfect, but if you’re running condition damage as a ranger Entangle really is one of your best options.

Lastly, there are a LOOOOT of trolls on this post! In all honesty, I’m happy to make changes to the guide when I find errors. But Lets keep the “you’re a bad player and your post sucks because I think mine is better” to a minimum.

I like your build, except for the runes and 10 points in nature magic, why did you decide to put them there? I’d put 5 into BM and 5 into wilderness survival, in my book no ranger should ever give up quickness on pet swap. I definitely agree that you should go for traits that match your playstyle and compensate / complement with gear.

It’s a good post and you clearly put a lot of effort into it, but I have to say your combat scenario is totally unrealistic. Unless you’re fighting bots, 4 opponents would use gap closers and CCs and roflstomp you in seconds, no healing would even be necessary. At most you’d get off barrage (which they would easily avoid), LB2, LB4 knockback, and SB poison volley, then you’re toast. Not enough to down a squishy really, and unless you’re fighting complete noobs they’ll interrupt you anyway. I don’t mean to sound nasty, but what you’re describing is every LB ranger’s PvE combat sequence against mobs and unfortunately it rarely works against other players.

Daemon.4295:

I like your build, except for the runes and 10 points in nature magic, why did you decide to put them there? I’d put 5 into BM and 5 into wilderness survival, in my book no ranger should ever give up quickness on pet swap. I definitely agree that you should go for traits that match your playstyle and compensate / complement with gear.

It’s a good post and you clearly put a lot of effort into it, but I have to say your combat scenario is totally unrealistic. Unless you’re fighting bots, 4 opponents would use gap closers and CCs and roflstomp you in seconds, no healing would even be necessary. At most you’d get off barrage (which they would easily avoid), LB2, LB4 knockback, and SB poison volley, then you’re toast. Not enough to down a squishy really, and unless you’re fighting complete noobs they’ll interrupt you anyway. I don’t mean to sound nasty, but what you’re describing is every LB ranger’s PvE combat sequence against mobs and unfortunately it rarely works against other players.

I like the 10 in Nature Magic for the conversion of 5% vitality to power. It makes me feel better about stacking vitality when I know I’m also helping build my power

I’ve gotten a lot of flack about the fight sequence but in all honesty its one I’ve used a few times before. Note that I DID only use it a FEW times. WvW is so versatile that every fight is different but the reason I used that particular fight as an example is it has so many skill combinations and sort of explains some of the strategy I use with my Ranger.

I obviously would NEVER recommend going into a fight already having a concrete plan of what to do, I wrote that addition to the guide just after a fight in WvW and tried to just give a snapshot of how Rangers are used. Hopefully new (or old) Ranger’s will be able to pick through it and see how different things would be effective in different situations.

Cheers!

That makes sense considering your high vitality, but don’t you think the quickness every 20 secs might add up to more damage overall than the 50-odd bonus to power? What’s your total vitality? Maybe it’s just me, but I love quickness

Kellnor.5428:

As some have mentioned Entangle does NOT deal 20k points of straight damage, it is dealt through bleeding damage and as bleeding IS a condition, it IS effected by building condition damage. As the tooltip can be bugged, (as with virtually any skill of any mmo) it is true that your condition damage does not always convert correctly. HOWEVER this is not always true.

Way to state the obvious…

Of course the tool tip is not always incorrect. I’m telling you that it is incorrect for entangle. It is incorrect for this specific instance we’re talking about. And I’m giving you a method to verify it for yourself. Since you obviously have not done so, let’s see if I can make this more simple for you…

The Entangle tool tip shows 20k bleed damage as IF your condition damage stat is increasing the bleed damage of entangle.

This is NOT actually happening because the tool tip is incorrect.

Verify this for yourself by observing the damage on the bleed ticks of entangle (43 if I recall).

Note that the bleed damage is NOT increased (to 100+ per tick).

Sigh. Please don’t spread misinformation.

Careful – even though he is completely wrong and both you and I are completely right, he felt the need to report my post and I received a violation – for being “rude”. He does not appear to be interested in accurate information nor in taking responsibility for being inaccurate…he may report you however, insult your server, or challenge you to a duel however…

In any case, the tooltip comment is misdirection, Entangle is bugged, period. It is important that this fact is clear and accurately stated – it is not working correctly. Hopefully ANet agrees that this is the case – I for one would like to see it fixed some day.

Ralk.7106:

Kellnor.5428:

As some have mentioned Entangle does NOT deal 20k points of straight damage, it is dealt through bleeding damage and as bleeding IS a condition, it IS effected by building condition damage. As the tooltip can be bugged, (as with virtually any skill of any mmo) it is true that your condition damage does not always convert correctly. HOWEVER this is not always true.

Way to state the obvious…

Of course the tool tip is not always incorrect. I’m telling you that it is incorrect for entangle. It is incorrect for this specific instance we’re talking about. And I’m giving you a method to verify it for yourself. Since you obviously have not done so, let’s see if I can make this more simple for you…

The Entangle tool tip shows 20k bleed damage as IF your condition damage stat is increasing the bleed damage of entangle.

This is NOT actually happening because the tool tip is incorrect.

Verify this for yourself by observing the damage on the bleed ticks of entangle (43 if I recall).

Note that the bleed damage is NOT increased (to 100+ per tick).

Sigh. Please don’t spread misinformation.

Daemon.4295:

That makes sense considering your high vitality, but don’t you think the quickness every 20 secs might add up to more damage overall than the 50-odd bonus to power? What’s your total vitality? Maybe it’s just me, but I love quickness

After reading this I’ve been toying around with the quickness and I really like it! I’m not sure if I’ll switch permanently but it’s definitely something to consider! Thanks for the suggestion!

Yeah it’s great, Zephyr’s Speed and Piercing Arrows are the only two traits I just can’t imagine living without.

And….Entangle – which was broken – has been fixed in this patch. Huzzah! Can’t wait to see what the damage is like!

Was just going to post the same thing! Looks like the whole bit about entangle being bugged is now totally irrelevant. Aahhhwwww yyyyeeeaah!!!

Daemon.4295:

Yeah it’s great, Zephyr’s Speed and Piercing Arrows are the only two traits I just can’t imagine living without.

I agree 100% on Piercing Arrows, I feel they are a must have for me. Zephyr’s Speed is nice too, but I personally don’t find myself utilizing it as much as I should be :j