Guild Wars 2

Played since release, couple of classes I never bothered with, ranger among one of em.
Playing condi ranger with and without traps and pewpew I noticed a couple of things.

-Healing skills sucks, troll Unguents heal is so horrible any dps will offset the tiny bit of healing thanks to zerker meta.
- WHaO is poor, and almost seem mandatory for my next reason.
-Healing springs is a decent choice if you want to support, but in soloQ its just wasted.

-Pet dies so fast!, its out of commision in spvp within 10 secounds.

- Condition cleansing is soft, but with the current burn meta its quite devistating.
- Facing cele necros. Trying to widdle em down only to go through a secound hp bar with shroud, remove shroud, dps them alittle and then widdle down a full shroudbar again..

There seem to be alot of core issues with rangers, and honestly I’ve always enjoyed killing the pesky rangers, being one makes me tip off the hat.

These are issues those of us who have played Ranger for substantial periods of time have learnt to deal with and work ways around. Honestly playing Ranger is so hard due to these things you’ve mentioned, you wonder why more people don’t respect us >_>

Necros have always been my main issue. You just gotta out-smart them. Knowing how to play all other classes vastly improves your skill playing with another class. Being able to predict what the opponents gonna do is always a nice asset.

i find interrupt chaining to be by far the best method against Necromancers.

knock em into a wall with longbow 4, then hilt bash, then use pet taunt after that. even if they live, it will mess with them and throw them off their rotations.

I suggest using a Drake or Bear pet if you are having bad pet survivability problems. Some rangers seem to prefer ranged pets for this.

No kidding. After extensivly playing ranger in pvp it furiates me to no end. I can name 7 other classes outperforming the poor ranger atm. Such shame.

Inflames.8026:

No kidding. After extensivly playing ranger in pvp it furiates me to no end. I can name 7 other classes outperforming the poor ranger atm. Such shame.

In team Fights – maybe.
In 1v1, all depends on ranger.

There are too many things you have to manage when you playing ranger.
If you concentrate on battle, you’ll lose pet.
If you concentrate on pet management, then you’ll lose concentration on battle and will be not 100% effective.

On almost every class, you can start dominate after 1-3 days of playing it.
With ranger, you start to push out from it all only after few months or maybe year of playing it.

That’s why none loves ranger, because only per_verts can play for so long with such a broken class.

AgitatedFox.5287:

These are issues those of us who have played Ranger for substantial periods of time have learnt to deal with and work ways around.

^This.
You eventually get used to being weak and become way better at fully avoiding condition damage (and direct damage) rather than trying to outheal or cleanse it. Same goes for pet management, it’s not easy due to the clunky controls but you learn to keep them alive the majority of the time.

If you stick with the class you will start noticing its real weaknesses. No boon stripping, no instant stability, no teleports, the only way to set up a real burst is with a combination of a buffed pet burst and personal burst hitting at the same time. This means using things like moment of clarity, sig of the wild, and/or remorseless to simultaneously land hits with huge tells (like a big kitten ghost bear when you maul).

Well ranger has it’s problems, but I don’t think you got it quite right.

First of all, make sure your heal skill is traited. It reduces the CD and gives you additional effects, i.e. the perma swiftness and regen on WHaO and condi removal on TU. Our heal skills are some of my favorite across all the professions, all 3 are really good in the right situation and that’s awesome. Most professions have 1 viable heal skill.

Condi cleanse, you’re going to want to use wilderness knowledge, and I also use signet of renewal. That’s a good bit of on-demand condi removal.

Pet dying is both the sign of an inexperienced ranger, as well as just something that happens from time to time. Pet management is very important to playing a ranger, so you need to be able to swap it or reposition it to keep it from dying. Sometimes it just gets obliterated, but that shouldn’t happen that much if you’re paying attention to it.

Thanks for all the kind feedback guys. I will try and get better at ranger :]
Lets be per_verts together lol :]

Fluffball.8307:

Well ranger has it’s problems, but I don’t think you got it quite right.

First of all, make sure your heal skill is traited. It reduces the CD and gives you additional effects, i.e. the perma swiftness and regen on WHaO and condi removal on TU. Our heal skills are some of my favorite across all the professions, all 3 are really good in the right situation and that’s awesome. Most professions have 1 viable heal skill.

Condi cleanse, you’re going to want to use wilderness knowledge, and I also use signet of renewal. That’s a good bit of on-demand condi removal.

Pet dying is both the sign of an inexperienced ranger, as well as just something that happens from time to time. Pet management is very important to playing a ranger, so you need to be able to swap it or reposition it to keep it from dying. Sometimes it just gets obliterated, but that shouldn’t happen that much if you’re paying attention to it.

this right here! these new cele necros are incredibly tough and so are the minion master builds but against most other classes I have very little trouble in a 1v1.

i tend to run a power signet or power shout build in pvp and ele’s are the class i hate the most, they have so much low cooldown healing and blasts it’s insane.

Inflames.8026:

Played since release, couple of classes I never bothered with, ranger among one of em.
Playing condi ranger with and without traps and pewpew I noticed a couple of things.

-Healing skills sucks, troll Unguents heal is so horrible any dps will offset the tiny bit of healing thanks to zerker meta.
- WHaO is poor, and almost seem mandatory for my next reason.
-Healing springs is a decent choice if you want to support, but in soloQ its just wasted.

-Pet dies so fast!, its out of commision in spvp within 10 secounds.

- Condition cleansing is soft, but with the current burn meta its quite devistating.
- Facing cele necros. Trying to widdle em down only to go through a secound hp bar with shroud, remove shroud, dps them alittle and then widdle down a full shroudbar again..

There seem to be alot of core issues with rangers, and honestly I’ve always enjoyed killing the pesky rangers, being one makes me tip off the hat.

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.
-Healing Spring is never a good choice, most of the time combat is to active for you to stay in one spot to see the benefits.
-Pets die fast, try to not send a pet into groups, instead pick people off on the sides for best results.
-Ranger actually has access to a decent amount of survival with wildness survival, get Wilderness Knowledge is fantastic removes 2 condi and gives you access to fury buff. Furthermore every ranger build should run two survival skills are min (troll unguent and lightning reflexes)
-Depending on build, a lot of the times you best option is to kite while you widdle them down. In reality we don’t have much burst so being able to stay alive while our decent sustained dps does it works is the only way you can beat some classes.

Prophet.1584:

Fluffball.8307:

Well ranger has it’s problems, but I don’t think you got it quite right.

First of all, make sure your heal skill is traited. It reduces the CD and gives you additional effects, i.e. the perma swiftness and regen on WHaO and condi removal on TU. Our heal skills are some of my favorite across all the professions, all 3 are really good in the right situation and that’s awesome. Most professions have 1 viable heal skill.

Condi cleanse, you’re going to want to use wilderness knowledge, and I also use signet of renewal. That’s a good bit of on-demand condi removal.

Pet dying is both the sign of an inexperienced ranger, as well as just something that happens from time to time. Pet management is very important to playing a ranger, so you need to be able to swap it or reposition it to keep it from dying. Sometimes it just gets obliterated, but that shouldn’t happen that much if you’re paying attention to it.

this right here! these new cele necros are incredibly tough and so are the minion master builds but against most other classes I have very little trouble in a 1v1.

i tend to run a power signet or power shout build in pvp and ele’s are the class i hate the most, they have so much low cooldown healing and blasts it’s insane.

That’s why ranger needs boon stripping.

Kitty.1502:

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.

If you compare the traited versions of both heals WHaO actually provides more health per second. It also provides a burst heal and aoe swiftness for better rotations. TU’s only real benefit is the additional condi removal.

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.

If you compare the traited versions of both heals WHaO actually provides more health per second. It also provides a burst heal and aoe swiftness for better rotations. TU’s only real benefit is the additional condi removal.

Assuming you want to give up Go for the Eyes for Resounding Timbre, with the bird having a 4 sec CD its hard to give up that is a lot of defense in of itself.

Rizo.9534:

Prophet.1584:

Fluffball.8307:

Well ranger has it’s problems, but I don’t think you got it quite right.

First of all, make sure your heal skill is traited. It reduces the CD and gives you additional effects, i.e. the perma swiftness and regen on WHaO and condi removal on TU. Our heal skills are some of my favorite across all the professions, all 3 are really good in the right situation and that’s awesome. Most professions have 1 viable heal skill.

Condi cleanse, you’re going to want to use wilderness knowledge, and I also use signet of renewal. That’s a good bit of on-demand condi removal.

Pet dying is both the sign of an inexperienced ranger, as well as just something that happens from time to time. Pet management is very important to playing a ranger, so you need to be able to swap it or reposition it to keep it from dying. Sometimes it just gets obliterated, but that shouldn’t happen that much if you’re paying attention to it.

this right here! these new cele necros are incredibly tough and so are the minion master builds but against most other classes I have very little trouble in a 1v1.

i tend to run a power signet or power shout build in pvp and ele’s are the class i hate the most, they have so much low cooldown healing and blasts it’s insane.

That’s why ranger needs boon stripping.

no argument there, i personally run Generosity and Nullification in pvp to make up for the lack of boon stripping and make up for some condi removal.

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.

If you compare the traited versions of both heals WHaO actually provides more health per second. It also provides a burst heal and aoe swiftness for better rotations. TU’s only real benefit is the additional condi removal.

Assuming you want to give up Go for the Eyes for Resounding Timbre, with the bird having a 4 sec CD its hard to give up that is a lot of defense in of itself.

I’ve stopped using hawk and eagle until we get a indicator on the buff bar letting us know when BW is off cooldown. The swiftness comes in a lot more handy for me.

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.

If you compare the traited versions of both heals WHaO actually provides more health per second. It also provides a burst heal and aoe swiftness for better rotations. TU’s only real benefit is the additional condi removal.

Assuming you want to give up Go for the Eyes for Resounding Timbre, with the bird having a 4 sec CD its hard to give up that is a lot of defense in of itself.

I’ve stopped using hawk and eagle until we get a indicator on the buff bar letting us know when BW is off cooldown. The swiftness comes in a lot more handy for me.

That is fine, but would say most won’t be willing to drop Go for the Eyes

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.

If you compare the traited versions of both heals WHaO actually provides more health per second. It also provides a burst heal and aoe swiftness for better rotations. TU’s only real benefit is the additional condi removal.

Assuming you want to give up Go for the Eyes for Resounding Timbre, with the bird having a 4 sec CD its hard to give up that is a lot of defense in of itself.

I’ve stopped using hawk and eagle until we get a indicator on the buff bar letting us know when BW is off cooldown. The swiftness comes in a lot more handy for me.

That is fine, but would say most won’t be willing to drop Go for the Eyes

I have dropped it, and i feel that it’s much better for me.
I run in 3 shout/2signets power ranger and i feel much better than before.
From BM i take RT WS BW and i feel really good with it.
When Casting WHaO, after 0.5sec dropping Guard, so i get in additional 3sec protection after cast heal and clean 2 conditions from solder runes.

Then you can show to enemy, that you want to hide from it.. hide behind pillar and in that moment you unload From stealth Bird Burst damage then knockback and rapid or if Taunt OoCD, then rappid, knock 5th skill/stealth.

Rizo.9534:

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.

If you compare the traited versions of both heals WHaO actually provides more health per second. It also provides a burst heal and aoe swiftness for better rotations. TU’s only real benefit is the additional condi removal.

Assuming you want to give up Go for the Eyes for Resounding Timbre, with the bird having a 4 sec CD its hard to give up that is a lot of defense in of itself.

I’ve stopped using hawk and eagle until we get a indicator on the buff bar letting us know when BW is off cooldown. The swiftness comes in a lot more handy for me.

That is fine, but would say most won’t be willing to drop Go for the Eyes

I have dropped it, and i feel that it’s much better for me.
I run in 3 shout/2signets power ranger and i feel much better than before.
From BM i take RT WS BW and i feel really good with it.
When Casting WHaO, after 0.5sec dropping Guard, so i get in additional 3sec protection after cast heal and clean 2 conditions from solder runes.

Then you can show to enemy, that you want to hide from it.. hide behind pillar and in that moment you unload From stealth Bird Burst damage then knockback and rapid or if Taunt OoCD, then rappid, knock 5th skill/stealth.

I am a kiter by nature so survival is my bread and butter since it has access to the best utilities that help with kiting. As such skills like protection don’t do much for me. Also, shouts are very weak in general making those skills very unappealing to me.

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

Puck.9612:

Kitty.1502:

-Troll Unguent is our best heal, use it when you are about 80% hp to see the best benefit for it, because its healing is over 10 seconds it takes a while to ramp, but it will heal for roughly 8k.
-WHaO is just really poor, some like it because of the burst heal, but with proper Troll Unguent use you won’t have this issue.

If you compare the traited versions of both heals WHaO actually provides more health per second. It also provides a burst heal and aoe swiftness for better rotations. TU’s only real benefit is the additional condi removal.

Assuming you want to give up Go for the Eyes for Resounding Timbre, with the bird having a 4 sec CD its hard to give up that is a lot of defense in of itself.

I’ve stopped using hawk and eagle until we get a indicator on the buff bar letting us know when BW is off cooldown. The swiftness comes in a lot more handy for me.

That is fine, but would say most won’t be willing to drop Go for the Eyes

I’ve seen tons of people that choose to take Resounding Timbre over Go for the Eyes. I think you are mistaking your personal preference with what is objectively better.

Both work fine in their respective builds. You can’t claim either of them is “the best”.

For example in SkyHammer, LR and Entan. will be worse than SotP and guard, but in other map will be better in some situations.

I have player with surv skills for about one and half year, and now switched to shout one, and i can say that both have huge problems and both have good advantage.
SoR cleaned So many times Fear, taunt and Immobilize from me that i can’t remember already, just from passive.

Once even Necro started whine in map chat in ranked arena about it
And if it will not clean, then i can always clean fear/taunt/root with Guard with 12sec cooldown.

But you have t kite allot in these build anyway… you can’t allow to put on your face all what they got, and swiftness from shouts really help you in that.

Well, if any of you feel like good rangers and want to teach me how to become a better ranger I’d appreciate that. Ive found troll urgent to be quite good, specially when being abit more active with my dodges. Ive also managed to be more active with my pets which was quite unusual.

All in all the challenge makes it worth it. I’ve mastered engineer and it has become dull

Inflames.8026:

Well, if any of you feel like good rangers and want to teach me how to become a better ranger I’d appreciate that. Ive found troll urgent to be quite good, specially when being abit more active with my dodges. Ive also managed to be more active with my pets which was quite unusual.

All in all the challenge makes it worth it. I’ve mastered engineer and it has become dull

I am willing to help and look at your build, you can contact me on Kitten or Kitty Smallpaw

same, feel free to ask any questions you may have in game

Or you can ask about build here, and we can explain what to change n our opinion and why. Kitty will explain from SV ranger side, i’m from Shout ranger side.

Alright, I appreciate that guys! :] Thnx.

Knights amulet and Sword/Dagger + Shortbow gets me by just fine in PvP. I don’t deal huge amounts of damage but I can take a beating and due to the rapid attacks of Shortbow and Sword the damage adds up pretty quickly. That along with abundant access to poison and evades makes it quite easy to kill regen stackers (not necessarily the boon but the overall big healers like Warrior Healing Signet or D/D Ele’s).

As always, keep an eye on your pets health bar the same way you would your own. If it starts taking too much pressure either use your heal to heal it, swap it out or call it back. Depending on which pets you choose they can be a huge asset to your damage/self sustain so it’s important to keep them alive. Don’t just watch that health bar vanish as though there’s nothing you can do to save it.

And yeah, a lot of Ranger heals are quite meh. WHaO has a very low cooldown for a decent amount of healing so it’s not too bad. Healing Spring I’ve always found to be underwhelming due to it’s stationary design. To get the most out of it you want to stay within it and obviously it’s never a good idea to stay still for long. Troll Unguent is actually one of my personal favorite heals in the game because if you continuously use it it makes you incredibly difficult to kill. I find around 70 – 80% health to be the golden time to pop it as it will outheal any small damage and will keep you alive long enough to use it again before you’re in a critical state.

Just remember that although a Ranger can be a lot like a Thief without stealth at times (extremely easy to slap around) they can also take a lot of punishment if you know how to deal with the damage. Condition Ranger is good for point denial but if you’re a trapper CC and conditions will destroy you. Survival is better for PvP imo but a lot of people will cleanse your conditions before you can pressure them to retreat or die. Unfortunately Ranger just doesn’t have a lot of powerful PvP builds but again, that’s why I like to build a bit on the tanky side without relying on slow ticking conditions. Celestial is also a good alternative!

Rizo.9534:

Or you can ask about build here, and we can explain what to change n our opinion and why. Kitty will explain from SV ranger side, i’m from Shout ranger side.

I’ve actually been using both while roaming in WvW. http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9CilsAusActgBGh6fiSol5w9bDgec3gQ4gVJeA-TFDEABLqOie6AuUlACeAAbpE0gLBATKzmUFjmUa0mmgk2fAgjAAhAMvAA-w

I switch back and forth between zephyr and BW, and Entangle and SotP. It really depends on what kind of builds you are running into, but in general SotP is usually more useful while roaming. You can pretty much shrug off condi damage, and quickdraw + 2 stun breaks + stability + super speed/ perma swiftness means you will outrun most big groups that try to chase you.

Awesome guys, right now Iam running the usual bleedstack builds through sb and axe/d and I enjoy that playstyle alot. Id be interested to try out the build you guys have aswell. And Iam happy to say after 5 rounds I dont think my pet has died once. ^^
Keep up the motivation guys

Ranger is a little subpar in the PvP scene; however, for a solo roamer there are a few builds you can play around with. One of my favorites is a pure condi roamer. I’m able to break tanky players without any real issues and it’s fun to harass thieves and mesmers with.

Shortbow
Axe/Torch
is what I’m running.

Torch for AOE burn
Shortbow for constant bleeds
WHAO i still use, it’s not at the state I like ; however,I find the 6,520 to be way more than enough for me. Not to mention, when traited it’s down to 16 second cool down.

Pets I run:
Lynx for the Bleeds
Juvenile Wolf for the Fear & KnockDown

Traits/Sigils/Runes I’m keeping quiet on They are easy to guess though.

Inflames.8026:

Played since release, couple of classes I never bothered with, ranger among one of em.
Playing condi ranger with and without traps and pewpew I noticed a couple of things.

-Healing skills sucks, troll Unguents heal is so horrible any dps will offset the tiny bit of healing thanks to zerker meta.
- WHaO is poor, and almost seem mandatory for my next reason.
-Healing springs is a decent choice if you want to support, but in soloQ its just wasted.

-Pet dies so fast!, its out of commision in spvp within 10 secounds.

- Condition cleansing is soft, but with the current burn meta its quite devistating.
- Facing cele necros. Trying to widdle em down only to go through a secound hp bar with shroud, remove shroud, dps them alittle and then widdle down a full shroudbar again..

There seem to be alot of core issues with rangers, and honestly I’ve always enjoyed killing the pesky rangers, being one makes me tip off the hat.

First off, welcome to Ranger in PvP! It’s…really, really different to PvE playstyles ^^;

- First off, could you clarify what build you’re using? You mentioned Pewpew, Traps, and Conditions, but all three of those are totally different builds that play in very different ways, with very different strengths and weaknesses.

- Troll Ungent is more a preparatory heal than one you use when you’re low. Remember, Ranger has a trait that makes them take 33% less damage when above 90% health – use TU as you’re going in to a fight and keep using it as often as possible! It’s more about damage mitigation than recovery
Also, side note – the zerker meta is far less pronounced in PvP, since fights are longer and incoming damage is greater and spread evenly over the course of the fight. The only classes I ever see running FULL zerkers in PvP are Thieves and occasionally Warriors.

- WHaO is a good burst heal, especially if you build Toughness instead of Vitality. It’s also on a very short cooldown – again, spam it! With traits, it provides additional regen and has a poxy 16s cooldown. Just remember to avoid it when fighting necros :P

- Healing Spring is…something I tend to avoid, since I feel it restricts my movement and gives my enemy a chance to lock me out of my own heal. Ranger’s an excellent roamer in PvP anyway, and many classes heal better than us, so team support on that front isn’t something you need to worry about.

- Are you speccing into Beastmastery? That’s SUPER important for pet survivability, since it gives them a lot of free stats and health regen. Taking ‘Go For The Eyes’ helps too, since that’s +300 toughness right off the bat. Consider the pet you’re using as well – spiders and cats lack active defenses and have low toughness/vitality, wheras Birds have easy access to blinds, wolves have high toughness, and bears have stupid amounts of health. Also, remember to pull your pet out of zergs and teamfights! Keep it on passive, and use it when you see an opportunity to pick someone off

- I assume you’re using Wilderness Survival? Survival of the Fittest is a nice cleansing option, and if you’re fighting something with a lot of dangerous burning (Guardian, for example), it might be a good idea to save your Sharpening Stone for when the burning gets on top of you, and use it defensively instead of for a bleedbomb.

- Necros are a pain (especially on my build, Rabid does NOT like conditions!), but what I do is try to lock them down. Whittle away at them with shortbow 4 and basic attack until your pet’s in range, taunt, entangle, spike trap, then go for the condition bomb. If that doesn’t kill them, they’ll typically go into shroud, at which point I back off again and start kiting with the shortbow. As soon as that shroud reaches around 20%, I usually all-in them again so I can nuke off the last bit of shroud/hp before they can get a chance to heal.

this is one of the builds i run in pvp often

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjUqQDLWxC+rAXLGIEqdHCgq+/iaI375t1ThSWQXA-TpBFABiXGAiDBABXAg2OCA6s/AAPAAA

Troll unguent is a strong heal, other classes should be jealous of not having such a nice heal over time, esp cuz u can use it while ur hp is high and itll maintain ur hp during pressure. With the trait itll be 20 sec cd and remove 2 condis, and with 4 survival skills we have good condi removal. By the time the heal is over theres little downtime till u can pop it again.

Pew pew rangers depending on build should have their role/use both in team and 1v1. I think theres more to discover here but dont see to much of it yet in higher tier teams.