Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

So I’ve been trying to ween myself away from just playing my usual Shatter mesmer (1200 hours), and have stumbled across something I think looks like a lot of fun: The BM Ranger.

I’m using Greatsword / Sword + Dagger, and honestly don’t know all that much about Rangers. I want to use a Greatsword, and want to mostly be melee like a Thief, so figured this was a good bet. I have tried a Medi Guardian and didn’t like it much, but this seems a lot more involved. My question is: What do I dooo??? Haha.

Is there a good skill rotation, or setup, or starting rotation or anything that I should know? I think the build I’m running is pretty solid, it’s one of Exotics old ones. It seems like it lacks damage a fair bit, but the survivability is pretty good, which is nice for a newer Ranger like myself.

Could anyone give some good tips on actual combat practices for a build like this?

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YjEq0vaFLusw1igDhq5K8B8CgnD7x6LHqQJSA-TJBBABAcRAGrMgHPBAB3fAA

Cheers,
E

I was experimenting in WvW with a very similar concept, in preparation for the upcoming BM buffs. The route I took was Natural Healing. The tooltip doesn’t tell you this, but not only your pet but you get the healing/second. I paired it with a few other sources of regen, and that allowed me to wear berserker armor for damage. The one downside was I had basically no condi removal, but you have even less than I did.

Here’s what I might try, and keep in mind I’m no BM expert:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YnMqQvK2LIusARLGgSoaFAv/hWtndPCVwGfxKlIB-TZBFwAOeCALOIAVLDA4CAIa/BA

It’s still a little low on condi removal, but it has a decent amount of group support. You have tons of regen/second, almost the max possible in the game.

I’m sure this can be improved, but there it is.

I totally feel you on the mesmer thing, I can barely stand to play mine anymore.

I just tested the build I posted in a duels server. It did exceptionally well. Like ridiculously easy to play. Although it’s not terribly realistic since most people don’t use condis on duels servers. I got torn up by a condi bow warrior, but I beat literally every other type of build I faced, not losing anything. There wsa a PU mesmer, but somehow I beat him before the condis could do anything.

I swapped SoN out with RaO just to not be a kitten for the duels.

Beastmaster usually is a form of bunker. The best form of bunker to damage ratio comes from either dire or settlers/apothecary gear.

What i would personally suggest (what i am using at the moment):

-apothecary stats with superior runes of the water
-0 0 6 2 6 trait distribution with the standard OH training, EB, mighty swap and vigorous training. It is your choise for the WS and NM adept majors and BM GM major.
-axe/dagger and sword/torch, 1 sigil of battle 1 sigil of corruption and 2 sigils of geomancy
-HS, SotW, SotH, LR and entangle

I would go with Chokolata’s build to start.
If you want more damage go 0/2 (pet crit modifier)/6/0/6
When I play BM in spvp I take natural healing and signets (apothecary neck with cond damage/time runes)).
Damage comes from both physical (pet) and cond (ranger), makes an interesting build.
axe/torch sw/dg with cats
PS: Run speed signet is almost a requirement in order for pets to hit anything and RaO greatly increases dps while active

Again prefacing this with I’m a complete and utter newbie to beast master builds, I think condi idea might be the wrong way to go. The reason I won like 25 straight duels is because my power build got in to people’s faces and they thought I was the threat, all the while distracting from the fact that the pet was the threat. Condi almost does the opposite, highlighting that you are doing DoT, like when they get hit with the torch, and then the spike is clearly coming from the pet.

To be honest I’m not sure anyone I dueled even realized I was running a BM build. People were talking about my melee pressure. You want them to ignore the pet, especially if you pick something other than bird.

Might be six to one, half a dozen to the other. Condi is almost definitely better for bunkering in a tPvP game though. I guess I’m coming at it more from a roaming perspective since rangers are a bit wonky in PvP right now.

Edit: Oh, I almost forgot, I tested the same traits but using SotF and the typical survival traits for WvW roaming. LR, MT, and I think I SotW. That really helped my condi problem. If I had unlimited money I would use berserker amor with dolyak runes, the ranger runes were a clear weakness. I got annihilated by a berserker warrior, but won most of my other encounters fairly easily.

@Fluffball,
Ive never had much luck with power bm builds, you may be able to surprise once, but after they look at death breakdown (provided they are ignoring damage #’s on their screen) they will figure it out.
The problem is 1) we have low power damage modifiers due to pet
2) Our best cond removal is in the cond damage line (or stam/ boon)so we are usually better off building off of that; so that we can use apothocaries and not worry about ferocity, crit or power; instead focusing on healing/ cond damage/ +w/e else toughness usually.
All that being said, after next patch a power bm build may be better but im guessing full bunker or power will be the way to go.

Well the other thing about going the power route is that s/d + GS is maybe the most defensive weapon set possible on any profession. So if you can do a little damage with it, great.

But ya, maybe I can’t find anyone good to fight with it. I’ve been trying to put the build through better tests both in duels and in WvW. And I still probably wouldn’t try it in a tournament since condi tanks are so perfect for conquest.

I mostly play some form of beast master build, that is i almost always go at least 4 in BM and pick up some traits to buff my pet.

Some points on the OP’s build.
- BM#2 is almost useless for anything out side of map completion because you lose the stack any time you swap pets and should be doing that a lot.
- You garbed fortifying bond and pet’s prowess, good these some of our best pet buffing traits.

The thing about playing a beast masters builds is the one of you primary jobs is to cc your opponent so your pets hit more often. For you question about skill rotations ranger doesn’t not really have skill rotations (not in same sense as a necro or an ele) as our auto attack is our primary damage, the rest of our weapon skills are generally utility/situational based (some of out 2 skills are use on recharge types)

Anyway here is a quick build the i often use for yoloque and roaming
you can use any weapon combo that you want and change the amulet as you see fit