Guild Wars 2

Can someone help me with a small group build for WvW? Looking for something with high damage but not too glassy. Longbow/GS. I am only wearing exotics to start out and have a set of Beserker armor but I have put runes in or bought any accessories. Based on the small groups we have been running into there seems to be lots of conditions so something that will help clear those. This was the build I had my eye on:

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Power_Survival_Roamer

That is a good build. Defender runes are gold. Try that out and see how you like it, tweek it to suit yourself from there.

More builds in the thread in my sig too.

@Heimshkarl, I saw you thread and it was a huge help. The only thing I was wondering is how the longhorns builds work in a 5 man group setting. I main a warrior in our group which I think is key to the group and bring a lot of cc, swiftness, cleanses, etc. I know I won’t be able to do that with a ranger but when we are just out for fun to blow people up I wanted to give the ranger a try. Is soldiers ok to go with on accessories and weapons and armor zerker?

Also what is the best way to keep my distance? What I am hoping to do is stand a little establishing my group and pewpew, if some breaks off to go after me I want to be able to stretch them out away from their group so they are isolated. Again thanks for your help and if anyone else has advice that would be great too.

If you are in a 5 man, I would be setting up traits for more damage and group support than for roaming. Something like this will allow you to give your party perma regen/swiftness as well as 50% uptime on Fury and clear a condi bomb from them. You have to swap your pet immediately after using SoR though or it will melt. Because you have your mates with you, I think you can play a little more glassy so won’t need soldiers gear, a little more vit and toughness is probably all you need like in the build I linked. So you really get quite a bit of the same as your warrior, just different ways of doing it.

You have 1500 range with the LB, so you should be able to stick with your mates majority of the time, but stop closing on foes once you hit 1500, allowing them to move forward in front of you, so you are essentially backlining and focusing their called targets with RF, SoTW and “SotP!” with Remorseless. Save and use Taunt on the called target, but make sure they know you will so they can save their burst for then. You don’t really need to stay right away from the fight, get in there with the GS once you have burst with the LB so you can swap back to it for a double RF off Quick Draw to really ruin someone’s day.

Well, that is how I played with my mates when we roamed WvW, last time I could play.

what classes are also going to be in your group? I mostly solo or small group roam (LB/sw+d or LB/GS) and the biggest problem I have is that when our group of mostly warriors / guardians comes up on another group, as a ranger I am the first one the enemies want to focus. So how glassy I could go is limited because the perceived toughness of my team mates classes makes me look like the easier kill (which is fine, I can play to that). If there aren’t eles, thieves or mesmers in you group, you should really consider not being too fragile (fragile in our group situation is less than 18k HP / 2600 armor), or running either a good amount of stun breakers (so you can actually use that GS block) or an immunity like SoS or Protect Me.

Neither of the builds posted are going to survive alone against a condition based class, but the one Ashfiend put up at least has a damage immunity and a full condi clear, which are things you should really consider. Being too easy to kill makes you a team liability.

Personally, I think the coolest thing you can do for a 5 man team is to bring stuff to the table that only you can do for your team as a Ranger. Primarily, that means Sic ’Em for killing mesmers, thieves, and Entangle, both for saving your own hide and for setting up kills for the group.

I’d recommend something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAlsgtsAuCCUtgBGh6fiSol5w9bDgec3gQogVTA-TlTDABdqOwDHCgZUJIKlBHcEACwETCPAQJIO7PUlSjXUxZhLAAI6CAwE0PKxIDAzWA-w

It still isn’t going to beat a good condi player 1v1 either, but it brings a lot to your teammates that is generally Ranger specific, so they will notice what you are adding to their comp:

• You are bringing 3 on demand removals, one of which is a full clear with condition to boon conversion (Lyssa+Elite skill).
• You are bringing Quickness stomps and lots of burst via QZ and Zephyrs Speed
• Your pet cc’s (fear, and either chill or immobilize from second canine) are going to actually hit the target thanks to Zyphers Speed
• Your own aoe CC with entangle. Your melee groupmates will love you for this.
• Sic ‘em: Engineers barely exist and those that do don’t run reveal. Until HoT, its a Ranger who is going to reveal that enemy thief or mesmer long enough to get the kill.
• Group swiftness and regen tied to your heal. Every little bit of team swiftness helps. I use this on cd when running around with my team.

What you lose by not taking MM:
Not much. MM really isn’t that great for wvw unless you need to have piercing arrows for the zerg (valuable) or you are running some glasscannon maul burst spec (high risk / high reward). You can make up the lost automatic opening strike crit with intell sigil on GS, which lasts long enough for both of your quick-draw Mauls. The guarantee that both mauls are critting makes the loss of the 25% opening strike damage bonus a wash.

The gear i picked out is mostly exotic or easy to acquire ascended jewelry since thats where you said you were starting.

I think this build works best by really getting the most out of quickdraw. Really try hard to maximize your weapon swaps and learn utilize the power of quick drawn double burst or double stealth / cc / mobility. Call target on an enemy that has just come out of stealth, and hit them with Sic’em right before their normal 3sec reveal wears off. Use Entangle, it does so much to set your group up for a win when placed well. Same with petswap + canine shouts: chilling, fearing or immobilizing multiple enemies for your group is clutch.

Awesome great advice I will try it out.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

If you are in a 5 man, I would be setting up traits for more damage and group support than for roaming. Something like this will allow you to give your party perma regen/swiftness as well as 50% uptime on Fury and clear a condi bomb from them. You have to swap your pet immediately after using SoR though or it will melt. Because you have your mates with you, I think you can play a little more glassy so won’t need soldiers gear, a little more vit and toughness is probably all you need like in the build I linked. So you really get quite a bit of the same as your warrior, just different ways of doing it.

You have 1500 range with the LB, so you should be able to stick with your mates majority of the time, but stop closing on foes once you hit 1500, allowing them to move forward in front of you, so you are essentially backlining and focusing their called targets with RF, SoTW and “SotP!” with Remorseless. Save and use Taunt on the called target, but make sure they know you will so they can save their burst for then. You don’t really need to stay right away from the fight, get in there with the GS once you have burst with the LB so you can swap back to it for a double RF off Quick Draw to really ruin someone’s day.

Well, that is how I played with my mates when we roamed WvW, last time I could play.

The build you posted, like many, are wrong – you can’t put two similar sigils on the same weapon (in this case 50% on critical).

Please let us know which other sigil should be there.

Thank you.

Raven.9603:

what classes are also going to be in your group? I mostly solo or small group roam (LB/sw+d or LB/GS) and the biggest problem I have is that when our group of mostly warriors / guardians comes up on another group, as a ranger I am the first one the enemies want to focus. So how glassy I could go is limited because the perceived toughness of my team mates classes makes me look like the easier kill (which is fine, I can play to that). If there aren’t eles, thieves or mesmers in you group, you should really consider not being too fragile (fragile in our group situation is less than 18k HP / 2600 armor), or running either a good amount of stun breakers (so you can actually use that GS block) or an immunity like SoS or Protect Me.

Neither of the builds posted are going to survive alone against a condition based class, but the one Ashfiend put up at least has a damage immunity and a full condi clear, which are things you should really consider. Being too easy to kill makes you a team liability.

Personally, I think the coolest thing you can do for a 5 man team is to bring stuff to the table that only you can do for your team as a Ranger. Primarily, that means Sic ’Em for killing mesmers, thieves, and Entangle, both for saving your own hide and for setting up kills for the group.

I’d recommend something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAlsgtsAuCCUtgBGh6fiSol5w9bDgec3gQogVTA-TlTDABdqOwDHCgZUJIKlBHcEACwETCPAQJIO7PUlSjXUxZhLAAI6CAwE0PKxIDAzWA-w

It still isn’t going to beat a good condi player 1v1 either, but it brings a lot to your teammates that is generally Ranger specific, so they will notice what you are adding to their comp:

• You are bringing 3 on demand removals, one of which is a full clear with condition to boon conversion (Lyssa+Elite skill).
• You are bringing Quickness stomps and lots of burst via QZ and Zephyrs Speed
• Your pet cc’s (fear, and either chill or immobilize from second canine) are going to actually hit the target thanks to Zyphers Speed
• Your own aoe CC with entangle. Your melee groupmates will love you for this.
• Sic ‘em: Engineers barely exist and those that do don’t run reveal. Until HoT, its a Ranger who is going to reveal that enemy thief or mesmer long enough to get the kill.
• Group swiftness and regen tied to your heal. Every little bit of team swiftness helps. I use this on cd when running around with my team.

What you lose by not taking MM:
Not much. MM really isn’t that great for wvw unless you need to have piercing arrows for the zerg (valuable) or you are running some glasscannon maul burst spec (high risk / high reward). You can make up the lost automatic opening strike crit with intell sigil on GS, which lasts long enough for both of your quick-draw Mauls. The guarantee that both mauls are critting makes the loss of the 25% opening strike damage bonus a wash.

The gear i picked out is mostly exotic or easy to acquire ascended jewelry since thats where you said you were starting.

I think this build works best by really getting the most out of quickdraw. Really try hard to maximize your weapon swaps and learn utilize the power of quick drawn double burst or double stealth / cc / mobility. Call target on an enemy that has just come out of stealth, and hit them with Sic’em right before their normal 3sec reveal wears off. Use Entangle, it does so much to set your group up for a win when placed well. Same with petswap + canine shouts: chilling, fearing or immobilizing multiple enemies for your group is clutch.

You also have two wrong family sigils on this build – can’t have two 50% crit sigils on the same weapon.

I have to wonder why so many make this mistake when it clearly says you can’t benefit from both.

atheria.2837:

I have to wonder why so many make this mistake when it clearly says you can’t benefit from both.

You are mistaken. In march of 2014, sigil cooldowns became independent.

http://dulfy.net/2014/03/21/gw2-runes-sigils-and-balance-updates/

Sigils: Fewer Hidden Rules

We’re removing a lot of the hidden rules that the sigil system currently employs. First off: all sigil recharges will be separate. You’ll be able to use a Sigil of Energy on-swap and still have your Sigil of Fire activate on critical hit! Likewise, your Sigil of Fire and Sigil of Air will have separate recharges. However, Sigils of the same type will still not work with one another. For example: A character with two Sigils of Blood (minor, major, or superior) who activates one will set both sigils on recharge. We added a warning of this new functionality onto the sigil descriptions.

On-Kill sigils (those sigils which trigger when you kill something) have received an update as well. The functionality of each sigil has changed so that killing a player is worth five stacks of a sigil in any game mode, while killing a monster only grants one stack. This type of sigil will have more strict rules applied on them, so that a player will no longer be able to gain 25 stacks and then un-equip the sigil.

Two Sigils on Two-Handed Weapons

In the new update, two-handed weapons will be gaining the ability to equip multiple sigils. The UI has been updated and you’ll be able to place sigils in each slot accordingly. Note that the top sigil is the one that affects the name of the weapon.
Balance and More Viable Sigils

With this feature build, we’ve made quite a few balance changes to sigils. Compare the Sigils of Ice and Fire in the current system: Fire is pretty much always better because it can hit five targets for almost the exact same damage, on the exact same recharge. With the coming update, both sigils will have a 50% chance to activate. The Sigil of Air will drop to just a three-second recharge while Fire will remain at a five-second recharge with slightly reduced damage. Changes like this will make more sigils viable options and open up the playing field for you to find what suits your build best.

Some sigils have received a more extensive update than just number tweaks. An example of this would be the Sigil of Conjuring, which functioned the exact same way as the Sigil of Sanctuary. Conjuring has been renamed to Sigil of Celerity, and instead of granting invulnerability at 25 stacks, it will grant quickness for five seconds when you reach that 25th stack. The Sigil of Sanctuary, which had extremely limited usability, has been renamed and re-worked, becoming the Sigil of Benevolence. This new sigil will grant bonus healing to other allies similar to how the elementalist’s new trait, Aquatic Benevolence, will function.

On-Hit Sigils

With this update, we’re altering a few of our attack-based sigils to be used in a builds that aren’t heavily reliant on critical hits. With this, we’re changing a few of the more defensive sigils – namely the Sigils of Ice, Purity, Frailty, and Water – to grant their bonus when you hit an opponent, rather than when you score a critical hit. With these changes, characters who aren’t geared towards critical hit builds will have a bit more access to attack-activated control, survival, damage, and support.

@ atheria

Please get your facts straight so you don’t make yourself look like a fool. We have been able to run sigils this way for like 18 months.

Here’s what I’ve been running lately http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9Ci9rAusActgh/gaf9FIA+04HOaefz3N4gVJeA-TFDEABLqOie6AuUlACeAAbpE0gLBATKzmUFjmUa0mmgk2fAgjAAhAMvAA-w

I’ve found having a way to clear 1 or 2 condi’s on a short cooldown a lot more beneficial than a complete condi clear on a high cooldown. You can basically shrug off several specs like burn guards, but if you do get bombed you still have SoR for a full clear.

Depending on the groups I’m fighting I will swap zephyr for BW, remorseless for LtW, or “Guard” for “Sick ’em”. The taunt and “sick ’em” are great if you keep running into groups of thieves or mesmers, and LtW is a lot more handy than remorseless if you are poking zergs.

If you haven’t already geared up you might want to avoid using fire and air on your longbow since it is buggy at the moment and will reveal you when trying to use hunter’s shot to stealth, maybe go with force and blood. Also Trooper runes are currently bugged so they won’t remove condi’s from your allies, but they will clear condi’s from you and your pet. Welcome to the wonderful world of the ranger where if they fix 1 bug in a patch they create 5 more.

Puck.9612:

Here’s what I’ve been running lately http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqA9Ci9rAusActgh/gaf9FIA+04HOaefz3N4gVJeA-TFDEABLqOie6AuUlACeAAbpE0gLBATKzmUFjmUa0mmgk2fAgjAAhAMvAA-w

I’ve found having a way to clear 1 or 2 condi’s on a short cooldown a lot more beneficial than a complete condi clear on a high cooldown. You can basically shrug off several specs like burn guards, but if you do get bombed you still have SoR for a full clear.

Very nice! Your LtW variant is almost exactly my “tonight, we zerg” spec. My personal roaming spec focuses on condi removal out the kitten (Bearbow roamer).
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAtCi1CC+rActgBGh6fiSI17xdDyAOc/2A4kX1oVA-TlCFABt9AAA4IAclSQBuAAOpMKJlOGq+DBHCgi2fINdBkBYZLA-w

For the trolls: run around with longbow and brownbear out, it really helps bait people into fighting you even when you get the jump on them, and seems to generate a lot of rage from people when I win. Its also a big part of the build.

Against condition spammers:
On-demand removals with Runes of the trooper +3-4 shouts (sometimes i run entangle) and Brownbear’s F2, and SoR for the big bombs.
Passive removals with food, Empathic Bond, SoR. Sigil of Generosity is somewhere in the middle, because I know it will trigger within 3 seconds of swapping to LB.

Against mesmers, thieves and power builds:
Protect me and SoR for double stun breaks, Sic ’em to keep them from resetting the fight after their burst gets absorbed.

Easy access to perma swiftness, drakehound works nicely as the taunt spammer while adding a little more CC to help land those mauls. Quickdraw on these weapons is famously strong for running away from a badly outnumbered fight. Brownbear, despite noob stigma, is pretty important because it makes SoR, Empathic Bond and Protect Me actually work well in the build instead of just killing the pet.

I run a non standard trapper / condition build when in a group. Same build more or less for solo roaming. Suits my play style whereas I can fire from behind, spread out, drop a trap, stealth behind them, drop a few more traps, then engage. Always throws them off thinking someone is flanking them.

Regardless of build Rangers just need to know when to stay at range and assist to finish and melee when frisky. Had a good fight the other day exiting NPC/Dredge towards Wild Creek and Rogues camp. 2 of us are Rangers and a random Necro held the hallway / corridor for several minutes while the enemy just kept working their way through. Traps helped as did the Necro. Both of us Rangers just moved in and out of range and melee engagement to hold them off. Pug Guardian entered and did his soft CC’s and soon it was the 4 of us vs 15.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Builds help but just get friendly with your Ranger and it won’t matter what you run or gear. Also I found watching other Rangers what they do and how they play helps ten fold. People are just better.

Whatever you do, have fun