Guild Wars 2

Looks good to me, but I think it would be some distance behind a condition spec in damage output for most situations not all of course.

Check the video when it’s up, damage is not really an issue with this build.

I have some problems with condition spec, I find they are more attrition based and lack finishing power. When roaming in WvW you have to get the job done quickly. That might be just my experience, but there is a trade-off in mobility and utility. Without a doubt there are better builds for damage, and there are better builds for survival/attrition, this is somewhere in the middle.

Wilderness Knowledge is critical to rangers in WvW, imo.

The ability to chip off 30 seconds from Entagle, and 6 or 9 seconds from Lightning reflexes has saved my rear end more often then not.

Can you recommend another rune set besides Divinity for those of us who don’t have enough gold for that set?

Valroth.7138:

Check the video when it’s up, damage is not really an issue with this build.

I have some problems with condition spec, I find they are more attrition based and lack finishing power. When roaming in WvW you have to get the job done quickly. That might be just my experience, but there is a trade-off in mobility and utility. Without a doubt there are better builds for damage, and there are better builds for survival/attrition, this is somewhere in the middle.

I think you can still finish someone quickly with a condition spec, in fact I find it to have higher burst aslong as you can apply them fast enough wich is easy to do, only exeption would be someone that can cleanse themselves often, I tried just about everything and found that no matter what I do or how I spec or what gear I pick there will be a weakness somewhere that can’t be fully fixed.

Currently I run a 0/0/20/20/30 spec with the majority of gear being “rabid” got mad king/affliction runes, bleed/healthsteal sigils and use healthsteal on crit food and the huntsman oil.

I find it’s the one I liked best so far in terms of working well overall but yeah you’ll have problems with highly mobile classes like mesmers wich your beastly strong pet can barely touch or the thieves that aren’t visible for more than a split second making it impossible to apply lots of bleeds and your pet not only isn’t helping you but even helps him by allowing him to stealth more, but it does work well for most other situations both in pve and pvp pretty high damage with very high survival and somewhat decent as a group buffer too.

Why not 30 skirmishing for momemt of clarity? The increased daze/stun time feels great and it offers a +50% dmg pet strike also for shortbow 5.

i responded to you on Guru forums. great vid.

I like the look of this build. Right now I’m considering going either with this or with Nerva’s 30 skirmishing + 30 wilderness build, since my BM bunker just isn’t doing it for me as far as quickly dishing out damage goes. One upside this build has over Nerva’s for me because I can’t chain evasions and blocks like a boss is that it keeps Natural Healing, which is one trait I’m very hesitant on giving up because in previous fights it has kept me ticking when I otherwise probably would’ve died due to being at extremely low health.

Hello! Thanks for sharing this build.

It has some basic ideas I’ve had behind building my Ranger (mixing survivability with damage). I was going to do a 20/15/30/0/5 with similar gear set up (knight mixed with Cavalier and few soldier) for PvE/WvW. Then I started using a BM build in sPvP 0/20/0/20/30, but using cleric instead, which I really grew very fond of and started thinking of transferring to my PvE build. Basically there are few things that leaves me undecided. Since you have made a similar build (BM build with Knight’s/Cavalier gear), maybe you could answer a few things that leaves me undecided.

1. I’ve been debating if BM builds with your sort of gear set up would be viable without any clerics. E.g using cleric trinkets and knight armor, though that would reduce your damage. So I’m debating for more dps or more healing power? Which would you benefit more from in this situation?
2. Kinda don’t want to give up Piercing Arrow trait in Marksmanship, but I guess it would be OK since they only pierce in a strait line anyway.
3. Still debating on weapon set. Since I like sword and horn. I understand the idea of GS for mobility. SB is great control tool and gives extra evades. But I’ve considered Axe/horn just for the extra range instead of SB (I just love horn :P). Ofc weapons can be swapped depending on situation. In dungeons and WvW I’d probably use different weapon set ups.

Beardmonger.4692:

Can you recommend another rune set besides Divinity for those of us who don’t have enough gold for that set?

Runes of the Ranger are good, less overall stats but more crit chance and the 5% damage bonus is nice.

On a budget, Runes of the Pack are decent for extra damage stats.

Best bang for your dollar would be Runes of the Grove (about 8s each atm on TP) would actually work well for more healing, protection duration, and the root effect. I’m tempted to get another set with these runes actually. I think you would need precision food with this though.

Manekk.6981:

I think you can still finish someone quickly with a condition spec, in fact I find it to have higher burst aslong as you can apply them fast enough wich is easy to do, only exeption would be someone that can cleanse themselves often, I tried just about everything and found that no matter what I do or how I spec or what gear I pick there will be a weakness somewhere that can’t be fully fixed.

Currently I run a 0/0/20/20/30 spec with the majority of gear being “rabid” got mad king/affliction runes, bleed/healthsteal sigils and use healthsteal on crit food and the huntsman oil.

I find it’s the one I liked best so far in terms of working well overall but yeah you’ll have problems with highly mobile classes like mesmers wich your beastly strong pet can barely touch or the thieves that aren’t visible for more than a split second making it impossible to apply lots of bleeds and your pet not only isn’t helping you but even helps him by allowing him to stealth more, but it does work well for most other situations both in pve and pvp pretty high damage with very high survival and somewhat decent as a group buffer too.

I haven’t tried that particular setup, seems like it would work. I’m assuming you’re using sword+torch/shortbow?

Dojo.1867:

Why not 30 skirmishing for momemt of clarity? The increased daze/stun time feels great and it offers a +50% dmg pet strike also for shortbow 5.

It is a question of what to sacrifice in order to get it. I can’t be without at least 15 in WS for protection on dodge, and I’m not comfortable taking points out of BM just yet. Perhaps something like 0/30/20/5/15 could work well, but the difference in pet DPS and survivability seems like it would be too significant.

paleeshi.1924:

Hello! Thanks for sharing this build.

It has some basic ideas I’ve had behind building my Ranger (mixing survivability with damage). I was going to do a 20/15/30/0/5 with similar gear set up (knight mixed with Cavalier and few soldier) for PvE/WvW. Then I started using a BM build in sPvP 0/20/0/20/30, but using cleric instead, which I really grew very fond of and started thinking of transferring to my PvE build. Basically there are few things that leaves me undecided. Since you have made a similar build (BM build with Knight’s/Cavalier gear), maybe you could answer a few things that leaves me undecided.

1. I’ve been debating if BM builds with your sort of gear set up would be viable without any clerics. E.g using cleric trinkets and knight armor, though that would reduce your damage. So I’m debating for more dps or more healing power? Which would you benefit more from in this situation?
2. Kinda don’t want to give up Piercing Arrow trait in Marksmanship, but I guess it would be OK since they only pierce in a strait line anyway.
3. Still debating on weapon set. Since I like sword and horn. I understand the idea of GS for mobility. SB is great control tool and gives extra evades. But I’ve considered Axe/horn just for the extra range instead of SB (I just love horn :P). Ofc weapons can be swapped depending on situation. In dungeons and WvW I’d probably use different weapon set ups.

1. This build could use more healing power, but keep in mind that using cleric’s gear will also reduce your toughness and precision, meaning you get less use out of your crit damage. Toughness and healing power have a similar effect in increasing overall survivability. Against direct damage I think you’re better off with more toughness, but for mitigating condition damage healing power is clearly better. I’m happy with my current setup but there are situations where cleric gear would be superior, against a condition thief, trap ranger, or a condition based bunker.
2. Piercing arrows is great for taking camps and bunched players in a zerg, for general roaming I find it fairly useless.
3. I personally wouldn’t be without GS at this point, swoop and block have saved me too many times.

@ Valroth

This build realy works well.
Im using the Karma armor power/tough/Vit
Berzerker jewels + weapons
Melandru runes for the toughness + less condition duration.
And the -40% condition duration food.

Atm conditions just fall off me, and my dps is good enough to take most classes down before help arrives.
Im gonna try it with a condition armor + weapon set and see how that goes because the amount of bleeds using SB + cats is redonculouse :P

Hey Valroth,
I really like the look of your build.
I just finished getting cleric armor (takes me a while casual player) so dont really want to re grind for new stuff. Any ideas on what runes, trinket jewellery I could use to balance out my stats?

Regards Roeore

Valroth.7138:

I haven’t tried that particular setup, seems like it would work. I’m assuming you’re using sword+torch/shortbow?

Yes for pvp and solo sword+torch/shortbow, I use the same in dungeons cause I can’t be arsed to change wherever I go but I’ll switch to warhorn then and sometimes axe also instead of sword, it’s quite low in direct personal damage but the idea is to stack bleeds and stack them fast with the runes giving +40% bleeding on their own, and the crit goes up to 50% with this setup even though you wouldn’t think it at first glance, obviously your pet is very strong getting alot of regen and protection alog with all other boons I even run Jaguar in dungeons more or less permanently and for the fights I find the Jaguar can’t survive too well none of the others can either.

Do you turn off auto-target? I keep asking people this~
When I’m running melee weapons, I prefer having it off, with SB/LB, I prefer having it on. How do you guys deal with it? SB manual-targeting can be annoying sometimes when you misclick.

Roeore.6274:

Hey Valroth,
I really like the look of your build.
I just finished getting cleric armor (takes me a while casual player) so dont really want to re grind for new stuff. Any ideas on what runes, trinket jewellery I could use to balance out my stats?

Regards Roeore

Cleric is fine, you’ll get more use out of heals, just have to make up for the difference in precision and toughness. I’d probably go for a mix of knight’s and cavalier trinkets all with Exquisite emerald jewels, that should get you over 35% crit chance. Use some maintenance oil for +precision with that and you’re really not far off from what I’m using, and you have the extra healing power.

kiwituatara.6053:

Do you turn off auto-target? I keep asking people this~
When I’m running melee weapons, I prefer having it off, with SB/LB, I prefer having it on. How do you guys deal with it? SB manual-targeting can be annoying sometimes when you misclick.

Yea I have it turned off. I also have target lock/unlock bound to left shift which I only use to deselect my target for swooping away. I find it much easier than reaching up to the escape key in clutch moments. You can see in the video at one point while using shortbow I lost target somehow on my opponent for a good 5-10 seconds before I noticed. I was still firing, wondering why I wasn’t seeing any damage. Still not sure how it happened but it can be costly, I can understand why some people like to keep it on. I’ll be more aware of it in future.

I’ve been using a pretty similar build lately. Yet, some things are different:

I go for 40% total Boon Duration runes and Sigils of Battle on both weapons. A lot of things are affected by this 40% and it really seems to pay off.

The equipment might also need some tweaking (I am still calculating mine) as for optimizing crit-damage.

Sigil of Generosity is viable as conditions are (in my experience) the biggest problem this build can face. The Sigil of Bloodlust ist something I really dont like (maybe on the spear but not on my main weapon and not in WvW)

Thanks! Yea, I prefer having auto-target off too. I think you sometimes lose your target if they move behind you. Been trying out your build in WvW. Very beautiful! I had to mix in some soldier gear though since I felt a little squishy.

Knight armor (divinity runes), Berserker weapons, syzergy (all stat – ascended), soldier backpack (ascended), knight+soldier earrings, knight+soldier rings

Stats:
1811 Power
1720 Precision
1849 Toughness
1181 Vitality
42% Crit Chance
48% Crit Damage
314 Condition Damage
414 Healing Power

1181 Vitality gives pretty much 3000 (total: 18796hp) more health while sacrificing pretty little.

Hey, so I was looking through my options settings. How do you target lock/unlock bound to left shift?

Your build looks good, I need to start adding in some ascended gear. The key which I said was target lock/unlock is actually “Lock Autotarget” in the keybinds. With Autotargeting turned off and Lock Autotarget bound to left shift it will deselect your target if you have one.

This is a follow-up video showing how to deal with D/D Thieves.

Valroth.7138:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgB1anukittenE

This is a follow-up video showing how to deal with D/D Thieves.

Says “Sorry this video is unavailable.”

The video link contains a content filtered series of characters which are replaced by ‘kitten’… lol. Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/DFValroth, its the first video.

Nice build and videos.

But… I’ll miss Bark Skin trait so much…

Thieves already hate me cause they have to go through 2-3 traps to even touch me anyway. The average amongst them only has 10k -14k health. While I’m kiting and evading, I’m also planting the things all the time. They have no choice but to go through them, lol XD

I do really like look of this build, a lot like what i run except i been focusing on kiting instead of pet.

Instead of divinity what about sup runes of Ranger?. I have Rangers on my knight, and Divinity in bank, but I wonder if Rangers isnt going to be close to same.

I am using Supeior Sigil of Battle on GS(3 might stacks every swap) isn´t this also a fine choice for build to boost bleed dmg and dmg output?.

Wouldn’t you want force which is +5% damage permamently instead of going with a 3might stacks on weapon swap? Seems like the better choice overall.

After playing with this build for a while with a superior rune of the grove set, I think I may invest in a Melandru rune set. To be truly honest, conditions are the only real significant issue I have while playing this build. I think that rune set + sigil of generosity on my shortbow + healing spring is a better load out for me for condition management. Perhaps even in severe situations, a -40% con duration food. There’s still no way I’d ever purchase a full Divinity rune set. Way too much money for me, unfortunately.

Yea conditions are an issue, against condition builds I basically stand in Healing Spring for the full duration, and when it’s not up I evade as much as possible. I had a long fight against a confusion mesmer the other day that just became a stalemate. Since I had to stay in HS a lot of the time and couldn’t attack with confusion on, he used his illusions to block line of sight so they tanked a lot of my SB damage. There is a build for almost every opponent but in WvW there are so many different opponents you can face, I think its best to use a versatile build that can handle as many different ones as possible and make the most of it. When you’re in a bad situation, having the mobility to get away is the most important thing.

Runes of Divinity aren’t THAT great, there are plenty of other good defensive and offensive options.

Aye, ya probly bout right, was using it when i was beastmaster and rage(quickness) on shortbow since all my boons was shared with pet, but going to try out..

OP, just wanted to jump on and say thanks for sharing the build. I’ve been trying it out for the past couple of days and having a blast with it. Struggles a bit on conditions (as been stated – not too much of a problem with the health regen and spring), but I may go for the melendru temple armor to compensate. Other than that, it’s quick and efficient. I mainly PVE, so I swapped out sig of wild for quickness (love the machine-gun short bow and the ever-evade GS). I also don’t need a stun breaker too often so will drop in fire trap just for some extra aoe condition and combo fields… but I’m sure if I WVW with it I’d go back to the original spec. Anyway, just wanted to share that this is a really good build and for those hating on Ranger, may change some minds. PS, if we do get a GS buff on the 26th, that can only make this more fun.

Very nice build idea. Would like to try it on my old ranger ( stuck at lvl 15 ). I especially like the quickness stomping, since that is what a buddy and I have issues with roaming duo/small man!

I was wondering if it is worth rerolling Asura for their racial ‘Pain Inverter’. And adding that instead of one of the utility slots! It seems like a good option for melee Rangers, but I’m not sure if it’s worth the reroll! (from lvl 15 = 1 hour though, but human looks better)

How would you ‘adjust’ this build for small groups? If any change is needed!

And thanks for sharing everyone!

So, I have been trying this build in PVE and I have to say it’s remarkably effective. I find I’m easily able to handle even good sized groups of foes that are at my level or even slightly higher. Thanks for posting this build, it’s been quite helpful. I might tweak a few things for PVE like what Pets I’m using and maybe change out a skill but the core concept is very solid.

Nicely done indeed.

After trying out a few builds apart from my BM Bunker the last couple of weeks, this so far feels to be the most well-rounded/all-purpose. I’ve since taken it on a few dungeon and fractal runs, and being able to retain a lot of the BM Bunker’s survivability while having at least some decent dps when my pet’s “not available” is simply awesome.

With Melandru armor (an easy-to-acquire set featuring high toughness and condition mitigation), Mystic weapons (because I wanted to indulge somewhere), and celestial Ascended trinkets (that are not yet complete but are included anyway for numbers’ sake), my current/projected build comes out to something like this:

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.3|5.1o.h1c|1.1g.h1d|1c.7r.1c.7r.1a.7r.1a.7r.1b.7r.1c.7r|411.d1e.211.d1e.311.d1e.211.d1e.311.d1e.2w.d1e|0.k1a.k6a.0.u4ac|0.0|4j.4y.4q.4r.55|e

In hindsight, I actually made a pretty lackluster BM Bunker with almost the same gear. I had the toughness down, but I didn’t have enough condition damage to make up for having little to no precision/dps, and what healing power I had was not enough for a build that pretty much relies on it to make it worthwhile. The above setup would still lack the healing power of, say, a cleric’s set to make the bunker half of it shine, but I think the higher vitality combined with the higher dps is a reasonable compromise.

Nicely done.

Just wanna add on that I use a variation of this build, namely: 20/5/15/0/30
Main difference is this – 20 Marksmanship – cripple to foes , piercing arrows.
I run the exact same WS and BM traits. (W/O the GS cd though.. I miss the swiftness from weapon swap too much)

I use SB/GS too and that’s really my favourite weapon sets for WvW.

The only thing is I kind of believe SB’s overall dmg increases by many folds with piercing arrow traits. And in Zerg vs Zerg situations, I feel that this trait pays off more in the long run.

I like the build. I’m still working on my tweaking of it, but I wanted to add that I enjoy vigorous recovery much more, as I am in GS much more often than my SB. I also like boon duration runes, and orrian truffle and meat stew. Gives me amost perma DOUBLE vigor. More evades, more protection buffs, more damage mitigation. I was even able to solo down a full evasion build thief (4 daggers, endurance on swap, dodge caltrops, heartseeker spam) which was annoying because I didn’t even get to have my third evade attack often. But because I had so much vigor (didn’t even have food on) in combination with the cleansing from spring and sigil of purification… it gave me the upper hand.

I’ve been using a similar build in PvE. Same traits, similar gear, and a longbow instead of a shortbow. I was skeptical at first, but this build has gotten me to play my ranger again. I just love the playstyle of the ranger’s greatsword.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

I also like boon duration runes, and orrian truffle and meat stew. Gives me amost perma DOUBLE vigor. More evades, more protection buffs, more damage mitigation.

Milky could you detail your build or link for our edification? Thanks.

This build is exactly what ive been rolling since i first got GW2; The only question i have is what other pets would you consider using Valroth? Keeping the feline and canine set up of course :P

Does this build still perform well in WvW scenerios?

I’m looking for a proper build so I can begin actively going to WvW.

Manekk.6981:

Looks good to me, but I think it would be some distance behind a condition spec in damage output for most situations not all of course.

I disagree :P

Want to ask, Knight armor the best for this? only 2 Knight sets from dungeons and 1 of them is Arah….no one does arah

Oooh. This is exactly the kind of build I was looking for.

Dabilahro.8094:

This build is exactly what ive been rolling since i first got GW2; The only question i have is what other pets would you consider using Valroth? Keeping the feline and canine set up of course :P

yea,

I would like to know what pet combinations are good for this build, both on land and in water.

thanks.

rchu.8945:

Dabilahro.8094:

This build is exactly what ive been rolling since i first got GW2; The only question i have is what other pets would you consider using Valroth? Keeping the feline and canine set up of course :P

yea,

I would like to know what pet combinations are good for this build, both on land and in water.

thanks.

Land: Two cats but get a drake if you need aoe/tank or a devourer if melee pets can’t be used

Water: Two devourers and/or shark, drake for aoe.

rchu.8945:

Dabilahro.8094:

This build is exactly what ive been rolling since i first got GW2; The only question i have is what other pets would you consider using Valroth? Keeping the feline and canine set up of course :P

yea,

I would like to know what pet combinations are good for this build, both on land and in water.

thanks.

This is just my personal preference:
*PvE – Raven and Wolf
*WvW – Raven/Jaguar and Wolf
*sPvP – Jaguar and Wolf
*Shark and an Armor Fish as my underwater pets, in all modes of play.

Wolf: Okay damage, good survivability, great utility. Offers a cripple, a knockdown, and an on-command Fear ability. I always have a wolf with me.
Raven: Okay damage, okay survivability, good utility. Offers a 10 second Swiftness buff and an on-command Blind ability. The raven is small, so players who are being attacked tend to ignore it. In addition, it’s very mobile, and you can’t really tell when it’s going to strike. If you send a raven to attack someone in a cluster of people in WvW, you’ll get good results.
Jaguar: Great damage, okay survivability, okay utility. Offers an on-command stealth skill. The jaguar is the king of raw damage, which is why I always use it in sPvP. Burst is nice!

Manekk and zTales, thanks for the info.

Need to go find myself a shark now

Great ranger build, your video is instructive and entertaining and your ranger is sporting a mean beard bro.

+50 Ranger points!

I’ve used your Basic Ranger, as well as this Hybrid and I Love them both. WvW is actually more fun on my ranger than my Guardian!

Also, I tried this in sPvP. Wasn’t able to get the stats exactly right, AND I forgot to equip the sigils, but this build does pretty good work (I don’t frequent the sPvP often, but I got Top Player about 4/5 games I played).