Guild Wars 2

I switched to something similiar, still finishing the build, but I’m running 0/20/20/0/30 with prec traited into traps on the 20, and full PvT gear, sigil of gen on sb and null/battle on sword warhorn offhand
6x dolyak runes
TU/SotH/sic em/flame trap/RaO
Works very very well, particularly stacking trap whilst using horn 4+rao your pet and use buffs before going to town on them with the sword, what came together was over 24k dmg within less than 5 second whilst in full PvT gear against a friends full PvT ranger whilst they was in healing spring.

Also the build whilst building I’ve been running dungeons fine, micromanaging required to avoid aoe death to pet (but I did that already so no real change), spvp I played for the second or third time in some tpvp with a friend to test and got MvP without dying and I intend to use it for wvw once my build’s done. Thanks

Joker.6158:

Is this viable for PvE? Or specific for WvW? What about SpVp?

I just saw on the post that while designed for WvW still works on other places. I’m still concerned to what extent it would work as Im a trapper-condition build that I wasn’t able to leave yet.

No, it’s not. Pets often die and you will have pretty long CDs between all the swaps and bursts. It’s not the worst, but it’s far from good.

I dunno…lvl 42 right now and in my career with Ranger in open world PvE, I’ve been soloing champs as I go along thanks to the pet. Having done Elementalist, Warrior and Mesmer up in PvE, it’s not so easy (and extremely long and tedious on Ele). It’s not so bad on mesmer until you have to deal with constant adds and Warrior is just hit or miss (some champs you can do and some are just too rough).

Tag teaming with my Jag and Hound can be rough but it’s near impossible to lose.

As for dungeons, the only thing that matters is knowing the dungeon…

Joker.6158:

Is this viable for PvE? Or specific for WvW? What about SpVp?

I just saw on the post that while designed for WvW still works on other places. I’m still concerned to what extent it would work as Im a trapper-condition build that I wasn’t able to leave yet.

Last Friday I completely re-built and re-kitted my ranger for a catmaster. I went with Chokolata version using 2 bows as described here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Choko-s-versatile-bowman-beastmaster/first#post1753624

To get the feel for the play style, I have been using it in PvE over the past few days. The cats rips into everything, we can solo lower level map champs. In frostgorge they have a harder time against the tougher vet ice ele’s adds during the Jormag event, so micromanaging is more critical. I haven’t brought this build into a dungeon yet, and I suspect with all the AoE in dungeons, the cats will not work out so well.

Yesterday I tried it out in WvW for the first time to do the ‘disrupt pack caravan’ daily. I parked my ranger on a hill overlooking a caravan route, and each time one came by, I sent the jaguar off to deal with it. Never fired a shot, just swapped between bows to keep fury and might up while the cat did it’s thing.

Next the cat cleared out a sentry, then took on a supply post. By swapping pets, I could take down 1 or 2 scouts, again not firing a shot, but nothing more. The 4 vets is too much for a cat to taken on alone. However, my actions got the attention of the enemy server.

Someone decided to check out what was going on, and an ele caught me by surprise. Even with me on the back foot at the start of the fight, the ele went down pretty quick.

Really a nice idear to getting aggro while the enemy gets catssassined.
After reading this posts I fall in love with catssassin.

Chokolata Build seems very solid to me.
Did some1 test shaman gear with 0-0-30-10-30 build for wv3 ?

I tryed several variations in pvp with carrion gear and I came up with the following build (and I’m still testing!) …

Utilities:
- Troll Unguend
- Signet of the Hunt
- Signet of the Wild
- Signet of Reneval
- Entangle

Marksmanship 30:
- IV Signet Mastery
- VII Spotter
- XI Signet of Beastmaster

Skrimishing 10:
- I Pets Prowess

BM as always!
- for 1vs1 I found Instinctual Bond (Trait XI) more useful and SotW replace pet regen

Gear:
- Carrion Amulet
- Rune of the Krait x6
- Sigil of Intelligence for GS
- Sigil of Agony for Harpoon
- Sigil of Energy for the other weapons

Having SotW and not Sick Em! mean you have no buff cancel
and you can cast this skill before Stalk (F2) to fulfill the damage potencial even more.

With 20 Points in Marksmanship you can increase your pets crit chance when it is near you
and your pet has an additional opening strike.

Talking of fighting toe vs toe this build has it all…
It has huge HP pool via carrion gear and it has good support via Signets,
while deliver huge damage.

Hey and I will give Birds and double axe a chance, while most enemies start running away when they see me casting Signets.

Btw. I like the Siamoth as second pet too…
I found it useful for its plasma or stealth he is digging out.

If my plan was to use my pet as my dps while I try to survive, I would take Greatsword as one of my two weapons. It’s mobility and block are invaluable when trying to survive. They can also be useful for chasing and you can hit the #5 on the greatsword, hit nothing (not even have a target) and it will still give the +50% pet dmg to your pet’s next attack.

I think of it the way the newest Phantasm Mesmer build works. You are letting your pet(s) do the damage while you run around surviving using cooldowns, etc..

The nice thing for the Ranger is that we also have the shortbow/longbow (your preference) to punish the enemy if they decide to not go after us.

I’m starting to see the parallels between these builds and that makes me like this one a bit better since I know the effectiveness of the other. I may give it a solid try this week or next.

I got to say, i was skeptical at first, but having tried it i was immensely impressed. It reminded me of my Beastmaster days in GW1, where i was basically one shotting people with my high damage.

I just run dual bows for my own playstyle: love using the anti charge effect of some melees with longbows #4 Pointblank shot. Messes up alot of 100b chains by denying them their shield bash or bulls charge.

Although i have been toying with the idea of having almost permanent stealth with the jaguar. I dropped lightning reflexes (ik not having a stun breaker is bad, but its just a trial run). So i toss down “Guard” for a 10 sec stealth +10 sec protection. Than as the stealth is about to run out use the F2 stealth for more stealth (and added crits ). Like to hear opinions on that.

anyone tried this in PVE, dungeons or fractals?

Jarettellis.7813:

Although i have been toying with the idea of having almost permanent stealth with the jaguar. I dropped lightning reflexes (ik not having a stun breaker is bad, but its just a trial run). So i toss down “Guard” for a 10 sec stealth +10 sec protection. Than as the stealth is about to run out use the F2 stealth for more stealth (and added crits ). Like to hear opinions on that.

Guard dosnt work like it sounds, in fact all Shouts dont work properly, except “protect me”.
Your pet will be shown with the first hit it does when under the effect of Guard.

Yuuki.1087:

Jarettellis.7813:

Although i have been toying with the idea of having almost permanent stealth with the jaguar. I dropped lightning reflexes (ik not having a stun breaker is bad, but its just a trial run). So i toss down “Guard” for a 10 sec stealth +10 sec protection. Than as the stealth is about to run out use the F2 stealth for more stealth (and added crits ). Like to hear opinions on that.

Guard dosnt work like it sounds, in fact all Shouts dont work properly, except “protect me”.
Your pet will be shown with the first hit it does when under the effect of Guard.

But all the shouts do work properly? Protect me makes you take 0 direct damage, search and rescue seeks out the nearest downed (or dead) ally and revives them BUT it only works if the pet is alive, guard has the pet attack the nearest enemy to get inside that zone and will chase down that enemy until it dies and sick ’em increases pet speed and damage. All the shouts work as described.

achensherd.2735:

Leo G.4501:

Now that does look funny, guess they aren’t paying attention to a cat mauling their legs off

But didn’t they recently update it so pets can’t scale walls?

Yeah, but the “I’m getting mauled by thin air!” part still applies. :P

Just to be clear on this point, pets can no longer go up or DOWN walls. So, if I’m standing on the wall of a keep and pew pew’ing with my little lvl 40 bow, I can’t send my Raven, Owl, Eagle, etc (which, last time I checked, can FLY) to attack my enemy. I can target the ground just fine w/ Guard, but my bird just sits there and does nothing. :’o(

-Thor

I really like your build! I’m still kinda debating though..
Not sure if I should go 0/10/30/30 or 0/10/10/20/30 or 0/10/15/15/30.. Both Nature’s Protection and Enlargement in nature’s magic talent tree are pretty yummy. Also I have hard time to decide either to focus on condition damage or PvT/Cleric gear. It feels like a condition based BM build would give more damage output from yourself. However I’m making legendary warhorn now for my ranger and it’s more power based :P

Admittedly, I haven’t tried this, mostly because I don’t want to spend cash on changing armor/weapons without really being sure. But my question is this, how does this fare in zerg vs zerg. If I’m attacking a keep, my build is mostly irrelevant because I’m just hitting a door. If I’m protecting a keep, my pet won’t be able to go down and attack, so it doesn’t do much there. Otherwise, I am running with the biggest group I can find. Does this do that well in such a situation? It seems like there are so many enemies that you have to watch that micromanaging the cat is the last thing you’d want to be doing.

Also, is the GS mobility so good that its worth taking up a weapon slot if you have no intention of close quarters combat? Against a zerg, I find that its just better to keep your distance (and thus am almost always running sb/lb) because you could easily get surrounded and swamped otherwise (but then I’m full glass cannon atm, so that could be the reason I’m so cautious). But perhaps the lea kitten o good to get away that its worth just switching over from sb or lb for that specific move?

Edit: The forum is randomly inserting kitten into the work leap in my last sentence. I have no idea why.

I hate to necro this, but I recently made a Ranger myself and was wondering why Signet of the Wild is not mentioned. Does it not stack for an even bigger burst?

I have respecced to this build yesterday and did some quick introduction into playing style and effectiveness in PVE, which is the enviroment I like playing most. Through the short intro I did in PVE I foresee some difficulties that need some tweaking in PVE sense.

First off fighing multiple enemies can be tricky. I like using my pet as ‘tank’. So maybe switching Sharpening Stone for Signet of Stone would make sense for both you and your pet. Also, because surviability might be more important then fast burst damage, switching Signet of the Hunt for Signet of the Wild might be worthwhile. I will be testing some PVE setups and will report my findings.

Nice videos – great job!

OMG I just hope this doesn’t get a good nerf. I run beastmaster build for my ranger in GW1 too as well.

I just hope ANet look into pet animations cause when they attack they stop for a split second even with Sick ’em on the animation is not as smooth.

lordhelmos.7623:

CATSASSIN’S CREED:

BUILD SETUP:

TRAITS:

Skirmishing: 10
-I Pet’s Prowess (30% more pet dmg on crit)

Wilderness Survival: 30
-V Expertise Training (Pets deal extra condition dmg)
-X Martial Master (20% CD on GS and Sword skills)
-XI Empathic Bond (Pets take 3 conditions from you every 10 seconds)

Beastmastery: 30
-V Commanding Voice (F2 pet skils recharge faster)
-VII Rending Attacks (Cats bleed on crit)
-XII Natural Healing (Passive regen on pet hp)

GEAR:

Primary Weapon: Greatsword (Sigil of Earth, Energy, Nullification [for fighting booners] all work well. Battle is ideal for 15 in Skirmishing and Nature Mastery in order spread might buffs to the pet.)
Secondary Weapon: Shortbow (Sigil of Earth, Energy, Nullification [for fighting booners] all work well. Battle is ideal for 15 in Skirmishing and Nature Mastery in order spread might buffs to the pet.)

Armor: Rabid, Carrion, soldier all work. All the power is in the traits and pet. Carrion gives you more damage but less direct damage survival, Rabid is nicely balanced with high toughness and condition power, PvT reduces condition damage but makes you very tanky for attrition fights. I personally use Rabid. The runes would be 6x Undead. For builds that have weak condition removal from lacking 30 WS for empathic bond or healing spring, 6x runes of Hoelbrak to reduce condition removal durations on you work very well as pointed out by Chokolata.

Jewelry: Same as above. Rabid and carrion mixes can balance the stats. Full Rabid/Carrion works as well.

Hello,

I love this guide and I am using this currently for wvw, pve, pvp… Any thoughts on gear for Ascended? I don’t want to mess up what i have going so far

very nice guide! i really like it! i used to play a rampager trapper but since i’ve been using that for quite a time now, i was looking around for new builds to try and your guide really caught my attention. i’m still using my old full rampager equipment and that does work pretty well too. i had some some scruples about me being too squishy but i’m using dolyak runes and that works.

but the main reason i write you now is that i didn’t quite understand the full combo. am i allowed to use signet of the hunt AND gs bash or do i have to seperate these skills onto 2 seperate pet attacks?

flaschor.6931:

very nice guide! i really like it! i used to play a rampager trapper but since i’ve been using that for quite a time now, i was looking around for new builds to try and your guide really caught my attention. i’m still using my old full rampager equipment and that does work pretty well too. i had some some scruples about me being too squishy but i’m using dolyak runes and that works.

but the main reason i write you now is that i didn’t quite understand the full combo. am i allowed to use signet of the hunt AND gs bash or do i have to seperate these skills onto 2 seperate pet attacks?

The buff from SoH will replace the one from Hilt bash, and vice versa.

I switched to a Bunker/BM build heavy on condition dmg and do quite well against all classes except Mesmer… just cant figure that one out.

When I get to I like to pair up with a guardian… we become a force of nature… up to 6-2 odds is what we have over come 8 or 9-2 we still down a couple before dropping… find a guardian and marry them and then really have fun.

I got the hang of the quickness stomp; you pet switch and stomp in that order. If your switched pet is a raven, you can have it blind the downed target quickly (with F2) to help prevent a stomp interrupt; you might have to F1 first to cancel the pet’s own action.

So your raven combo would look like F4->F1->F2->Finish Them!

I prefer clicking on the graphic with the mouse instead of pressing F (yes, you can do that!) It’s how I avoid mashing random buttons on my keyboard lol!

The other pet I’m really liking right now is the River Drake. If you can land its F2 and have it bounce back and forth, it’s very heavy damage. Plus it’s amphibious like the jaguar!

25th june update : " Jaguar: Stalking: Critical chance increase while in stealth reduced to 25%."

What do you think about this? :/

Epsi.2063:

25th june update : " Jaguar: Stalking: Critical chance increase while in stealth reduced to 25%."

What do you think about this? :/

Not a big deal.
With 30 points in beastmastery the crit chance of your jaguar is at 73%; +25% = 98%.

Thanks to everyone for the build support!

Post patch I’m running a hybrid rrr and catmaster build.

All is the same but I’m running full settlers gear with 20 is ws so I can put 10 in skirm for pet crits. I take 10 nm for regen duration, run runes of dwayna and SoR for condition removal.

It feels balanced and works well.