Ok, so you might as well consider this pretty noobish of me to ask but how exactly do you learn to play the profession better. Ranger was my main and first profession to 80 and I had tons of fun but it eventually felt lackluster especially in WvW. Do you guys experiment a lot with diff builds? Do you try builds out in sPvP first or just make new gear and try out new stuff. Also a not so relative question how can you get your hands on Sentinel Gear if you weren’t around during the LS that allowed you to make it. Much help would be great especially since I’ve had no luck with finding any streamers for rangers and most vids are pretty outdated.
As for Sentinel gear, IIRC you can buy the inscriptions from guild commendations and the inscriptions/recipes on the TP.
As for builds, I usually play around with numbers on a build editor when I get certain ideas in my head that may suit my play style. I’ll flesh it out then take it into WvW to see how it fares in roaming and group play. Lot of trial and error but that’s ultimately how you see what you like and what you don’t, and what works and what doesn’t.
Playing against better players and a lot of perserverance to take a beating, reflect on your mistakes and get back out there.
Theorycrafting like felixdacat stated but without radically changing your general build with every unsuccessful situation. You may tweak a trait here, an utility there but overall finding a general build and sitcking to it. Execution takes a while to sink in and become muscle memory.
If a particular profession seems to be getting the best of you, leave at least one character slot open, running that troublesome profession for some time so you better understand how it works and more importantly how to counter it. If by any chance you fell in love with said profession during that recon… hey that’s part of the game too. Although if your intention is to poke holes on the profession that is giving you a hardtime, your mind will be set to improve your counterplay anyway.
Watch some other ppl playing and listen to advice from other players, but don’t follow it blindly, instead try to merge some ideas into your own playstyle. I’ve particulary been following Faux Sheaux, Xsoros and a few others to improve my own.
Yes, I think the more influential rangers on this forum are probably: Faux Sheaux, Xsoros, mistsim (Umie). They’re the best guys to follow if you’re into WvW. Most of them run builds that are on the tankier side. They all have youtube videos, which are nice since you get to see how their builds work.
Chopps can be a little iffy. Hes had a history of conflicting ideas with the majority of the ranger community, but he brings fresh ideas for pve and spvp. Hes worth following up on too.
@felix: Thanks I’ll def look up the Sentinel gear recipe on the TP. I’ve been wanting to mess around with builds using that gear for a while but last I checked which was a few months back before Celestial was introduced the armor pieces were going for a hefy price. I’ve theory crafted before but that was like at the start of GW2’s lifetime and did have a tanky BM build before I heard anyone running it but I guess I didn’t follow up on tweaking it. I remember I was giving thieves a run for their lives tho, but that was in sPvP. When it comes to tweaking numbers on a build editor, usually without food where should numbers be around? Like in a power build power should be usually 2k+? What about condition dmg in a Condition build or a hybrid? Or do you just try a build and get the feel if you need more condition dmg or power?
@Ariet: My problem was usually that I’m a bit of an altholic but I always come back to Rangers in the end. I did make a thief and get him to 80 to get an idea of how the gameplay is but once I hit 80 I just didn’t feel it, so back to Ranger. I’m also with you that listening to advise shouldn’t mean blindly following it. In the end we’re all diff players with diff skills and diff play styles.
@kiwi: I’ve been running a glass cannon power Ranger for nearly all of my lifetime on GW2 and I hit the point where glass just doesn’t cut it. At least not with a GS/LB weaponset. Unless it’s zerging which is just totally a diff story but in roaming, you’re basically asking to be killed. Thanks a lot for listing those, been trying to find someone who’s good to watch for a while but I barely see any streamers on twitch and didn’t know names to check on youtube.
@kiwi: I’ve been running a glass cannon power Ranger for nearly all of my lifetime on GW2 and I hit the point where glass just doesn’t cut it. At least not with a GS/LB weaponset. Unless it’s zerging which is just totally a diff story but in roaming, you’re basically asking to be killed.
OP: I’m experimenting playing the game – that’s best method to actually learn the profession
@Tribio You need to be pretty good dodger if ful zerker “works perfectly in WvW”
or do You mean “solo roaming” as WvW?
sorry but as roamers can play some grater than lower role in war in the mists that with full zerker You stad no chance to be usefull in any larger group or larger fight unless opposite group will be absolutely noob.
otherwise you will be the one who is ressing downed enemies… by his own death
“-Shield is meant to be broken!”
“-and on this occasion I keep mine plate armors”
discussion about offensive/deffensive playstyles
sorry but as roamers can play some grater than lower role in war in the mists that with full zerker You stad no chance to be usefull in any larger group or larger fight unless opposite group will be absolutely noob.
You’d be quite mistaken if you think that I run front-line with the guards and warriors into a zergfight with my glass armour.. With the guild group: We stack, buff up, our heavies run in, our ele’s stick close, ranger moves to side to flank, … Trust me, I never feel useless in WvW, either solo, either in group..
Btw, WvW battles is more than throwing a zerg into a zerg.. Some strategy, and you can win even outnumbered battles..
The Hatreidis family: Freya / Nina / Demonica / Athena / Faith / Arya / Angie / Sansa
Commander – Jam Death [Jd]
Fissure of Woe
Edit: So I watched the video, I don’t understand how it proves that the glass cannon LB ranger is viable as a roamer in WvW. I know that it works wonders PvE wise and on camps and guards, but my problem was with playing it against other players in WvW.
So I watched the video, I don’t understand how it shows GC ranger LB viability in WvW against other players. I know it works wonders in camps and on guards.
@Xukavi: Playing glass cannon ranger in WvW is just not advised 99.99% of the time. Whether you’re roaming or in the zerg, you’re going to want survivability and Sentinel gear is great but prohibitively expensive. When doing your theorycrafting, have an idea of what stats or traits you need for your play style and build from there. For example, I want fury uptime to make up for not having as much precision so I build around having at least 15 in Skirmishing (I take 20 for Quick Draw). Right now, running this build. For a power/crit build, I’d like that 2k power mark but I also have to factor in +damage traits, food and might stacks. I’ll play with the traits and utilities based on what I’m feeling that day, sometimes add a spirit or drop them altogether. I’ll try to check your build later when I’m not at work and give advice if I can.
@Felix: I know why they’re not advised. I’ve tried it multiple times since that was what I was using to level up to 80 and as much as there was great damage, I’d barely survive to output it. I theorycrafted with Sentinel in mind but like you said it’s pretty expensive, especially since I wasn’t around during F&F to get the recipes so I have no way to craft them myself even if it was possible to do so now. So now I’ll have to look for an alternative. I’m thinking maybe Soldier gear cold work since Knight doesn’t offer vitality which I want. For stats I want high vitality with good toughness and a mix between power and condi dmg. I know it sounds like I want everything we have. One thing I don’t take into consideration is food though. Thanks for the reply.
Edit: So I watched the video, I don’t understand how it proves that the glass cannon LB ranger is viable as a roamer in WvW. I know that it works wonders PvE wise and on camps and guards, but my problem was with playing it against other players in WvW.
True, it isn’t showing much of fights against other players (just wasn’t so lucky to encounter any opposition at that moment), but the main activity of a roamer (solo/small group) is flipping camps/towers and take out some stragglers that come to defend..
I’ll have to keep my video capturing software running a bit more this weekend, hoping I’ll encounter some nice fights when roaming..
The Hatreidis family: Freya / Nina / Demonica / Athena / Faith / Arya / Angie / Sansa
Commander – Jam Death [Jd]
Fissure of Woe
Edit: So I watched the video, I don’t understand how it proves that the glass cannon LB ranger is viable as a roamer in WvW. I know that it works wonders PvE wise and on camps and guards, but my problem was with playing it against other players in WvW.
True, it isn’t showing much of fights against other players (just wasn’t so lucky to encounter any opposition at that moment), but the main activity of a roamer (solo/small group) is flipping camps/towers and take out some stragglers that come to defend..
I’ll have to keep my video capturing software running a bit more this weekend, hoping I’ll encounter some nice fights when roaming..
Well of course it is, apologies for not being clear. I know that roaming (solo or small group) is about taking the little but important things around the map (sentries, supply camps, neutral camps). But since I tend to either roam solo or duo with a warrior (who is terrabad and it ends up being solo anyways in fights) I was talking more about player fight encounters.
@Xukavi: Got a chance to look at your build. For food, try running koi cakes (they’re cheap) and quality tuning crystals, those will get your condition damage over 1000 and up to 50% duration. I also swapped your armor for full dire and runes of speed - just wasn’t feeling the exuberance and imo the 25% speed boost is always welcome. If you’re looking for more vit at that point, I swapped out three of your jewels for azurite and still had 1086 condition damge.
How do you feel you fare against condition classes running only Empathic Bond for condition cleansing? I ask because I’m not sold on QZ - I try to like it, run it for a while, then drop it. You could throw SoR in its place.
@Felix: I hadn’t though of an alternative for Sentinel but good call on the Dire armor. I technically should already be above 1k Condi Dmg thru the sigil alone at 25 stacks. But in the case of using that for food I switched to sigil of bloodlust instead. I liked the % bonuses on exuberence but I did think of runes of traveler for the speed (didn’t know of runes of speed). I think vitality is good, my aim was to have around a 24k-25k health pool with around 1600-1700 toughness.
About the Empathic Bond, I honestly stopped playing my ranger when the quickness nerf with the shortbow hit us. So I dunno how effective quickness can be and I’ve never actually tried Empathic Bond so i’m not sure on it’s effectiveness. Alternatives on my mind for quickness were SotW and SoR but I knew I didn’t have enough healing power to make SotW to make worth bringing, especially since there’s no SoB from marks traits to use the active on it. I wanted to have QZ in there in case I wanted “some” burst with either weapon. I’ll give it a go and if I find that I need better condition survival I’ll def run with SoR.
I think the “problem” with the ranger class is that people palying ranger and complaining about the class aren’t willed to learn and think about what they did wrong, and why they got killed. It’s easyer to flame other classes instead, ofc.
I had many situations in the last week after being unsure if I should still main my ranger. (mostly PvP and WvW). I had situations where I wanted to throw my keyboard out of the closed window. The best thing here is calming down and reflecting on what exactly happened. Some examples. I fought a pistol/? thief who used dagger storm. That’s what I knew at this point: It has stability and makes me pew pew bleed, so what did I do? Exactly… I threw my whole burst onto him… and guess what happened. I suddenly had 15 stacks of bleeding up on myself while crying about how op this spell is. Then I created a thief in PvP to look what numbers I get with this ulti and realized… it reflects projectiles – gg wp, I’m an idiot. The next days I fought a couple of thiefs (backstabbers, regen, pistols, just everything) and what happened? I won all of them. I play a spirit axe/dagger + shortbow build with dire gear and I’m not even fully equiped and just bought nourishments right now, running Drakehound and Wolf. The most important thing is to know how the enemy class works, especially when playing a ranger. And it’s a ton of fun when the enemy thief who just got imobilized by my dog, eats my full condi burst and stealths away with 15 stacks of bleeds and burning while he is half hp and then suddenly gets revealed downed 15 meters away – exquisite feeling. The same happened with mesmers and engis. I fought a mesmer with his 20 confusion stacks, I was almost down even after I popped everything, ran back to my tower with under 2k hp, got full hp again and went out with my Spirit of Nature on cd. He also reged full and was waiting for me. And what happened? I got him. In the first fight I just spammed everything I got on just everything I saw – mostly his clones, and lost because of being too stressed. In the second fight, I kept my head cool, startet thinking and downed him, well, kinda easily. And whats the morale of the story? Learn not only about the ranger class but about every class. Stay cool in a fight and reflect what happened afterwards. Go in a fight with motivation and feel good after winning one, you’re allowed – almost more than every other class. If you lose, even often in a row, don’t give in. Learn from your mistakes and next time you’ll do better.
@Shirk: Wise words, thanks! The reason i first got demotivated to keep playing ranger was how power builds were hard to work out in WvW coupled with using a longbow (which is my fav weapon). Longbow is pretty lackluster since almost every class has a way to gap close onto you and if they don’t (necros) they’ll just condi you to death with our subpar condi cleansing. I never liked the idea of a tanky ranger but after some time I got my head around it, but I still refuse playing pure condition specs. I did the same thing you did about the thief only I actually fully lvled mine to 80 and then went back to playing ranger and lvling other chars. Only way to beat a profession is to know what that profession can throw at you.
With the guild group: We stack, buff up, our heavies run in, our ele’s stick close, ranger moves to side to flank, … Trust me, I never feel useless in WvW, either solo, either in group..