Guild Wars 2

Yes, I know the pain too well of out of combat travel. My guardian chugs along but once it gets there it can be deadly! Well, if the fight isn’t over already.

I do agree though that which set you take dictates the role you’ll play in a game. Shortbow will certainly have a stronger team fight presence at mid, but I think the a/d sw/t is a stronger side node fighter. I’ve had great success in 1v1 against all professions, and am still strong in a 2v2 depending on who I’m paired with. On a larger scale though, 3v3 and up, the build starts to lose it’s effectiveness.

Ah, and as I was talking about Keen Edge, that only applies to sw/t a/d builds. Shortbow can take full advantage of Sharpened Edges and benefits greatly from krait runes. Unless you were to waste a slot on SotH, Tail Wind is necessary to keep up combat mobility. Quickshot does a good job supplementing the swiftness, but it does suffer if camped on for too long.

I do think the sword is more than just mobility though, it’s good to swap to and avoid damage while your conditions tick. You can get two Hornet Sting/Monarch’s Leaps in on a rotation with a Serpent’s Strike in between. I think of it as a defensive rotation.

It’s what I love about the condi survival ranger and why I’ve played it so much recently. There’s no one right way to play it. I’ve seen countless variations that all play well, and I’m always waiting to see what the next one will be.

I’d like opinions on this build please:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEq0yaFLGsw1agAha5AEAtvh89FeGtVbJLoL-TZhFwAAuAAKeCAf2fIxBBwZZAA

I’m still evaluating, but ideas for why/why not are from others are always welcome.

Hey, jcbroe
… If you ended up not using neither Empathic Bond nor Bark Skin …
… Did you think of not using Any of the traits and going for 2-2-4-6-0 ?

For both Keen Edge and Sharpened Edges?
I can imagine better pressure than Poison master would provide.

That would offer less pressure but more spike if you time it right.

And poison reapplication is awfully difficult to beat IMO, especially with all the healing that goes on in the meta.

Fluffball.8307:

That would offer less pressure but more spike if you time it right.

And poison reapplication is awfully difficult to beat IMO, especially with all the healing that goes on in the meta.

The thing is that with Dagger and Shortbow, you already have the poison uptime.
… And it is going to be cleansed anyways, because meta. If it isn’t, than you already have 100% poison uptime by weapons themselves.

I shall mention that what this trait does is that it increases the DPS of poison by roughly 50. And it reapplies the poison on next pet attack if you swap the pet (which is on a 20 second cooldown). Keep in mind that the pet poison application will REWRITE your poison – resulting in lower poison DPS, since the coefficients are not applied for the pet. Which means that the poison from pet will deal less damage than yours, and the part of the poison that you applied yourself will be long cleansed by the time the timer of yours starts ticking.

While with the Keen Edge you get the burst you sometimes really need and turns the table of most of duels while also providing you with 10% more condition duration (at a cost of 100 condition damage, I’m aware).
While providing you with more fury uptime and 2 bonus condition auto cleanse.

And I in my current build use Marsh Drake anyways, which is an AoE 9 second poison that deals 2500 direct damage, too.

Right, the constant over-condi cleanse is why I like it. Even with every source of poison possible I wouldn’t even be mad if I saw a ranger running with doom.

I think you can sum up most teams as 1) berserker 2) tons of healing 3) way too much condi cleanse. More poison helps a lot with all 3.

Fluffball.8307:

Right, the constant over-condi cleanse is why I like it. Even with every source of poison possible I wouldn’t even be mad if I saw a ranger running with doom.

I think you can sum up most teams as 1) berserker 2) tons of healing 3) way too much condi cleanse. More poison helps a lot with all 3.

I’d connect 2) and 3) to the very same category. Where more poison doesn’t really help unless it is passively reapplied (which is not our case)

OGDeadHead.8326:

I’d like opinions on this build please:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEq0yaFLGsw1agAha5AEAtvh89FeGtVbJLoL-TZhFwAAuAAKeCAf2fIxBBwZZAA

I’m still evaluating, but ideas for why/why not are from others are always welcome.

I like it for the most part. You’ll take advantage of celestial and be useful in team fights with a build like that. The piercing arrows are great if you can line up shots, and the extra 200 power is nice. Some things that stuck out to me:

• Lack of fury. Without SotF your crit chance with celestial is very low. Two things you could do to help would be either putting 4 points into Skirmishing (Quickdraw and Furious Grip) by taking 4 from marksmanship or beastmastery. You’d lose either power or might doing that which hurts celestial though. Or, which I would recommend, would be to use pack runes. You’d get ~50% uptime on fury and swiftness, plus 175 power and 125 precision. I think it would go a long way to rounding out the build. Warhorn would also work to giving you both fury and swiftness, and works out of combat.

• I would change Signet of the Hunt. I think traveler runes would be a better choice if out of combat speed is important, or pack runes + bird if you only need swiftness in combat. Divinity runes aren’t going to give you a whole lot, and the free utility slot would really help. That frees up room for either Signet of Stone or Signet of Resolve. Depending on if you need more condition relief or physical damage relief. SoR would give 4 conditions cleansed passively (with EB) every 10 seconds plus a stun break/team cleanse, so I’d go with that.

• I’d consider swapping one bird to the wolf. The perma cripple is nice, but the control of a wolf is superb. It’s on a 16s cooldown so it’s easy enough to get back to bird. The wolf has it’s own cripple leap and knockdown, which both do great damage, and a fear on top of it. Also, the 4 points in beastmastery might be more worth the investment elsewhere.

Something like this might be a variation I’d run. You might lose the cripple and 3 stacks of might, but I think 9% critical chance and 13% critical damage offset moving points from beastmastery to skirmishing. Plus you gain 6% critical chance with pack runes and 175 power. I think the canines provide better control than perma cripple on birds, and have AoE support in team fights. Hard hitting skills are good plus more survivability.

There are three sources of swiftness/fury though in the variation I posted, and only two are needed to achieve perma uptime on paper. It has warhorn, Tail Wind/Furious Grip and pack runes. Warhorn provides swiftness for out of combat though which the other two cannot, and pack runes provide both power and precision. You’ve got a dodge on shortbow and 2 on the sword, so I don’t think dagger is that crucial. Krait runes might be a good choice to get more out of your bleeds, while still providing enough swiftness/fury with Tail Wind/Furious Grip supplementing warhorn.

@OGDeadHead

I’m intrigued by the idea of intimidation training and the near perma cripple it can provide with these two bird types. However, it isn’t perma which leaves something to be desired as I believe the condi duration is based off the pet not you and the tooltip should read 5 seconds instead of 6 on that build editor. So what you could do…. would be to use that 2 points in Marksmanship for malicious training to get that cripple up to 7.5 seconds which would be permanent. Moreover, I really like that it seems to have no ICD (based on the tooltip I haven’t tested it) which means you could literally cripple someone forever even without malicious training just through F2 → swap → F2 followed by the F2 every 6s until the swap is available again.

As for the rest of the traits I understand the desire for celestial and consequently the 30 in WS for the extra 300 condition damage… However, I don’t know if that’s the best way to play it. Instead I would consider something along the lines of: 0/4/x/x/4. Either do 6 in WS or NM for your preference of cond clear. I am always an advocate for Survival of the Fittest over Empathic Bond (especially with squishy pets). For PvP…. piercing arrows doesn’t really work. You rarely get to line up a dual hit unless someone is downed and they are rezzing. Still, you don’t always get people lined up in time. I assume you want this for a little bit added cleave pressure but in the end it doesn’t really matter. Your job should be to put poison on the body and you HAVE to have another teammate to cleave because ranger cleave is terrible. Even a HUGE maul or a piercing arrows rapid fire won’t keep a body down. The best we can do is either of those 2 + a river drake combo but to really get enough cleave against a coordinated team in time the ranger has to be putting that pet in the right spot BEFORE the body goes down which is hard to do. Therefore, I would say you’re best bet is just to focus down 1 person at a time and let your teammates worry about cleave, so you can drop piercing arrows.

That means you can either do 0/4/6/0/4 and get fury on swap, quickdraw, primal reflexes, sharpened edges. Or do 0/4/0/6/4 and get fury on swap, pet’s prowess, companion’s might, or any of the previous options mentioned for the skirmishing line. Then you could even drop the celestial for something like a rampager ammy to get a really high crit chance and keep yourself and your pet with a little bit of might from all the sb crits. That leaves you pretty glassy but with s/d and some decent positioning you should be fine.

I think traveler is way better than divinity and frees up an extra utility slot for whatever you want. Also, without a little bit higher healing power I don’t know if SotW is worth it by itself.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Eurantien.4632:

Moreover, I really like that it seems to have no ICD (based on the tooltip I haven’t tested it) which means you could literally cripple someone forever even without malicious training just through F2 -> swap -> F2 followed by the F2 every 6s until the swap is available again.

It doesn’t have a CD (at least as of like 4 months ago.) As soon as they buffed rangers with that it went in to my dueling build.

Thanks guys.

My experience so far (quite limited):

• Piercing arrows for mid pressure works wonders – if you’re good at positioning, you’ll hurt your target +1 more, most of the time
• Crippling from Intimidation training works in the span from decently to really good, ofc depending on the opponent. Anyway, damage from birds are, at this stage, way better than any other pet. I guess their inherent ability to ‘swoop’ makes them hit far more often, and far harder, than any other pet out there – and let’s face it, how often do you really manage to set up your pet for burst?
  The higher you go in the ranking arena, it’s way more common that your opponents will manage to dodghe your pets, almost to the degree it won’t matter how many skills you’ll try to put down to make your pet’s effort worth it.
  RaO for all then benefits that one brings, and SofW both for the passive, as well as for the active when it comes to stomp.
  As for stats – you could hardly beg for more than this in pvp – you got lots of everything, if you just want to see it. Yes, there are more specialized runes you could go with, but for overall pressure, I don’t think you can be mistaken with this build.

Eurantien.4632:

For PvP…. piercing arrows doesn’t really work. You rarely get to line up a dual hit unless someone is downed and they are rezzing. Still, you don’t always get people lined up in time.

Ah. I didn’t really think that one through. I don’t use shortbow in my condi build in pvp, and my longbow build always opts for Eagle Eye and RtW. I can see how lining up the piercing shots would take more than it’s worth.

Eurantien, you were saying SotW may not work well in a build like that. Looking at the variation I posted (as it’s piqued my own interest) would you opt for SoS? Maybe move more towards traps for some AoE burning? Would Flame Trap be useful as a lone trap on a bar with LR and SoR?

I’m glad more people are realizing EB is bad.

Sarision.6347:

I’m glad more people are realizing EB is bad.

It’s quite effective when running Full Regen condi ranger or Spirit Ranger… Or even a Trap Ranger since you don’t have space for Survival Utility abilities.

It’s pretty bad when you can have an on-demand SotF.

Sarision.6347:

I’m glad more people are realizing EB is bad.

The other option(s) not always available. I agree though, it’s a bad trait for sure.

I just wanted to point out for the ongoing discussion (and it is definitely easily testable if you need to see for yourselves), but the poison applied by the pet when you are using Poison Master actually scales off you your condition stat, not your pets.

@Tragic;

That was my exact initial thought, and to some degree the 2/2/4/6/0 idea works amazingly, but to some other degree, I also looked to see if a more power centric idea would work as well, and actually went 4/2/2/6/0 and picked up Spotter. 7% more crit to proc more Sharpened Edges and do more DPS, AND giving that boost to your team seems worthwhile enough at this point, but it’s hard to figure out a metric to measure the effectiveness of that option versus 2/2/4/6/0.

I’ve also been messing around with 2/3/3/6/0. It doesn’t directly help in team fights, but in situations where you are constantly swapping weapons, which tends to happen more in dueling or small scale situations, especially if you are using your survival skills you maintain perma-fury, which is also a really nice boost to damage.

I’ve still just defaulted to Poison Master though. Mostly because poison is invaluable in every situation and somehow rangers have ended up being the most capable party for bring poison application to the table, which I’m sure squeezes its way into “valuable niche roles” somewhere.

I understand the above reasoning for taking EB; however, my main issue with EB is that it does not deserve its status as a grandmaster.

What we have here is a grandmaster trait that does not truly remove conditions, and uses the pet as some sort of scapegoat.

If I’m going to spend 6 trait points to remove conditions, it should remove them, not transferring them to the pet.

Sarision.6347:

I understand the above reasoning for taking EB; however, my main issue with EB is that it does not deserve its status as a grandmaster.

Dear lord, EB not a grandmaster would completely revolutionize ranger. Talk about opening up some builds. That would be kitten amazing. Take a mediocre to slightly subpar GM, make it master, open up like 5002349234 different kinds of builds that can now have moderate condi removal instead of almost zero.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t EB also had that requirement where you have to be within 600 units of the pet for it to work, like Signet of Renewal?

And then there’s the fact that it stops working when pet goes down.

You don’t have to be in range for EB. It’s not a bad trait if you can’t get condi removal anywhere else.

jcbroe.4329:

I just wanted to point out for the ongoing discussion (and it is definitely easily testable if you need to see for yourselves), but the poison applied by the pet when you are using Poison Master actually scales off you your condition stat, not your pets.

…

Oh, there was a time where it didn’t (early stages after implementation).
I didn’t really bother testing it any further. Thanks for letting me know. Might just be interesting enough to try out new builds.

I’m learning a ton from this thread, and I never pvp. I’ve been trying to theorycraft a build like the trapper I play in WvW, but it doesn’t seem that viable.

Has anyone tried might-stacking builds? This is an idea for a hybrid power-condi build that focuses on stacking might and getting bleeds on crits.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAnYTjEq0yaNLesQ1aADhqdLEsVNrAwd8+CXdKrYEv9A-TZRFwAEeCALOBAAOEAs2fwaZAA

The big problem seems to be no real mobility. (Is it possible to swap utilities while playing? Sometimes I’ve swapped in Signet of the Hunt in WvW at times. I don’t know if pvp mechanics/gameplay allow for this.)

@Jroh and @Fluff

Believe it or not, I main a trap ranger in pvp and I am having really good success with it. But the posts regarding EB made me think about it.

So how will that work for traps? First of all I cant go SoTF since i wont have Wilderness Survival, +300 Condition damage and +300 Toughness points if I remove 6 pts from Wilderness Survival.

At the same time, If I go 6 in Nature, I will have to remove keen edge and put into Wilderness Survival for the Survival CDs which also means 10% condi duration is Lost.

If somehow I made it work, The only 2 condi removals I have is LR and Entangle, which now I will be forced to used defensively.

So..How will traps work then? I can only imagine Traiting PM or BS for EB and running Healing Spring.

I don’t have any choice since traps take a utility slot at the same time.

So what do you guys think?

For traps you don’t have much choice than to go EB. You could try sigils or runes (lyssa, etc.) I think it’s probably quite feasible if you wanted to try something weird like traps + BM or whatever.

But since you want the condi damage anyway, might as well just take EB and a spider.

That’s what is so annoying about ranger condi removal. We have the most in the game, but it’s so locked up.

Fluffball.8307:

For traps you don’t have much choice than to go EB. You could try sigils or runes (lyssa, etc.) I think it’s probably quite feasible if you wanted to try something weird like traps + BM or whatever.

But since you want the condi damage anyway, might as well just take EB and a spider.

That’s what is so annoying about ranger condi removal. We have the most in the game, but it’s so locked up.

BM + traps sounds interesting, but how would it look like? And how will that do with the condition removal situation though?

I dunno I was just making things up…

Um maybe something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjEqUua7KusQ1igDhqD7A4BignNRy67dLZFdB-TZRHwAo2fIwBBIZZAyPBAAnAAA

Isn’t there a sigil of cleansing in PvP? That would be a lot better than generosity I think.

No idea at all if that would work. Probably not.

Here’s a variant that I’ve found is adapted from many of the meta condi builds to be a bit more helpful in team scenarios. It’s your basic S/T A/D build, but with S/W A/T weaponset instead and using the celestial amulet.

This allows for more utility through using the blast on the warhorn for either heals or might stacking since you have access to both fields. It also gives a bit better mobility without having to use a different runeset. I have Rune of the Pack here, but really the same runesets that work for this type of build are just as viable here (krait, undead, etc.).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHfxG2IjKts2viDLctGQQoWFAtrhktFcnv3wXXwqG-TphHABCcEAA4EAsy+DBcQAMqMAwPAAA

I’m still playing around with it, and I’m assuming I’m not the only one that feels this way when I say that no matter what I try, the ranger class just feels like it’s missing something right now.

I mean, we can duel amazingly, probably better than almost every other class in the game.

Actually, I suppose that technically indicates some level of balance. Going super offensively provides too little defense (and not enough comparatively in return with a lack of both cleave AND boon removal/punishment), building as efficiently as possible for both defense and damage leaves little room for teamfighting, and building for a little bit of everything leaves damage feeling a little bit lacking.

I mean, in a perfect game, this all makes sense. Just not this meta I don’t think. I can play the cookie cutter rifle engi build or the ele build, or the thief or warrior builds, and every single one of them with one build feels like it has every tool it needs to do everything, and I just can’t figure out how to build ranger to get it to match that level of versatility.

To recap though:

• I’m very happy with the trait split.
• We need to think about how to bypass the issue that Eurantien presented, which is Axe for dueling, blade (Sword, GS) for mobility, and bow (Sb, Lb) for teamfights.

So yes, on that second point, that’s what I think I want to direct the conversation towards. Specifically, is there anything in that breakdown that can be sacrificed?

• Do we need Axe? (personally on a condition build for a duel, I say yes, but maybe not on a power build)
• Do we need a blade for mobility?
• Do we need a bow for teamfights?
  I’m already biased on the issue, so I’m going to refrain from now to wait for some responses to those questions, because I want to see all the angles first so I can think about it and try some things out and put some real thought into it.

I already brought this up, but I use the S/T in teamfights (well weapon swapping on CD pretty much, but sword over bow.) I don’t mind being the guy on point. I’m getting passive damage through burning, entangle hits more targets, I’m tankier than most meta builds like DPS guard or whatever, and cele + a little might means the sword does good damage if I get the opportunity.

It’s just what you want to do with it. Be the target or call the target.

Fluffball.8307:

I already brought this up, but I use the S/T in teamfights (well weapon swapping on CD pretty much, but sword over bow.) I don’t mind being the guy on point. I’m getting passive damage through burning, entangle hits more targets, I’m tankier than most meta builds like DPS guard or whatever, and cele + a little might means the sword does good damage if I get the opportunity.

It’s just what you want to do with it. Be the target or call the target.

I’m actually starting to like this guy. These are the words of wisdom that needs to be highlighted.

Fluffball.8307:

I already brought this up, but I use the S/T in teamfights (well weapon swapping on CD pretty much, but sword over bow.) I don’t mind being the guy on point. I’m getting passive damage through burning, entangle hits more targets, I’m tankier than most meta builds like DPS guard or whatever, and cele + a little might means the sword does good damage if I get the opportunity.

It’s just what you want to do with it. Be the target or call the target.

Sorry, I know haha, I was just “thinking out loud” so to speak. Sword/Torch is definitely something I’m keeping in mind, and I’m very aware it has all of the same things going for it that make the sword/lb combo effective for warriors right now (minus the ridiculously amazing warrior warhorn).

I actually used to run Sb sword/torch back in the way back “era” of trapper ranger meta at launch lol. It took a player by the name of Battosai (he was an “old pro”) saying to me that Dagger was just flat out better because in his words, the Dagger evade is OP with the amount of evasion it gives when traited with offhand training.

But anecdote aside, I’ve been really contemplating that weapon setup again. Especially because it is no longer the trapper meta of the launch of the game lol. Torch with its buffs and the builds poison uptime should theoretically replace the oldschool traps entirely, and the build has both a bow and a blade.

I’m just not entirely sold that it duels as effectively as I want it to, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Axe just spoils you by making some fights ridiculously easy, where as shortbow is inefficient at literally everything but teamfights (which is why the OP(s) is the build that it is).

Not directed at you again, but just for visibility for other people reading the thread, this is the current topic:

• Do we need Axe? (personally on a condition build for a duel, I say yes, but maybe not on a power build)
• Do we need a blade for mobility?
• Do we need a bow for teamfights?

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’m actually starting to like this guy.

Why you used to hate me?

The best builds operate very effectively in both cases.

Call the Target: if you aren’t putting out considerable threat, you need to go back to the drawing board.

Be the Target: you have two options here … mitigate the threat to you or escape it. Elementalist, Guardians, and Engineers can all mitigate it. Thieves can as well for a little bit. Escaping it comes naturally for Elementalist and Thief. This is a strong part of why they are popular at high levels.

Fluffball.8307:

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’m actually starting to like this guy.

Why you used to hate me?

No, of course not. But I’m more or less known as having pretty high standards. Which means that my “neutral” zone grasps further than other ones’.
That also means that when my acknowledgement is earned, it’s well deserved and hard to prove wrong. Don’t sue me, I’m professionally deformed since being a student of chemistry.

Fluffball.8307:

I already brought this up, but I use the S/T in teamfights (well weapon swapping on CD pretty much, but sword over bow.) I don’t mind being the guy on point. I’m getting passive damage through burning, entangle hits more targets, I’m tankier than most meta builds like DPS guard or whatever, and cele + a little might means the sword does good damage if I get the opportunity.

It’s just what you want to do with it. Be the target or call the target.

Can you really survive long enough on a node to make it worthwhile? That is the only way s/x a/x can work is via the ability to hold the node and the larger the fight becomes the harder this gets. Moreover, while you are holding that node are you really doing enough damage to have an impact because you aren’t really supporting your team in anyway the way any other meta “be on node guy” can. So while they are doing damage and supporting you are simply doing damage + once you get hit by slickshoes you can’t just pop stab and run or pop a block or an invuln and just stand there. Moreover since combustive shot is enough to kill a ranger in a fight (seriously it is) it makes standing on node for a ranger incredibly difficult. This has left me with the though that ranger isn’t meant to be front line… but rather a mid line class that can go to front if it HAS to or go to back line if it wants to. By lines I mean, on the node = front line, mid line = close around the node to help front line and back line (kind of where engi stands right now), and back line = necro, mesmer, power ranger who don’t care about the nodes and just want to kill people.

Because of this inability (imo) to front line since the past balance patches (namely BM and Spirit nerf with buffs to other classes) we are left with the questions Jebroe has posed for us. In my opinion, the only thing we can do is really wait for balance because as it stands, we always lack something. Granted, I’d still say power ranger is our most viable option (albeit definitely weaker since the port fixes).

Eurantien.4632:

Fluffball.8307:

I already brought this up, but I use the S/T in teamfights (well weapon swapping on CD pretty much, but sword over bow.) I don’t mind being the guy on point. I’m getting passive damage through burning, entangle hits more targets, I’m tankier than most meta builds like DPS guard or whatever, and cele + a little might means the sword does good damage if I get the opportunity.

It’s just what you want to do with it. Be the target or call the target.

Can you really survive long enough on a node to make it worthwhile? That is the only way s/x a/x can work is via the ability to hold the node and the larger the fight becomes the harder this gets. Moreover, while you are holding that node are you really doing enough damage to have an impact because you aren’t really supporting your team in anyway the way any other meta “be on node guy” can. So while they are doing damage and supporting you are simply doing damage + once you get hit by slickshoes you can’t just pop stab and run or pop a block or an invuln and just stand there. Moreover since combustive shot is enough to kill a ranger in a fight (seriously it is) it makes standing on node for a ranger incredibly difficult. This has left me with the though that ranger isn’t meant to be front line… but rather a mid line class that can go to front if it HAS to or go to back line if it wants to. By lines I mean, on the node = front line, mid line = close around the node to help front line and back line (kind of where engi stands right now), and back line = necro, mesmer, power ranger who don’t care about the nodes and just want to kill people.

Because of this inability (imo) to front line since the past balance patches (namely BM and Spirit nerf with buffs to other classes) we are left with the questions Jcbroe (I editted this for you, can’t have people thinking I’m that shoutcaster haha) has posed for us. In my opinion, the only thing we can do is really wait for balance because as it stands, we always lack something. Granted, I’d still say power ranger is our most viable option (albeit definitely weaker since the port fixes).

Interesting.

I’ve been really curious, what in your opinion does the power build lack?

I always assume my analysis that lack of boon removal, “as effective” escape utility (aka we don’t have a terrain port), and the generic argument of thief dominance over ranger/mesmer/necro builds is the case, but I’d be interested to know if you disagree or have more to add or have found a way to deal with/mitigate anything I listed.

Eurantien.4632:

Can you really survive long enough on a node to make it worthwhile?

Sure. You don’t need to survive very long. Evade spam, run around with the sword, and let the 4 mesmers on your team kill everyone (I also tend to run undead runes and energy sigils.) As a ranger you’re going to be the target anyway since everyone hates us.

This is from an almost strictly solo q perspective. Obviously you don’t run rangers as full on bunkers in a tournament. A lot of people don’t run the boring builds like shoutbow in solo q, so you have to rotate who’s standing on point. Rangers can do it a hell of a lot better than an engi can.

If someone else is willing to stand on point my first goal becomes hunting down berserker builds like power rangers on the cliffs.

@ Jebroe,
The reason I feel power ranger to be our most viable option is because it is the only thing that ranger can currently do that another class can’t do better and that is specifically the ranged damage which forces your enemy to either LoS or over extend to come after you. I don’t really know if that is a good or a bad thing. I think that depending on team comp it can be a good thing. Like if there was a meta where thief, power ranger, + a dps entirely meant to just cleave that corpse it could be amazing to have a power ranger since the ranger can get them low enough to be 1 shot by the thief and then the cleave can come in and kill everyone that tries to rez. Currently, the issue with power ranger is that if they LoS then you can’t really finish them as a ranger and only things with teleports that require a target can finish them… but since they are behind LoS and ranger only has melee cleave then the ranger has to preemptively stop the rez attempts: fearing as that finishing burst happens, knocking down someone who intends to rez before they try, knocking back someone before they pop stability so they have extra travel distance before the rez can begin, etc.

This transitions us nicely into things we lack:
Cleave (since we have to be melee but our damage is ranged :/ hence requiring preemptive movement to be in range as the target dies or like those methods previously mentioned).
Lack of boon removal
Lack of “get out of jail free” cards.

Before I get into those, I want to touch on the other side of the coin, the forced over extension. Although this can be great on maps like Foefire it can also be incredibly difficult to handle. Team after team has left me to fend for myself or have been unable to kill people once I get jumped on that ledge. With the Dankening things were different, we could stop every single team except for Abjured. I think that was just because my teammates were great at supporting me and would save their skills for “O’ kitten” scenarios. This would allow me to get double swoop leap heals through healing turret as well as shout heals, etc. Meanwhile, they had enough skill/damage to often kill a target that wasn’t being protected. However, most teams don’t work that great, and ours definitely could have been more efficient. But what would help is if our pets AI was just a little different. In those moments, you need things to happen instantly, like… RIGHT NOW. The pet doesn’t work that way. Instead you have to like detarget F3, F2, F3, F2 just to get your pet to use its F2 without going into target range… and it takes WAY longer than this moment RIGHT NOW. Moreover, being able to keep a level head when under severe pressure to use a kd at the right time is… well it’s absurd that they expect us to do that, even though it can be done. However, that means that kd really isn’t optimized since we are only doing it to stop damage off of CD in that moment instead of interrupting something, but we can’t REALLY interrupt something because we can’t instantly or even come close to instantly using it (like a 0.5s cast time or something) because of the way its coded at the moment.

As for what we lack… I’d say no matter what the ranger does at the moment we lack something which in my opinion means we are kind of balanced. However, we also don’t have anything that makes us really that unique, if we did or other professions couldn’t do everything then life would be good. When the ranger is pushed in on it’s only true defenses are preemptive, SoS and stealth. Once those are gone, namely once the stealth is missed, failed, or ends the ranger can simply be pushed in on. Meanwhile, other classes can simply take the damage then heal up (ele, war, engi, guardian, necro with plague) or they can reposition themselves from that fight with teleports (thief, mesmer, ele). Now while these classes can do this they are not safe from other classes with teleports who can chase them down, while when a ranger is pressuring them they just have to LoS and heal.

I think some of these differences come to mind easier when you compare what it is like pushing in on a ranger vs another class.

If you push in on a necro they have the ability to teleport and plague while also maintaining the ability to 100-0 someone via a fear chain
.
Mesmer, thief, and ele are all too hard to push in on due to their stealth, mobility, and teleports.

Guardian… doesn’t care if you push in on it because it can just teleport past you to your squishies in the back line and kill one of them.

At least engineer and warrior have the same problems we do when they try to run glassy builds (which is why I don’t think they do, luckily for them they have other builds they can use).

So what would make ranger better?
Power ranger could use a little more condi cleanse (if 6/6/2), it could use some boon removal, it could use some AoE for the ability to cleave, it could use more mobility whether that means ease of access to swiftness or an actual movement skill. Ultimately it could use better pet control options as well as the old pet leash range (with some recoding). I say this because when pets could be at one node and the ranger at the other it made the ranger unique because you could be at 2 fights at once in a sense. Moreover, it provided an intimate depth to skills such as SoR, Do you cleanse your team? Or do you swap your pet back to cleanse yourself but risk your pet dying? Of course, this wasn’t so simple, an F3 near max range usually meant an instant teleport for your pet + you could keep people in combat with your pet while being out of combat yourself. What I proposed was that when your pet is in combat so are you as well as forcing the pet to run back to you if F3 was used. That didn’t stick for whatever reason and has left ranger in kind of a slump ever since.

In the end, I’d be happy with better pet control options because that’s what the class is really all about and there is just a lack of ability to be able to use the pet to its fullest at the highest level of play, in those fractions of a second where that fear needs to happen RIGHT NOW.

However, I also think a big issue with the ranger is the disparity in the maps. Current tournament rotation does not favor the ranger, it favors teams that can support each other and are relatively tankier. Forest is abysmal for ranger. So much so I was learning thief for it. This is because there are few safe places to stand, there is no “back line” to be in or a “front/mid line” for your team to hold. Sure we got that rock at mines, but fighting at henge is terrifying and fighting at keep is a death sentence. Not to mention the time I had to invest to find these spots, find where teleports broke JUST to survive… no other class has to do that. People often think Foefire is the best for power ranger. I think it’s better than Forest but the relationship between Foefire, the snowball effect, and the ease of pushing in on a ranger leaves me never feeling truly safe on Foefire. Where I think ranger really shines is Kyhlo, my favorite map because it’s multi ledge arena allows for increased mobility (jumping from roofs towards mid, or jumping from treb to the wall, or from that one roof to windmill), as well as increased escape ability because jumping from say mid to the ledge by the window with a swoop or monarch’s leap now functions as a “teleport” in a sense because “W” is no longer sufficient to close that gap. I think Kyhlo kind of equalizes the professions (even though teleports to kyhlo are REALLY strong) simply because a skilled player becomes significantly harder to deal with on that map due to the aforementioned reasons. Is it perfect? No, the pet cannot navigate the terrain of clock tower AT ALL but at least it provides a better battle ground than the other maps because of that increased mobility and survivability created by the terrain.

What do you think?

Having read all the comments in this thread (all of which have been very thought provoking) I have been trying this build recently…

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAT3IjMq2xiLLUtGoPo2uABQvfw9VEEpdBraA-TpRAwAVuAAAOIAdOCA92fYcZgJPAAA

I have tried to hit the 3 points raised in various posts and the one it fails on most is mobility, I have used signet of the hunt to try and combat that but it’s still nothing compared to an ele/mesmer/thief. I find the power damage, condi damage and survivability are all pretty decent, however I don’t know how it would handle a higher level of play. Feedback and questions appreciated and welcomed.

As someone who has always taken empathic bond as well as SotF in my bunker build, this thread has opened my eyes to a world free from the terrible pet killing trait that is empathic bond and has lead me to diversify my play.

@ Eurantien:

I agree with the need for pet changes, particularly for more responsiveness or lower cast time for pet F2 abilities. However some of the other suggestions feel a bit too much like they’re getting outside of what a ranger should be able to do or at least overcompensate too much on one aspect of defense that would make cause additional balance issues.

However, I do wish that we had more active ways to boost DPS, such as with might stacking so that we didn’t have to rely on the berserker amulet as much. I mean, if we could work with a soldier amulet like hambows, then having stealth/SoS on cd wouldn’t be such a liability.

Current thoughts:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBMhd+1IhKVs2viLLUtGQToaHAZaL/6TdPBHwLfxPNVB-TJhHwAPLDQ4JAA4kAkZ/BA

Mobility: Yes
Team fight: Kinda…
1 v 1 Potential: Yes

Things to consider:
Celestial?
Empathic Bond > Poison Master with Enlargement > Evasive Purity?

I agree about the responsiveness of pets. I would definitely love if they were better.

That being said, because of the way they currently are, I, instead, look at their knockdowns, etc. more as setups for my own DPS. This is aided by the fact that Longbow has a pretty darn good interrupt in the form of our knockback with its pretty low cooldown.

I’m curious about something. I remember when Durzlla and I ran into each other in sPvP and started talking that he was running a Celestial Longbow/Shortbow build at one time. I didn’t give it much of my time, but he rocked it. Have any of you tried that? It also provides some extra CC and the shortbow does have one evade which is just as much as Axe+Dagger. It even has a 1s better cooldown than dagger’s evade and you still get the Poison from Shortbow that you do from Dagger #4 … just separates your poison application from your on-weapon evasion.

Just a thought. I might have to go back and play around with that some more. Will have to wait though as I’m in an Achievement Point kitten mood lately so I’m just going through the list :-p I’m sure Eurantien, jcbroe, etc. can do a better job with it anyways if any of you try it out.

Sebrent.3625:

I agree about the responsiveness of pets. I would definitely love if they were better.

That being said, because of the way they currently are, I, instead, look at their knockdowns, etc. more as setups for my own DPS. This is aided by the fact that Longbow has a pretty darn good interrupt in the form of our knockback with its pretty low cooldown.

I’m curious about something. I remember when Durzlla and I ran into each other in sPvP and started talking that he was running a Celestial Longbow/Shortbow build at one time. I didn’t give it much of my time, but he rocked it. Have any of you tried that? It also provides some extra CC and the shortbow does have one evade which is just as much as Axe+Dagger. It even has a 1s better cooldown than dagger’s evade and you still get the Poison from Shortbow that you do from Dagger #4 … just separates your poison application from your on-weapon evasion.

Just a thought. I might have to go back and play around with that some more. Will have to wait though as I’m in an Achievement Point kitten mood lately so I’m just going through the list :-p I’m sure Eurantien, jcbroe, etc. can do a better job with it anyways if any of you try it out.

I’ve messed around with it actually. The underlying issue I’ve found with it is really, what does the shortbow do on the weaponset that Axe/Dagger doesn’t?

Not that it doesn’t work, because it does work, and I think that if the flanking bleed requirement were removed from the SB (which will honestly never happen unless the bleed duration gets reduced to like 1 second), it would compliment it better, but functionally, because the SB relies on mostly the autoattack for damage, I just found there to be too much overlap, and that as has been brought up multiple times in the past in these sorts of discussions about ranger, it’s not necessarily that I don’t desire the weapon utility SB brings, I just don’t want to be trapped in the SB set for 9 seconds when I have the longbow (very similar argument for GS. I want to swap to GS, swoop in, hilt bash, Maul, and then swap back to the LB on a power build, because you’ve just exhausted every offensive capability worth using on the GS and being stuck with just the auto and trying to spam obvious and kitable Mauls is frustrating, especially with the auto being so comparably bad to virtually every other weapon we have).

IF we had the warriors 5 second traited weaponswap, it would be an AMAZING weapon set though, and in general, a whole slew of builds would open up for us, or at the very least build effectiveness, because you could spend less time trapped in weaponsets that are nearly pure utility based (like S/D), or like with the builds in this thread, you could swap really quickly, bleed spike, then swap right back to the LB or SB and poke/power spike.

BUT, I know that it’s popular in WvW. I have heard multiple people mention to me how great a celestial LB/SB trapper with trapper runes are, and I’ve heard in commonly enough and from particular enough people that I don’t dismiss it.

There just aren’t any trapper runes in PvP :/

Once someone gets on top of you with sb and lb you are dead.

Eurantien.4632:

Current thoughts:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBMhd+1IhKVs2viLLUtGQToaHAZaL/6TdPBHwLfxPNVB-TJhHwAPLDQ4JAA4kAkZ/BA

Mobility: Yes
Team fight: Kinda…
1 v 1 Potential: Yes

Things to consider:
Celestial?
Empathic Bond > Poison Master with Enlargement > Evasive Purity?

It works, but does it work well enough in teamfights to warrant any of the choices? Or would it be more worthwhile to just go full on into 1v1/Mobility at that point?

I am noticing that there is a whole lot of people in this thread that value mobility over me and see that mobility tradeoff being less worthwhile than other tradeoffs.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV3YjEqUua7KusQ1aADhqdK0ClA7AICmAXxbBrWA-TZRFwAMuIAAeAAJOCAp2f4ZZAA

have been trying traps in pvp recently quite a lot, and it kinda rly works, i can win practically win any 1v1. However i do miss quite some mobility…what do you guys think?

Eurantien.4632:

Current thoughts:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBMhd+1IhKVs2viLLUtGQToaHAZaL/6TdPBHwLfxPNVB-TJhHwAPLDQ4JAA4kAkZ/BA

Mobility: Yes
Team fight: Kinda…
1 v 1 Potential: Yes

Things to consider:
Celestial?
Empathic Bond > Poison Master with Enlargement > Evasive Purity?

Swap trolls for spring and you get a good bit more utility for team fights, particularly with war horn offhand. This is even more true since you have healing stats on your amulet.

Trap builds don’t win 1v1s. And there is little mobility or survivability in bigger fights. I think mobility is huge Jebroe, being able to rotate fast wins games. As for using healing spring over troll, it is an option, not my preferred one though. In the end, we can’t do it all so we have to sacrifice a little, what I suggested is an attempt to 1v1 and do a little bit in team fights in terms of being on point, frame cleave, might stacks, etc.

Eurantien.4632:

Current thoughts:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBMhd+1IhKVs2viLLUtGQToaHAZaL/6TdPBHwLfxPNVB-TJhHwAPLDQ4JAA4kAkZ/BA

Mobility: Yes
Team fight: Kinda…
1 v 1 Potential: Yes

Things to consider:
Celestial?
Empathic Bond > Poison Master with Enlargement > Evasive Purity?

i tried this build out just now in tpvp, some four games or so, and somehow i feel that, despite living forever and putting out great heal some might stacking as well, its 1v1 capabilities seem… limited to say the least, every fight takes forever and is mostly ended by a thief dropping by to kill you… have you had similar experiences with this build or am i simply playing it dead wrong?^^