I use axe/torch as part of my WvW trap build…
No idea what I’d swap it with outside when I do it already with LB.
(edited by Sebrent.3625)
@Decimus:
That looks like a classic condition build as far as trait point allocations
I don’t think you’ll benefit much from Off-hand Training with just a Dagger off-hand as you would other traits in Wilderness Survival. With a Dagger you’re owning shaving 20% off of a 10s and 15s cooldown … so saving 2s and 3s. You do gain range on the throw though.
I’m a fan of:
Strength of Spirit is fine, but play around with Nature’s Bounty (if you take Oakheart Salve) and Nature’s Protection. You may find you prefer one of them.
I like the idea behind the Torment, but it does suffer from kitten ICD so Shortbow won’t benefit as much from it … you are quite correct that it can help shield other conditions from cleanses though … also more than bleed if your target is moving.
I’m not a fan of Generosity. You already have plenty of condition removal via SotF and 3 Survival Skills (3 cleanses … 6 conditions total) with pretty darn good cooldowns. I find generosity is too unreliable. It’s also quite useless against power builds and I prefer my picks to be useful against a wide array of opponents. I’d hate SotF if it didn’t also give me Fury as it’d otherwise feel quite wasteful against several Power builds.
I’ve been recently playing around with Sigil of Strength. It works nicely with Fortifying Bond as well so both you and your pet can Might Stack a bit. There’s also nothing saying you can’t just take leaching, earth, etc.. Several solid choices out there. I prefer to take advantage of the fact that shortbow still fires fairly quickly and I’ll be using that auto-attack most of the time I’m using that weapon.
No worries. Get out there and deliver axes, daggers, arrows, and paws of furry to faces
If you want some particular numbers crunched, just give me a ring.
Another point is that when you try a build … you’re trying it.
Other builds, like classic condi ranger builds, are the builds that many of us have been playing for a long time and have moved beyond “trying it”.
This is a large part of why if anyone picked up Durzlla’s crazy-A build (yes, that’s how I will always refer to it), you likely got wrecked … then if you saw Durzlla running it wrecking people you may have gotten confused and/or thought “dang, I’m a peasant next to Durzlla”.
While the peasant comparison may be correct, it may have just been your unfamiliarity with the build.
Think about it. When you’ve played a build for a long time, you know what skills you want to use when during different match-ups. For example, against Longbow Rangers I’m always saving an interrupt for that Rapid Fire. If I don’t have a Longbow with traited 20% faster recharge then I need to likely think of some other counter. Now I have to deal with a different cooldown, cast time, etc.. It can feel quite off at first.
In my opinion, there are four primary parts to testing a build for sPvP:
The process takes a while for the reason I mentioned before. By the end of it, you should have some solid amount of playtime with that build … enough to know it backwards and forwards. Only then can you truly judge it.
Disclaimer:
I understand not everyone has this time. I have a wife and 2 (soon to be 3) kids … to get this time I have to sacrifice sleep (everyone’s in bed … I’m free for X hours … start the coffee pot!) … especially if I’m also trying to do my daily routine of Tequatl -> Triple Trouble -> 49 Fractal -> 38 Fractal -> Daily Achievement -> Black Lion Trading.
That being said, not having the time is not an excuse for judging something prematurely. You either put in the time or you don’t … just like everything else in life.
This doesn’t disqualify initial impressions though … though there are plenty of times many of us (myself included) have had poor initial impressions of something and upon digging into it we found out that we were totally wrong (I actually love when this happens).
(edited by Eurantien.4632)
Played around with this tonight with great success every game (though all were PUG).
I also had success moving those 6 points to Beastmastery and relying on Signets instead of Survival skills. Quickness and the extra Vigor were nice. People don’t expect a canine to leap instantly on pet swap … Quickness ftw.
I’m growing attached to having piercing arrows. Having 20% reduced cooldown on all 8 of my non-auto weapon skills is excellent given that 3 of them give me a breather against most opponents (stealth, knockback, daze/stun). Factor in the cripple and you’re good.
I’m loving the lifesteal from Vampirism and Sigil of Leeching. Sigil of Doom is to keep my opponents’ sustain down and helps supplement the poison from the shortbow.
I’m going to play around some other days with replacing the Longbow with Axe+Dagger. Of the weapons, the shortbow felt the best to me and I didn’t have to worry about damage from enemies being closer to me. Might also try the Longbow+Shortbow with Berserker amulet like in that 2014 video that had been posted earlier in this thread.
It is nice to be able to swap weapons and your positioning not have to change.
It is also nice to have so many ways to interrupt your opponent’s OODA-loop.
It is far less obvious to your opponents when you’ve swapped weapons when both your weapon sets are bows.Try it out. Move some traits around as you’d like.
Hey Sebrent – I played with this build a bit but not in sPvP – out in WvW. I have to say that, well, it is interesting to say the least. I didn’t want to replace my rabid / trap rune armor so used my carrion I had laying around. That set has krait runes which dropped my condi damage down to about 1100 from 1400 on my trap set. I may have to test out traveler.
It seems to have dropped my armor down from 2900 to 2500 which is pretty substantial I thought. Also my crit chance fell from 40’ish down to 31% with crit damage around 168. The biggest issue was travel speed
I was using superior sigil of purity/speed on LB with doom/earth on SB. I also would swap out LB to have incapacitation with hobbling – which rocked with quickening zephyr and sharpening stone
At the end of the day I need to figure out some speed into the build because I think it did well in my duo/trio I was running with taking EBG back a few minutes ago.