Guild Wars 2

I enjoy long walks at Southsun, candle lit dinners…

… and not being such a fail ranger in WvW. :‘( I’ve tried looking for the “classifieds” section on the forums but nope, non-existent! Are there any full zerker WvW rangers that can coach me for a few sessions? I’m playing on the Henge of Denravi server at the moment.

My build + preferred playstyle is very similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRFszeYiXWg so extremely glassy and essentially a thief magnet.

After getting melted countless times in WvW, I have come to conclusion that I’m really just a joke of a glass cannon. Is there any hope for me?

Full glass ranger is simply too weak right now for two reasons. 1. Our power coefficients on most weapon skills are terribly low. 2. Our pets receive no benefit from our stats.

So by building full glass, you are trying to compensate in an already kitten area for the profession.

Now, what if I told you that I can reliably achieve 2,000 dps on a target player in a duel. False? No, I can well exceed that with my condition trap build. Calculations below conducted using 2000 condition damage.

Burn = 828 per tick.
Poison = 284 per tick.
Bleed = 143 per stack per tick.

Assume I landed a spike trap, crippling talon (dag 5), and splitblade (axe 2), giving 11 stacks of bleeding we get:
143 * 11 = 1573 + 284 + 828 = 2685

If they leave these conditions on them for just 3s they will receive a whopping 8055 “pure” damage as it can’t be mitigated by armor! Add in the sharpened edges trait and sharpening stone trait (I never use the sharpening stone skill!) and you can achieve ~15 reliably applicable stacks of long duration bleeds. Want dps? I say grab some cc pets and go full condi spec. You will be shocked at how quickly you can burst people down.

I should be uploading a video of me using a trap build for 1v1 (mostly) wvw roaming soon where you will see fights in which I hit them quickly and hard that they didn’t even know how to react and simply fell straight into downed state.

S****ße! And I just blew a bunch of gold and badges on Berserker gear a few days ago. Oh well, at least I can still use it to melt mobs for world completion…

Thanks for your reply mate, I would like to see that video someday (preferably soon). ^^

If I go condition damage, doesn’t that mean I can build toughness and vitality as well, since power, precision (untraited/no sigils) and crit damage stats don’t apply to a condition build? I’m actually quite interested in a tankier build now that I’ve had my keister handed to me several times.

Reisinger.4203:

I enjoy long walks at Southsun, candle lit dinners…

… and not being such a fail ranger in WvW. :‘( I’ve tried looking for the “classifieds” section on the forums but nope, non-existent! Are there any full zerker WvW rangers that can coach me for a few sessions? I’m playing on the Henge of Denravi server at the moment.

My build + preferred playstyle is very similar to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRFszeYiXWg so extremely glassy and essentially a thief magnet.

After getting melted countless times in WvW, I have come to conclusion that I’m really just a joke of a glass cannon. Is there any hope for me?

How awesome to see that my berserker vid is inspiring people.. :-)

However, you should always keep in mind that with a build like this, you want to keep the times you are hit to a minimum (since you really can’t take too much hits as glass).
So this build will work when you encounter a player 1v1, depending on the specs of the other one.. I normally can make quick work of a same built berserker ranger, but as you indeed mention: Being berserker ranger makes you a bit of a thief magnet.. Thank god we can now also stealth..

(so the mentioned combo in the vid for Longbow: #4, #3, #2 —> change to #4, #2, and keep your #3 for the dire need when you need to make a quick escape)

Thank you for replying Tribio! :O I feel a bit starstruck from the video uploader’s reply I don’t have the build (in the vid) fully set up yet (all those shiny ascended items!), but so far I’m loving the raw DPS it can output. I’m picking up a rabid set soon just to see how well I fare with the added toughness.

I have been using the suggested combo since using a personal variant of your build and it has indeed worked great in WvW (I commented as Achiox on your vid) ^^ just very squishy in team/zerg fights :’(

Reisinger.4203:

I’m picking up a rabid set soon just to see how well I fare with the added toughness.

Well, a condition build (as mentioned by Indoles) will indeed also work very nicely.. However, it will take a bit longer to get the NPC’s at a camp down. On the other hand: Condition builds are very powerful against players (since in WvW especially I see lots of players with a lack of condi removal).

My first armor set was Power/Precision/Condi dmg, and it worked nicely also.. Still very glass, but imho the Power can be replaced by Thoughness and the Precision by Healing Power (referring to the infamous Spirit Ranger build, so commonly met in PvP nowadays)

Reisinger.4203:

I have been using the suggested combo since using a personal variant of your build and it has indeed worked great in WvW (I commented as Achiox on your vid) ^^ just very squishy in team/zerg fights :’(

Completely correct, a glass cannon isn’t made to get into the big team/zerg fights.. However, a tactic you can use when zerging (or in my case when running with a large guild group) is to be the sniper of the team.. Just keep full range and attack (LB with piercing arrows works nicely against groups). And when all skills are recharged (read: your burst is ready), jump in, choose a target, bring him down and get the hell out again.. (another player will finish the work)

“Hit and run”, the best tactic for a zerker ranger.. :-)

Reisinger.4203:

S****ße! And I just blew a bunch of gold and badges on Berserker gear a few days ago. Oh well, at least I can still use it to melt mobs for world completion…

Thanks for your reply mate, I would like to see that video someday (preferably soon). ^^

If I go condition damage, doesn’t that mean I can build toughness and vitality as well, since power, precision (untraited/no sigils) and crit damage stats don’t apply to a condition build? I’m actually quite interested in a tankier build now that I’ve had my keister handed to me several times.

Yes, you can build very tanky, especially with the proper ascended gear setup. I suggest rabid gear as a base for the build (although carrion used to be popular, but I personally feel that it is too glassy), followed by the ascended gear with stats (from biggest bonus to lowest) + condi damage, + toughness, + vitality, and + precision. Once you get a full setup of that ascended gear you end up with a shocking 2100+ condi damage (with 25 stacks on the sigil), 3000+ armor, 18000+ health, and 40% crit chance (to proc more bleeds, so it isn’t completely worthless).

You also could go the apothecary/settler route (apoth is better imo) and go for a regen build, which work very similar but are more meant for damage while surviving (meaning if you run into another heal/bunker based build it will usually stalemate.

I still need to capture about 2 more minutes of footage (I keep throwing out some because I don’t like how the enemies never fight back anymore or blow every cd to flee.) and edit it all (which takes the longest) so I’d say it will be done in 3-5 days.

A reason you want to run complete glass? Full knights armor with cav trinkets still gets you like 50% chance to crit, 100% crit damage, 2.75k armor, and like 18k hp. You have access to fury in a couple places to boost crit up further if need be. I just think you’ll want somewhere near 3k toughness when all is said and done in WvW.

find a couple friends and make a power ranges club and have 3+ run axe/sword+warhorn for perma fury and swiftness. Plus you’ll get the wolf achievment. It’s honestly fun. I usually roam with a power ranger unit (we’re even colored like power rangers). Only 2 of us are actually power rangers, the others are spirit and condi builds. but it’s still fun.

Reisinger, this is Bardy from our guild, we were talking about power vs cond as ranger a couple days ago
In WvW I think that condition builds works very well and rangers do great as one. Traps, torch, axe all that offers a lot of AoE and conditions, so even in a zerg fight you’ll be tagging a lot, also a cond build usually have a high survivability, so you’ll be alive more time to cause damage.
But for PvE, Dungeons and World bosses, zerker reigns supreme.

to OP, add me in game “Green Eye of Grenth” I run full zerker wvw and have a lot of fun with it, I’ll help you out the best I can

I roll a zerker Ranger with success in WvW. I don’t know about you guys but landing 3k crits from 1500 range sounds good to me. Throw in piercing arrows and all I see are numbers on my screen.

Keep your distance and try to stay inconspicuous as you drop bombs on the enemy. If a thief singles you out; point blank, hunter shot, swap to greatsword and swoop away. Run away for a bit, then come back. Most thieves are bads who will just switch targets. I’ll post more later, my shift is starting xD.

Thanks for all your feedback!

Will add you Paz, cheers. ^^

One thing that’s fun to do in WvW is stat for signets while completely zerkered out.

Pop your signets right before landing greatsword skill 2 for up to 12k damage (or possibly more) in a single hit. If your pet is around you may get another 6-10k out of it.

If running solo, you might want axe/warhorn to get some distance after attempting that. Toss a chill (axe 3) on them to make it difficult to chase you. Wait a wee bit for the cool down of Signet of the Hunt then switch back to GS and try again.

If not running solo, bring sword/axe instead. After doing your GS high damage moves attempt to stun with skill 5 (traited it will stun longer and give you a free 150% boost on the next attack) swap sets and throw your axe through your target and start DPSing them with the sword.

Use Rampage As One before every encounter if possible.