Guild Wars 2

This is what I’m gunning for after the patch, power BM with boonstacking still using short(er)bow, sword+warhorn.

WvW pvp setup (roaming because kitten zerging)

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.3|5.1n.h1h|c.1n.h1h.g.1n.h4|1n.71d.1n.71d.1n.71d.1n.71d.1n.71h.1n.71h|2v.d13.2v.d13.3v.d19.2v.d13.3v.d19.2s.d14|0.k15.5.p36.k57|15.7|4j.4q.4o.4r.55|e

about 2k power, 60% critchance, 64% critdamage, 3k armor and 18k health, between weaponswaps, warhorn and elite you can potentially have permanent fury, swiftness and about 6-10 mightstacks, high uptime of regen in 27s out of every 30s (not taking boonstripping into account)

Using Jaguar here with bleeds on crits should produce a fairly high number of bleeds that do alot of damage with the cat buffed with a decent uptime on swiftness, fury and 15-25 mightstacks on your pet that are coming directly from the ranger weaponswaps aswell as the new companion’s might trait (this will likely be a full 25mightstack for the full elite duration and will also spike for certain skills at all times).

• Weapons: Full Knight, shortbow and sword+warhorn

• Armor: Full Knight armor

• Trinkets: Cavalier trinkets, berserker backpiece

• Slotskills: I will use is troll unguent, signet of the hunt, signet of renewal, signet of wild and rampage as one elite.

• Runes: 4Dwayna+2Water

• Sigil: Battle+Bloodlust

• Consumables: Lemongrass poultry soup+Master maintenance oil

This is an offensive build and alot of the damage requires you to keep pressure and attacking your opponent otherwise your pet will drop the mightstacks and you’ll notice the nerf on pets instantly (not so much cats, but other pets definetly).

If you would prefer stronger more reliable regen you can swap to full dwayna runes and add in as many cleric armor pieces over knight as you like at the price of slightly lower armor and critchance, another possible change could be dropping signet of the hunt since swiftness has such a high uptime and use muddy terrain for extra control.

I’m also considering swapping out the shortbow for longbow because of how the channels work with companion’s might you’re basically in “miniature RaO mode” all the time, hunter’s call hawks, barrage etc pump your pet full of might at all times.

For pve/dungeons the exact same setup works perfectly all you need to do is swap in as many pieces of berserker armor as you are comfortable with for a very high dps spec.

Dungeon dps setup

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.3|5.1g.h1h|c.1g.h1h.g.1g.h4|1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.a7.1g.71h.1g.71h|2v.d13.2v.d13.3v.d19.2v.d13.3v.d19.2s.d14|0.k15.5.p36.k57|15.7|4j.4q.4o.4r.55|e

Nobody else played a tanky power bm before this patch? this is an improvement with only one exeption: petswap catburst, aside from that it’s higher dps I’m liking it alot.

I did, pretty much same gear just different trait spread…avoid skirmishing….and forget about BM..pet is just for CC nothing else…

BM is dead….

You’re on the right track though….

Cempa.5619:

I did, pretty much same gear just different trait spread…avoid skirmishing….and forget about BM..pet is just for CC nothing else…

BM is dead….

You’re on the right track though….

It might depend what you intend to do but by no means is it dead, I feel this particular setup makes me stronger than I ever was it’s just more needed for you to be aggressive to keep the higher damage up, the cat has never done this much damage only the long 20s maul burst was nerfed everything else is stronger with the high mighstacks.

I went with this for a couple hours last night in wvw, went great….so long as no one wakittenting me. got a couple of back to back 12k+ on lb 2. And the barrage on a couple of big groups we took out were awesome. Then a thief saw me before i saw him…and kitten ..I wont say one shotted but it might as well have been…but again…don’t get caught…and your golden!!

Manekk, I respect your tenacity, but tell me in full honesty: would another class not dish out more damage, be more survivable, and bring more group utility? This is the thing I’m struggling with. You can only make up so much with skill, resourcefulness, and good will; there just simply comes a point when you have to be honest with yourself and ask yourself that question. I came to the conclusion that I have to start maining another class, despite all the investments I put into my ranger since beta (including the dreamer). You can’t be effective if the developer doesn’t want you to be effective. He’s been practically shouting you in the face “please stop it, why do you keep going, I made your class garbage, what more does it take”!

Because the rangers who stick around and prove they can be good at it despite everything are internet badarses

Manekk.6981:

Nobody else played a tanky power bm before this patch? this is an improvement with only one exeption: petswap catburst, aside from that it’s higher dps I’m liking it alot.

I play a bm power based ranger basically since realease. Shortbow sword/warhorn is the right setup. My build and traits are different, but i play ranger in pvp only so i don’t know if that would work in pve. My spec has remained totally unchanged for many months, since last patch i changed 1 trait tho. I can tell you in my experience a power based bm ranger works fine and if played right is very hard to kill, is not the best point defender tho and in team fights in not that awesome (i am talking about pvp).
This nerf was unmotivated and quite stupid but you know anet guys thought ranger pets were tarribad before the spec became fotm lol. Anyway shortbow is still fine imo, at least in pvp. I suppose in pve you can swap out the shortbow for longbow, but in pve you can play pretty much whatever you want with little or no problems tbh.

Fester.9328:

I went with this for a couple hours last night in wvw, went great….so long as no one wakittenting me. got a couple of back to back 12k+ on lb 2. And the barrage on a couple of big groups we took out were awesome. Then a thief saw me before i saw him…and kitten ..I wont say one shotted but it might as well have been…but again…don’t get caught…and your golden!!

To be fair a good thief sneaking up on you unnoticed can do that to any ranger spec I don’t believe for a second we haven’t all been there at some point, and also if you’re doing that much damage it sounds like you’re running it with good chunck of zerker armor (unless it was someone supersquishy) I mentioned that for dungeons not in wvw.

Buttercup.5871:

Manekk, I respect your tenacity, but tell me in full honesty: would another class not dish out more damage, be more survivable, and bring more group utility? This is the thing I’m struggling with. You can only make up so much with skill, resourcefulness, and good will; there just simply comes a point when you have to be honest with yourself and ask yourself that question. I came to the conclusion that I have to start maining another class, despite all the investments I put into my ranger since beta (including the dreamer). You can’t be effective if the developer doesn’t want you to be effective. He’s been practically shouting you in the face “please stop it, why do you keep going, I made your class garbage, what more does it take”!

I have no idea mate don’t really care either aslong as it works for what I’m doing, I roam in wvw and run the odd dungeon with friends the damage is defiently very high among the best I think, it’s got top tier survivability aswell as for grouputility doesn’t really have any at all not my intention with it either it’s just a new version BM bunker for wvw that just happens to do better damage than before I felt it worth pointing out since everyone is under the assumption all pets across the board are kitten and shortbow is unusable now.

Modified build (don’t actually have all the ascended trinkets yet but rephrased from “running” to “gunning for” very clever eh)

It’s very solid, mightstacking on pets works better than I expected it to so if you liked to play power bm before the patch you will love this because the damage is higher, my cat will do 2k autoattacks (heavy golem or equivalent) when the might spikes so it definetly helps with the lost burst from nerfed maul+quickness in most cases.