Guild Wars 2

These builds are built for a solo skirmishing playstyle, which is how I prefer to play. I played mostly solo in DAOC for over a decade. For me, it’s the most rewarding playstyle. So, on paper it seems like a good fit. Now for my problem.

Against competent players &/or multiples of uncompetent players, it just kills WAAAAAY too slowly. The concept of longer drawn out fights sounds great, but it generally just means either I or whoever I’m fighting will eventually get run over by others.

Going back to my DAOC days, the fights were much quicker (win or lose). The challenge was always killing your target before the zerg could react, but the killing power was there if you knew what you were doing.

I really enjoy the class, but the lack of burst is becoming problematic.

Hiya Blackbird, curious what your DAoC toons you soloed on were as I soloed a ton for many years in DAoC.

I was Alb mainly…had a 12L1 Reaver, Kalorian…an 11L1 Minstrel , Dalorian (petless Tankstrel!) and a 10L1 Saracen Thrust Mercenary, Kilorian….

just wondering if we had ever fought

As for your post…you can do a decent DPS build with high toughness but the second you want to get Regen in there then the DPS focus moves from you to your Pet

Honestly, I did alright 1v1 and even 1v2 in mostly zerker gear with some PTV and defensive (can’t remember exactly how I set them up right now) traits. GS/LB, canine pets and QZ/LR/Signet of the Hunt with Rampage as One. A lot of my gear consisted of rares, at that. I actually enjoyed the fights more like that.

Unfortunately, that kind of build does not hold up very well in the slightest if you are even moderately outnumbered because of its lack of sustainability.

I think that is the main issue with that you are wanting. The chances you are going to have an actual one on one fight are not great. Rather, I guess they happen enough, but much more than half of the time, you are going to encounter 2, 3+ people when you’re roaming solo. A glassy build made to burst down targets before they can chip through your paper-thin defenses won’t do terribly well (at least not for a ranger with its skillsets) in those situations.

A totally irrelevant reply, but still…

Has it really been 10 years! Where has the time gone!
Started DAoC in November, 2001. It is hard to believe it was so long ago.
Thanks for the memories.

Kalorian,

Yes, I remember you. Mostly from your posts on VN. I played so infrequently by the time Ywain came out, that I think I fought your minstrel only one time on my baby vamp. My most notable toons were my scout, Etheria Fox and my Infiltrator, Schado Fox. I had LE on both those toons when it actually meant something.

I’ve just had a hard time finding that balance of damage vs. survivability. It depends on the night I guess. 2 nights ago, I had some great fights where I loved the Apoth/Regen build I run. Last night was filled with fights that were going great, but went so long that I got rolled over. Or I’d down 1 out of 3, but couldn’t get the stupid stomp.

I miss the ability to burst a target down, and then get away that I could do in DAOC. Seems like the burst builds like running zerk on my Thief are so easy to counter in this game that they really only work on newer or distracted players, so you kind of have to move towards a more sustainable build that means longer drawn out fights that run the (strong) risk of getting added on.

Bah, I’m just frustrated.

I feel your pain. I don’t have much bank space and so I usually don’t hang on to gear sets when I switch out, but I decided to hang on to my old ranger gear when I switch to apothecary. I’ll be swapping between the two builds to see which one really is superior with the way I play.

Sarlack.4096:

Hiya Blackbird, curious what your DAoC toons you soloed on were as I soloed a ton for many years in DAoC.

I was Alb mainly…had a 12L1 Reaver, Kalorian…an 11L1 Minstrel , Dalorian (petless Tankstrel!) and a 10L1 Saracen Thrust Mercenary, Kilorian….

just wondering if we had ever fought

As for your post…you can do a decent DPS build with high toughness but the second you want to get Regen in there then the DPS focus moves from you to your Pet

hehe I remember you Kalorian, Which Cluster were you on? It was the one with Lancelot right?

I was the opposite of you,, I have an RR11L3 Valkyrie named Terravos, I was actually the number 1 valkyrie on the US servers for quite a well, well after i quit the game.

killibury cluster by the way for me, I had some albs on Devon Cluster though.

Ha Blackbird, I remember Schado Fox the Infi!!! I had LE on my Reaver 6 years back and ended up with 1000+ on both Mini and MErc but didnt stay long enough for LE titles on them.

Remember with the bunker build you can trait for high DPS from pets to compliment your “steady” DPS….it’s a different game than DAoC so it cant be measured directly.

Before Ywain I was on Killibury and Tintagel. Hung up the Reaver after Killi as nobody would fight him any more = (

Ok, then you fought me on my Valkyrie then.

Frostalf Valkyrie.

1handed sword/shield

Would shear people and such

Blackbird, whats your build with the apothecary? Either your’e putting too much into heal and not enough condi dur/dmg or vice versa.

Valk vs. Reaver Both had their time near the top of the food chain. Think I had about 500 solo kills on my Reaver. Old Leviathan was the burst I’m talking about in this thread. When they nerfed Levi, but added the Lifetap from the side chain, I think Reavers became an even better 1 v. 1 class, but soloing out in NF became tougher after losing the spike DPS of Levi. Survivability doesn’t help you get a kill when it’s 5 on 1.

I remember running Friar/Pally duo for a couple of months with a buddy. We both ran BM and with the pally’s twisting including haste & endo regen, we could just spam the aoe sheer style. It was like a valk on crack.

Haha, I could reminisce on daoc forever. Best game eva IMO.

I have a little over 1600 solo kills on my Valk when I quit.

They ended up nerfing our Levi Chain when they did yours…You got more benefit out of that nerf cause of the lifetap side chain, Ours didn’t do that.

From what I understand my 25% duration Reaver temp (7 Levi Slams) is what got the class nerfed, had 2 buds who were TLs and they told me a week before the Levi got chained that my temp prompted the Nerf as RR1 REavers wearing my setup were generating a TON of feedback and complaints running around owning high RR toons….ah the good old days.

I had a website called Kalotemps.com way back where people would put in requests and I would build them custom temps for Plat…made a killing =D

What was your Valks name Xsorus? Do you remember my Reaver/Merc/Mini as I was pretty known in the solo community.

Furajir.3815:

Blackbird, whats your build with the apothecary? Either your’e putting too much into heal and not enough condi dur/dmg or vice versa.

Haha, another DOAC legend. I feel like I should be getting Reaver &/or Friar advice.

I run full apoth armor, half apoth trinkets other half rabbid, dwayna on the armor, Apoth weapons (I think) with the trinket that stacks healing. 30/10/30 standard bunker build. I think I have around 1,100 healing.

I just watch Kalo’s vid that he posted, and those fights look very similar to the fights that I have. Takes forever to drop competent players. Takes forever to drop me. Most fights end with adds one way or the other.

I would also point out that I’m probably not operating at 100% efficiency. Maybe with some more experience, I’ll start dropping guys quicker.

Thought it was 9 levis with celerity

Fura hahah! No it was 7 Levis at 1.5 cap into 11 seconds….Celerity didnt help on the Reaver like others..

It has been like 6 years haha.

@Blackbird, try giving this a shot?

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.0|1.1c.h2|0.0.0.0.0.0|1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r.1c.7r|2u.0.2u.0.3u.0.2u.0.3u.0.2u.0|a1.0.u4ac.u569.0|15.1|0.0.0.0.0|e

•Power is 2181 without Oil, 2388 with.
•Toughness equates to 42.14% damage mitigation.
•Max HP is 26,062 •You take 25% less damage w/ Barkskin when you have 6,515 hp or less.

•+10% damage when endurance is full
•+5% greatsword damage
•+5% damage when you have a boon
•-65% condition duration on you thanks to runes and food
•-25% stun duration on you

Conditions are going to slide off you. You’re very tanky. You’re very mobile. And you hit reliably hard without depending on the RNG garbage that is crit chance. Couple this with the innate evasion the greatsword auto-attack chain has and you have one serious beast of a Ranger … and he has a pet.

I ran this for awhile and had really great success, I used Gs and Sw/Dagger or Sw/wh

Could literally stand in necro wells, eat thief burst, parlay with trap rangers, and take 1v2’s and up to 3 no problem, you dont have much in the way of regen, you aren’t exactly bunker and you have next to no crit/crit damage but kitten you hit hard and you can take a serious beating.

I also put the 10 points in marksmanship and put it into BM

Sarlack.4096:

What was your Valks name Xsorus? Do you remember my Reaver/Merc/Mini as I was pretty known in the solo community.

Valkyries name was Terravos
My Savage was Xsorus
and Runemaster was Xsorusii

I was in the guild with Brutalix/Lolizerg/Belga/Yipee/Taintd/Cripplernra/Dipzi/Metaxa

Called Desolate.

I was one of the few Valkyries I think that ran the 50 Sword/50 odins will setup, Most of the Sword Valkyries went Slam spec, which I always thought was silly cause 50 Odins was incredibly powerful

I actually did a very close build to what you did Fura early on and found the sustained regen combined with 40% Mitigation (70% with BArkskin before protection) served me much better than the extra hits…

Also find trying to push our damage high is lipstick on a pig compared to better suited classes. I stopped fighting Anet’s plan and try to synergize with the pet a bit more.

@Xsorus I remember Brutalix and Taintd as well as Metaxa but not you for some reason…

So, there’s a difference between Bunker in the sense of Attrition and and Bunker in the sense of Area Denial.

Attrition is dragging out a fight in order to out-last your opponent’s resources and kill them, Area Denial Bunkering is about dragging out a fight for the sake of serving a greater strategy and is more about holding a position than killing an opponent. Attrition’s a different style of killing your opponent, Area Denial is an effort to keep your opponent from achieving a location-based objective which may or may not involve killing them.

This ultimately boils down to the win conditions of the two formats being different; Bunkering as Attrition works in Team Deathmatch games because the win condition is killing people, and Bunkering as Area Denial works out in Capture-Point games because holding your ground has a value in and of itself in the form of points.

I don’t want to overstep my boundaries because I’m not personally familiar with DAOC and honestly I don’t do nearly enough PvP in this game; but I kind of get the sense the Bunkering you may be familiar with was more about having an Attrition strategy, and the Bunker builds in this game lean a little farther into Area Denial. (though there’s enough control over building in this game that you can nudge your build into more of a hybrid, and even at it’s most extreme it’s not nearly to the same degree as FPS games).

Interesting. I already have a full set of that armor with Melandru runes from a previous build that I ran. Think it was Nerva’s build he posted a few months ago.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/WvW-Power-SB-Ikiro-BSW/first

Trait setup is different though, so maybe I’ll give this a shot. I’ve been missing the escapability of my GS anyway.

I use Dwayna Runes and due to kittening my crit rate I use Sigils of Energy (50% Endo regen on swap)

Send me a PM and I’ll flip you the long version of what I am doing =D

I was enjoying it testing diff variations of builds, but as Kalo said I’m enjoying a more synergistic style of play with my apothecary/bm/regen build, having lots of fun with it, do i miss my GS from time to time? Deffinitely. But I have both suits ready to roll in case I feel like changing it up.

Vox,

I tend to stay away from sPVP discussions because it doesn’t interest me. So Area Denial isn’t something I’ve looked for. In solo skirmish WvW, it’s more about getting kills while being able to adapt to fluid situations.

Fura that’s my Fav part of this game, you can change your entire angle in 15 minutes and be back out there

Sarlack.4096:

@Xsorus I remember Brutalix and Taintd as well as Metaxa but not you for some reason…

Its possible you might remember the Savage more then the Valkyrie as I soloed more on her.

Valkyn h2h savage.

Dude, thats what bothered me about daoc, each class only had like 1-2 builds that were actually decent, and if you didn’t run them, you were dead in the water. There was no real variation

Furajir.3815:

Dude, thats what bothered me about daoc, each class only had like 1-2 builds that were actually decent, and if you didn’t run them, you were dead in the water. There was no real variation

Depended on the Class really

Valkyrie had 3 off the top of my head

Spear, Sword/Shield with Shield Slam ,and Sword/Shield with Odins Will

Furajir.3815:

Dude, thats what bothered me about daoc, each class only had like 1-2 builds that were actually decent, and if you didn’t run them, you were dead in the water. There was no real variation

Or you could do crazy things like a petless melee mini to keep it fun hahahaha

when I played my Mini I did Heavy Melee/Heavy Instrument Low Stealth spec.

Mainly cause I duoed a lot with an Infil Friend (yipee) and I was bait, people would see me, PA me (and do kitten damage cause I had like 800AF) then yipee would PA them.

Blackbird.4382:

Vox,

I tend to stay away from sPVP discussions because it doesn’t interest me. So Area Denial isn’t something I’ve looked for. In solo skirmish WvW, it’s more about getting kills while being able to adapt to fluid situations.

Depends on what your goal in WvW is. If you are trying to aid your server, area-denial is actually going to be more important than being in many scenarios. Oh how often we’re yelling on mumble/spamming team chat with “Contest, contest, we’re on our way!” when a roaming 5+ man party is trying to take our supply camps.

Xsorus.2507:

when I played my Mini I did Heavy Melee/Heavy Instrument Low Stealth spec.

Mainly cause I duoed a lot with an Infil Friend (yipee) and I was bait, people would see me, PA me (and do kitten damage cause I had like 800AF) then yipee would PA them.

I pimped my Minis Shouts (10 SD / 10 Pierce / 101 Acuity and RAs to supplement)

Was not unusual to double Crit for a clean 1K Damage on a round of shouts

Sarlack.4096:

Xsorus.2507:

when I played my Mini I did Heavy Melee/Heavy Instrument Low Stealth spec.

Mainly cause I duoed a lot with an Infil Friend (yipee) and I was bait, people would see me, PA me (and do kitten damage cause I had like 800AF) then yipee would PA them.

I pimped my Minis Shouts (10 SD / 10 Pierce / 101 Acuity and RAs to supplement)

Was not unusual to double Crit for a clean 1K Damage on a round of shouts

Yeap, I ran something similar with Odins Will on the Valkyrie, 10 Piece/10 SD/high Acuity ect ect because I could unload huge bursts of Spell Damage.

Minst was fun due to the Short cool downs on the shouts,

This was a mashup vid of my DAoC Mini…second half of vid is more interesting….sadly I was a clicker in those days!

Thx for your help guys. I think I just need to keep tweaking my gear until I find that balance of burst to survivability.

Nice to see Fura enjoy my build.

I miss DAoC. I was a Lurikeen Ranger for the longest time. Arrows from nowhere :-)

@Sebrent Okies…who was your Ranger? =D

Arbitrator Fate
<Clan Destiny>

I don’t remember the name of the server, but it was the same server another Lurikeen ranger named “Soc” was on.

So you musta booked before Ywain and the BIG Server merger…

Yep. I went over to shadowbane as the idea of pillaging and burning someone else’s player-made city was appealing … too bad it was poorly done.