Hi
I have the feeling this thread will be long so ty in advance for reading and giving your opinion.
I would like to have your thoughts about the current wvw build I’m using. I’ve seen with my own eyes how many ‘mechanical problems’ rangers have in wvw and sincerely I desperated myself to try other classes cause sometimes I feel really tired of trying. But I still like ranger gameplay the most so I’m struggling to be the best that I can.
My favorite weapons and skills are short bow and longbow, paired with traps. I like to be ranged, constantly moving and placing on the ground harassment to my enemies.
Favorite skills when roaming: flame trap, frost trap, spike trap, muddy terrain (viper’s nest if attacking a tower) [elite: entangle/ rampage as one]
Favorite skills when defending a tower: signet of stone, signet of the wild, signet of renewal (sometimes quickening zephyr) [elite: rampage as one/spirit of nature]
With this skill settings I started roam wvw with balanced gear and traits (I don’t remember exactly the traits, it was like 10,25,25,10,0 imo pets in wvw are not really useful so I didn’t want to lose points on that trait – armor focused mainly on vit/thou/prec, runes prec/cond dmg). I had a 35% crit chance and a good vit and thou. The first times it was ok, but when we changed enemies I started to have problems. I don’t really like glass cannon builds but with my previous equip I still was very very squishy, my damage was ridiculous, so my enemies never back down and I was slayed before placing any type of condition.
Initially I used melee CC pets (wolf and drakehound) and I saw my pet running around like crazy following the enemy without giving any damage nor knockback -.-“, I switched to birds… that didn’t even reached my enemies (it was like… KA-BOOM and they came back dead to me -.-”).
So I resetted all my previous efforts and started a new build.
I don’t really want to go full damage, so:
- I bought a prec/thou/cond damage gear
- traits are now 20-30-20-0-0
- runes of the rata-sum (after buying the new gear I didn’t have much gold saved)
I switched pets to lashtail and with great horror I discovered that my enemy can evade or obstruct his ranged attack simply by moving (as it happens with my arrows)… so I found myself obligated to select spiders (I’m fairly arachnophobic you know? ç_ç), at least sometimes it happens that they stop my enemies with their webs, and they have a little vit that it can be of use when I reflect my knockbacks on them. (sometimes I swear at all my efforts seeing how a thief can nearly slay me only by pressing #2 button (heartseeker) non-stop without being stuck by any of my traps -.-)
Btw it goes a bit better now, at least my enemies retreat a little when they see damage so I have a little time to think what to do… Condition damage is also good when attacking towers, and I reached a 55% crit chance that I can really feel. Still I’m not sure if I can do anything else to improve my build without having to change my gameplay (I tried all the weapons, but I don’t feel at ease and the results are worse).
What do you think? Do you see anything wrong? Any good advice?