Guild Wars 2

I am just curious to know; Is anyone playing the old school BM build?

It seems as if it has fallen under the radar after all the pet damage nerfs, but since then vigorous training was given to any pet family, mighty swap was buffed and now runes of dwayna are granting much longer regeneration duration alongside a reliable regeneration proc. Also, pets are hitting their F2s far more reliably. We are even able to run double on swap sigils perhaps comboing geomancy and hydromancy or battle.

Hell, maybe even use invigorating bond if we are planing to do team fights with a wolf and fern hound (1000+regen from fernhound + 2000k heals from IBond).

I am hoping for a rise in popularity as this is the single most amusing ranger build in the game.

BM is a good build but sadly it cannot hold a point.

But does it have to hold a point, why can’t the Ranger be a roamer? Has Ranger been exclusively stereotyped into that role?

TheRuler.1290:

But does it have to hold a point, why can’t the Ranger be a roamer? Has Ranger been exclusively stereotyped into that role?

a ranger is well-known to be one of the best home-node defenders. if you want to be a roamer why not just go full zerk? you can kill people faster as a zerk ranger 1v1.

TheRuler.1290:

But does it have to hold a point, why can’t the Ranger be a roamer? Has Ranger been exclusively stereotyped into that role?

Sure Rangers can roam however why would you take a Ranger when a Thief, Engineer (or Mesmer) are superior at that role indefinitely. To roam you need to be quick, have strong utility, fast damage and stealth.

But to answer your question, yes the classic BM build is still effective and trumps most people and can win you many 1v1 duels when played well.

You can try 0/0/10/30/30/ with Survival of the Fittest and Quickening Zephyr and Valkyrie Amulet for some nice ranger and pet dps.

Ever since the pet nerf the damage just isn’t there. The glassy pets required to have enough damage to kill someone are too squishy and will die to an overabundance of condi pressure (engis). So besides the fact you don’t have enough damage to win 1 v 1s and if you do then your pet will probably die (which means you die) you also cannot handle any sort of knock back that will decap you and you have no team fight presence. At some point you will have to do more than 1 v1 and when you do whoever your fighting with will be kitten because the other team will just be kiting your pet (or cleaving it with aoe) making you kind of worthless in the fight. Because of that, spirit ranger is the go to for home node because it can 1 v 1, doesn’t require glass pets, and offers team fight support. In my opinion, the only viable builds are traps, zerker (if you’re good), spirits. That being said, BM can work sometimes.

I’ve just started playing BM ranger instead of zerker (and spirits when forced to!) and I’m loving it.

The owl has always been my favourite pet, and when runes of the privateer were buffed from a 5% to a 50% chance to summon I cried “BIRDIES” and decided to make a build that utilised the tropical bird and the owl. Luckily it’s not just amusing, the owls swooping attack makes it hit quite reliably (in a bursty way too) and the 6 second chill on F2 is incredible. Your friendly parrot unfortunately doesn’t have a lot of hp, but hits like a truck – far harder than rock dog!

I can’t be bothered writing out my traits on mobile, though I’m happy to share if anyone is curious, but it’s basically 20 in skirmishing, 20 in nature magic and 30 in beastmastery. The important traits are pets deal more damage on critical hit, pets gain health on critical hit, pets gain any boon you get (the 3 point minor in nature magic), reduced shout recharge, pets have natural healing and (drumroll please…) masters bond! I love masters bond. Your pet very rarely dies with all it’s health regeneration, and 5 stacks of masters bond gives +40 to the core pet stats. It’s so good, you really need to try it. I think I take the regen duration and protection on hit threshold traits in nature magic. Though I said I wouldn’t write out the traits, that’s them all!

I run greatsword and sword/warhorn with leeching/hydromancy and the clerics amulet. Utilities are healing spring, signet of the wild (for the passive, not the active), sick ’em, lightning reflexes and rampage as one.

You are ridiculously hard to kill (though weak to condis), and provide great single target pressure (or can split your damage with your pet on a squishy target and your cc/distraction/decent damage on another) and have a ton of in combat mobility.

Unfortunately this is all well and good, but nothing can compete with a thief roaming. If you peel from the mid fight and go far, their thief will chase you down and you won’t get the decap. You can move fast with lightning reflexes and sword 2 backwards, sword leap forwards and swoop cover lots of ground while in combat, to compete with a thief in roaming speed on many maps, but your biggest advantage is sick ’em. Revealed really ruins a thiefs day – allowing you to burst them down or ruin other elements of their utility (ie casting it on a downed body if shadow refuge is inc). Hopefully this anti thief skill leads to theify dying, which gives you free rein to exploit your superior mobility and dance all over the map.

In my opinion, BM ranger comes top of the ranger power builds and far ahead of most condi builds. Obvious it’s no spirit ranger, but if your soul has been destroyed by your team forcing you to play spirits, perhaps it can be restored by having two adorable birds bursting some poor unsuspecting fool down faster than you can say “Yarr!”.

If you’re BM bunker, and haven’t switched to Malicious Training with Spiders and Intimidation Training, you’re doing it wrong

Very few classes that stand up to it… the only one of note is a Necromancer only because he throw all your nasty conditions back at you, everyone else can’t keep up with it.