On-Crit/condition damage beastmaster ranger
Gear:
Rabid armor is the way to go here. It gives your 2 favorite stats (precision and condition damage) as well as some nice bonus toughness so you don’t go splat on the first hit you take. The Undead runes help turn this toughness as well as the 200 from your wilderness survival trait line into a bit more bonus condition damage. The accessories I listed are exotic tier (as ascended can be a pain to obtain) but if you are moving to ascended tier, you can make the choice between rabid and rampager. If you do go full rabid you’ll certainly benefit from the higher condition damage but your crit rate will be ~50% rather than ~60%. Still good enough for purpose.
The shortbow is your bread and butter weapon for obvious reasons. I’m a big fan of S/D for the 2nd set. It’s a TON of evasion for when someone gets too close for comfort, good damage output (2 sources of poison and a healthy bleed), 2 cripples, and even more might for your pet. The weird auto-attack takes some getting used to, but once you’re played with it for a while it’s actually very manageable. If you’re not somewhere where a melee attack is absolutely vital (I’m looking at you, Solid Ocean Fractal…grrr) or are running big WvW zergs where going melee is somewhat suicidal feel free to swap the sword out for an Axe to cover AoE situations and just stay a healthy distance from your enemies. Both torch and warhorn work nicely as offhand alternatives to the dagger, I just really love the evasion/condition damage the dagger provides.
Pets:
Double cat is my default choice for this build as they do a ton of damage and their high precision means they make excellent use of both rending attacks and carnivorous appetite which helps offset their mediocre durability. If you find you need something tanker, drakes are a surprisingly good choice, particularly the fire and poison varieties to work with your expertise training. For fights where melee is either impossible or just a bad idea (a lot of the dungeon bosses fall into this category as well as the really nasty zerg fights in WvW) any of the devourers work very well.
Utility Skills:
You’ve got a lot more options than what’s shown in the build. QZ works wonders as both a stun break and a massive DPS steroid and muddy terrain can give you some AoE control without having to trait into traps. I find signet of the hunt to be pretty much non-negotiable for this build. Not only does it help you position yourself better for crossfire but it gives your pet a MUCH easier time catching up to and hitting your target, especially in PvP. There’s really no reason to ever activate it. Just leave it passive for the speed boost unless you’ve got an extremely reliable source of swiftness in your group…in which case you’re probably better just taking it off your bar entirely.
You can also go with Rampage as One for your elite if you decide you’d rather have the big damage boost rather than the AoE control in that slot. Both are good and I find myself switching back and forth a lot.
There is certainly a place for Sic ‘Em (as well as shout mastery for your BM adept trait) in this build but I personally don’t like it because I find myself accidentally canceling the buff by giving my pet a new command. I’m very active with my pet commands so it doesn’t work well for me. Personal preference.
Traits:
Sharpened edges is pretty much core to the build and, because you’re critting nearly 60% of your shots with great attack speed, companion’s might adds a lot of extra power to your pet. If you’re running with fragile cats as your pet you’re going to need to be swapping them out frequently and will get a lot of mileage out of Mighty Swap. They’re also the reason for carnivorous appetite. Without SOME sort of HP regen, your pets are going to get squashed pretty quickly.
Trap Variant:
Trading out companion’s might for ground-targeted traps and using your choice of either flame (for damage), frost (for control), or spike (for a mix of the two) traps gives you some nice AoE and utility options that the basic build lacks. You do lose out on the often crucial stun-break as well as quite a bit of pet damage, but the trade off is worth it in some situations. If you’re liking this style and think the AoE is your thing, you can try ditching Carnivorous Appetite for Trap Potency and getting your pet regen by either using Signet of the Wild or putting 30 in the BM line (-10 survival) for Natural Healing…or both. Also, axes are very much your friend in the AoE category. Ricochet and Splitblade both rack up the conditions very quickly on multiple targets.
I like the idea too.
Unfortunately, the pet is nothing more than a liability, even when traited :-(
“We just don’t want players to grind in GW2.” – Well, I guess you really failed, ANet!
Update 5.9.2013: getting better ANet, still way to go!
A Lannister always pays his debts – For everyone else, there’s Mastercard.
Update 5.9.2013: getting better ANet, still way to go!
A Lannister always pays his debts – For everyone else, there’s Mastercard.
Here is a build that is close to yours but has more damage on the ranger and less pet damage.
What makes up for it is the fact that the pet stops being a liability. Start with the pet’s immobilize/weakness before using your own. They are ranged, which means they will stay in one place. Use this to your advantage by kiting the enemy while holding your pet between you an the enemy. Swap when too low on health.
Works very well and you’ll be surprised how often these spiders land their own Immob. Vigor and triple might plus another triple might when changing to the axe boost the damage done by conditions.
A soft CC is always available on either dagger, axe, shortbow or traps which contributes to kiting.
Protect me is there because it basically grants you 20k of extra health for 6 seconds which is great when you get stunned and they start nuking you. Just make sure to swap before the pet dies. Swap one of the pets to a bear if you need condition cleanse.
Frost trap pulses 3 secs of chill on whoever is in it and it’s great if you can disable the enemy and plant the trap right under his feet so that he gets as many pulses as possible. 15 second chill is a fight winner.
Hmmm what more can I say…
If you get very skilled with this build, you can swap any skills to Sharpening Stone. Use SS, get almost into the face of your enemy, use axe #2, use the very short time to swap weapons while the axes are still flying to avoid swap CD, frost trap, SB #5 → #4 → #2 – #3 → wep swap and pet swap. 6 might, around 20 stacks of bleeding on the enemy together with chill and weakness.