Guild Wars 2

Hey there! So, I don’t play my Ranger much but I see an opportunity for a really fun Poison Master gimmick build. That being said, I’m not nearly as good at Ranger theorycrafting as I am at other classes I play more.

Here is what I have so far.

I tried to not have a ton of utility holes. I had a trap version but it lacked condi removal, ooc speed, and a stun break. Be as brutal as you want. That being said, I’m committed to the poison stacking gimmick.

After some suggestions I have updated the build to something like this.

I like it. I was going to suggest Runes of the Afflicted as another option. 30% bleeding duration and a death nova on down in exchanged for only 15% poison duration. The extra poison stack and Quickness at 20% health could be better for your needs though. I could imagine a build being nasty to fight, especially for regen based builds.

The problem is that you will get destroyed by conditions, so that makes it hard to run PM and survive at the same time.

If it were me, I would be using Healing Spring at least. Although, it is bugged right now and is terrible. Light on Your Feet is also bugged. Imo, there is little point in taking Expertise Training over Oakheart Salve, 300 condi damage does next to nothing and +20% of next to nothing, is still next to nothing.

Link in my sig with some Poison Master builds.

Since Poison application with the ranger doesn’t rely on Critical Chance, your trinkets are fine, but you have Sharpened Edges, which relies on that. Maybe change for a precision/condition trinket.

Not a pro ranger and still learning, but :

Pets : Spider is good, you might want Carrion Devourer and Murellow for easier poison AoE.

Traps traits instead of bleeding : Condition cleanse with Healing Spring. Poison Trap.

Your utilities : Poison Trap, Lightning Reflexes (You need that for Stun Break, Condi Removal and getting away from spike) and the last utilities for your taste. Maybe Signet of the Hunt for movement speed, Signet of Stone for damage reduction or Spike Trap for CC/Knockdown.

Not sure about Marksmanship. Maybe Nature Magic for support/condition cleanse or Beastmastery for F2 related traits. Beastly Warden + Murellow is interesting.

Swap in healing spring (Yes, I know. Deal with it). Trait for traps. Maybe through in poison trap? The issue I have with these poison oriented builds is that they don’t feel as if they have enough cover condis, maybe reapplication is enough?

Thank you all for your feedback.

This is what I’ve come up with after your suggestions

Another possible option

Sad that Rangers don’t get to be a part of the meta…but it’s fun to try different unique builds that no other class can do.

If you have healing spring, you could take oakheart salve for that reduced damage. I would test to see what use that condi damage on your pet is… Before poison master (when applied by the pet) scaled off of your own condi damage not theirs. So I don’t see the point of that trait. Also, due to the relatively longer nature of poison, and your reapplication of it. Would it be more useful to use a different rune set that provided some speed bonus? Then you could drop SotH for something more survivable? Then… if you have so much poison anyway? Wouldn’t it be better to use useful pets? Murellow? Gross!

+300 to the pets condi damage would add 18 damage per tick to poison. But have no effect on the Poison Master applied poison except for duration. Oakheart is a better choice. You lose a small amount of poison coverage over time, but the heal and damage reduction makes up for that imo.

If you were stacking might on your pet with Fortifying Bond/Axe or Companion’s Might or RaO, then it is a different story and Expertise Training makes more sense. To me.

One more point, Spiders attack from 900 range and the BM traits GFTE, WS and BW only have a 240 radius, so you would likely waste those on a Spider. If you had crit chance, I would suggest Companions Might for this build because the spider (should) have 45% crit chance with the additional +300 precision, but that is also bugged and they get no increase in crit chance except for from fury. Swap WS for Natural Healing (but that is also bugged) to help your pet stay above 90% for Refined Toxins and also Zephyrs Speed for the additional 3 might on swap (since you are swapping on CD for Poison Master anyway) with the quickness. Changed the other pet to Marsh Drake for AoE poison and might stacking with RaO. They have the same crit chance as Spiders.

Maybe like this? Celestial is the only one with some crit chance and decent sustain though… maybe another amulet. But it doesn’t really work now, due to the bugs with everything.

I run a bunker build, though I’m still playing around with it and at this point the things I’m playing with are more meta calls than anything.

Here.

I should probably replace the traveller runes with something a bit more combat effective, but oh well. When condis are too frequent I’ll run wilderness survival instead of poison master, replacing viper’s nest with flame trap (same-ish damage, shorter duration, lower cooldown). In a condition heavy team I like to run sun spirit instead of lightning reflexes or my non-spike trap as well. The build could definitely use another stunbreaker though.

I like Wizzö’s Poisonbuild for roaming.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsYVjMqQ7K2tCmrAVLGcEq+bz8imDgJvy9O/DG9C2UB-TlREABKoE8Ilf6pPAT1f2e/BAM/RIgFrBA-w

For spvp Orr and Carrion.

I think you’d need more condi removal.

• soldier runes + resounding timbre (beastmastery) → we heal as one, guard(remove signet of the hunt) could be a way
• sigil of purity
• brown bear