Guild Wars 2

So after a while I’ve decided to try my ranger in pvp. Both WvW and spvp. I’ve picked a power build. What I found out is that the longbow is great, but the GS needs more on-point fighting potential. (I may be noob at playing ranger, but its not my first class.) I saw some guy using 1H sword+dagger for the second weapon set. Well the 1H sword is a power based weapon also (top weapon for PvE), wouldnt that work with a power build? I saw ROM taking steps to this direction as well. Look at his new build. He uses leeching and hydromancy on GS, and also took the skirmishing traitline instead of marksmanship. Which imho allows for a more defensive playstyle while not hindering your damage so bad. So what do you think?

An other question: How about wilderness survival as your survivability traitline instead of nature magic? Survival of the fittest is nice but i find myself using 2 signets (stone & renewal and only keep lightning reflexes) many times and rampage as one instead of entangle. Which only leaves you with one survival skill to trigger that trait. So with this in mind and the changes I saw in ROM’s build I’ve come up with this. Would this work?

I’d switch the first two trait lines, so you have 6 in MM. I don’t see what you’re gaining from MoC, especially with no GS, and the MM traits are too good to pass up.

EB is a great trait, just keep a close eye on your pet, especially in team fights.

Fluffball.8307:

I’d switch the first two trait lines, so you have 6 in MM. I don’t see what you’re gaining from MoC, especially with no GS, and the MM traits are too good to pass up.

EB is a great trait, just keep a close eye on your pet, especially in team fights.

Ty for the advice. How about this one instead then?

I wouldn’t call 1H sword a power weapon. It has a cripple and a poison on it, both which would benefit from condi duration. It might work ok in a power build though.

Not traiting in to NM though might make it a bit harder to survive. Along with missing SOTF, you are missing vitality and boon uptime.

1h sword does well in a power build. The two condis it puts out are condis a power build is going to to want anyway, and s/d is very mobile and evasive (exactly what you want as a glassy ranged character.)

Nimrud.5642:

An other question: How about wilderness survival as your survivability traitline instead of nature magic? Survival of the fittest is nice but i find myself using 2 signets (stone & renewal and only keep lightning reflexes) many times and rampage as one instead of entangle. Which only leaves you with one survival skill to trigger that trait. So with this in mind and the changes I saw in ROM’s build I’ve come up with this. Would this work?

I personally like the survival skills and don’t use the stone signet at all, since it’s more like a time-to-activate-conditions-button for enemies as soon as they see they that they did 0 damage on you

Go to the mists, and try and land a swoop + hilt bash on the moving golem and tell me if moment of clarity is worth it.

I use something like this currently and its not too bad at all. Best thing is the pert actually does a large amount of damage due to signet of the beast master since activating a signet counts as the effect proccing on the pet as well so when you use a signet your pet gains 6 stacks of might.

SPider will regularly hit between 1 and 2k per auto which is great.

Ahh, so people eventually figure it out.
This is the build used by the top guild in Legacy of Foefire, winning 55 HP Monk by a huge portion with the edition of this power ranger.

Aomine.5012:

Ahh, so people eventually figure it out.
This is the build used by the top guild in Legacy of Foefire, winning 55 HP Monk by a huge portion with the edition of this power ranger.

Which of the mentioned builds do you mean?

Btw do pet abilities also proc MoC? And once its procced does it effect all hits of rapid fire or only the first one? If it procs only on the first hit, then it only works well with GS#2, doesnt it?

Pets don’t trigger MoC and it affects only the first hit from rapid fire (and other multiple-hit-attacks). So yea, MoC is pretty useless without GS.

Sword/dagger has 3 evades making it a lot stronger on point than GS. The only thing it lacks is burst but the ‘sticking’ aspect of sword auto means you that once you start hitting an enemy with it, you keep hitting them.

That provides good pressure and often ppl can’t handle it.

S/d is much, much stronger than GS IMO.

Sube Dai.8496:

Sword/dagger has 3 evades making it a lot stronger on point than GS. The only thing it lacks is burst but the ‘sticking’ aspect of sword auto means you that once you start hitting an enemy with it, you keep hitting them.

That provides good pressure and often ppl can’t handle it.

S/d is much, much stronger than GS IMO.

GS if you time it well enough you can get 2s of evade from the auto attack which is pretty huge.

Also sword cant hydro-leech → maul for around 6~10k total damage which can sometimes be very decisive.

Sigmoid.7082:

Sube Dai.8496:

Sword/dagger has 3 evades making it a lot stronger on point than GS. The only thing it lacks is burst but the ‘sticking’ aspect of sword auto means you that once you start hitting an enemy with it, you keep hitting them.

That provides good pressure and often ppl can’t handle it.

S/d is much, much stronger than GS IMO.

GS if you time it well enough you can get 2s of evade from the auto attack which is pretty huge.

Also sword cant hydro-leech -> maul for around 6~10k total damage which can sometimes be very decisive.

I do realize that GS gives more burst potential. What I tried to find out was if there was a fair trade-off for some more survivability. I by no means am trying to find a higher damage weapon set instead of GS.

So all in all I’ve ‘come up’ with this build. The wilderness survival traitline looked good to me for the first sight, but I had to realize how wrong I was as Nature Magic works much better with Marksmanship. So my only question that remains is whether a more defensive weapon set would do the trick? Will the Sw/Axe secondary weapon set kitten my damage into oblivion so that I become unable to fulfill my role as a zerker? To me it does not seem that bad, but I may be wrong. And lets not forget about the surprise effect as everyone will expect me to have GS if they see my longbow…

Nimrud.5642:

Sigmoid.7082:

Sube Dai.8496:

Sword/dagger has 3 evades making it a lot stronger on point than GS. The only thing it lacks is burst but the ‘sticking’ aspect of sword auto means you that once you start hitting an enemy with it, you keep hitting them.

That provides good pressure and often ppl can’t handle it.

S/d is much, much stronger than GS IMO.

GS if you time it well enough you can get 2s of evade from the auto attack which is pretty huge.

Also sword cant hydro-leech -> maul for around 6~10k total damage which can sometimes be very decisive.

I do realize that GS gives more burst potential. What I tried to find out was if there was a fair trade-off for some more survivability. I by no means am trying to find a higher damage weapon set instead of GS.

So all in all I’ve ‘come up’ with this build. The wilderness survival traitline looked good to me for the first sight, but I had to realize how wrong I was as Nature Magic works much better with Marksmanship. So my only question that remains is whether a more defensive weapon set would do the trick? Will the Sw/Axe secondary weapon set kitten my damage into oblivion so that I become unable to fulfill my role as a zerker? To me it does not seem that bad, but I may be wrong. And lets not forget about the surprise effect as everyone will expect me to have GS if they see my longbow…

In my experience GS also has good survivability for what it does. enough evades on it along with the long block and swoop to enguage or disengage. May be personal preferance but i feel its plenty survivable and offers more utility at the same time. Sw/Axe could fill the role though i believe. I will give it a go tonight and edit this post.

This here is the build i use time to time when im not messing around and it works incredibly well. WIth the GS see the thing is you have a potential of 2 interupts fo MoC for a better maul as well as the GS #5 for interupting stomps and reses and such. Also nice low cooldown on bow skills so you can also put out nice ranged pressure as well.

MoC overrated imho… I would swap it for protection on dodge. Its a huge defense increase, especially with a vigor focus while choosing the traits.

0/5/3/6/0 > 0/6/2/6/0

that 3 points is a must in EVERY ranger build.

Klonko.8341:

MoC overrated imho… I would swap it for protection on dodge. Its a huge defense increase, especially with a vigor focus while choosing the traits.

0/5/3/6/0 > 0/6/2/6/0

that 3 points is a must in EVERY ranger build.

Tried it and wasnt a huge fan. Can really feel the loss of MoC and i have no way of making use of that condition damage at all in the power build. Each to their own though.

I’v been having fun with my Power chill build.

It’s not as squishy as typical zerks, but still has that nice dps.

Nimrud.5642:

So after a while I’ve decided to try my ranger in pvp. Both WvW and spvp. I’ve picked a power build. What I found out is that the longbow is great, but the GS needs more on-point fighting potential. (I may be noob at playing ranger, but its not my first class.) I saw some guy using 1H sword+dagger for the second weapon set. Well the 1H sword is a power based weapon also (top weapon for PvE), wouldnt that work with a power build? I saw ROM taking steps to this direction as well. Look at his new build. He uses leeching and hydromancy on GS, and also took the skirmishing traitline instead of marksmanship. Which imho allows for a more defensive playstyle while not hindering your damage so bad. So what do you think?

An other question: How about wilderness survival as your survivability traitline instead of nature magic? Survival of the fittest is nice but i find myself using 2 signets (stone & renewal and only keep lightning reflexes) many times and rampage as one instead of entangle. Which only leaves you with one survival skill to trigger that trait. So with this in mind and the changes I saw in ROM’s build I’ve come up with this. Would this work?

Think of your play style and then work with a build.

Are you a Kiting type of Ranger?
Are you an aggressive, Yolo?
Are you aggressive far away, and then defensive when anyone gets close to you?

In my opinion, sword/x is much better except in YOLO. Because you can use the leap of sword to:

• jump over the fences to the cliff in Legacy side point – great against Mesmers or anyone that cant Leap – Ranger GS can only get there from one spot because their leap is after the sprint evade.
• Jump to the ledge or over the ledge in the other side point of legacy and kite around the rocks.
• jump to the column from the break in the bridge in Legacy.

All of this while you evade backward, use 1 off-hand skill, then use the leap to do the leap to your next Range spot. The misdirection is so fast it’s hard to keep up with as another player.

That’s uh, that’s not gonna work.

Loss of 6 in MM means you can’t hit targets from far away with lb. That means you have to be closer to the fight. That means your positioning is bad and you’re gonna die. If you’re gonna be that close to the fight just go condi. If you’re planning on 1 v 1 ing with this you will just instantly die to any +1… so you should probably just go condi.

GS is superior in fights if you use it right.

Personally, I think just using 6 in MM and having good positioning is better than 6 in skirmishing with bad positioning. If you really want condi clear I think NM is superior because it gives active condi clear over the passive condi clear on WS (I NEVER use EB anymore with SotF as an option if I want condi clear). That’s because i’d rather cleanse what needs to be cleanse right away then just pray that empathic bond is about to tic.

Power ranger worked when it countered HB wars and quickness was 100% and we could have like 10s of quickness. Power ranger worked when ravens hit for 10k off of a hilt bash. Power ranger worked when read the wind became available. Now, its become viable with a rapid fire buff. However, anything that worked before now has been nerfed, no more quickness and no more pets. That leaves the only option to be reliant on read the wind.

Eurantien.4632:

That’s uh, that’s not gonna work.

Loss of 6 in MM means you can’t hit targets from far away with lb. That means you have to be closer to the fight. That means your positioning is bad and you’re gonna die. If you’re gonna be that close to the fight just go condi. If you’re planning on 1 v 1 ing with this you will just instantly die to any +1… so you should probably just go condi.

GS is superior in fights if you use it right.

Personally, I think just using 6 in MM and having good positioning is better than 6 in skirmishing with bad positioning. If you really want condi clear I think NM is superior because it gives active condi clear over the passive condi clear on WS (I NEVER use EB anymore with SotF as an option if I want condi clear). That’s because i’d rather cleanse what needs to be cleanse right away then just pray that empathic bond is about to tic.

Power ranger worked when it countered HB wars and quickness was 100% and we could have like 10s of quickness. Power ranger worked when ravens hit for 10k off of a hilt bash. Power ranger worked when read the wind became available. Now, its become viable with a rapid fire buff. However, anything that worked before now has been nerfed, no more quickness and no more pets. That leaves the only option to be reliant on read the wind.

Ty for the helpful answer! Would you be so kind to give some feedback on my last build variant? Which is basically the same as the GS build except for one trait selection and the meele weapon set. Sigmoid.7082 found it interesting enough to try out, but his feedback never made it to the forums. And I’m really curious.

In the end I may be fine with a ‘go back to GS and l2p’.

I think 6/6/2 and 6/x/x/6/0 are pretty much viable power builds no matter what the permutation is. I think that fear wolf and drake hound (or immob spiders) pair well with power ranger. The reason I do drake hound and fear wolf is because they have an aoe F2 which is great for team fights and you can psuedo-control the kd by just knowing when they will do it (from experience) and skill cancelling with F3 and F1 to save the kd for when you need it. Moreover, you can skill cancel the F2 as well to still get the howl sound but not use the skill which can bait dodges. However, if you want to use a spider thats fine (but use an immob on f2 spider) It’s just not my preference.

That leaves you rune choice and your off set wep choice. For the runes I think there are a few options: pack, traveler, air. The reason I like pack is because it provides you with fury and near perma swiftness coming out of a winning fight (if you have 1 in skirmishing that is) which is great for mobility. However, when you die (which you will eventually) you need to get back into the fight as fast as possible which is why I like traveler (because of the speed buff, runes of speed can work as well). If you find yourself having trouble with thieves and mesmers then runes of the air can be amazing. They do like 4k damage every 20s (but they can pull you out of stealth which is why I don’t use them) which is a substantial amount of damage on a squishy class. Plus, you can also proc it after moment of clarity (if running 6/6/2) in order to get like a 7k air strike. If you die with air runes you can get back into the fight faster than pack because you can use your heal to get swiftness to get back into the fight.

As for the weapon choices.
S/x provides little counter pressure. If a power ranger swaps to sword main hand I pretty much can ignore it for that 10s if I wanted. So what does s/x give you? an evade, a reposition, and since dagger is often used another evade. Greatsword gives you a potential 3s block, a ranged cripple that does good dmg, a reposition, a burst, and the ability to skill cancel the third auto attack for double swings to get longer evade frames. When someone is in GS they are still a threat (albeit gs is a little more “yolo” when being focused by multiple targets but that’s what positioning is for). Of all the s/x options I think s/a has the most potential to be viable (since it can still provide counter pressure with path of scars) and although whirling defense can be a death sentence I also think it could be a very powerful skill when used at the right times. I don’t know anyone that has mastered axe off hand (i know I haven’t) but I think it coooould work… maybe.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Eurantien.4632:

I think 6/6/2 and 6/x/x/6/0 are pretty much viable power builds no matter what the permutation is. I think that fear wolf and drake hound (or immob spiders) pair well with power ranger. The reason I do drake hound and fear wolf is because they have an aoe F2 which is great for team fights and you can psuedo-control the kd by just knowing when they will do it (from experience) and skill cancelling with F3 and F1 to save the kd for when you need it. Moreover, you can skill cancel the F2 as well to still get the howl sound but not use the skill which can bait dodges. However, if you want to use a spider thats fine (but use an immob on f2 spider) It’s just not my preference.

That leaves you rune choice and your off set wep choice. For the runes I think there are a few options: pack, traveler, air. The reason I like pack is because it provides you with fury and near perma swiftness coming out of a winning fight (if you have 1 in skirmishing that is) which is great for mobility. However, when you die (which you will eventually) you need to get back into the fight as fast as possible which is why I like traveler (because of the speed buff, runes of speed can work as well). If you find yourself having trouble with thieves and mesmers then runes of the air can be amazing. They do like 4k damage every 20s (but they can pull you out of stealth which is why I don’t use them) which is a substantial amount of damage on a squishy class. Plus, you can also proc it after moment of clarity (if running 6/6/2) in order to get like a 7k air strike. If you die with air runes you can get back into the fight faster than pack because you can use your heal to get swiftness to get back into the fight.

As for the weapon choices.
S/x provides little counter pressure. If a power ranger swaps to sword main hand I pretty much can ignore it for that 10s if I wanted. So what does s/x give you? an evade, a reposition, and since dagger is often used another evade. Greatsword gives you a potential 3s block, a ranged cripple that does good dmg, a reposition, a burst, and the ability to skill cancel the third auto attack for double swings to get longer evade frames. When someone is in GS they are still a threat (albeit gs is a little more “yolo” when being focused by multiple targets but that’s what positioning is for). Of all the s/x options I think s/a has the most potential to be viable (since it can still provide counter pressure with path of scars) and although whirling defense can be a death sentence I also think it could be a very powerful skill when used at the right times. I don’t know anyone that has mastered axe off hand (i know I haven’t) but I think it coooould work… maybe.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

Ty, I’ll be fine with this for a few months.

Maybe I need to make a comprehensive ranger guide and get it stickied…

Eurantien.4632:

S/x provides little counter pressure. If a power ranger swaps to sword main hand I pretty much can ignore it for that 10s if I wanted.

S/X provides counter pressure more than anything else. If you ignore a sword power ranger, you’re going to wind up taking way more damage than just /dancing in a maul. A power ranger maul is going to hit for what, 7k? Sword autoattacks for 2 or 3k. (I run power only in WvW with very different stats than PvP, so I’m guesstimating the numbers) and it perma cripples the target for your allies.

If someone is truly ignoring the s/x ranger, offhand axe is going to be easy to land. If you’re not fighting an idiot (soloq bunkers I’m looking at you), PoS is best used after CC though, much like how you might set up a maul. I think it outdamages maul in that case. If you’re some sort of god with the axe you can get PoS to hit 3 times if the opponent is CCd.

There is a difference. I would ignore a s/x power ranger if they swapped to sword and were evade spamming and I HAD to deal with someone else, otherwise I could just pressure out the evades and would just destroy a s/x power ranger because it puts out no counter pressure. The reason I say no counter pressure is because if a s/x ranger isn’t in melee range they have no gap closer or ranged damage (path of scares can be kited, crippling dagger doesn’t hit hard and even if it lands can’t be followed by a gap closer, same with warhorn 4). Meanwhile the GS ranger can throw the GS, run up to you with a block, or swoop. Moreover, the 3 can be combo’d as necessary to get closer, I can’t take my eyes off of a gs ranger to deal with something else if I HAD to. The only situation where s/x provides counter pressure then is with autos. However, most people RARELY get autos off on kiting targets unless they have incessant gap closer, fast attack speed, or lock down. The ranger has none of these. Now if we say hypothetically we did get caught in an entangle or something with NO cooldowns and the s/x ranger was “counterpressuring” with autos. You become a sitting duck, most people won’t be able to dodge out of the sword auto root.

Like is said, If I want I can ignore a s/x ranger, if they are autoing my face then i’m gonna do something about it. Even then, GS > s/x in terms of viable damage in PvP.

Sigmoid.7082:

Klonko.8341:

MoC overrated imho… I would swap it for protection on dodge. Its a huge defense increase, especially with a vigor focus while choosing the traits.

0/5/3/6/0 > 0/6/2/6/0

that 3 points is a must in EVERY ranger build.

Tried it and wasnt a huge fan. Can really feel the loss of MoC and i have no way of making use of that condition damage at all in the power build. Each to their own though.

I dont know how you can feel it tough. The extra daze/stun is handy but the interrupt bonus is situationnal. If you use GS, the #5 is unreliable as well… MoC doesnt benefit ranger because ranger doesnt have big hitting abilities except maul. If it was a duration that your skill are hitting 20% harder after an interrupt or something like that, it would be good. The current version? nay. Protection on dodge OP too.

But like you said, each person has its own playstyle.