Guild Wars 2

After giving feedback in other peoples threads, i figured it was about time to post my own build(s). Over the last two months, i have been using two builds in particular.

One was a crit tanker, the other one, a survival-tanker.

First up my current gear, the survival tanker;
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.4|1.1k.a8|5.1n.0|1k.7m.1n.7m.1n.7m.1n.7m.1n.7m.1k.7m|4s.d1g.1k.68.1k.68.1p.61.1p.61.2u.d1a|0.0.u6ac.u59c.a3|4r.1|4i.4m.4z.0.54|e

This build focuses mainly on staying alive through sheer defense, vitality and regeneration. The damage potential isnt bad, however it has no critical damage, so you won’t produce “spike” damage, but rather consistent medium-heavy damage.

This build is aimed towards staying alive/keeping your group alive. The Nature Magic trait line can easily be converted into a spirit build, thus providing massive support to your group.
As you may notice, i use Search and Rescue, and i do that for one simple reason. It works!!!
The reduced cooldown allows you to use it more often, thus you gain efficiency. For small groups/strike teams, this build will be very helpful.

For roaming, either solo or with a friend, you should swap “Search and Rescue” and “Sharpening Stone” for “Lightning Reflexes” and “Quickening Zephyr”.

And now to my “favorite” build, the crit tanker.
http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.4|5.1n.h1|1.1n.h1|1n.7l.1n.7l.1n.7l.1n.7l.1n.7l.1n.7l|4s.d1g.1n.64.1n.64.1g.67.1g.67.2u.d1a|a1.u28a.u6ac.0.0|2e.7|4i.4w.4o.4y.55|e

The Crit tanker is really simple… stack as much defense and critical chance you can. It is meant to do one thing, and one thing only; dish out the most possible damage, for the least amount of risk, in as little time as possible.
And it does so – flawlessly.

The main issue is that, even though you pack close to 3000 armor, you are still squishy to some degree, however i haven’t lost any single 1v1 or 2v1 battle in that gear for over 2 months straight. However, it is a lousy gear to use for zergs/group support.
A big upside to it, is that you can run through CoF p1 speedruns -almost- as fast as a warrior. Take note of the -almost-, you will still not be near the pure DPS, but there is no way in hell you will get downed either.

The crit tanker produces a rough average of 950-1200 damage against guardian tanker, and 3300-4000 against glass cannon thiefs.

If you are unsure of your WvW prowess/too poor to get both a WvW and PvE build, these two are most certainly something you should check out!!

In your second build, why you have Trapper’s Expertise when you don’t have any trap?

Also about the runes selection for the armor, wouldn’t be better ranger runes? with thief runes you are spending stats in condition damage which is already low, you could use them for critical dmg, your non crit dmg output goes a little lower but you get a nice boost for critical dmg and with an almost 75% critical chance can be a nice change.

Besides that looks like a nice build

you may have overlooked the final bonus on the thief runes, which is alot better then the 10% crit damage + 5% raw damage from Ranger runes.

The Trappers Expertise is because i sometimes put down fire traps at gates during defense of keeps/towers. You can freely change it to what you want, however in my experience, the only other viable option, “Moment of Clarity”, is too unreliable.

I like this build. I recommend that you give your armor and accessories another look though. You can squeeze out a little more power and defense by putting berserker stats in the most efficient slots. That would be boots, gloves, and shoulders for armor and knight’s accessories with exquisite rubies in the slots.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.4|5.1n.h1|1.1n.h1|1n.7l.1g.7l.1n.7l.1g.7l.1n.7l.1n.7l|4s.d1g.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.1n.67.2u.d1a|a1.u28a.u6ac.0.0|2e.7|4i.4w.4o.4y.55|e

You can probably tweak it better than I did if you play around with it some more.

I think the same gear setup with a 20/25/25 trait setup could work for a LB/GS build, but I doubt it would work better than what you’ve got, since you’d give up bark skin for either piercing arrows or eagle eye.

i see your point, and i like the way you tweaked it, however you are right in saying that i wouldnt sacrifice Bark Skin. That trait is simply amazing, and has saved my kitten so many times i can’t even count em.

As for dipping more into the power-line, i did try that 20/25/25/0/0 setup, it was nice, if all you ever wanted was to gather lootbags, but for anything else, it was absolutely horrid.

The trait setup wasn’t really a suggestion, just a thought. I happen to like the longbow, even if it does terrible damage.

A sigil of force might boost your damage over a sigil of accuracy, but I’m not sure.

Also, ascended accesories kind of ruin some of that item slot efficiency.

Gonna give the second build a try in WvW, any pointers on play style with it?

Sigil of Force vs Sigil of Accuracy comes down to this:

When you do crit, Sigil of Accuracy likely helped.
When you don’t crit, Sigil of Accuracy failed to help.

When you do crit, Sigil of Force is giving you +5% damage
When you don’t crit, Sigil of Force is giving you +5% damage

I find Sigil of Force to be more helpful … unless your build has several on-crit affects.