Guild Wars 2

I was having a peek at the potential ranger trait and skill changes on the wiki and decided to see if I could make a viable ranger build out of them.

The possible condition removal from survival skills is what this build will be based on.

Armour and weapons
Sword-Dagger/Axe-Torch
Dire stats on the armour and weapons, the toughness and vitality will allow you to tank enemies whilst dealing decent condition damage. Sigil of geomancy on each set, sigil of corruption on the axe and anything you like on the sword (I use malice)

Accessories
Apothecary accessories still look useful, the extra healing power can come in handy.

Runes
I’m quite fond of Melandru runes to help reduce damage from condition mesmers and necromancers, though runes of speed or traveller could be used for an extra speed boost.

Traits (new trait system will be 1 point for each trait, minor or major instead of 5 points to get the traits)
Marksmanship 2 points in.
Trait 3 – Keen Edge will become a survival skill, removing 2 conditions on use and it gives you some extra condition damage.

Wilderness survival 6 point in.
Trait 6 – Wildnerness Knowledge reduces recharge on survival skills (an easy choice there)
Trait 7 – Off-hand Training makes dagger and torch more effective.
Trait 13 – Poison Master will make your sword and dagger poisons more deadly, since you can almost constantly apply poison, this could become very potent!

Nature Magic 6 points in.
Trait 6 – Nature’s Protection will allow you to tank more damage from high power classes such as Thiefs or Warriors.
Trait 8 – Evasive Purity will remove 2 conditions on dodge, no other trait caught my eyes.
Trait 13 – Survival of the Fittest will remove 2 conditions when you use a survival skill, replacing Empathic Bond which most ranger builds used for condition removal before.

Utilities
Trolls Unguent, I like to move a lot when healing.

Signet of the Wild for passive health regen.

Muddy Terrain, immobilize and cripples enemies, plus 20 second cooldown for 2 condition removal.

Lightning Reflexes will now remove immobilize, remove 2 conditions, grant an evade and 13 seconds of vigor – This should be an amazing skill, plus 32 second cooldown is manageable.

Entangle, not only will it immobilize enemies, it’ll bleed them for a potential 18000~ damage and removes 2 conditions on a 120 second cooldown.

Pets
I’d run spiders as pets so they can attack enemies and stay out of the way generally whilst adding a few extra conditions to your enemies.

Foods
I’d run Koi Cakes for the +40% condition duration and Quality Tuning Crystals for added condition damage (quality crystals are much cheaper to buy/make)

I made a quick build template using my equipment, bearing in mind the editor doesn’t have the new grandmaster traits so I used placeholders.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQRAsY3fjEqUxaHLusQ1aAZVQQaP4EzDTcP8vOJELZUNB-zUCB4iDiG1JZ0CQ00AkHKjZqFRjtMqIas6ZER16jYBAQAmZZWmlZwP/5P/5P/Zzcm/cm/cmlCAm5AA-w

Thanks for reading, and let’s hope the traits on the wiki are released and things go well for us.

Happy hunting.

As far as I know you need the trait signet of the beast master for the stability from signet of the wild to affect you
Regards Roeore

Roeore.6274:

As far as I know you need the trait signet of the beast master for the stability from signet of the wild to affect you
Regards Roeore

Woop’s, you’re right. Not sure where I got that from considering I run that signet all the time! I think I read it somewhere in the ranger CDI and my mind was getting a little too hopeful!

Removed the mention of stability from the main post.

Thanks!

Yea, I think most people all agree that a 10/0/30/30/0 build is likely the strongest thing to come out of next patch. The only thing people are wondering about is how much the BM trait will heal and how the F2 skill balance pass messed things up.

Hey Psi. Firstly, this looks pretty decent for condition bunkers. Looking at the new poison trait at the moment seems promising but come April 15th it might better be taken by Empathetic Bond still due to all the condition spam, although in WvW you might get away with using the Survival trait over it, but the 50% doesn’t seem like a massive amount, but who knows till the final patch right?

Also I don’t know if I’ve said this before and it really comes down to preference, but personally I find Sword/Torch and Axe/Dagger is a better combo.
Firstly it spreads your evades across both weapon sets rather than having one super evasive set and one full condition set.
Secondly it allows you to use bonfire, which at its current radius is melee range, in sync with your sword 2 leap, allowing you to get a fire shield.

Funny thing is, you didn’t come up with anything new. Same old builds just using 2 of the new GM traits. Which imo won’t be worth it.

I still don’t think Muddy Terrain should be used over SoR

Its the same amount of Conditions Removed, only you get Full Condition Removal when needed + an extra stun break.

Lightning Reflex of course is a no brainer…

LR and MT are looking really kitten good now. even qz to be honest.

Benjamin.8237:

Also I don’t know if I’ve said this before and it really comes down to preference, but personally I find Sword/Torch and Axe/Dagger is a better combo.
Firstly it spreads your evades across both weapon sets rather than having one super evasive set and one full condition set.
Secondly it allows you to use bonfire, which at its current radius is melee range, in sync with your sword 2 leap, allowing you to get a fire shield.

I’ve tried both ways, but I preferred keeping axe/torch for more long range fighting, popping bonfire when the enemy comes close then switching weapons to make use of the leap.

Plus, having all the evades on one set has saved me countless times when I bite off more than I can chew in a fight.

Tricare.2946:

Funny thing is, you didn’t come up with anything new. Same old builds just using 2 of the new GM traits. Which imo won’t be worth it.

You’re right, I didn’t. I just posted this because at the time, the top 5 threads were “This new update will break rangers” “We get shafted again” “Everything sucks” and wanted to point out the potential of using these GM traits and having a viable build.

Terravos.4059:

I still don’t think Muddy Terrain should be used over SoR

Its the same amount of Conditions Removed, only you get Full Condition Removal when needed + an extra stun break.

Lightning Reflex of course is a no brainer…

I figured muddy terrain might be useful for it’s short cooldown and the added condition spread. Also, since the pets will have less stats compared to a BM build, I was worried the pets would be a little too squishy for the active effects of SoR to be utilized.

And yeah, lightning reflexes sounds like it’ll be a must have regardless of using the survival skill traits. I’m very much looking forward to the changes.

And to reiterate for thread viewers, I posted this to show people that the new possible traits and changes could be viable and wont break the ranger, even if the build isn’t too original.