Guild Wars 2

Hello Ranger community.
I am proud to bring a competitive build using Poison Master trait into PvP.
(Mostly because there’s no other needed from the grandmasters and frankly, the trait is a blast with this setup)

For all those players wanting an absurd 1v1 build bringing anyone down to their knees – this is the build.
Yes, it beats even Carrion Reapers usually staying somewhere around 80% HP by doing so. Even if they had 60% shroud available.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsYVnMqAVsiFsCmrActgFHBDOpGVzqMBgJXlr5bdBKal480A-TZhHwAPLDE4JAEc/hBHCAAnAAA

Pros:
- Absurd 1v1 potential (and when I say absurd I mean it)
- Vast and frequent output of poison debuff, in single target and AoE form.
- Lots of self and AoE cleanse
- Just like other druid builds brings a lot of AoE support and CC.

Cons:
- Can be hard focused in teamfights
- Low mobility
- Has the only but hard counter of Diamond Skin elementalist. That duel will never end. None of you would cap or decap a point.

Notes:
-This build since being a dueling monster (I’ve won some 1v2s but I could tell my opponents weren’t top players. Were decent but nowhere near excellent) does best at holding off close points or contesting far if given the chance (your team won a teamfight without you and gave you the opportunity to swap and rotate).

- You shouldn’t focus on rotating points. You won’t go down easily but if focused hard in teamfights anything you’ll try to do would be wasted and you’ll needlessly just evade around achieving nothing. Most of important AoE abilities would go “miss”.
- You can, however, be of great help to your teamfight as reinforcements. For your AoE cleanses & powerful heals, potential AoE stunbreak and AoE disruption and permanent poison uptime – you can be a great asset to turn the table of the fight. However, you have no cleave which makes you a bad teamfighting role even if your build is excellent at securing stomps or ressing your team.

Happy Hunting, all the Venom enthusiasts.

Toyed around with something very close, except I had Doom instead of Leeching on my SB for swap. Always been a fan of the Poison Master Ranger, at least Druid opened up some options.

Hmm…interesting. At first I was thinking it was double melee. I see Shortbow and am incorrect. I bet it excels on the traditional maps. Stronghold though – maybe a few places.

Just wish SB had the same range as LB Worst change ever.

Any tips on how you like to play this build?

Interesting, though in a poison-focused build, it’s a bit odd that you are not using Viper’s Nest, Sigil of Doom or any pets with a poison attack. I assume you went Spike for the knockdown, but I would definitely consider Doom over Geomancy.

To answer a few:

Any tips on how you like to play this build?

I always start close and ask 1 person to keep an eye to swap with me if Diamond Ele comes to contest. After that (or winning a skirmish) I either go help mid starting in CAF, keeping my Glyph of Equality for ress/finish as well as the spike trap, or I stay close and bunker it, waiting for my team to give me a signal to help them.
According to situation I look for opportunity to occupy far but usually return to close point.
This build excels at small-scale skirmishes after all.

Interesting, though in a poison-focused build, it’s a bit odd that you are not using Viper’s Nest, Sigil of Doom or any pets with a poison attack. I assume you went Spike for the knockdown, but I would definitely consider Doom over Geomancy.

I do not find it odd at all. Poison =/= burning. It’s not a primary DPS condition. Having a poison build means going for 100% poison uptime to prevent sustain. Not DPS or condition bombs. Once you already have Poison uptime at 100% with so many ways of reapplication you don’t need Sigil of Doom or Poison Trap that brings literally nothing to the fight at all. Furthermore, Viper’s Nest still targets 3 people and deals less damage than Flame Trap – making the choice out of the question.
And you do want at least some AoE damage output. Sigil of doom is single target, applies 1 stack and would result in around 750 damage.

This build is not about sacrificing everything including rational thinking for poison DPS. It’s just like every single of my builds I share – about the most potential held at one place with as few weaknesses as possible.

So you have no issues with uptime and their condition cleanse? That was the thinking.

Anthrage.2519:

So you have no issues with uptime and their condition cleanse? That was the thinking.

None at all.
You have 2 from Sword / Dagger
1 from Shortbow
1 from pet swap
1 from glyph
That’s all you really need to keep it up. All of those have short cooldowns.

And if you wanted more, you can swap LoyF for QuickDraw.

I guess, this build – like most druid builds – relies on the pets to actually kill the opponent? Because i doubt, those few bleeding and poison stacks hurt that much (dmg wise).

UmbraNoctis.1907:

I guess, this build – like most druid builds – relies on the pets to actually kill the opponent? Because i doubt, those few bleeding and poison stacks hurt that much (dmg wise).

More or less. It can hurt if you happen to apply them at the same time. Basically 1200 poison ticks and 900 bleeding ticks. Usually while the enemy is rooted.
In standard fights the enemy usually uses condition cleanses a lot. So your job is basically to keep reapplying till your enemy is worn down.

The DPS is pretty nice. Not anywhere near high but still has a powerful spike.
It’s hard to demonstrate by words. You’d actually have to see for yourself.

What is bothering me is your horrible mobility u got with that build.

EthanLightheart.9168:

What is bothering me is your horrible mobility u got with that build.

Yea… I wouldn’t sugarcoat that. It’s horrible.
But you don’t really need one if you focus on bunkering.

For roaming – there are other builds much suitable even for teamfights. This build was basically made to be that dueling monster.

Tragic Positive.9356:

The DPS is pretty nice. Not anywhere near high but still has a powerful spike.
It’s hard to demonstrate by words. You’d actually have to see for yourself.

I use bristelback and smokescale myself, so yea, i’m familiar with their dmg.

It just bothers me, that those two pets seem mandatory for pretty much every somewhat viable ranger build. Which makes all those builds feel too similar, even with different traits and skills. In the end it just comes down to “pack enough survability to be able to stay on point against meta builds and let those pets do the rest”. Things like more poison, CC, might stacking, whatever else a special build might offer, seem to be only minor differences, which barely affect the gameplay.

@UmbraNoctis
That would be pretty much right.
I actually had a build that deals a lot of damage without it but I think that pets finally being useful makes the best use in Defensive builds. Why?

Because being tanky means the same trouble for enemy as killing anyone other being tanky.
But playing glass doesn’t give you as much mach power as other bursters like Guardians. Since a lot of the burst comes out of your pets regardless of your stats.

How is poison mastery getting slotted and refined toxins not.

Refined toxins is still the better trait regardless of where each is on the wilderness survival tree.

Justine.6351:

How is poison mastery getting slotted and refined toxins not.

Refined toxins is still the better trait regardless of where each is on the wilderness survival tree.

For PvE – yes.
For PvP – Hardly.

You rarely have more than 90% HP apart from getting CAF.
And being able to get out of Guardian’s Chain or avoid being stunned (while stomping or what not) is a difference. Much more notable than 1 stack of poison every 10 seconds (best case scenario).
Truth be told – I started the build with Refined Toxins. Scrapped it down after not really seeing a difference. I found CC prevention much better.

Question – what about Rune of the Afflicted? Maybe that isn’t in sPvP yet but that is a rune I was looking at while modifying this for WvW. I switched to Ascended Celestial gear but kept the toughness, healing, and condition damage accessories. Outside of weapons – still looking to swap out to axe and torch it has a even balance of 870 condition damage and healing. Seems a pretty good balance for duo / roaming.

I’m just not sure how AF will generate without a staff. Right now I’m sporting trapper runes but need to swap out. At least that is what I’m doing at the moment. Otherwise it is full clerics and only buffing / healing.

@Crapgame
All my builds are technically templates. Feel free to adjust them to your tastes.

About the rune of afflicted, I feel like it doesn’t provide as much as Rune of the Krait.
I chose rune of the Nightmare especially to get that 1st hit advantage.
If you want to go for straight condition potential, you’d want to go for Rune of the Krait.
(There’s that fancy rune of Thorns if you want to focus on Poison only but I wouldn’t see it better than Krait)

And this template builds up CAF with ease. You have Shortbow #2 that can potentially fill 10% with a single cast and Regen that fills it fast enough. The AoE glyphs help, too.
I constantly have to wait for cooldown in teamfights.

yeah rune of the nightmare is something ive always wanted to try on ranger. I may try it out now that madking runes arnt super expensive to get back into.