Guild Wars 2

I saw this reddit post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/4g7y77/heres_a_dps_comparison_of_43_ranger_builds/

And I am looking at this build:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAnfVjUqQ5K2uCOrAVLGKEKeAK9Ho/gh9F+EIaDgSmSYA-TBSFQBXbhh2pPohK/AwTAIBnCg+p+zgUCqk9BIFAMLrA-e

I’m fairly new to the game, so I am trying to find a solid and valuable ranger build people will want in dungeons. But I also want to do some serious ranged DPS. What are your thoughts on this build?

Also, it recommends Tiger, but isn’t Lynx the best for condi?

1) Ranged DPS is not wanted in dungeons. You need to be within ~ 600 units of each other to share buffs, and you also want to do cleave damage from melee if applicable (it is for ranger).

2) Dungeon fights are very anti-condi. Dungeons are obsolete from waaaaaaay before the current power creep, so boss fights are over in mere seconds, if that. You want power rather than condi.

3) What that means is you want i something close to this: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_S/A_LB_Power

4) Pet don’t have same stats as you so tiger vs lynx is independent of what you’re running. Lynx is a condi (hybrid, it does a LOT of power damage) pet, but you can run a condi pet as a power ranger.

Disclaimer: You can run anything you want in dungeons and still succeed and have fun. I’m talking about fast, effortless runs and with builds that PUGs will expect you to have. But in this era or power creep, it doesn’t really matter. Condi ranger in full ascended viper’s will obliterate dungeons, just to a lesser degree than full ascended berserker’s.

Fluffball.8307:

1) Ranged DPS is not wanted in dungeons. You need to be within ~ 600 units of each other to share buffs, and you also want to do cleave damage from melee if applicable (it is for ranger).

2) Dungeon fights are very anti-condi. Dungeons are obsolete from waaaaaaay before the current power creep, so boss fights are over in mere seconds, if that. You want power rather than condi.

3) What that means is you want i something close to this: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Druid_-_S/A_LB_Power

4) Pet don’t have same stats as you so tiger vs lynx is independent of what you’re running. Lynx is a condi (hybrid, it does a LOT of power damage) pet, but you can run a condi pet as a power ranger.

Disclaimer: You can run anything you want in dungeons and still succeed and have fun. I’m talking about fast, effortless runs and with builds that PUGs will expect you to have. But in this era or power creep, it doesn’t really matter. Condi ranger in full ascended viper’s will obliterate dungeons, just to a lesser degree than full ascended berserker’s.

Great information! Thank you for taking the time to write it out!

One more side question: In terms of general PVE ability and soloing tough monsters in HOT content (like veterans and such), is that build you linked still the best? Or is there a better one?

For solo, you’re not going to find an easier playstyle anywhere in the game than sitting at range in berserker armor with a LB and a pet tanking for you. So ya, that build is fine.

You’ll almost certainly customize your utilities and possibly traits to fit your playstyle. If you’re like me, sitting at range and doing nothing is not particularly exciting, so you may want something like signet of renewal to help you with poison in HoT as you go melee (just an example.)

Most of us that play a lot make regular adjustments to our builds based on the content, whether that be dungeons, a particular zone of open world, raids, etc. Just small tweaks can make a huge difference. But ya, that build is a good start.

I’ve been reading more just now on Reddit – what you said about power creep makes a lot of sense. So dungeons are easy and quick now, but do you still think condi viper is < power zerker builds on longer boss fights? I was reading that min maxers care more about average sustained dps than burst dps – do you think zerker still takes the cake on highest sustained (average) dps?

I’d say Arah might be better for condi. Any other dungeon is almost unquestionably better for power. The “boss” fights in things like CoF or CoE are over in less than 10 seconds even with a mediocre team.

Viper’s is more of a raids/high level fractals kind of thing. The longer the fight lasts, the better condi does and the worse power does. The shorter the fight lasts, the more useless condi is.

Meliodas.1596:

I’ve been reading more just now on Reddit – what you said about power creep makes a lot of sense. So dungeons are easy and quick now, but do you still think condi viper is < power zerker builds on longer boss fights? I was reading that min maxers care more about average sustained dps than burst dps – do you think zerker still takes the cake on highest sustained (average) dps?

We had a guildie from the ranger guild make a few tests of DPS and his data compared A/T, SB build to go somewhere near 21K and Zerker could go to around 18K fully buffed (if I recall correctly; I assume it’s fine to use this data as a starting point since you wanted the min/max solution which relies on other classes’ might, fury and quickness stacks).
He also said that Zerker started at roughly 3K DPS more than condi sustained and then dropped back down, the Condi started 2K less than zerk sustained and then ramped up.

If you really do want to go for min/maxing – you’d have to check every single boss’s toughness values, evaluate Party DPS to decide how long will the kill take to determine whether Condi DPS does ramp up in time to beat berserker … It cannot be done if you want to keep your sanity. I did try for a similar thing in the past.

Overall conclusion I had is that Berserker is much better for Dungeons and conditions are without a doubt better for fractals (fractals enemies scale on toughness and HP). For raids – it depends individually on each boss and your composition.
In dungeons – not only you can afford to go for 4 glyphs (GotL), you can also pull a distant mob into melee range for cleave damage, your pet gets some bonus might and you apply bonus vulnerability unlike condi builds (I haven’t checked most dungeons but some might still have objects immune to condi damage). There’s also much more CC for break-bar that you offer in Zerk.

So I just tried a cheap version of the condi build, and its really fun in open world. Really high bleed hits, I was getting up to 30 stacks on my own with my pet

Davi.4920:

So I just tried a cheap version of the condi build, and its really fun in open world. Really high bleed hits, I was getting up to 30 stacks on my own with my pet

If you get time it right, you might be able to get to 65.