Guild Wars 2

Which is better for a DPS ranger? Berserker or Rampager gear? I want to maximize my damage but hear crit dmg isn’t too good on Ranger because damage is divided? Should I invest in conditions?

Go to the mists and test it out. If you go conditions I would add toughness and lose the power.

Crit damage isn’t amazing on rangers but it’s definitely there. Gotta work with what you have.

I’m using armor that focuses on Precision, while utilizing Superior Runes of Divinity, Ruby gemstones, etc on my attire. My critical chance is currently 55%, while crit damage is +46%. I’d have to say it is a noticable difference. As far as rangers go I’m not horrible in places like WvW, so I’m relatively happy.

So critical damage or condition for offense? (Rampager vs ruby?)

Completely depends on your build and weapons. I have 2 rangers, 1 is a longbow/shortbow ranger with the trait for extended range and piercing arrows. So I am full berserker on that toon because it has such a safe operating distance, I don’t need other stats, so I hyper boost the stats I need.

My other ranger is a shortbow/axe condition trap build with piercing arrows. It’s in close range quite often so I run rabid gear to give me some tankyness. (to get the shortbow bleeds to proc, you need to be off at an angle of about 30 degrees from the front of your target, but because the shortbow projectile distance is shorter, if I want to pierce a lot of targets, I need to be close and target an enemy in the back line.

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Completely depends on your build and weapons. I have 2 rangers, 1 is a longbow/shortbow ranger with the trait for extended range and piercing arrows. So I am full berserker on that toon because it has such a safe operating distance, I don’t need other stats, so I hyper boost the stats I need.

My other ranger is a shortbow/axe condition trap build with piercing arrows. It’s in close range quite often so I run rabid gear to give me some tankyness. (to get the shortbow bleeds to proc, you need to be off at an angle of about 30 degrees from the front of your target, but because the shortbow projectile distance is shorter, if I want to pierce a lot of targets, I need to be close and target an enemy in the back line.

Why would you make 2 toons? Could just get a different set of armor and weapons and switch traits :P

Are we talking PvE?

If so, Berserkers, hands down, is the winner. If you run rampagers gear, you’ll be relying on conditions which is problematic for the following reasons:

1) You will only start seriously stacking bleeding when you are strafing enemies, which isn’t always possible in dungeons.

2) You will often find your mob bleed stack capped if you run with anyone else in your group using a condition build.

3) Your burning may not make a difference since something like a fire ele can keep 100% uptime on burning easily enough on their own, so additional burning time is lost when the mob dies.

4) The same issue occurs with poison.

5) Other classes, like engineers, can keep up better condition damage than us while also stacking vulnerability better than a ranger.

Even if you end up in a group where you don’t have a good engineer, necro, or ele capping out condition damage on boss fights, you’ll still end up doing better damage in berserker gear.

Why is berserker gear so powerful? In GW2, it’s very easy to stack a very high critical high percentage and it’s even possible to hit 100% crit with the right build/gear/boons/food buffs (for more information on this, see the thread about in in the PvE Ranger section of the GuildWars2Guru.com forums). Because of this, the critical damage bonus allows the player to scale very well with increased precision and can nearly translate to a straight damage increase. A critical attack-based build also brings additional advantages since there are so many traits/sigils that give benefits on critical hits.

Hasy.2043:

Why would you make 2 toons? Could just get a different set of armor and weapons and switch traits :P

Because of different races and equipment. It’s extremely easy to level characters in this game, so if I want a different set of racial skills, aesthetics, or whatever, there is no reason not to make another toon. I then also don’thave to carry around an extra 20+ items and I never need to change build. The only real downside to having multiple toons for different spec’s is when you want to change spec in wvw when there is a que.

I have multiples of other classes as well. Like my warrior for instance would need to carry around over 50+ items just to change to the 3 different spec’s I play (zerk rifle, tanky shout heal hammer, and condition longbow)

WhiteAndMilky.2514:

Hasy.2043:

Why would you make 2 toons? Could just get a different set of armor and weapons and switch traits :P

Because of different races and equipment. It’s extremely easy to level characters in this game, so if I want a different set of racial skills, aesthetics, or whatever, there is no reason not to make another toon. I then also don’thave to carry around an extra 20+ items and I never need to change build. The only real downside to having multiple toons for different spec’s is when you want to change spec in wvw when there is a que.

I have multiples of other classes as well. Like my warrior for instance would need to carry around over 50+ items just to change to the 3 different spec’s I play (zerk rifle, tanky shout heal hammer, and condition longbow)

I completely forgot about racial skills.. my bad :P

With 2000 power, 50% chance to critical and 50% critical damage my shortbow hits for significant damage but with a high rate of fire in WvW. I can manage this with 1800 toughness.

I wouldn’t personally go back to my condition build.

capuchinseven.8395:

With 2000 power, 50% chance to critical and 50% critical damage my shortbow hits for significant damage but with a high rate of fire in WvW. I can manage this with 1800 toughness.

I wouldn’t personally go back to my condition build.

Can you please link your build? This sounds like the build iam after

Diehard.1432:

capuchinseven.8395:

With 2000 power, 50% chance to critical and 50% critical damage my shortbow hits for significant damage but with a high rate of fire in WvW. I can manage this with 1800 toughness.

I wouldn’t personally go back to my condition build.

Can you please link your build? This sounds like the build iam after

Sure, it’s the AM here so I’ll post it later or in a while if I get a chance.

My build is different but Nerva posted a thread that also uses a power/precision build you might want to take a look at it as well, he seems happy with power/precision shortbow as well.

I started mine from full condition damage, built up my critical chance to 50% and then slowly added more power till I found myself with 2000 power. I’m finding it very effective in WvW, even in 1v1 when I’m caught alone, the sheer number of criticals output by my shortbow at high speed is insane when coupled with our high evasion.

capuchinseven.8395:

Diehard.1432:

capuchinseven.8395:

With 2000 power, 50% chance to critical and 50% critical damage my shortbow hits for significant damage but with a high rate of fire in WvW. I can manage this with 1800 toughness.

I wouldn’t personally go back to my condition build.

Can you please link your build? This sounds like the build iam after

Sure, it’s the AM here so I’ll post it later or in a while if I get a chance.

My build is different but Nerva posted a thread that also uses a power/precision build you might want to take a look at it as well, he seems happy with power/precision shortbow as well.

I started mine from full condition damage, built up my critical chance to 50% and then slowly added more power till I found myself with 2000 power. I’m finding it very effective in WvW, even in 1v1 when I’m caught alone, the sheer number of criticals output by my shortbow at high speed is insane when coupled with our high evasion.

Wondering if this build would allow a user to switch between LB and shortbow without the need to change gear. What about your Defensive stats?

Kain Francois.4328:

Which is better for a DPS ranger? Berserker or Rampager gear? I want to maximize my damage but hear crit dmg isn’t too good on Ranger because damage is divided? Should I invest in conditions?

Depends what you want to do. A condition trap/SB ranger will do better roaming in WvW and in tougher dungeons, berserker LB/SB will do better in general PvE, easier dungeons, and keep attack/defense in WvW. If maximizing DPS is your ultimate goal then Berserker is better than Rampager, for a glass cannon build.

My build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAVJ2BWWWsWCi2DNxJMxZwfG9F4K4/S2VBA;TkAKqMUJoySljKJVLMGWshA

With gear, traits and sharpening stones I sit at just under 2000 power, 50% critical chance with 50% critical damage. It’s common for me to hit for 700+ criticals one after another 4 times in a row, not huge relatively huge but with the shortbow’s rate of fire it is considerable pressure as well as constant AoE damage from the Sigil of Fire, throw in Quickness on pet swap and you have something to worry people who think you’re going to be an easy kill as well as helping out your team.

For survivability I have 19k health with low healing power, 1850 toughness, pro-active TU healing which doesn’t require high healing power to be very effective and SoW, which will tick for around 80 with low healing (not worth it alone but) which I also couple with Mango Pie, a very cheap food that gives an 80+ per second healing tick, effectively doubling the heal of SoW and costing me next to nothing in stats to gain.

As well as this, I have high vigor for normal evades, as well as the evades from shortbow, sword, dagger and Lightening Reflexes.

This is my WvW build but I run something very much the same in sPVP but with lower critical chance and much higher healing, consistently it’s commented from other players that my timing of evades and movement across the map is impressive (I’ve even been reported for “hacking” a number of times because they think I’m cheating) and I place most of my success with my Ranger down to my use of the sword and dagger. I evade into my target with normal roll evades, not away from it, pet swaping to land bird burst as they close to melee and gain Quickness, to keep them on their toes as two rolls away is not going to stop a Warrior or Thief gaining ground, rolling into them (then throwing in a Quick Shot on shortbow) forces them to turn and moves you out of melee and will often swap to melee while I wait for my TU cooldown timing my evades to avoid as many stuns as possible.

I think once someone has mastered the sword then they can move away from the high healing builds so many people use, dropping their heal and using TU instead. It’s given me more room for offensive stats.

Outside of being caught by a huge amount of conditions at the wrong moment my only fear is heavy stuns and lockdowns, but only while my sword swap or evades are on cooldown.

I use two birds for pets, I might consider a wolf and a hyena (I used one the other day and the sheer LOL’s watching a Guardian attacking the extra pet was worth it alone, I can almost see a “WTF” look on their characters faces when the extra pet shows up with a double knockdown) but I love the damage from the birds that I can get using my pet swap effectively.

Zeoli.3402:

Wondering if this build would allow a user to switch between LB and shortbow without the need to change gear. What about your Defensive stats?

Maybe, it wouldn’t be for me in WvW though so I couldn’t say for sure, but why not try it? The last time I ran double bows was in the first month of the game, sword has become too important for me and my play style is build around it now, even though the shortbow is my main damage weapon (sword lands heavy damage as well though, I can often hit for a 950+ critical from sword #1 on a soft target, pet swap Quickness makes that a blender of death).

You sir are my saviour, I shall try this build to honour it. I’m getting tired of the conventional BM build eventhough I’m doing well soloing in wvw. It’s time to try something new

capuchinseven.8395:

Zeoli.3402:

Wondering if this build would allow a user to switch between LB and shortbow without the need to change gear. What about your Defensive stats?

Maybe, it wouldn’t be for me in WvW though so I couldn’t say for sure, but why not try it? The last time I ran double bows was in the first month of the game, sword has become too important for me and my play style is build around it now, even though the shortbow is my main damage weapon (sword lands heavy damage as well though, I can often hit for a 950+ critical from sword #1 on a soft target, pet swap Quickness makes that a blender of death).

I love the Greatsword but I might try the sword/dagger and see how i get on. For pvp I like the Raven (blind) and either the hyena (double knockdown) or wolf(aoe Fear).
the fear is hard to time but is a godsend in allowing you to just unleash hell on your target.

capuchinseven.8395:

My build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAVJ2BWWWsWCi2DNxJMxZwfG9F4K4/S2VBA;TkAKqMUJoySljKJVLMGWshA

SNIP

Where is your damage coming from with this build? Not from traps, not from condition damage, not from your pet, and not really from your weapons either. Crit damage scales off power, so having low power (you have zero over base 916) and high crit is ineffective. Are you sure you wouldn’t have higher damage if you dropped some of that precision for additional power?

I’m all for avoiding cookie-cutter builds, but IMO any set-up needs to provide at least one reliable source of damage output or be geared towards bunkering, and this seems to be neither.

Daemon.4295:

so having low power (you have zero over base 916) and high crit is ineffective.

…what are you talking about? I have 2000 power with 50% crit chance and 50% crit damage.

Diehard.1432:

You sir are my saviour, I shall try this build to honour it. I’m getting tired of the conventional BM build eventhough I’m doing well soloing in wvw. It’s time to try something new

Go slow with it, it can take some getting used to but rewards you for it.

Zeoli.3402:

I love the Greatsword but I might try the sword/dagger and see how i get on.

Again, it can take some getting used to but it’s very rewarding when you manage to get your head around it. It takes some practice.

I see 916 power, 1916 attack. But you don’t have an amulet slotted on the build you linked, I guess all your power is on your armor? What are you wearing?

Daemon.4295:

I see 916 power, 1916 attack. But you don’t have an amulet slotted on the build you linked, I guess all your power is on your armor? What are you wearing?

OH right, no no I was talking mostly about my WvW build. I just ran that quick build up with the calculator to show my traits during a quick lunch, simply because someone asked I didn’t slot any gear, just the runes and sigils to show the basics of my WvW build.

I sit with 2000 power in WvW. Mostly power, precision, toughness armour and items with a few mixed pieces of vitality to get my health up to 19k, I also used sharpening stones. I’ll let you know my items when I’m back at my game PC as I have a few crit damage items as well, to get my crit damage up to 50%.

Sorry for the confusion. My sPvP build is in a lot of flux but I’m mostly sticking with the same build and using cleric, but swapping the gem so I sit around 30% critical chance but with around 800+ healing. It’s not as effective in sPvP because if the stat constraints but I’m still enjoying it and find it to still be effective.

I wouldn’t put this out there as the ultimate sPvP build but it is still a decent build in the right hands and I like it.