Guild Wars 2

For you guys that have been playing ranger for over a year, what are your opinions?

A build focused ONLY on Power/Ferocity/Precision Or a build focused on Power/Toughness/Precision (or switch toughness with vitality whatever).

I feel like glass cannon is better in zergs as you can abuse your 1500 range and straight up do insane damage, you aren’t going to die regardless if you zerg wins and even if you’re a full tank ranger you’d still die if your zerg loses.

However going full glass cannon in 1 v 1 might be a bit bad as you can get 1 shotted by warriors/thiefs/any class that can interrupt or go invisible and therefore cancelling your Rapid fire which is your main damage dealing spell.

in zergs, full glass could work since you’d be with the glassy eles and necros anyways in that case (though personally I prefer going in with the heavies and lots of survivability. that extra waterfield has saved our team a couple times)

however, in small groups/roaming, full glass is basically never a good idea.

p.s. rapid fire will track and hit enemies even if they are stealthed

Going full glass cannon is just begging to get picked off by somebody who looks for easy targets. Going full glass in wvw is rarely a good choice. Even if your zerg wins, there are usually still casualties from your side, if you go full glass, you will always be one of those casualties.

You can still do pretty decent damage if you pack on more survivability, but always bring some toughness and vitality to wvw.

ITheNormalPerson.9275:

in zergs, full glass could work since you’d be with the glassy eles and necros anyways in that case (though personally I prefer going in with the heavies and lots of survivability. that extra waterfield has saved our team a couple times)

however, in small groups/roaming, full glass is basically never a good idea.

p.s. rapid fire will track and hit enemies even if they are stealthed

yep, I think I’ll keep 2 sets on me, 1 for roaming and 1 for zergs, gonna be expensive but will work well.

warriorjrd.8695:

Going full glass cannon is just begging to get picked off by somebody who looks for easy targets. Going full glass in wvw is rarely a good choice. Even if your zerg wins, there are usually still casualties from your side, if you go full glass, you will always be one of those casualties.

You can still do pretty decent damage if you pack on more survivability, but always bring some toughness and vitality to wvw.

1500 range is absurd, in a zerg its hard for the enemy to get through the whole zerg to kill the squishies on the back link, I still have good movement speed due to signet + GS and will most likely have full/near full endurance which will allow me to stall while the other people kill them. Regardless I never find myself in a dangerous situation nowadays if I’m with a zerg, maybe I have good positioning that’s why I have been contemplating a full damage build.

Sumusikoo.1360:

warriorjrd.8695:

Going full glass cannon is just begging to get picked off by somebody who looks for easy targets. Going full glass in wvw is rarely a good choice. Even if your zerg wins, there are usually still casualties from your side, if you go full glass, you will always be one of those casualties.

You can still do pretty decent damage if you pack on more survivability, but always bring some toughness and vitality to wvw.

1500 range is absurd, in a zerg its hard for the enemy to get through the whole zerg to kill the squishies on the back link, I still have good movement speed due to signet + GS and will most likely have full/near full endurance which will allow me to stall while the other people kill them. Regardless I never find myself in a dangerous situation nowadays if I’m with a zerg, maybe I have good positioning that’s why I have been contemplating a full damage build.

Good positioning is very important, but an assassin type thief looks to pick of the eles and necro and the backlines, you standing 1500 range from the enemy means you are quite alone and an easy target. It’s still possible ofc, you will just have to be very careful because some players could make very short work of anything zerker.

Don’t go full glass if you 1v1 often.

If you’re always together with friends, go as much glass as you can handle.

Hmmz, I run my glass ranger in WvW all the time.. Mostly for solo/small group roaming, but if a zerg passes by, I might hop on..

1v1 as glass is awesome.. There is little to no margin for error (since a thief can bring you down in 1-2 hits), but the damage output is awesome (and in my case always ranged).

However, my advice here: Go semi glass and become glassier the moment you start to feel more confident..

I always run full glass because;

In a zerg I have all the people ahead of me to protect me while I longbow at the enemy. When I roam I pretty much just end up in 1v1s or 1v2s on my server, and I basically never lose 1v1s even in zerk so…. I see no reason not to take it.

I don’t roam on my ranger so it’s full glass for me. One shotting a thief who doesn’t even know what hit him is just too good.

well u can go full glass and take 6 into WS meaning that you will be able to dodge and take some hits. Reliable condition removal. I say, 6 × 6 x x is quite reliable.

Don’t use rapid fire at long range, as previously mentioned, rapid fire is used pre-stealth and at closer ranges.
Imho I’d say full glass but if you wanna be decent 1v1, run defensive utilities, cc pets, defensive traits, and sword/dagger or SB as your secondary, not great sword.

something like 20/20/30 or 30/20/20