Guild Wars 2

Hi.

I’ve read most of threads over these forums ( ranger part ) so Im kinda up to date.
I got now 80 guard and thief, but both seem not to fit my playstyle and aren’t that fun.

So I was thinking about making another alt.

My choice kinda stays in same place – ranger or mesmer.
I know most of You would say go pick warrior because it’s far better when it comes to dmg ( ranged ) and overall dps with any weapon, but I prefer Guardian far more then warrior in term of gameplay and overall skills and utilities, and still don’t think guardian is for me so no I won’t do warrior.

Tho im bit concerned about ranger.
PvE part seems kinda obvious when it comes to event farming and mob tagging – ranger dosen’t fall behind, putting some traps, arrow pierce, drakes aoe etc.

I’ve seen most rangers complaining about our DPS in dungeons ( I know about pet survival poroblems etc. ) and overall usefulness of ranger, but recently I found a team that runs with ranger cof farm runs and they manage to do it in around 5-6 minutes.
So hows actually ranger usefulness in dungeons?

So make things more clear for further questions im going to play mostly and probably only these weapon combos : LB/GS SB/GS LB/SB
Im not a fan of sword/torch or any other 1 handed combo.

In term of WvW im kinda worried about builds. I’ve seen tons of videos of good and proper rangers doing 1vX but 99% of those are Condi/Vit/toughness/healing power gear ending up with around 22-23k hp + with massive condi stacking…

It’s not that im not a fan of that specific build ( tho I love to see high crits ) – but I would feel kinda “chocked” when it comes to build as I was with guardian – to be any good you had to invest in specific tree 30 points otherwise you would underpreform…

So is there a place for a good power/prec/crit ranger build with some power/crit/vit gems in ? I was thinking about 0/25(30)/x/x/20(30).

It also seems that not going into BM tree at least 10-15 points seems like a bad build.

Could someone actually give some input on thier P/P/C rangers ? and how they handle with that specific gear dungeons and or WvW ?

Cause it’s really hard to decide as getting char to 80 would take around 3-4 days with some crafting done.

Im aware of all Ranger pet AI problems, I seriously hope they get fixed but I have a lot of experience of pet managing from WoW ( tho pet there and here is totaly different story… )

I think some of the ranger complaints are a case of square peg, round hole.

Some people want to love a profession – or have a perception of what they want that profession to be – and if it isn’t just so, they often shout incredibly loudly.

Personally, I love the ranger. It isn’t perfect, but it is incredibly powerful in the right hands.

First and foremost: Pets.

Pets are actually really good, if the player actually manages them by telling them when to attack, when to return and when to stay by your side. This micromanagement is intensive and more difficult than it needs to be, but does yield amazing results.

I use Q, E, R, T for my pet skills, making it incredibly easy to move and command (around WSAD setup). I also invest in the pet traitline (20 points) which gives them a good boost.

In terms of build (I play a lot of PvE and WvW) I use the following http://bit.ly/WdGm4E It gives me great survivability and great damage. You can always mix up the traits so you have less in vitality and more in the power line.

I think what you really need to do is simply make one and decide whether it does or doesn’t work for you. If you read these forums, you would think the profession is on its knees, when the reality is it’s in pretty good shape where certain builds are concerned.

I’m not suggesting all that the ranger has is good (christ some of the pet problems do need fixing) and some of the skills are garbage, but it’s still the profession I love to play the most.

I say this having played GW2 since closed Beta, now with 5 level 80s all in Tier 3 cultural, with Exotic and Ascended armour/items (Mesmer, Ranger, Engineer, Necromancer, Ele)

Lewis B – Ten Ton Hammer

Well i’ve done over 100 Spvp/Tpvp games with ranger with Power.prec.crit build with SB+GS ( 20/30/20/0/0 ) and untill someone focued me it was fine :P

1v1 fights weren’t that hard due to interrupts & block, but 1v2 was horrid and usualy result in my death…

Thats why I was wondering how such build would work in WvW…

btw. What crits/hits You do with LB #1/2 with that 59% crit dmg ?

The problem for my is that I cannot make or get those traits that I want without serious sacrifice to dmg or survival ( Arrow pierce/ 20% sb recharge/20% gs recharge) cause this build requires 20/30/20/0/0 and then my pet is next tu useless tbh.

Problem here is that Ranger is actually 3 classes rolled into one.
1st you have the archer with range and piercing arrows traited
2nd the Trapper utilising all the trait skills that enhance that gameplay
3rd the beastmaster running the pet enhancing traits & skills
This variability ultimately means you have to sacrifice one thing for another , and then compensate via gear and runes etc. to get a more than halfway decent build .
add to that how much support healing do you want to give your teammates and you probably have 4 sub-classes eg Spirits, and if you choose that your’e gonna have to trait so they move with you.

And that in my opinion that diversity is probably why there are so many issues with the ranger, ie too many choices for the player , and for devs to fix and balance without breaking something else.

I use a different build for sPvP than in WvWvW, it’s totally different gameplay when you hit open field. That said PvP is the best and free way to test different builds and rune combinations

So basically what You say Meryt If i want piercing arrow + sb/gs Cd shorten ( 20/30/20/0/0 ) If have to go hard on P/T/V gear with some healing power in, but still it’s won’t give me as much dmg as 0/30/0/20/30 or 0/30/20/0/30 cause I will miss a lot of pet dmg, and pet will be dead a lot ( according to calcualtions pet can get much more hits with 30 into BM )…

That kinda suck, cause even with first build, I myself will get good proper crits ( but still lover to let’s comapare engi #1 rifle skill ( here comapring LB #1 )) and have totaly bad pet and be missing dmg from it because it will most likely be dead.

kinda suck..

Thats about the size of it , ye.
I run 30.20.10.10.0 using Reyna set(which offers great support healing-lol and the skin turns a few heads) , and playing around with a PTV karma set. pet is usually passive in Wv3 (in zerg v zerg your pet will usually die fast regardless of stats) unless using guard to mount walls in siege or stall any immediate threat. 19k+hp and 2.9k attack or 18.5k hp and 3.1k attack respectively is acheivable .
As always it’s down to the playstyle you enjoy , and are effective at.

If you’re going to go PTV, don’t bring that set to dungeons. Chances are you’re going to outclass the typical ‘pug heavy’ and you’re going to wonder why mobs are coming to you.

Regarding the 15 points in BM, I had the same opinion at first. 2 seconds of quickness every 16 seconds, bloody wow. But, here’s a small dilemma. Because you traded points which could’ve gone to another trait gaining stats and utility elsewhere, you’d be pressed to swap pets every cooldown to fully utilize your investment. When the times comes, and your pet’s health is low, you ultimately find your swap ability on cooldown.

You could pull back your pet for the duration. But this would result in an overall loss of dps instead. Your pet (assuming feline) easily does 2/3 and slightly over of your dps alone. Just try it on the heavy golem in the mists. So leaving your pet out as long as possible is a better plan imo.

While you’re in the mist, grab a long bow and shortbow. Give the longbow it’s max range for bonus damage. Then use a shortbow, STILL standing in front of the golem, no need for bleeds. You’ll find your answer whether to choose between a long or short bow for PVE.

After you’ve done the above test, give the Long bow another chance this time, and use barrage whenever its off cd. Then use shortbow again from the front and just auto attack. It’s a straightforward test with obvious conclusions.

As for pets, some suggest having long range pets. They do good dps. Again all pets are available in the mists. Just send any feline on the golem, then send maybe a spider or devourer. Results will show, that a feline so long as it is present in the fight for 30% compared to a ranged pet, it would deal similar damage.

Birds share similar stats as felines. But will inevitably deal a fifth less than a feline because of a ‘swiftness’ boost in it’s AI skill chain. It has a delayed animation and low cd which gets in the way of dps.

The above is stated from a PVE dungeon point of view. Other combinations are possible if you desire utility, but the given information is merely on the side of pure dps.

edit:

In the dungeon context again, I’d find it a little hard to agree with 30 points in beastmastery for ‘pet survivability’. Given the cooldown of pet swap/troll ungent or healing spring, if your pet dies, it’d still be just as likely to die with 30 into beastmastery.

You’d gain a lot more with those trait points elsewhere.

I see Your point… So basically untill Anet fixes or gives Pets a 90% Aoe dmg reduction or something similiar to WoW pet resistance I should just go with build I like ?

Mrowqa.3861:

I see Your point… So basically untill Anet fixes or gives Pets a 90% Aoe dmg reduction or something similiar to WoW pet resistance I should just go with build I like ?

I used to play a hunter in TBC. Back when steady shot rocked the dps meters. So I know where you’re coming from.

Thing is even with 90% aoe reduction, there are certain instances where the mechanics of a certain fight are bound to incapacitate your pet even with the mitigation. I think the survivability is still pretty similar considering your heal skill also heals your pet very noticeably. Not the pittance of bandage pet in WoW.

I’d suggest you get your ranger to 80 first then draw a conclusion from whatever hard facts you were able to filter.

I’ll just recap what we have in GW2 for pets survivability:

• Button 6 heal skill: All of which heals a minimum of more than a third of its hp at minimum

• 20 second cd pet swap, full hp pet

• Carnivorous appetite with a high crit pet works remarkably well. Casual viewing of crits would put it at 2 crits out of 3 hits. Conservative estimate. (test it out in the mists) This won’t allow your pet to tank dungeon bosses, but give it a spin. It’s well worth it.

In WoW, all you had was bandage pet or manually bandaging it lol.

I love the big numbers you get from LB in a power precision crit damage build. That kind of offense is a defense. I think you need to look at 20 marks, 20 skirmishing for piercing arrows and faster LB CDs, but beyond that point allocation is up to you. If you go full glass cannon, you can WvW in zergs and use devourer pets for annoyance or wolves for knockdown. How useful pets are to you is something you need to test for yourself. Barrage is a beautiful thing, and a truely fine range 1500 wall clearer. Every time I think of going for more survival and a condition damage/shortbow build, I come right back to missing that barrage. Barrage outside of a Pow/Prec/Crit build is not that scary. But hasted in one, it is something that turns the tide and forces zergs back.

Sword and Warhorn seem to compliment the LB in this build because both do not rely upon condition damage, and warhorn 5 helps you crit more on the LB side. Sword does a lot of damage close up on stragglers, where LB is weakest, and sword offers you nice getaway and evasion options if you do not build as defensively.

I have really been digging double drakes in a 20/20/0/0/30 build…they just tear stuff up.

Here’s just my 2 cents on it, this is from a full Berserker PVE perspective.

I feel pretty good about my Glass cannon Ranger in Explorable Dungeons. I pull off 12-16k Rapid Fire Crits and after using #2, #3 and #5 in Longbow, I immediately switch to my Shortbow for it’s auto attack (1000-1600 auto attack damage with Shortbow + bleeding) and swap back to Longbow to rinse and repeat. I can keep my pet alive for 70% of the time in Explorable Dungeons if I micro manage it. Even though I’m one of those “doom and gloom Anet hates Rangers” people, I secretly think I pull my weight pretty well in a EXP Dungeon setting. I don’t compare to a Warrior, but I’m not a dead weight either.

However, in Fractals, I feel like a useless sitting duck with no pet to speak of. Always dead. Always a hindrance. It’s stupid….really, it is.

In WvW, I don’t have much expertise on the situation. I know that it’s suicide to run Berserker in WvW, especially as a Ranger since you lack a lot of escape mechanisms. However, I have found some success with the overly used condition/bunker Ranger. It seems like the only way to go as a Ranger in WvW, but it’s garbage in Dungeons. My favorite weapon sets in WvW is a Shortbow/Torch combo (I swap between 1h Sword and 1h Axe).

To be honest, you don’t need to use the pet at all to keep a constant good DPS in a dungeon, IMO.

I run a 10/30/30/0/0 build with traps, a LB/SB combo, and a Carrion set of armor. I manage to keep a good amount of DPS going thanks to the damage of the traps, which are rather powerful if you have the traits set for the traps. My pet dies pretty much all the time and it doesn’t halt my DPS much at all, so I use it for a distraction at this point and a bit of long-range support.

Gues whats left is a race choice…
Human for awesome t3,
Norn for it’s set + awesome animation with 1 handers
or
Asura… hmm

Big numbers do not mean anything. The display just shows “CUMULATIVE DAMAGE”, not a big fat damage from barrage.

Irony is… for the cast duration of barrage, a shortbow does MORE damage. Excluding bleeds. This is fact not opinion.

A ranger does marginally, i stress marginally more dps than an engineer or necro alone. The pet does over two-thirds of your personal damage (not total). When you combine the two, a ranger does not do sub par damage compared to a warrior in tank and spank. Assuming of course, you use a feline pet.

Pet management is ultimately what makes or breaks your ranger. There’s no “WoW Marksman” build equivalent in GW2.