Guild Wars 2

I currently have a 80 guardian but want a class to roam in small/solo groups in wvw. I am currently deciding between a ranger and a mesmer. I want the nuke capabilities that a zerker ranger has but im not sure if rangers have the survivability thats needed. Recomend builds, or advice between choosing please.

If you will be running a glass cannon, you will have little, if any survivability. Mesmers have the advantage in glass cannon builds because they have the utility skills that give them the capability to avoid enough damage to kill enemies, which rangers lack. You could run things like protect me, and sos, but after those durations are up you are an easy kill. Mesmers on the other hand have options like blink, decoy, and mass invis, which server the same survival function, but are much better suited for escape, which would be often necessary in wvw.

Ok s what kind of build should i be looking at then as far as gs/lb goes?

Ryan.9387:

If you will be running a glass cannon, you will have little, if any survivability. Mesmers have the advantage in glass cannon builds because they have the utility skills that give them the capability to avoid enough damage to kill enemies, which rangers lack. You could run things like protect me, and sos, but after those durations are up you are an easy kill. Mesmers on the other hand have options like blink, decoy, and mass invis, which server the same survival function, but are much better suited for escape, which would be often necessary in wvw.

Mesmers have those skills, because they need them to be able to actually kill something when on glass cannon build. A ranger does not need more than 10 seconds to kill something. 6 seconds SoS alone is well enough, and will make you beat ~ 90% of the players you will encounter if you use it.

Quinlanp.1308:

Ok s what kind of build should i be looking at then as far as gs/lb goes?

Full berserker with dps traits (30/30/10) or (30/25/15).

But don’t use GS in my opinion. It is too predictable, and swoop is not better than sword’s #2.

Use sword/Warhorn as secondary, and work on camera rotation to use #2 as either escape or gap closer.

For long-term skirmish I would suggest LB/SB and going for 20/20/30/0/0, you’ll perform superior as a range damage dealer/CC, but it lacks “swoop away” disengage ability.

But say you fight a warrior. Even their glass cannon build gives them 9s invuln through shield stance and endure pain. That is longer than a sos and a protect me (not combined).

A theif can stealth through the 6s. Mesmer can decoy or mass invis.

There are soo many options to wait out the invuln duration, and once over, you are left with a pure glass vs pure glass fight which usually is not in the rangers favor.

Ryan.9387:

But say you fight a warrior. Even their glass cannon build gives them 9s invuln through shield stance and endure pain. That is longer than a sos and a protect me (not combined).

A theif can stealth through the 6s. Mesmer can decoy or mass invis.

There are soo many options to wait out the invuln duration, and once over, you are left with a pure glass vs pure glass fight which usually is not in the rangers favor.

A good thief will not be beaten by a glass cannon ranger. Not untill the sic ‘em change. (If it’s viable)

Warrior might have all this stuff, but do not forget he needs to be in melee to do all this damage. A glass cannon ranger should force a warrior to use CD’s before he gets to melee. With RaO you have swiftness AND being immune to CC.

Mesmers will take massive initial damage. (I just had 10k on a mesmer in no more than 2 seconds). Assuming you always roam with signet of hunt active (150% damage on next hit), LR shot should go for 5k+, then re-use it and do the same. If he’s not in a bunker build, he won’t be able to heal that.

Glass cannon rangers are horrible. Every other class can do it way better.

They’re not. They just need someone to peel thieves off from them, like hammer warrior. Ranger totally destroys mesmers, as mentioned, do good with Warriors, especially if you have sb instead of GS or someone who can slow/peel the warrior. We do good vs. glassy thieves once we get the opportunity to counterpressure (no blind, range, some CC, combined forces thief to either try to stealth or die), we’re excellent vs. current engineers (since we have really long range, their bombs don’t work, nades are easy to step-out and their effective range is far below ours). Necromancers can be a problem, we have to play rather defensivly and rip them off part after part, keeping pressure from range, disengaging to not get caught in condibomb (kitten you, spite signet -.-). What else? For Guardians – they’re tough, but not hard to kite, alone they take time, but being not a problem. Elementalists – these can be troublesome, they still have great sustain vs. us. if not caught off-guard (without water on cd), good ones will simply kil us over time.
Greatest nemesis are still thieves, no doubt

Tricare.2946:

Glass cannon rangers are horrible. Every other class can do it way better.

^ this guy knows some stuff!

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Tricare.2946:

Glass cannon rangers are horrible. Every other class can do it way better.

^ this guy knows some stuff!

aww thanks!

ranger is good for solo/roaming wvw. There’s some nice bunker/condi/trapper builds for it