Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone. Lets talk about how the ranger can down an enemy before they can respawn.

Trying to emulate thieves in WvW I have been using a LB/SB combination spec’d to 30/30/5/0/5 with QuickeningZephyr/SharpStone/SignetOfStone. Bringing my Eagle and Jungle Stalker.

A typical encounter involves me popping Might from my pet, and using PB shot into Rapid Fire (activating GZ when rapid fire activates). I then switch to my SB and concussion shot after they are either mid-animation or can’t dodge to stun them. I finish the cycle with my Eagles active bleed.

My Ranger problem, unfortunately, seem’s just not being able to output enough damage to down any enemies other than the worst thieves w/o stealth, or Elementalists w/o Magnetic Aura.

Running rare weapons and full exotic armor with Signet of Stone they can’t kill me, but I can never finish the job and down them.

-Signed, The lonely Ranger.

The coming patch should fix your problems. Although hopeful. I would like to think it will.

Your not the only ranger that goes through these issues. That much I can assure you.

But in my opinion a good way to encounter any thief is the Ranger’s traps. Once you get them caught with one of your traps, they have no option but to flee and start over. Just by disrupting their initial burst combos with your traps, they’ve had already wasted too much initiative to continue.

Ofcourse it’s all good in theory but there’s so many ways to go wrong with it. Guess it just comes down to player’s abilities and experience.

First lets look at what youre asking for:

You want to be able to burst down most classes from 1200+ Ranged the way a thief does?

That’s not what our class can do. If you want to sit there and unleash your dps on focus fikittenget in a 2v2 or 3v3, its incredibly useful to have 1200 range away from their team and be able to output damage.

Now for your rotation: it has a lot of build up it seems. Jungle stalker’s F2 alone takes 3s iirc. Using Jungle stalker for a <100 power for your burst is pretty suboptimal when you could have a lynx or jaguar on their face for 5k+ damage with QZ.

Also for pure burst, Raven/Owl F2 is considerable more damage than Eagle/Hawk (just less often, but it comes with blind.chill), so there’s that.

Also are you running full Berserker’s gear?
Also why Sharpening stone? You are really underestimating our pets damage I think, by using one pet to barely up your dps and a whole utility slot for a few bleed stacks that you don’t put too much use (if going for full burst gear).

Add Sick’em over sharpening stone, and now what do you have.

Hell, using Signet of the Hunt before Raven F2 is a huge increase in dps over Sharp stone.

So, try:

Hunter’s Shot (this+Opening strikes=15% increased damage. +10% Flanking=25%), PB shot into QZ Rapid Fire. All while Jaguar goes to town on them in stealth for crits.

Swap to SB after that concussion shot, Swap to Raven now 2 quickness seconds for Raven burst and crossfire.

Not saying you can 100% non glass cannon specs with this, but you should find it a lot better than your current setup for burst

The ability to do burst damage with your Ranger doesn’t come from its skills. It comes from the player who controls the character.

You just need to make sure the target is well CC’ed and controlled, and like I had just previously mentioned, a good way to do this is using your traps proficiently.

What people fail to realize is with a ranger you can’t hit a moving target because the arrows travel too slow (unless ofcourse you switch into melee mode which is a death wish). It’s the flawed mechanic of this game, which I HOPE they will fix in the upcoming big patch.

The less your target moves, the more burst damage you can do.

There is a serious flaw in your title OP. It should read, “Ranger and their LACK of burst”.

I just came back from a sabatical on a guardian and it really hit that home to me. The best burst you have as a ranger is SB auto-attack! How lame is that?

OMG GS is soooo bad compared to guardian GS. I read a post recently extolling the virtues of ranger GS, so I was all revved up to give it another go, but it hits like a wet noodle! It has no burst skills, the ulility skills are sub-par, terrible!

Ranger can do condition burst of course; the best I can think of is have three traps on a point, enemy steps on them, lay three more traps, warhorn 5, 4 axe chill, axe bleed, swap to SB- SB 5, swap pets (with qickening trait) and auto attack while straffing for bleeds. Throw in entangle for good measure.

Unfortunately if specced for condition damage SB auto-attack is a pea shooter doing 2-300 damage, haha- but the conditions do add up (until condition removal).

When I play this build I use Wolf and Hyenas. The knockdowns, cripples and fear they bring to the table makes it easier to finish without them being able to escape or mount a counter offense.

I start with wolf and make use of his F2:Fear after his knockdown hits. When you switch to Hyena, use hit F2 for calling in an ally after his knockdown hits; this will give you another knockdown from the called ally hyena that is offset in timing from the first one.

Plus the dog pets have pretty nice damage as well. The knockdowns hurt.

Fate’s rotation is decent, but when I switch to SB, I hit SB poison volley then crippling shot, then switch pets for quicknesss with the auto fire and save concussion shot for when their arm goes up to signal a heal.

One last thing, with the high crit and crit damage this build brings, use the best Sigil of Fire you can on each weapon.

(I like Fire over Air since it’s AoE and does nearly the same amount of damage.)

The’ll proc every 5 to 6 seconds for a very nice 1k-2k+ hit.