Guild Wars 2

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQNAR8XnUqAtCilsAWsActgBGh6fiSol7xdDCBOc/2A4ilSSC-TxCBABXqSAGPEAxUaMouhzUC+pKOAcEA8SZG87PAq6ABcBAIFgTjBA-e

So I’ve recently come back after a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG break. Glad to see the ranger has been buffed slightly! Though I see pets are still kinda eh.

One thing I’ve noticed is that our damage has since been scaled up a little- so I messed around with the build editor to come up with a shout-ranger that can output decent damage while being survivable. Another aim of this build was for it to be viable in pve/wvw roaming without needing to swap out any armor pieces- just swapping out traitlines as needed. (I.E W/S for Marksman/BM) This is mainly because I simply don’t have the time to procure different sets of gear for different content.

Traits: Skirm/WS/BM. Trait setup allows me to set-up burst and consistent damage w/ Quickdraw. Condi-clear via WS . And finally BM allows me to keep up group play in wvw/pve w/ the constant regen. On a selfish note, 5% damage reduc with regen from WS helps!

Gear: Its a mixture of Cleric/Valk/Cav/Bersk gear. The point of all this min-maxing was to achieve good damage while being able to sustain myself through regen and toughness. I figured 900ish Healing power would allow me to constantly regen 247hp/s. Defender runes help me with sustain while allowing me to keep more offensive gear.

Weapons : GS and S/A. Swap in Longbow as and when the situation calls for it. Sword has 7% accuracy sigil as its more of a dps weapon rather then burst. Sigil of Intelligence allows for guaranteed burst on hard hitting skills like maul and axe #4. A typical rotation would look like Sword AA->Maul Crit + AA ->Axe #4 crit and repeat. Fill CDs waiting times with AA/other wep skills.

Food: Kralk Bar allows me to reach the desired regen values.

Please help me out by critiquing this build! I live on criticism. Appreciate it immensely
c :

Wilderness knowledge with 1 survival skill seems kind of pointless, You could replace QZ with SoR and pick up EB, or since you are running multiple shouts you could change the runes to trooper and drop the WS line for MM. Remorseless would help you pack more of a punch.
Something like this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQNAR8XnUqAtCi9rAWsActgh/gaf9FIA+04HOaefz3N4ilSSC-TxCBABXqSAGPEAxUaMouhzUC+pKOAcEA8SZWV7PAq6ABcBAIFgTjBA-e

That much healing power on any type of build or class is absolutely not good for dungeons unless you only do very casual groups, and even then you’ve really taken liberties with what casuals are expecting you to bring. A little healing power is understandable in a casual group, but 900 healing power and 3.1 armor is awfully wasteful for your team.

Lets just look at it from the WvW part of things:

Agree with Puck that Wilderness Knowledge and only 1 Survival utility is a big waste.

there is not adequate condition removal in your build, and condi cancer permeates wvw roaming. you are going to lose half your matchups if you don’t have Jesus levels of condi clear. there is no healing through it.

The damage on this spec is going to be really low with only 16% base crit, even if you do have high fury uptime.

Maul requires setup to land against competent players. You are losing out on Hunter’s Shot > Maul with double melee or canine-cc > Maul with dps pets and will be relying on your quickness for landing Maul instead. Thats fine, but it limits the utility of your quickness. Choose to use quickness for something else and all of a sudden you cant land reliable damage in GS. Just something to think about.

If you want a recuperating build – aim for Toughness and Troll Unguent.
Never the Healing Power unless you go for Condition Damage where you can afford this (you don’t need more than 1 stat for DPS as Condi, you do as Direct DPS).

This build is horrible when it comes to achieving a role.
It doesn’t deal damage, it doesn’t survive bursts, neither condi pressure or condi bombing, doesn’t provide any significant support and isn’t good at duels.

If you want to get a good build, you should definitely take a look at Heim’s thread. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-Builds-List-40-builds-All-modes/first
All the types of brainstorming happened before – and all the hard work of us – fellow rangers – and the fruit of our testing is gathered at that place.
You should definitely find a build that resembles yours in what your goal was (I assume it was Regen+Signet survivalist).

Thanks for all your feedback, I’ve taken into account what you’ve said about excessive healing power and toughness- its too selfish and too much of a safety net.

One thing I feel I ought to explain is that I NEVER stick to just a set of utilities. For healing I switch between heal as one/troll as needed in pve/wvw. The same goes for utilities.

For example, in Mai Fight, I’ll roll with more condi cleanse w/more survival skills etc. Same in WvW. Mostly every other dungeon encounter is a matter of pure dps. Those are the times I’ll run skirmishing lines with quickdraw and spotter, with fire trap/sic’em/Frost. Fire trap lets me contribute group blasts with call of the wild on pet swap.

@Puck My utilities are never constant, as I mention above. I’m not particularly fond of trooper runes to be honest, I prefer defender runes, where the benefits feel more material with the heal on block and aegis from heal.

@Raven Utilities,always in flux with what the situation demands You make a good point with the damage output and over-commitment on healing power. I disagree with condi removal, I have condi removal on all my survival skills, with my pet taking disables for me- and to be honest, with the state of condi in our current meta, we can never have enough condi cleanse to fight condi bombs completely. I could run -condi reduc food i guess

@Tragic I did, and I did some tweaking, and this is what I came up with. Why doesn’t it survive bursts? I have high armor < 2700, condi removal through pets and utilities, and endless regen uptime. Bark Skin will also ensure I’ll never get burst from 100% to 0.

So after some tweaking, here are 2 builds..
The first one, for wvw roaming

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQNAT8YnEqAtCilsAusActgBGh6fiSI17xdDCBOc/2A4ilSSC-ThCFABMcEAkSpBAPAgrUCikysHV/RgLAA47PkmuhEOIAkCIixAA-e

Endless Regen and high swiftness uptime. Quickdraw helps with dps output. Condi cleanse available on demand, with lemongrass to reduce duration. Taunt on F2 helps kitten with people.
2.28k Power, 60% crit w/ fury, 195% crit damage, 197hp/s , 2.7k armor.
Pets would be dual canines or canine/bird. Entangle/RaO.

General PvE (Fractitilating Fractals!)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQNAT8XnUqAtCilsAuqActgh9gav9A4s/44IeaegD4R4ilSSC-ThTBABbcEACTpxDPAAKVJIiLAwVKD8UFnuUC9++D4pb4T1BITJCAHEgIVCSKgxGDA-e

Swapping out Wilderness for MM traitline for dps output. Utilities are Fire Trap for might blast on pet swap/QZ/Frost . Might on crit w/ food.
2.28k Power, 60% crit w/ fury, 200% crit damage, 197hp/s , 2.7k armor.

@LegenFleet
To explain why wouldn’t it survive bursts. The toughness you wielded was merely to let you live 3 seconds longer. Nothing more and Nothing less. Without any real firepower (that you didn’t have because you invested everything into survival) you’d die against everyone. 300 heal per second from regen can by no mean make you live long enough against Mesmers or Thieves. Their damage still goes by 6K bursts even into 3100 armor (my experience). So yes, you’d die on their 2nd try instead of dying straight. They can outheal your damage by raw healing without any Healing Power at all.

To the builds proposed – they now seem better. Still not ideal, but yes, they might work especially if you intend to die a lot. Better be alive dealing 70% of proposed damage as being downed dealing none.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but what I’m getting from what you’re saying is that the meta now is so bursty that unless you build for outright survivability, and EVEN THEN , you’ll still get hit by huge bursts till you die?

Lets compare my build to a “proper” shoutbow build found in the build thread,

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjUqQHL2yCmsAXLGWEq9yDgjuL3PfE+o4Ee5C2UB-TlCFABIcIAkSpBAPAgCV/5KlgIpMTgLAA47PkmugFOCAkCIihWA-w

My build would compare as such:
2510 vs 2356 power
42% vs 38% crit chance
207 % vs 199% crit damge
2.7k vs 2.2k armor
183 vs 197 hp/sec regen

What you’re saying that 500 difference in armor isn’t worth nuts when holding up to bursts, so might as well just put more in your damage output? That’s sort of depressing that build variety is so limited ….

Anyway point taken, thanks for taking the time to explain

@Legenfleet
Yes, it’s just like that. The most effective way to negate damage is active negation. Be it boons, conditions, traits, line of sight, signet of stone, evades…

Because GW2 is a game based on a mechanic of Rally – which promotes offense. If you manage to kill a target – everyone who tagged it will get revived. On the other hand, if you try to keep reviving someone over and over again – not only you won’t kill your target at all (never achieving your initial goal) – but you can only revive 1 guy at a time.

By knowing this – your one and only goal is to kill your enemy. For this to happen, you need to:

• Deal high enough of damage or land burst (CC) to make the enemy blow his defensive abilities (heal, immortality, stealth …)
• Make sure his HP is going down faster than yours (healing included)
• Mitigate the most of incoming damage – by dodges, blocks, protection, weakness etc.
• Make sure you can stomp before he rallies (stability, SoS).

This is the point of PvP fighting.
When it comes to direct damage (your case), the damage from stats is a multiplying pattern. Not additive. So the more stats you take out – the more of DPS you loose.
Which is not the case of toughness or healing power – those are additive.
And same goes for condition damage.

If you intend to play around DPS/Survival game-play, you – sadly – are forced to play condition builds. The DPS it deals is high enough and it sets you down for only 1 stat for your damage unlike 3 stats required for Power builds.