Guild Wars 2

So, after Quickness was beat down with the nerf hammers my normal raw damage longbow build was TERRIBLE, but not wanting to relinquish my beloved longbow i have constructed a condition longbow build, and have had AMAZING success with it, i’ve gone into 2v1s and taken them both out, have cleaved through solo bunkers in a -decent- amount of time (mostly due to tripple KD + KB being OP).

THE BUILD
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT8fjIVZ2tVmVo2BilCBFo2DOJpz/U0qYVwnI;TsAgyCuo0yolQLrWOtkat6Y0x+DA

NOTE: The link is bad, so copy and paste.

UTILITIES/HEAL

1) Heal as One: The reason i use heal as one is the heal is actually A LOT better than i thought, and due to my rune choice (Adventurer runes) it’s the only logical one, i mean who doesn’t want a free dodge every 20s?

2) Sharpening Stones: Before you grab your pitch forks and yell at me saying it’s awful it has an 83% up time OOC, that means if you’re running to a fight you pop that bad boy and you can double up on that thing (tripple up if they knock you below 75% health) almost immediately into a fight, and with so much condi damage… 10-15 stacks of bleeding HURTS, not to mention if it’s a TEAM FIGHT you can barrage the area and put bleeding on EVERYONE with the first 5-10 barrage strikes.

3) Vipers Nest: Now, i played around with spike trap a lot, but in the end i felt like the on demand poison + physical damage ended up being A LOT more useful. However this is more up to you guys, i personally prefer poison due to the healing destruction and then it also punishes people for standing in the area due to the pulsing damage that you also buff for being high in power.

4) Sun Spirit: Yeah, if you don’t take sun spirit you’re dumb, plain and simple, you can place it out of the way due to being a longbow just granting both you, your 2-3 hyenas, and your team with a chance to burn people. This burning can be brutal, especially since you can also trigger it on an entire team via barrage/piercing arrows (this one takes the stars aligning and isn’t as common so don’t rely on that).

5) Entangle is just a pretty simple elite to take due to taking the wilderness survival trait for sharpening stones, and the fact you’re dealing with condis, not pets/raw damage.

Gear

Now this is a sPvP build (or that’s what i’ve used it in so far since i’m bad at spending my money IG before it gets built up), So i use Carrion, and adventurer runes. As for sigils i use sigil of Doom, because i -really- like poison, and either sigil of smoldering or sigil of energy on my torch. I’d imagine in PvE you could totally use Rabid accessories, but i wouldn’t touch rabid armor with a 10ft pole because then conditions would be a major problem for you, your damage would drop exponentially, and just flat out bad things would happen. The accessories could be useful for the crit chance though to make your decent amount of power more dangerous.

The reason i use the Adventurer runes is simple, not only does it buff the two mains stats i want, but it also gives me more survivability for gaining a dodge when i heal, this has saved me quite often too…

Traits

Keen Edge: The more bleeding you can deal, the better, and the fact this will be a guaranteed 5 stacks of bleeding regardless of your weapon, and it will apply to everyone attacked with the same ATTACK (IE 1 sword cleave = 1 bleed on 3 people and you keep 4 charges).

Piercing Arrows: I personally like this more than Eagle Eye because it allows me to spread my conditions throughout an entire group due to good positioning instead of just increased single target damage, and then AoE KB is just amazing.

Wilderness Knowledge: The more you can use Entanlge and the more you can use Sharpening Stones the better, and there’s nothing else in this section that really appeals to the build.

Hide in Plain Sight: I like disappearing when people CC me, it’s saved me a few times in tPvP due being knocked off a ledge and them not being able to see me and giving up on the chase and turning back to my team.

Bark Skin: Why would i not want a trait that makes both me and my pet(s) become super tanky at low health? Keep in mind that this applies to you and your pet INDIVIDUALLY. IE Pets under 25% health, you’re over 50% only the pet takes 30% less damage and vice versa. Also, it stacks with protection, and 63% damage reduction is absolutely amazing.

Speed Training: Since the change to pet skills this is amazing, makes the CDs on all pets skills reduced by 10%, that means more KDs.

Commanding Voice: This is my personal favorite, because it allows for up to 3 hyena pets to be running around under proper conditions (people not killing your hyena allys). I’ve won so many bunker fights due to getting a quadra knock down on the poor guy and then throwing him away as he finally gets back up via KB shot… it’s just mean…

PETS

Obviously, the Hyena is the best pet for this build because of the raw CC it gives, deals more damage than other canines if you have 3 hyenas, the same if you have 2 hyenas, and a little less if you have one. In addition each hyena can proc your burning spirit, and they all have a KD, and they all take bullets for you, there’s no down side to them!!

The second pet is 100% up to you, -I- prefer the fern hound for the regen, but that’s just me, you can totally do wolf, or drake hound, or spiders, or devourers, or what ever you want. I prefer a second Canine for the sheer amount of CC.

Strategy

The whole goal of this build is to essentially sit back and main your targets from afar with all your conditions, but this build can absolutely go toe to toe with someone in melee range if you need to. The Sword + Torch gives an easy access to poison and burning, not to mention still benefits from sharpening stones, and can allow you to escape a fight if needed/ Get back to range to continue your assault from there.

If you ever DEFEND a location you have the advantage, place your trap down immediately, and then pop your stones pretty often, i do it when one of my teammates tell me the enemies on the move (we’re a weird group that uses “scouts”), or if i’m in solo/duo que i will normally just throw it up on CD because it tends to be more helpful than not.

DO NOT, put your spirit down before a fight, that thing running out of duration mid fight can be devastating because that’s A LOT of burning that goes away. Try to put it up out of the main AoE areas (behind walls, off the point a ways, etc) to ensure that it’s going to be up until they decide it needs to go down, and due to the common mind set of “LOLZ SPIRITZ SUCKZ!!” they tend to stay up the full duration. Granted, most intelligent players will tear your spirit down once they realize how much burning it’s really applying and it will take them less and less time from there to tear it down so use that to your advantage.

DO NOT, swap out of the hyena while your spirit is up unless you’re going for a brutal CC chain, or he’s about to die. He is significantly more useful than what ever other pet you can have out while that spirit is up, as soon as the spirit goes down feel free to swap him out for the quickness boost if you want. However, you should -not- be swapping very often, save your other canine as a trump card, you’ll -need- that KD sooner or later, and it’s better to not fire your one shot too soon.

Team Fights

In team fights you should be staying pretty far in the back and positioning yourself so you can hit as many people with each shot as possible. If you can’t be far back, like in Keep, Clock Tower, etc etc. Then keep your longbow up for the condition spreading and the AoE knockback, but if they start to attack you swap to your real teeth and go to town.

The Fire field should be the first thing you should drop, your allies can take a huge advantage of that and it creates a sort of “safe zone” from most melee enemies, because they know if they stand in that bonfire you will drop them very fast.

Due to how easily rangers gain quickness, and the fact your pet swap should almost always be off CD, YOU ARE THE REZZER, if someone goes down, immediately run over and pick them up if it’s safeish (IE there’s not a 100blades warrior and a nade engie bombarding them), combined with their interrupt there’s no way you can’t get them up in time unless their whole team is DPSing them. You can -also- stomp, but i tend to save that for other people because getting an ally up is a lot more useful then spiking an enemy down. If you can do both in one shot though, certainly don’t hesitate.

You are NOT the DPS hero in the team fights, you are fulfilling a role very similar to GW1 rangers, you are the harasser, you are the pressure, you are sturdy, you deal your damage effortlessly and constantly. You also have a large amount of CC to cause panic amongst their team and can throw down barrage for the AoE cripple. Essentially, if you put your mind to it you can keep one of their enemies (ESPECIALLY a melee oriented one) completely locked out of a team fight as you continue your pressure via burning/ poison/ bleeding.

I hope you guys enjoy the build, don’t regret making me share my build with you guys! Make the enemy suffer!!

So I can see all of the Conditions aspect of this but I have to ask: why not go shortbow? It seems like the bleed-on-flank would be very beneficial, and poison on a weapon skill is nice too for condition damage.

Softspoken.2410:

So I can see all of the Conditions aspect of this but I have to ask: why not go shortbow? It seems like the bleed-on-flank would be very beneficial, and poison on a weapon skill is nice too for condition damage.

I don’t like the shortbow because it’s not as good for helping the group, it has NO area control, no vuln to help spike down targets, no way to force people off points, and no burst at all (granted longbow doesn’t have -much- burst).

KB shot has saved my squishies so many times i just don’t want to not take it.

Okay. While I think the appeal of spike vulnerability could be made up in other places, I can definitely agree with the shortbow not having area control. I also hadn’t considered how much point-blank shot can save other people, whereas retreating shot will often just save yourself.

Softspoken.2410:

Okay. While I think the appeal of spike vulnerability could be made up in other places, I can definitely agree with the shortbow not having area control. I also hadn’t considered how much point-blank shot can save other people, whereas retreating shot will often just save yourself.

Oh the spike vulnerability just varies on the team (well group of friends) likes to spike their glassy players out of the game really quickly so the spike vuln is better for there, and since i just need to shoot them once with it i can do that, and then rapid fire if needed, before turning to one of the enemies super CC heavy players or another dangerous GC and taking him out of the team fight until it’s way too late.

Someone else that has figured out what the

It is such a kitten CC weapon and have stupidly good synergy with applying conditions to entire groups non stop its crazy.

For all those people that is reading this. Range support should be played at max range. If you spec for range support and find yourself in melee A LOT of the time. Your doing it wrong.

I like the build, and I’m not a longbow hater I think you’re really over judging the longbow and how much it helps the group. I get that you like it though and it’s your thing, I just think your build would work better with a shortbow.

I would typically use a longbow for the weakness and crowd control skills but I think that build of yours would be a lot more effective if it was coupled with the shortbow with a sup sigil of earth. If you have a high precision the natural speed of the shortbow (even lowered as it has been) will be more than enough to inflict a full stack of bleeding in no time. Plus it has a poison spreadshot

Durzlla.6295:

4) Sun Spirit: Yeah, if you don’t take sun spirit you’re dumb, plain and simple,

Wait…are you serious?

Is he serious?

He can’t be serious…

You aren’t serious are you?

It’s…

But…

It’s just…

I don’t…

…

Sigh.

Let me try and put this in a non-equivocal way:

There is no reason to ever use that piece of kitten skill. Not ever. NOT. EVER. Fire trap. A billion times better. At everything. Forever.

@Proxy, Oh fire trap is better huh? Please tell me how you’re going to use that fire trap to apply burning from 1200 yds away, and use it to cause burning to everyone your allies are attacking… it’s ok… i’ll wait.

Goatjugsoup.8637:

I would typically use a longbow for the weakness and crowd control skills but I think that build of yours would be a lot more effective if it was coupled with the shortbow with a sup sigil of earth. If you have a high precision the natural speed of the shortbow (even lowered as it has been) will be more than enough to inflict a full stack of bleeding in no time. Plus it has a poison spreadshot

Yes, but you -don’t- have a lot of precision, and then you’d completely lose your ally support and your area denial. Shortbow is more of a single target damage skirmishy (1v1) sort of weapon, the longbow can do -ok- in 1v1 but it’s significantly better in team fights than the shortbow is.

The shortbow just can not support the group as well as the longbow can.

Durzlla.6295:

@Proxy, Oh fire trap is better huh? Please tell me how you’re going to use that fire trap to apply burning from 1200 yds away, and use it to cause burning to everyone your allies are attacking… it’s ok… i’ll wait.

You don’t. You use it once things are within 600-700 range… Sun spirit is a useless piece of disfunctional trash that’s insta-gibbed the moment it’s poped out by anything stronger than a gentle breeze. It also has high cooldown, has a 35% chance to work at all, and is stuck on the floor unless traited.

I, of course, assumed you were using 30 in Skirmishing… because you’re using a condition build… But maybe not, so I checked. As it turns out your build is an even bigger mess than I expected! Joy.

You’re using longbow over shortbow (for conditions…? because…?), but you’re also not using the sole strength the longbow has – 1500 range from Eagle Eye.

You’re not running bleed runes, you have no critical, you’re using carrion gear (????), and you’re not even using proper condition traps… You seem to be basing all of your condition damage on the absolutely junk Sharpening stone (seriously, that’s 5 stacks of bleed on a 36 second cooldown – WITH cooldown reduction traits) and the even junkier sun spirit… That’s nothing. That’s… Like… almost literally nothing. The only real sources of damage you have are on your torch and on your elite.

On top of that you have no condition clear, no defense, no toughness, no defensive utilities besides your elite, and no speed enhancers… Nothing. I don’t even know why you have the awful viper’s nest instead of… any other trap really. Any other trap is more beneficial… Spike Trap cripples AND bleeds (for more damage), Flame Trap does wayyy more damage and has the stupid good fire field, and Frost Trap chills, which is the strongest soft-cc you can have. You could also use Muddy Terrain, which would be a stronger defensive option since you didn’t trait your traps.

Sorry, but your build is a mess… You don’t have damage, you don’t have survivability… You basically have nothing.

Maybe its because his build isn’t based on Damage? it is more focused on group support by providing CC and constantly application of conditions so people who like to remove conditions will blow them on constantly reapplied conditions.

Just piercing arrows allows him to to constantly keep burning on the enemy group with EVERY shot of the longbow. I know it says there is a chance of 32% to get the buff from the sun spirit, but from my experience in using it the buff feels like its on pretty much 100% of the time.

Also this style of play requires the players to stay at 1200. This means placing the spirit at a range of 2100 from the enemy. Good luck with hitting it with an AoE at 2100 range.

He clearly states it is not his job to DPS. What is hard to get?

Proxy you have NO IDEA what you’re talking about, and as such i’m not replying to you anymore, you’re just ignorant and it’s apparent that no matter what i say to you, your opinion will not change.

PS: Not every builds sole purpose is Damage

Piercing Arrows and Sun Spirit is actually pretty awesome on a longbow when you’re running at very long range.

I take it this is primarily a support build for WvW ? If so there is no reason to use 1v1 or 1v2 logic . His goal is to apply conditions at 1200-1500 range, hence why longbow is better then the shortbow . The shortbow is a duel weapon

Chokolata.1870:

I take it this is primarily a support build for WvW ? If so there is no reason to use 1v1 or 1v2 logic . His goal is to apply conditions at 1200-1500 range, hence why longbow is better then the shortbow . The shortbow is a duel weapon

I’ve actually been using it in tPvP, has worked out REALLY well in 1v1s and 1v2s (which surprised me), but I think that may be more from the surprise factor, most people don’t expect a ton of conditions from a longbow ranger.

That being said it works better in team fights/WvW because that’s what it was built for, I just haven’t gotten all the gear I need for WvW to use it yet (spend all my money on other things.)

Durzlla.6295:

PS: Not every builds sole purpose is Damage

KensaiZen.3740:

He clearly states it is not his job to DPS. What is hard to get?

That he has nothing? Doesn’t have damage, survivability or significant support. So what does he have?

ProxyDamage.9826:

Durzlla.6295:

PS: Not every builds sole purpose is Damage

KensaiZen.3740:

He clearly states it is not his job to DPS. What is hard to get?

That he has nothing? Doesn’t have damage, survivability or significant support. So what does he have?

If you actually read the top 2 posts you’d know the answer.

Don’t spirits have a 10 second ICD in between procs? I’m a little lost on how a 1 second duration burning proc on a 35% chance could end up with so much burning. Or is the burning proc player based, and thus the player+3 hyenas= 4 seconds of burning from one proc each?

Zenith.7301:

Don’t spirits have a 10 second ICD in between procs? I’m a little lost on how a 1 second duration burning proc on a 35% chance could end up with so much burning. Or is the burning proc player based, and thus the player+3 hyenas= 4 seconds of burning from one proc each?

It’s not even player based, spirits are funky… It’s per player per spirit, so if I had a sun spirit and you had a sun spirit each sun spirit has a 10s ICD for each of us procing the burning. So yes me and 3 hyenas = 4s of burning every 10s.

In addition to this spirits apply their 6s spirit buff to 5 allies every 3s, they prefer to use it on allies who 1) don’t have the buff and 2) aren’t on the ICD.

EDIT: spirits also proc on an ATTACK not HIT so if you cleave someone or pierce 20 people with an arrow etc etc all people hit by that will burn.

Durzlla.6295:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

I would typically use a longbow for the weakness and crowd control skills but I think that build of yours would be a lot more effective if it was coupled with the shortbow with a sup sigil of earth. If you have a high precision the natural speed of the shortbow (even lowered as it has been) will be more than enough to inflict a full stack of bleeding in no time. Plus it has a poison spreadshot

Yes, but you -don’t- have a lot of precision, and then you’d completely lose your ally support and your area denial. Shortbow is more of a single target damage skirmishy (1v1) sort of weapon, the longbow can do -ok- in 1v1 but it’s significantly better in team fights than the shortbow is.

The shortbow just can not support the group as well as the longbow can.

I think you are missing my intended point. On every class that has the option to switch weapons in mid combat you have 10 weapon skills, not 5. When I was playing ranger I was using both longbow and shortbow, for all the benefits you might see to longbow there are also cd periods to deal with and at that point why not switch weapons especially since if you use them right they can complement each other quite well

Goatjugsoup.8637:

Durzlla.6295:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

I would typically use a longbow for the weakness and crowd control skills but I think that build of yours would be a lot more effective if it was coupled with the shortbow with a sup sigil of earth. If you have a high precision the natural speed of the shortbow (even lowered as it has been) will be more than enough to inflict a full stack of bleeding in no time. Plus it has a poison spreadshot

Yes, but you -don’t- have a lot of precision, and then you’d completely lose your ally support and your area denial. Shortbow is more of a single target damage skirmishy (1v1) sort of weapon, the longbow can do -ok- in 1v1 but it’s significantly better in team fights than the shortbow is.

The shortbow just can not support the group as well as the longbow can.

I think you are missing my intended point. On every class that has the option to switch weapons in mid combat you have 10 weapon skills, not 5. When I was playing ranger I was using both longbow and shortbow, for all the benefits you might see to longbow there are also cd periods to deal with and at that point why not switch weapons especially since if you use them right they can complement each other quite well

But then I lose out if I go up against anyone with anti ranged, or if anyone closes the gap and I just can’t shake them, that’s why I have a sword/torch, the sword/torch also makes it easier to contest points due to the evading and the torches bonfire.

Like, it could work, I’m sure, but I just am not a fan of doubling up on ranged weapons, I feel there’s more cons than pros.

Durzlla.6295:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

Durzlla.6295:

Goatjugsoup.8637:

I would typically use a longbow for the weakness and crowd control skills but I think that build of yours would be a lot more effective if it was coupled with the shortbow with a sup sigil of earth. If you have a high precision the natural speed of the shortbow (even lowered as it has been) will be more than enough to inflict a full stack of bleeding in no time. Plus it has a poison spreadshot

Yes, but you -don’t- have a lot of precision, and then you’d completely lose your ally support and your area denial. Shortbow is more of a single target damage skirmishy (1v1) sort of weapon, the longbow can do -ok- in 1v1 but it’s significantly better in team fights than the shortbow is.

The shortbow just can not support the group as well as the longbow can.

I think you are missing my intended point. On every class that has the option to switch weapons in mid combat you have 10 weapon skills, not 5. When I was playing ranger I was using both longbow and shortbow, for all the benefits you might see to longbow there are also cd periods to deal with and at that point why not switch weapons especially since if you use them right they can complement each other quite well

But then I lose out if I go up against anyone with anti ranged, or if anyone closes the gap and I just can’t shake them, that’s why I have a sword/torch, the sword/torch also makes it easier to contest points due to the evading and the torches bonfire.

Like, it could work, I’m sure, but I just am not a fan of doubling up on ranged weapons, I feel there’s more cons than pros.

Agree on this. Most melee have more tools to close distance than ranged have to create them.

Unless you’ve got pocket bodyguards I highly recommend against double ranged weapons. If you want to go double range, just take the axe/dagger instead so at least you still have one evade and a chill+weakness plus a punishing splitblade.

Very interesting build here. It’s definitely unorthodox which might be why it works. So how do you deal with people that actually focus on you and have stability? Do you stick like glue to your bunker teammates (from 1200 range away? :P)

This is a decent 1v1 build and a good team support build. Thanks for posting and testing it with me tournies the other day. It’s also good in wvw. I like dropping my sun spirit next to ally Seige when defending a keep and literally lighting up the enemy.

Can we call this build “The Batman” he always wins with ample preparation time, right?

XD

I’ll add this to the compilation of builds I’m making

Durzlla.6295:

If you actually read the top 2 posts you’d know the answer.

I did. Want me to go through them and explain why they’re wrong?

Durzlla.6295:

Strategy

The whole goal of this build is to essentially sit back and main your targets from afar with all your conditions,

You don’t have significant conditions. The odd low duration burns from sun spirit and the long cooldown meager 5 stacks of bleed are insignificant. Everything else you can do would always be at least as effectively regardless of your build. More effective in most longbow builds, in fact, because they have 1500 range instead of your 1200.

Durzlla.6295:

but this build can absolutely go toe to toe with someone in melee range if you need to.

No. You can’t. You have no damage to burst people down, no significant survivability, no condition clear, no ability to run away… What do you do when a thief just pops up next to you? Nothing. You explode. What about a Guardian plowing through your frontline during a clash (because they’re Guardians so they can) and bee lining for you? Nothing. Hell, you can’t even do anything against a cheese bullcharge warrior.

Durzlla.6295:

The Sword + Torch gives an easy access to poison and burning,

Poison isn’t a damage condition. It does damage but the main utility of poison is preventing heals and stacking another condition you need to clean. You stack it besides a hefty stack of bleeds, so it’s harder to clean the bleeds or out-heal them. A slow application 5 stacks on a 36 sec cooldown isn’t it. You are right about the torch though. It’s your only good source of damage.

Durzlla.6295:

not to mention still benefits from sharpening stones, and can allow you to escape a fight if needed/ Get back to range to continue your assault from there.

Sharpening stone is junk and you have nearly 0 ability to escape a pursuer. You have no condition clear, no stun breakers, no speed enhancers, only 1 “running away” evade and only natural vigor and your elite. If your elite is out you have 1 leap backwards, if you have no cc on you, and that’s it.

Durzlla.6295:

If you ever DEFEND a location you have the advantage, place your trap down immediately, and then pop your stones pretty often, i do it when one of my teammates tell me the enemies on the move (we’re a weird group that uses “scouts”), or if i’m in solo/duo que i will normally just throw it up on CD because it tends to be more helpful than not.

No you don’t. You have 1200 range, no significant damage or utility, no significant defense, and exactly 1 reliable long range AoE – Barrage, which you don’t have a significant damage output to exploit.

Durzlla.6295:

DO NOT, put your spirit down before a fight, that thing running out of duration mid fight can be devastating because that’s A LOT of burning that goes away. Try to put it up out of the main AoE areas (behind walls, off the point a ways, etc) to ensure that it’s going to be up until they decide it needs to go down, and due to the common mind set of “LOLZ SPIRITZ SUCKZ!!” they tend to stay up the full duration. Granted, most intelligent players will tear your spirit down once they realize how much burning it’s really applying and it will take them less and less time from there to tear it down so use that to your advantage.

Untrait spirits are junk because, contrary to what you think, don’t add significant damage output, can’t move, and explode the moment someone even looks at them funny.

Durzlla.6295:

However, you should -not- be swapping very often, save your other canine as a trump card, you’ll -need- that KD sooner or later, and it’s better to not fire your one shot too soon.

It’s better to swap pets before they die. You get 15 (traited) seconds of cooldown instead of 1 minute if they die. 15 s is quite short for insta-quickness for you AND your pet.

I think I made my point here. You claim this build is an harasser, but it’s more of an “annoyer” . You’re hitting people, and if they ignore you long enough you’ll kill them. So will anything. But you don’t pack enough of a punch, tank or utility. I mean, you’re not a glass cannon… Bark skin and natural vigor are pretty good… but no toughness, condition clear, stability or stun breakers… And your damage and utility is already lacking…

If you want a condition based longbow build you’ll need 1500 range. You’ll need critical chance and bleed sigils… You’ll need better utilities and, AT LEAST, either quickening reflexes or lightning zephyr. Healing spring is also very advised.

Or you can go for a full spirit build. You need to trait into them, and it’s not a good build, but it offers way more team-support.

But mostly longbow builds are power builds for a reason.

Manekk.6981:

Can we call this build “The Batman” he always wins with ample preparation time, right?

XD

Lol omg… That name fits so well I think I may need to actually name it that xD.

jubskie.3152:

Very interesting build here. It’s definitely unorthodox which might be why it works. So how do you deal with people that actually focus on you and have stability? Do you stick like glue to your bunker teammates (from 1200 range away? :P)

Depends on what it is that’s doing this, almost always if I can’t stay at range and it’s a 1v1 (assuming they have stability so I can’t just knock them away) ill swap to my Sword and Torch and go toe to toe due to all the evasion I have via dodge rolls and sword skills, not to mention swapping to my sword/torch gives me a sudden surge in endurance as does my healing.

Not only that but the build gains a ton of survivability at low health due to bark skin and protection stacking, making it very deceptive.

If its a group fight, I’ll normally either 1) flee and go back cap something while my team keeps them busy or 2) (if we CAN NOT lose this) get very close to one of my high damage allies and call the guy out so they can take him down ASAP, as I switch to someone else to lock them out.

So I’ve been testing out Sharpening Stone and barrage in the mists earlier and I came across some weird results.

Each “wave” of barrage actually carries the bleed on hit from Sharpening Stone except for the first one. The first bleed attack only hits one person.

I tried it 3 times on the 3 stationary golems (light, med, heavy in a line), and the middle golem had 5 stacks of bleed, while the 2 side golems only had 4 stacks each.

I also found that Sharpened Edges has no cooldown at all. I was able to stack 3 bleeds on a front facing golem with a shortbow + QZ at 90% critical chance.

EDIT: ^ that means you can potentially cause bleeding on anyone and everyone hit by Barrage provided it crits.

jubskie.3152:

So I’ve been testing out Sharpening Stone and barrage in the mists earlier and I came across some weird results.

Each “wave” of barrage actually carries the bleed on hit from Sharpening Stone except for the first one. The first bleed attack only hits one person.

I tried it 3 times on the 3 stationary golems (light, med, heavy in a line), and the middle golem had 5 stacks of bleed, while the 2 side golems only had 4 stacks each.

I also found that Sharpened Edges has no cooldown at all. I was able to stack 3 bleeds on a front facing golem with a shortbow + QZ at 90% critical chance.

EDIT: ^ that means you can potentially cause bleeding on anyone and everyone hit by Barrage provided it crits.

Yup! Only thing is I use Carrion Armor so my build doesn’t become kitten vs a condi resistant target, however if I were to use rabid or rampagers I’d totally be taking Sharpened Edges and Sigil of Earth (I think that’s it) and possibly Krait Runes to just overwhelm them with bleeds.

jubskie.3152:

Very interesting build here. It’s definitely unorthodox which might be why it works. So how do you deal with people that actually focus on you and have stability? Do you stick like glue to your bunker teammates (from 1200 range away? :P)

With a build like this it comes down to maintaining distance and awareness of your surroundings. When I play a WvWvW long range support build I make sure that I surf the opponents zerg and I’m always near an ally. In case I get caught I’ll use lightning reflexes and great sword 2 to clear some distance. Muddy terrain can also save your bacon in some situations.

I’m going to have to agree with Proxydamage on this one. It sounded like an interesting build until i opened it. You are extremely squishy in every respect. Low armor and no resistance to conditions whatsoever. I see no point in the fernhound. Hyena would have some decent synergy with the sun spirit but you are so weak that I would never want to 1v1 in this build. Your only hope is to sit far back and pray they ignore you, which they won’t as soon as they notice you have zero defense in both skills and actual defense (entangle doesn’t count as it is WAY to easy to evade if the enemy is mildly intelligent). This build would be mildly strong at applying conditions with allies (assuming the spirit lives) but is countered by everything. To say it is weak is an understatement. However, I will say that at least you thought about it and it is genuinely stronger than many builds I’ve seen posted here. What I mean by this is that most rangers run trash builds and you have the potential to create a decent build if you work a little more on it.

Obviously I am fairly strictly talking about PvP (WvW included). I give 0 kittens about PvE builds.

Quick note: Traited Flame trap has a 50% up time on burn applied to foes (6s burn, 12s cd). If used with torch skills, you can maintain 100% burn on foes, especially those with little cleansing like this build. Sun spirits burn up time fluctuates horrendously due to the percent chance to proc combined with 10s icd.

I don’t think either your nor proxy realize how much Defense this build actually has… It has an amazing amount of dodges, each one giving 33% less damage, it has a large amount of CC through the Hyenas and the Bow, and it can pump out a large amount of condition AND raw damage.

As I said in the Guide, I take the fern hound because I like the regen it provides, that and I just flat out don’t like the other wolf howls, they’re just meh IMO, I also said that the pets were more a form of preference and as long as your non Hyena pet was another canine or spider it’d be fine (I think I mentioned spider).

And this build was DESIGNED FOR TPVP, so I made sure it has survivability.

PS: a large health pool (which this build has) is a good raw defense for conditions, and keep in mind protection and Bark Skin STACK which makes you very deceptive in how “squishy” you are.

But protection and bark skin only work on physical damage. You have no cleansing, none. What do you do when a necromancer drops wells or marks on you? Die? What if you fight a bunker/condition engi? Trap ranger? You stand no chance. The lack of stability coupled with no condition removal mean you won’t be able to sit on a point for any extended period of time regardless of your health pool. My trap ranger focuses on keeping 100% up time on burn and poison on my target to drain their health and keep it low while maintaining vigor, protection, more evades, condition removal, combo fields, and near 3000 armor. The other issue is that not only do you have no resistance against conditions, but a terribly low armor rating means you are kitten near glass cannon which opens up practically any build with damage the ability to defeat you. While not tested, I doubt bark skin and protection stack linearly like you think. I’d say it is a sequential implementation, example below.
Hit for 1000 without protection and bark skin
Hit for 1000 – 63% = 370 <- How you assume it works.
Hit for 1000 – 33% = 670 – 30% = 469 <- How I would assume it works.

Plus bark skin only works on the last 25% of your health pool. I would think because of this you would surely run troll unguent as a burst heal will put you well above that limitation. Lastly, I guess I can see why you want the fernhound. Using its F2 as a way of “removing” damage conditions. However, the effectiveness of this is reduced by poison and since you cant remove any conditions, yeah you know where I’m going.

I’m done. Take my critique or don’t, I care not.

They’re additive for starters, and trap rangers are a non issue because i’m not some idiot whose going to stand on the point WITH A LONGBOW, i mean REALLY? Why are you even bringing the whole “You can’t stand on a point due to your survivability” thing when i’m using a longbow?

What i -can- do is stand at 1200 away and out DPS the person standing on the point and -then- take it, i assault/harass points.

This build is designed to fill the Ranged Harassment role, not the point capture and brawl in melee range like an idiot ontop of the clearly booby trapped point role.

Durzlla.6295:

What i -can- do is stand at 1200 away and out DPS the person standing on the point and -then- take it, i assault/harass points.

This build is designed to fill the Ranged Harassment role, not the point capture and brawl in melee range like an idiot ontop of the clearly booby trapped point role.

This is very much one of those "I’ll believe it when I see it’ builds, on paper I just don’t see how it would work in a real fight against a competant opponent. No opponent is jsut going to sit politely on a point while you stand at range and pepper them down, with the amount of of gap closers, stability and glass thieves present in the current meta, very slowly harrassing someone down from range with only 2 damage conditions before they close in just doesn’t seem viable.

Seeing how the trap ranger example was already made I’ll try and provide a scenario to explain. Say you see a trap ranger on a point which they have traps on, you start to engage the trap ranger can just turn, sword #2, then turn and sword #2 again and suddenly he has closed the gap instantly and you are ‘brawling in melee range like an idiot’ already. Sure you can knockback with LB on a long cooldown, but that is not taking into account the immobolizes that trap rangers usually run on pet/trap/elite and with your only condi cleanse being your heal skill you can be overwhelmed very fast. I still have no idea how you would handle fighting a condi mesmer on this build other than by sitting on a heal spring which then just opens you up to shatter combos.

Honestly this class feels like it can only work when you have an ally tanking the damage/aggro of your opponents while you stay far away and slowly damage them with sharpening stone and 1 sec of burning every 10 seconds. If you wanted to do that role you’d have much better success with a necro or staff ele or even some beastmaster ranger specs.

Wispy.8679:

Durzlla.6295:

What i -can- do is stand at 1200 away and out DPS the person standing on the point and -then- take it, i assault/harass points.

This build is designed to fill the Ranged Harassment role, not the point capture and brawl in melee range like an idiot ontop of the clearly booby trapped point role.

This is very much one of those "I’ll believe it when I see it’ builds, on paper I just don’t see how it would work in a real fight against a competant opponent. No opponent is jsut going to sit politely on a point while you stand at range and pepper them down, with the amount of of gap closers, stability and glass thieves present in the current meta, very slowly harrassing someone down from range with only 2 damage conditions before they close in just doesn’t seem viable.

Seeing how the trap ranger example was already made I’ll try and provide a scenario to explain. Say you see a trap ranger on a point which they have traps on, you start to engage the trap ranger can just turn, sword #2, then turn and sword #2 again and suddenly he has closed the gap instantly and you are ‘brawling in melee range like an idiot’ already. Sure you can knockback with LB on a long cooldown, but that is not taking into account the immobolizes that trap rangers usually run on pet/trap/elite and with your only condi cleanse being your heal skill you can be overwhelmed very fast. I still have no idea how you would handle fighting a condi mesmer on this build other than by sitting on a heal spring which then just opens you up to shatter combos.

Honestly this class feels like it can only work when you have an ally tanking the damage/aggro of your opponents while you stay far away and slowly damage them with sharpening stone and 1 sec of burning every 10 seconds. If you wanted to do that role you’d have much better success with a necro or staff ele or even some beastmaster ranger specs.

I don’t use a healing spring for starters, and if the trap ranger jumps on me that means he’s a pretty bad player for leaving his point and i’ll yell in the voip for one of our roamers to come cap the defenseless point.

And i didn’t say “Brawling in melee like an idiot” i said I wouldn’t brawl in melee ranger like an idiot ON A BOOBY TRAPPED POINT. IE ontop of double traps, which he would no longer have especially if he left the point to fight me, instantly making his build, and his damage significantly lower.

I have a sword and a torch, i can fight in melee range, i’m just not going to fight in melee unless i need to, and seeing as how he, another ranger who is actually weaker in melee than me, is going to fight in melee range, i’d toss him aside like a piece of trash and take the point with no issue especially seeing as how he has equally as bad condi removal as i do.

Also, i could do the same exact thing as him and put myself at long range should i so choose… but i wont.

A lot of people seem to think that standing on a point is a bad thing, no, that’s what a lot of builds are designed to do, and then when you get people that are ranged harassers like me or power staff necros, grenade engis etc. who stand far away and bombard the point until they either break off of it or die, their build becomes significantly weaker.

PS: I hear carrion armor no longer buffs your raw damage now? Or is there a reason a lot of rangers keep saying that i -only- have condi damage?

The man says he’s using it and having success with it and others say they’ve tried it and it works, so perhaps you’re just not seeing what they’re seeing?

You could roll up a variation of the build to try it for yourself…or I guess hound him day after day to post videos until you derail the thread so hard it has to be locked….

Do they not use stuns in sPvP/tPvP? One stun, and I’d kill you during the duration of the stun, because you also have no survivability. You guys must really play against other players who do not know this game.

I could kill this build in four seconds, and be back on point before a roamer got there to die in a 1v1 too.

I ran through Orr, and WvW naked the other day, and had success. Didn’t matter much when I tried to kill a Champion naked, or a good WvW player naked, I died FAST. Success doesn’t matter if what you’re fighting is also badly built.

This late in the game no build from any class should be without at least one stunbreaker, and anyone with any amount of skill will understand why.

Whatever. I’m not arguing one way or the other, just bringing up the fact you’re throwing circumstances back and forth at each other while neither side is really accomplishing much except burning time.

But hey, he posted the build on a forum and that’s exactly what you get for it. I don’t really ever post my ‘builds’ on forums if only because they aren’t up for criticism as I’ll change it around as the need suits and as I learn. But you post a build online, expect to get it picked apart. Accept the criticism or delete the post, I guess :P

Drop; “Sharpening Stone” and pick up a stunbreaker. If you’re using Torch, make sure every engagement starts with it in your hand, since Bonefire is a Fire Field. The second you shoot while in your own Fire Field, you will apply your Vulnerability, AND Burning right out of the gate, with a 20% chance to proc more burns with every shot.

This allows you to drop Sun Spirit, Bonefire, and go to town. A bonus to this is if someone gets into melee with you, they suffer from Bonefire, and Point Blank Shot also gives Burning 100% of the time.

To add icing on the cake, make sure one of your pets (preferrably the one you start the fight with) is one of the Pigs or Wolf. Thier knockdown is a MUST for Longbow builds.

Leo G.4501:

Whatever. I’m not arguing one way or the other, just bringing up the fact you’re throwing circumstances back and forth at each other while neither side is really accomplishing much except burning time.

But hey, he posted the build on a forum and that’s exactly what you get for it. I don’t really ever post my ‘builds’ on forums if only because they aren’t up for criticism as I’ll change it around as the need suits and as I learn. But you post a build online, expect to get it picked apart. Accept the criticism or delete the post, I guess :P

Reading issues aside, that was my first post in this thread. My second offered some advice.

Durzlla.6295:

I don’t think either your nor proxy realize how much Defense this build actually has… It has an amazing amount of dodges, each one giving 33% less damage, it has a large amount of CC through the Hyenas and the Bow, and it can pump out a large amount of condition AND raw damage.

Honestly, I can’t tell if you’re trolling people or just genuinely dense… Cause you keep saying things like this. But this is not supported by any facts…

Durzlla.6295:

It has an amazing amount of dodges

Fact: No, you don’t. You don’t even have vigor. You have permanent half-vigor (50% endurance regen vs. Vigor’s 100%). And don’t get me wrong, Natural Vigor is pretty good… Which is why every ranger build worth a kitten has it. It’s not unique to your build.

Durzlla.6295:

each one giving 33% less damage

This is true, this is a fact. Also a fact: For 2 seconds. TWO SECONDS. Not to mention that while Protection is pretty good, as is Bark Skin, you have almost no armour… You only get protection for 2 seconds after a roll, and Bark Skin doesn’t kick in till you’re at 25% health… And you have no armour. Even against white damage you’re not a tank.

You’re just tankier, in white damage terms, than a generic glass cannon. Which is hardly note worthy since you lack the damage of a generic glass cannon. Glass cannons die fast, because they also kill fast… You die only slightly slower, but you kill a lot slower. We’ll cover that in a second.

That’s just white damage. When it comes to conditions you’re well and truly kittened. You have exactly 0 condition removal, 0 stun breakers, and 0 stability. Any serious condition build targets you and you’re living on borrowed time.

Durzlla.6295:

it has a large amount of CC through the Hyenas and the Bow,

Pray tell, what is a “large amount of CC” in your world? Cause a random, uncontrollable, single target knockdown on a fragile pet, an easily dodgeable AoE cripple on a 30 sec cooldown, and one single target knockback is not “a large amount of CC” in my world. Oh wait, you have your elite… Once. Every 120 seconds.

My necro has a large amount of CC: AoE chill, AoE cripple, AoE fear, AoE blind, single target chill, single target cripple, Plague for AoE cripples and blinds, AoE weakness through combo fields…

My Warrior, when using an hammer, has a large amount of CC: 1 very large AoE stun, 1 melee-AoE knockdown, 1 AoE knockback, 1 AoE cripple, 1 single target weakness, 1 long range single target knockdown… Generally on switch I also have either a low cooldown single target cripple (rifle) or a long duration immobilize (longbow).

Either builds are also a lot harder to kill and hit a lot harder… You don’t have “a lot of CC”. You have “some” CC. Which you desperately need just to have some semblance of survivabiliy…

Durzlla.6295:

and it can pump out a large amount of condition AND raw damage.

Fact: You don’t. Especially not on the longbow. You have 4% critical chance. 4%! and 0% critical damage. Your white damage is trash.

Your condition damage is dependent on sun spirit and Sharpening Stone, both of which are pathetic damage wise.

Sun spirit has a 10 second internal cooldown and a 35% chance to work at all, a long cooldown, and only works as long as it’s alive – a tough nut seeing as it is held together with wet paper and wishful thinking.

Sharpening Stone only grants 5 stacks of bleeding for 6 seconds, every 36 seconds. To one target, unless you also use barrage which also freezes you in place for almost 3 seconds.

You only have 2 sources of real condition damage: Your torch and your elite. Most of your elite’s damage will be mitigated since people will simple cleanse/break free of it, and it has a really long cooldown, so Torch is your only damage. That’s it. That’s all you have.

Good damage on a condition build implies you’re almost constantly around 10-20 stacks of bleed. WITH their condition removal taken into account. If you’re doing it around burn then it has to be almost permanent burn… Usually you want both if you have them. And poison. And any other conditions you can stack to make removal more problematic. You barely have 5 stacks of one bleeding and a very long cooldown to reapply them once cleansed…

jkctmc.8754:

Drop; “Sharpening Stone” and pick up a stunbreaker. If you’re using Torch, make sure every engagement starts with it in your hand, since Bonefire is a Fire Field. The second you shoot while in your own Fire Field, you will apply your Vulnerability, AND Burning right out of the gate, with a 20% chance to proc more burns with every shot.

This allows you to drop Sun Spirit, Bonefire, and go to town. A bonus to this is if someone gets into melee with you, they suffer from Bonefire, and Point Blank Shot also gives Burning 100% of the time.

To add icing on the cake, make sure one of your pets (preferrably the one you start the fight with) is one of the Pigs or Wolf. Thier knockdown is a MUST for Longbow builds.

Well seeing as how i use 2 wolves that’s a non issue, i normally lead with my hyena because you can get up to 3 of the kittens running around the battle field if the fight goes on long enough (normally doesn’t, but it is a possibility).

As for those swaps it’d change the builds goal quite a bit and at that point i’d just want to change the amulet and a lot of the majors as well.

Just because a build -looks- like it wont work on paper doesn’t mean it wont, just like a build that -looks- like it will work on paper doesn’t mean it will.

Either try the build out and see how good it actually is (it must be pretty good since i’ve seen 10 people now using it in Hotjoins… god i hate hotjoins… and another 3 using it in tourneys), or drop it, because regardless of what you guys say i’m not changing it, it WORKS.

Durzlla.6295:

because regardless of what you guys say i’m not changing it, it WORKS.

Aka, no matter what anyone else says the build is amazing and works great. Constructive criticism or comments in general need not apply. Quite a lot of the people who have responded have been around the ranger class for a while now and offer good strong points but you dismiss them as dumb and naive. I’m all for trying out new builds and theorycrafting, but creating a build that can do with a lot of improvement and calling it good, when it really isn’t, shouldn’t be something to adamantly defend.

Just because a build can work in a certain situation doesn’t mean it is good, any class on any build can do that, the trick is trying to improve them to their best potential possible and frankly a ranger with low cc, low damage, low survivability and no condi removal is far from ideal.

Wispy.8679:

Durzlla.6295:

because regardless of what you guys say i’m not changing it, it WORKS.

Aka, no matter what anyone else says the build is amazing and works great. Constructive criticism or comments in general need not apply. Quite a lot of the people who have responded have been around the ranger class for a while now and offer good strong points but you dismiss them as dumb and naive. I’m all for trying out new builds and theorycrafting, but creating a build that can do with a lot of improvement and calling it good, when it really isn’t, shouldn’t be something to adamantly defend.

Just because a build can work in a certain situation doesn’t mean it is good, any class on any build can do that, the trick is trying to improve them to their best potential possible and frankly a ranger with low cc, low damage, low survivability and no condi removal is far from ideal.

Yes but contrary to popular belief, it -doesn’t- have low survivability, CC, or damage, it’s no bunker or GC, but it’s in a good middle ground, the defense however is more ACTIVE not PASSIVE, not to mention it has a large amount of single target CC as described above. 3-4 KDs, 1 KB, 2 single target cripples, 1 AoE cripple, AoE poison, and a really kittenty AoE blind (I’m only including it because there’s the off chance you actually use that abysmal skill).

Btw, I -love- how a lot of you are talking about how mandatory Stun Breakers are, yet the Trap Ranger build, which is probably the most common ranger build atm, has NO Stun Breaker and very poor defenses as well, because you know, vitality is only equivalent to toughness, but I guess just having a raw stat makes it bad survivability.