Guild Wars 2

For those who are running with the zerg right now and aren’t enjoying it as much with the Shortbow nerf Might i suggest a build I run when I get bored running BM

I’ll be honest, I stole the idea from Druzila a month or two ago…. Which was basically run Rampager’s gear with SB/LB setup..

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;5Fku-g2VEF-0;9k4O;1TJJ;029719-05;5K-F4;2JH8Rk8dZEwk-1-56;2Vc-h0m1rYxZ259V-776mW6TsW6T;9;9;9;9;9;4V6s5p

Now you’re probably thinking, Longbow with Conditions Blows right…and you’re sort of right, Though you have 2 Bleed Procs that you can put on someone with longbow (making it fairly decent with Rapid Fire) the biggie is Barrage, Barrage will apply Bleeds to each person it hits, and that means Sharpening Stone will apply to everyone 5 times each.

With the new change to Keen Edge you can generally open with sharpening stone and have it apply almost 10 bleeds to an entire group along with its other damage.

When Flanking you can hit 25 Bleed Cap incredibly fast with this setup and shortbow…

I mean you’d be amazed how quickly you could hit.

But the biggie, Its actually not that bad for getting Bags… which is why i’m zerging in the first place usually…

So if you want a decent Zerg setup for Ranger, This build works…and it works slightly better after the patch (keen edges went off before usually just because of Retal, but its a bit more reliable now)

I was looking into power builds since the recent patch. Question on pets? Are spiders for stopping single targets aiming for you? I would have thought (even with nerf) maybe drakes for tankiness and area dmg. Though, other than special skills, pets seem like a minor consideration for the build. Just wondering.

btw good vids and great guide. If you see some way to modify some of the older builds please don’t hesitate to post! I’ve been reworking some old ones and continually come up short for damage.

Spiders actually fairly decent damage now, but build really doesn’t focus on damage from pets so they’re just fluff.

Tagging for addition to Compilation Thread later

I’ll edit this later when I add it.

EDIT: Done

Ohh my build looks a lot like this, I just have to change some of the major traits for it to be exactly like it. It’s good for zerging indeed. Thanks for sharing it with us.

I tried a similar strategy a few months ago (just around before the quickness nerf) and while it was decent for tagging enemies I would always get devastated by retaliation and had to pop my heal or die.

Xsorus.2507:

I’ll be honest, I stole the idea from Durzlla

Durzlla basically theorycrafted the build I ran in the SOAC amateur profession tournament. The man is very smart. I won’t reveal how it worked, that’s up to him.

cool build. was running very similar traits and gear till i saw this. different weapon and rune sets though. i just can’t let go of the mobility that my gs gives me in wvw so i just inventory swap between lb and sb. i had 30/10/30/0/0 but i’m gonna try 30/20/20/0/0 for a while to see how the pros and cons go. thanks for the idea.

i’d suggest having yet another weapon, whether sb or lb, with corruption sigil to stack corruption to begin with then inventory swap to the earth ones after 25 stacks to make this build even more powerful

Skirmishing is rubbish unless you want the Trap traits or some silly Moment of Clarity build! You are on the right track regarding a bow build though…

PS I don’t get your love of Sharpening Stone trait and utility, we have much better options :/

I just saw your gear it has +Condi on it, that might explain your S. Stone though if you want to go Bow you should focus +Power.

Cempa.5619:

Skirmishing is rubbish unless you want the Trap traits or some silly Moment of Clarity build! You are on the right track regarding a bow build though…

PS I don’t get your love of Sharpening Stone trait and utility, we have much better options :/

I just saw your gear it has +Condi on it, that might explain your S. Stone though if you want to go Bow you should focus +Power.

you don’t get this build at all and you dare to talk crap about it lol.

Cempa.5619:

Skirmishing is rubbish unless you want the Trap traits or some silly Moment of Clarity build! You are on the right track regarding a bow build though…

PS I don’t get your love of Sharpening Stone trait and utility, we have much better options :/

I just saw your gear it has +Condi on it, that might explain your S. Stone though if you want to go Bow you should focus +Power.

Its Rampagers, Its got Condition/Precision/Power as the stats, very very Glass Cannon

Basically with the on crit bleed sigil/talent + keen edges + sharpening stone, you turn Longbow into a condition weapon somewhat..Barrage Becomes a very nasty AOE

Mm interesting. Personally I think I still would prefer rabid since full GC doesnt do it for me, but interesting none the less.

I thought about Rabid, but Longbow without Power just doesn’t do it for me, also..Its a Zerging Setup…If i’m getting hit in a zerg by a bunch of people i’m dead either way if I have toughness or not.

I can hit 25 Bleed Cap on a target in around 5 seconds generally if i’m flanking them.

Xsorus.2507:

Cempa.5619:

Skirmishing is rubbish unless you want the Trap traits or some silly Moment of Clarity build! You are on the right track regarding a bow build though…

PS I don’t get your love of Sharpening Stone trait and utility, we have much better options :/

I just saw your gear it has +Condi on it, that might explain your S. Stone though if you want to go Bow you should focus +Power.

Its Rampagers, Its got Condition/Precision/Power as the stats, very very Glass Cannon

Basically with the on crit bleed sigil/talent + keen edges + sharpening stone, you turn Longbow into a condition weapon somewhat..Barrage Becomes a very nasty AOE

Got it, makes sense now thanks

Xsorus.2507:

I thought about Rabid, but Longbow without Power just doesn’t do it for me, also..Its a Zerging Setup…If i’m getting hit in a zerg by a bunch of people i’m dead either way if I have toughness or not.

I can hit 25 Bleed Cap on a target in around 5 seconds generally if i’m flanking them.

How much more per tick are you getting with a Rabid setup? I run full glass zerker and just use sharpening stone as a rotating utility with LB and it seems fine already, and I’m not losing any damage on LB1. Not sure Rabid is worth it.

well rampager’s also has precision as its main stat which is integral to this build. you want your crit chance as high as possible to be able to stack the bleeds really quickly. i have 69% crit chance without any buff with my own similar build.

Aridia.3042:

Xsorus.2507:

I thought about Rabid, but Longbow without Power just doesn’t do it for me, also..Its a Zerging Setup…If i’m getting hit in a zerg by a bunch of people i’m dead either way if I have toughness or not.

I can hit 25 Bleed Cap on a target in around 5 seconds generally if i’m flanking them.

How much more per tick are you getting with a Rabid setup? I run full glass zerker and just use sharpening stone as a rotating utility with LB and it seems fine already, and I’m not losing any damage on LB1. Not sure Rabid is worth it.

I’m guessing you probably do around what? 48 to 60 per Bleed tic? I do around 98-100

That’s with Rampager’s

I use an axe with fire sigil for zerging. Also ground targetable traps and GS. Lots of loot bags.

Xsorus.2507:

I’m guessing you probably do around what? 48 to 60 per Bleed tic? I do around 98-100

That’s with Rampager’s

Yeah tested it at HotM and it was 48 per tick on zerker setup with barrage. I’m losing more than 50% per tick but the crits more than make up for it though. I run no bleed traits or sigils and just put sharpening stone on and it takes the heavy golem down faster and more consistently. On LB1 you lose close to 1k per crit, more on WvW because the crit dmg is higher cap and you can get it to 117% with food.

Your build melts things with SB though. 17 stacks easily even without QZ.

Yea, LB is really only being used for the Barrage ability, as it becomes a Massive AOE + Bleed with the setup… Regular Attacks are alright, not super amazing…SB though if you’re behind the target is just scary.

why all this precision if at the end of the day you do not have critical damage? maybe better to have some more thogheness or crit damage itsels? isn’t?

They don’t offer Condition damage/power/precision gear with heavy condition damage.

But Precision isn’t bad completely despite the lack of crit damage because i’m using the talent that gives bleeds on crits+the sigil that does the same thing.

Hence when I crit I apply bleeds

Cloud ShadowMantle.8612:

why all this precision if at the end of the day you do not have critical damage? maybe better to have some more thogheness or crit damage itsels? isn’t?

i guess people still don’t get this build.

more precision = more chance to proc bleeds from sharpened edges and sigil of earth.
in 5 normal hits, you could apply 15 bleeds to your opponent if you get a little lucky.

that said, my lb is zerker + another 20% dmg increase from my rune set and traits. this setup is a true glass cannon and isn’t for soloing but running with a zerg. i use a different tougher condition build for spvp.

omg LB barrage bleed is pretty nice. running rabid gear tho with 20/20/30/0/0

Yea, only reason I don’t run Rabid is the lack of Power on it, which helps on the damage.

Rampager’s has the stats I want, but the Precision I wish was replaced with Condition or Power being the main stat, I’m sitting at 60% chance to crit right now base.

I’m still debating if its worth stacking Bleed Duration vs Condition Damage

Xsorus.2507:

Spiders actually fairly decent damage now, but build really doesn’t focus on damage from pets so they’re just fluff.

Would you actually suggest using a spider over a devourer DPS wise?

Adminir.8140:

Xsorus.2507:

Spiders actually fairly decent damage now, but build really doesn’t focus on damage from pets so they’re just fluff.

Would you actually suggest using a spider over a devourer DPS wise?

Spiders out dps devourers in my experience since one of the pet skill on rotation on the devourer is a dodge. Raw damage is lower also on devourer.

The range immobilize also helps you better to hit the target. The only good thing about the devourer is the carrion type for stacking might using RaO with poison field.

Aridia.3042:

Adminir.8140:

Xsorus.2507:

Spiders actually fairly decent damage now, but build really doesn’t focus on damage from pets so they’re just fluff.

Would you actually suggest using a spider over a devourer DPS wise?

Spiders out dps devourers in my experience since one of the pet skill on rotation on the devourer is a dodge. Raw damage is lower also on devourer.

The range immobilize also helps you better to hit the target. The only good thing about the devourer is the carrion type for stacking might using RaO with poison field.

That is what I was considering, due to their double attack stacking might much faster than a spider would. I also tend to find that my devourer has MUCH more survivablity than a spider would just due to the high toughness and their ability to burrow away from mobs. (leading to HOPEFULLY, an overall increase in the damage output in the long run)

I like Spiders better, though Drakes wouldn’t be bad either.

Been playing again today with this build.

Only thing i’ve really changed was using 3 affliction runes + 3 krait runes, and picking up a Carrion Longbow that has Corruption Sigil on it (I swap back to my longbow with Earth Sigil once i’m at 25 stacks)

The amount of bleeds this build can spit out is absurd.

I ended up getting killed by a BM Ranger when I was getting to the action (which is to be expected) but he was so surprised about the amount of bleeds I put out that he invited me to the group to ask how I did it.

Will you be making any new videos with this build? I really enjoy the videos you put out lol

I’ve decided to use my Twitch channel for videos of me zerging around, I have 2 up right now..

http://www.twitch.tv/xsorovos/b/424394567

This is the one I just did, I find that twitch tends to lend itself to videos like this..

i’ll still be using youtube for my other videos though.

Hey, would Signet of Stone be better since you no longer have BM traited Signet of the Wild?

This build is AWESOME! I’m now carrying 2 or 3 of everything in my inventory which is a lot of gear to me. Settler’s swap’s out quickly with a blend of Rampager’s/Rabid/Carrion. I stopped precision at 50% and tried to perk up my condition/toughness/vitality values.

I’ll try the spiders tonight. I really don’t like spider’s, ick Though never used poison fields before. Oh… the pain we’ll be bringing tonight.

TY for sharing it. Next up is a full Zerkers when I can afford the rest of the gear.

kiwituatara.6053:

Hey, would Signet of Stone be better since you no longer have BM traited Signet of the Wild?

Been trying out different abilities, I’m actually kind of liking Radiation Field from Asura, as it applies Weakness which is nice…Protect Me is also decent, and SoR

DeWolfe.2174:

This build is AWESOME! I’m now carrying 2 or 3 of everything in my inventory which is a lot of gear to me. Settler’s swap’s out quickly with a blend of Rampager’s/Rabid/Carrion. I stopped precision at 50% and tried to perk up my condition/toughness/vitality values.

I’ll try the spiders tonight. I really don’t like spider’s, ick Though never used poison fields before. Oh… the pain we’ll be bringing tonight.

TY for sharing it. Next up is a full Zerkers when I can afford the rest of the gear.

Yea, I have a lot of sets of gear I carry around..

this build is fun for zerging though, I like it more then just Zerker’s

Xsorus.2507:

3 affliction runes + 3 krait runes

Looks like we ended up with the same runes

Can you upload some of your zerging vids in YT as well? I really hate twitch because I have crap internet and I can’t really watch vids on twitch without pre-buffering for a long time >_<

jubskie.3152:

Xsorus.2507:

3 affliction runes + 3 krait runes

Looks like we ended up with the same runes

Can you upload some of your zerging vids in YT as well? I really hate twitch because I have crap internet and I can’t really watch vids on twitch without pre-buffering for a long time >_<

Ehh, to be honest, i’m not sure how…They’d be like 2 hours long on youtube as well…Let me see if I can figure it out

Hmm.. cut some clips of good fights? I’m specifically looking for good instances where you put the barrage builds in action (making people think it was an arrow cart shooting at them is nice).

Or if you have a clip of you bursting down the BM ranger you mentioned in the other post

Its somewhere in that video I believe….I have it uploading i think into 8 different parts to youtube.

I’ll post if It ever gets done

Retal heavy zergs will ruin your life.

K they managed to get uploaded to my youtube page.

and yea, retal does suck

Xsorus.2507:

Been playing again today with this build.

Only thing i’ve really changed was using 3 affliction runes + 3 krait runes, and picking up a Carrion Longbow that has Corruption Sigil on it (I swap back to my longbow with Earth Sigil once i’m at 25 stacks)

The amount of bleeds this build can spit out is absurd.

I ended up getting killed by a BM Ranger when I was getting to the action (which is to be expected) but he was so surprised about the amount of bleeds I put out that he invited me to the group to ask how I did it.

I’m going to shoot us all in the foot and ask it because it’s bothered me ever since this build first came out months ago. The Sharpening Stone + Barrage combo, do the five bleed stacks apply to every person in five pulses or the arrows? The norm (as I understand it) for Sharpening Stone was that once five bleeds were applied the preparation ends. It seems like Barrage and Sharpening Stone have unique interaction with each other that seemed unintended to me.

PS: Why not Krait, Afflicted and Centaur runes? You get an additional 15% bleed duration by running three sets of two instead of two sets of three. Last I heard, even fractions of a second count towards the damage so any condition duration matters.

Yes, each “wave” consumes one charge of Sharpening Stone. This was actually put on Sebrent’s thread about tooltip clarifications.

But there was a bug that the first “wave” of arrows didn’t apply the prep to all targets, just one. So only one target gets hit Opening Strike, which is a really big disappointment.

jubskie.3152:

Yes, each “wave” consumes one charge of Sharpening Stone. This was actually put on Sebrent’s thread about tooltip clarifications.

But there was a bug that the first “wave” of arrows didn’t apply the prep to all targets, just one. So only one target gets hit Opening Strike, which is a really big disappointment.

That’s out of sync with skills like the axe Split Blade. That skill will consume all five charge on each hit iirc.

Shiren.9532:

jubskie.3152:

Yes, each “wave” consumes one charge of Sharpening Stone. This was actually put on Sebrent’s thread about tooltip clarifications.

But there was a bug that the first “wave” of arrows didn’t apply the prep to all targets, just one. So only one target gets hit Opening Strike, which is a really big disappointment.

That’s out of sync with skills like the axe Split Blade. That skill will consume all five charge on each hit iirc.

Yeah, splitblade seems to be the only attack that consumes all 5 charges in one hit. It’s considered a bug because even though it consumed all 5 charges, only the rightmost axe actually causes the bleed from Sharpening stone.

Now that I think about it, I haven’t tried it with SB #2 yet.

Anyway, try it out with other AoE multihit skills, Sharpening Stone is a really strong utility if the right attacks are used to apply it. Barrage is just the most obvious one

Shiren.9532:

Xsorus.2507:

Been playing again today with this build.

Only thing i’ve really changed was using 3 affliction runes + 3 krait runes, and picking up a Carrion Longbow that has Corruption Sigil on it (I swap back to my longbow with Earth Sigil once i’m at 25 stacks)

The amount of bleeds this build can spit out is absurd.

I ended up getting killed by a BM Ranger when I was getting to the action (which is to be expected) but he was so surprised about the amount of bleeds I put out that he invited me to the group to ask how I did it.

I’m going to shoot us all in the foot and ask it because it’s bothered me ever since this build first came out months ago. The Sharpening Stone + Barrage combo, do the five bleed stacks apply to every person in five pulses or the arrows? The norm (as I understand it) for Sharpening Stone was that once five bleeds were applied the preparation ends. It seems like Barrage and Sharpening Stone have unique interaction with each other that seemed unintended to me.

PS: Why not Krait, Afflicted and Centaur runes? You get an additional 15% bleed duration by running three sets of two instead of two sets of three. Last I heard, even fractions of a second count towards the damage so any condition duration matters.

I’m under the impression that Conditions only do damage off whole numbers cause its based off tics

Either way i kind of like the extra condition damage I get from doing the 3/3 setup, its 110 and you need condition damage with this build since Rampager’s is Precision heavy.

Also not only does Sharpening Stone act that way, so does Keen Edges.

So if you have someone targetted, Pop Sharpening Stones, and you start barraging, and they go below 50%, it’ll set off keen edges, thus it’ll keep applying bleeds…. That’s 10 Stack of Bleeds just from those two abilities on anyone standing in that field, That’s not counting the Sigil and Sharpened Edges going off as well

jubskie.3152:

Shiren.9532:

jubskie.3152:

Yes, each “wave” consumes one charge of Sharpening Stone. This was actually put on Sebrent’s thread about tooltip clarifications.

But there was a bug that the first “wave” of arrows didn’t apply the prep to all targets, just one. So only one target gets hit Opening Strike, which is a really big disappointment.

That’s out of sync with skills like the axe Split Blade. That skill will consume all five charge on each hit iirc.

Yeah, splitblade seems to be the only attack that consumes all 5 charges in one hit. It’s considered a bug because even though it consumed all 5 charges, only the rightmost axe actually causes the bleed from Sharpening stone.

Now that I think about it, I haven’t tried it with SB #2 yet.

Anyway, try it out with other AoE multihit skills, Sharpening Stone is a really strong utility if the right attacks are used to apply it. Barrage is just the most obvious one

The Horn #4 is also really good, But it has to compete with offhand Torch and Dagger so it’s not used much in non condition builds.

Not this gimmicky kitten again…

You have no defense. You have no damage. You have a gimmick.

Every 24 (best case scenario) to 36 seconds you get a really obvious AoE that stacks up to 6/7 bleeds with under 10 seconds duration (if you’re lucky with procs) at up to 5 targets. More often than not it’ll simply spread out 1/2 bleeds across a larger group. This sitting at little over 1.1k condition damage.

For this you are built like a full berseker (i.e.: absolutely no defensive stats whatsoever), which will greatly outperform your optimal damage far less conditionally. You have basically no armor and a pathetic 15k health.

Your only form of defense comes from the semi-vigor and from the 2 seconds of protection on roll. While these things are good, they’re not nearly enough for someone with under 2.2k armor and barely 15k health.

You also have no condition removal whatsoever and no stun breakers. On a character as made of wet napkins and tissue paper as yours, this means any serious condition build will utterly destroy you, while anyone with a half decent burst and a stun can instagib you whenever they so choose, and there is literally nothing you can do about it.

You’re also running Troll Unguent, but you’re so very much NOT built for it. Troll Unguent is a slow but powerful regen. It’s built for very tanky builds, since it heals the most out of any healing skill we have, but does so much slower than any other. For a tanky build that’s receiving very mitigated damage, this is a very acceptable trade off. Your build, on the other hand, gets fragged by a gentle breeze. You need burst healing, cause if you’re under attack you won’t survive the time Troll Unguent takes to “kick in”.

Same issue goes for Signet of the Wild. Great signet, but you’re not running any healing power, and you have no toughness, so its effects are completely lost on you. You’re also not running Signet of the Beastmaster, so it’s not like you get any benefit from it, and you’re not running anything in BM, so your pet is hardly making the most of it either.

Hey, at least this is leagues better than Druzila (or whatever the name is)‘s build that was essentially a condition build with no condition, but it’s still a pretty bad idea.

Geeze, there is a way to offer your option without being a total kitten you know…