Guild Wars 2

I usually roll warrior in spvp but after having met some decent spirit rangers after the latest BP I thought I would make one myself to figures out their weaknesses so I could up my odds against them.

I did fool around with rangers some time ago (when the BM ranger was strong) and have some experience with the profession but I never touched spirits so my knowledge of this particular playstyle was limited. Anyways, yesterday I came up with a quick build and did approx. 50 pvp matches. The build was something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAsY3fjAVN1dVmVg2Bi2jMZeMxKYI3jSRqTdwvaP-TwAAzCpIATBmDMDYSwsgN8YVxWg5CA

I am amazed! I destroyed people with ease, with the exception of the occasionally well played terror necro. Quite frankly, I was glad that warriors got some buffs recently but after having rolled a spirit ranger I can’t help to think how hard I have to work on my warrior in order to be successful.

With almost perma protection and high toughness, power/burst classes had a very hard time against me, while I would melt them with close to perma burn, bleeds and even some burst from Storm spirit (could hit up to 5k dmg on squishy targets). If things got rough I would switch to sword/dagger and do evasive tricks for a while (nothing new in that).

I felt very deadly and tanky at the same time. Though lacking in stability and active stun breaker, it overall felt like a powerful build. However, I also felt a bit ashamed, maybe because I am coming from a warrior. With the passive benefits and buffs it felt automated and, quite frankly, rather easy to do well. Also, the group support felt great. I sincerely felt like I could carry bad teams to victory, although let me remind you it was only 5v5 hot join matches.

Maybe I just had a lucky streak of matches and got the wrong impression but I rate spirit builds to be top tier.

That’s my two cents…

Unfortunately, that is about right for spirits. The build really doesn’t require much thought because everything is trivial to do. The utilities are simply fire and forget, with some exception with saving one or two for a blind stomp or cc chain interruption. The most viable weaponset for teamfights relies on the shortbow, which aside from the skill #5, requires little skill to play.

For 1v1 axe torch sword dagger is stronger, but it is much harder to play well and it is poor in teamfights due to poor ranged condi application.

The primary reason I see shortbow being better in teamplay (tpvp) is due to the daze/stun to interrupt res. Otherwise, I would think that the difference in range is somewhat negligible. On the other hand the torch provides good point pressure with it’s fire aoe.

Care to elaborate?

Superkav.5012:

The primary reason I see shortbow being better in teamplay (tpvp) is due to the daze/stun to interrupt res. Otherwise, I would think that the difference in range is somewhat negligible. On the other hand the torch provides good point pressure with it’s fire aoe.

Care to elaborate?

The stun is not only used to interrupt rezzes but also an ability to interrupt a heal, a thief combo, peel for a teammate. Something axe/dagger cannot do. Not to mention the range and the ability for the auto to do condi damage.

You honestly struggle with spirit rangers as a warrior? The build has no stun break/stability. Warriors have tons of stuns, knockdowns, etc.

Just like Warrior is the current counter to Necro, it’s the same for Spirit ranger really.

But yea, if you were expecting some kind of involved and engaging gameplay with this class, you’re going to be disappointed. Regardless of spec, the bulk of your time is spent auto-attacking while running in a circle.

I had to change to spirit build for tourneys so yes I think all fields need to be evened out. I hate having to play a certain way, but is it op? I don’t think so. A good necro will waste me. Conditions seem to be quite useless against a good necro. I try holding points, but against a good guardian or engineer I have trouble. They cleanse so much and nothing seems to hold. I play a warrior to, and I actually think my warrior is better for wasting people. Spirit ranger may be better for groups if your spirits aren’t dead, but that’s about it.

I think in peoples minds there’s a fine line between OP and knowing a weakness in a build. For example, I went into a random dueling arena to pass some time and noticed a Warrior was owning everyone. As a Ranger, usually Warriors are one of the easiest classes to duel for me. So I dueled and got schooled by him. My first thought was what did this new patch change for the warrior to be so OP. Then after watching him duel a few more people, studying his moves and stuns, I dueled him again and won….very easily. I later read on the warriors forum of this new Skull breaker build and realized that he was using this new build. The major changes I had to make to adapt to this new “OP” build was…..dodge at the right time…that’s it! Time my dodges perfectly and this new “OP” build was cake.

The moral of the story is that the new Skull breaker build doesn’t need a nerf, it was just a l2p issue for me.

This is what i’ve been using for late night solo roams in JQ and this makes ppl qq so much. Awesome mobility (have a torch and warhorn in your inventory), melts everything with condis, double cc pets to make thieves cry (wolf/hound), necros aren’t a problem and even good S/D thieves can’t do much if you use sword leaps as you should be. I’ve seen plenty of good stun warriors lately and the only thing that you’ll see them do is leap to the other side of the map and run away. If you ran a zerker ranger with LB and was annoyed by thieves killing you in two hits, try this lol its you who will be farming them.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.0|5.1f.h1j|c.1f.h1j.8.1f.h5|1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d.1f.71d|21m.0.21m.0.31m.0.21m.0.31m.0.2w.0|a3.0.u39b.u48b.0|0.0|4j.4u.4v.4t.55|e

I gotta say Super, that spirit build is the shizznizz! I thought about it but until you posted this it gave me some incentive. I’m melting bosses in the gauntlet arenas tonite…and having a blast!
Thanks for this!

The build is easily killed by a good CC warrior. Land a skull crusher into a hundred blades half the ranger’s health is gone.

Otherwise go hammer+axe/mace and even if the ranger pops a stunbreaker the warrior can use berserker stance for 8 secs of condi immunity plus runes of lyssa signet of rage for condi defense until his cc cd is back up and your stunbreaker is still on cd.

I don’t get warriors who complain about spirit rangers. It’s one of the few power specs that can mow through the spirit ranger.

Spirit rangers do good against spike builds that can’t sustain damage because they can foil the spike and wait out a heal without pressure. The warrior, unlike a thief or mesmer actually does monstrous sustained even when he’s not spiking when he’s in melee with you.

Orodret.8230:

What is point of this tread? That rangers need new nerffhammer? Fine, weve seen it all. Tbh id be happy if we get nerffed couse last days there are tons of new rangers everywhere, and 99% of them only give free tokens in.

The point was to share my thoughts and start a discussion about the build. I have not mentioned anything about nerfs and it was not my intention.

Thank you for the otherwise constructive comments of yours.

I really hope they do nerf it but not the spirits, I love being able to play my ranger again it’s amazing but the nerf is inevitable and i dont want rangers to be nerfed through the ground. If Anet could somehow make this build alot harder to play with a better payoff for those who are good would be amazing so less people could play it to it’s full potential and people who truly like rangers can just get good from enough practice. And yea i know this is the problem with basically every class.

I prefer 10 points in Marksmanship as I believe Keen Edge is better than Sharpened Edges. The Bleed on crit is only for 2 seconds. I run Keen Edge with a Carrion Amulet.

Antisceptic.9174:

I prefer 10 points in Marksmanship as I believe Keen Edge is better than Sharpened Edges. The Bleed on crit is only for 2 seconds. I run Keen Edge with a Carrion Amulet.

Not only that but you’re also getting +10% condi duration which synergies way better for a condi build and additional power for ‘spammer’ weapon such as shortbow (or axe if you prefer that, i hate it-.-) is never bad. 10/0/30/30/0 is the best you can have for a spirit ranger for now

TC, why do you have high crit chance with mediocre power and crit damage? the whole point of a spirit range is in condi damage. instead of having useless 39% to crit, invest into healing power/toughness/condi damage, its waaaay better.

this thread just sounds like a subtle way of saying ‘RANGERS NEED ANOTHER NERF!’

Bryzy.2719:

this thread just sounds like a subtle way of saying ‘RANGERS NEED ANOTHER NERF!’

what isn’t nerfed on a ranger? This thread won’t change anything, spirits will get nerfed and the only thing we’ll be left with is the LOLBOW *cough** i mean LB.

Zenith.7301:

Spirit rangers do good against spike builds that can’t sustain damage because they can foil the spike and wait out a heal without pressure. The warrior, unlike a thief or mesmer actually does monstrous sustained even when he’s not spiking when he’s in melee with you.

Yeah, I think this is it. Looking over the builds and some of the videos, the spirit rangers “are OP” because glass cannon builds can’t easily down them. Basically it’s a build which counters glass cannon spike builds, and those complaining about it need to experiment with builds other than glass canon spike.

Condition damage (which ignores toughness and protection from stone spirit), AOE (to damage the spirits as well as the ranger), and CC (since the spirit ranger build carries no stun breaks except the passive traited ones) are the way to take down a spirit ranger. The complaints I’m seeing are people who try their same direct-damage spikes they use against everything else, and when it doesn’t work they’re convinced it must be because the build they’re facing is OP.

As such, I’d be surprised if Anet nerfs it. You don’t want one build (glass cannon spike) to rule them all. You want a rock-paper-scissors circular hierarchy. That’s exactly what spirit ranger does – it’s the paper to glass cannon spike’s rock. It in turn is easily cut by scissors (condition damage and sustained damage non-spike builds).

Inverted.7439:

I really hope they do nerf it but not the spirits, I love being able to play my ranger again it’s amazing but the nerf is inevitable and i dont want rangers to be nerfed through the ground. If Anet could somehow make this build alot harder to play with a better payoff for those who are good would be amazing so less people could play it to it’s full potential and people who truly like rangers can just get good from enough practice. And yea i know this is the problem with basically every class.

How do you expect them to do this though? The whole class is nothing but an autoattack fest unfortunately. Spam auto and keep poison on the target is the name of the game.

Worse still is the class is forced into specific trait lines just to make their skills useful (30 marks:signets, 30nature:spirits).

Short of a complete redesign of the class, it’s not going to change. Numbers will be crunched, but if you don’t like the playstyle of the class as it is right now abandon ship while you can. Bows will never work for this class again.

Atherakhia.4086:

Inverted.7439:

I really hope they do nerf it but not the spirits, I love being able to play my ranger again it’s amazing but the nerf is inevitable and i dont want rangers to be nerfed through the ground. If Anet could somehow make this build alot harder to play with a better payoff for those who are good would be amazing so less people could play it to it’s full potential and people who truly like rangers can just get good from enough practice. And yea i know this is the problem with basically every class.

How do you expect them to do this though? The whole class is nothing but an autoattack fest unfortunately. Spam auto and keep poison on the target is the name of the game.

Worse still is the class is forced into specific trait lines just to make their skills useful (30 marks:signets, 30nature:spirits).

Short of a complete redesign of the class, it’s not going to change. Numbers will be crunched, but if you don’t like the playstyle of the class as it is right now abandon ship while you can. Bows will never work for this class again.

But that’s not exactly our fault that we’re the auto attack class… Look at our other weapon skills, they’re as pathetic as it gets. You know your weapon skills suck &$&^@ when you deal more damage auto attacking than using the other 4 skills. The poorest designed class in this game is ranger. Anet was drunk when building this class. If they nerf spirits and its not ‘if’ anymore but when, what exactly are we supposed to run for spvp (serious question)? BM is too weak since pet nerf, trapper is meh so what then? I swear if it gets to LB/GS………………….

The best way to nerf (imo the build isn’t powerful enough to need it, especially with the matchup chart on the spvp page) the Spirit Build while keeping it viable but making it harder to play, there is an extremely simple solution:

Make the spirits lifespan shorter than the duration of the cooldown (pvp change only).

If the spirit build wasn’t capable of keeping spirits 100% of the time, more thought would have to go into when to use the spirits, especially if you’re a player that hops off and on midpoint for support. You could potentially get “caught with you pants down” and in that time, that would be when counterplay is available, and it would introduce a skill differentiation where good players would be able to realize when to and to not use the spirits, while not as skilled/experienced players would provide less overall support to themselves and their team by trying to spam them or use them at unnecessary times and then not have them available during crucial moments (this is already exactly how the Elite Spirit is by the way).

Inverted.7439:

If Anet could somehow make this build alot harder to play with a better payoff for those who are good would be amazing so less people could play it to it’s full potential and people who truly like rangers can just get good from enough practice. And yea i know this is the problem with basically every class.

I agree.

The risk/reward ratio is somewhat skewed because the build lacks complexity. It’s "more or less “phew phew phew” a large portion of the time which makes the margin of error quite big.