Guild Wars 2

Hi, recently I’ve been working on build to fit in a Team Comp rather than Yolo Que hero build that doesn’t really work the best with team setups. I’m sure many Ranger’s have found this build or running something similar.

Video is directed more to newer players, so it might be bit boring for vet’s.

Build Link: Marauders LB/GS Playmaker

Video Link: User Guide!

Question on all our minds could Ranger be viable top tier, well until a good team forms up and works together then NO! but if a team does there is a chance.

The dog has the same cooldown on f2 as the bird and makes for easy tracking of the taunt ICD. And it’s overall more tanky and has more cc than the owl. You already sounded impressed in the video by the wolf being able to knockdown, into taunt into fear. Why not have that same awesome combo on your main pet? Just immob instead of fear, which is even better.

@Elorna.5329, I was tempted to run Hound + Wolf, Owl is for burst and Wolf is for control. Fear saves lives in team fights.

Many times, back when I was full time on team soon as we downed a target I used to fear or if someone on my team was downed we would fear, this allows for easier stomp or res.

Yes ofc wolf would be the secondary pet you pull out if you get downed and want to buy some time, or if you’re helping res someone, that’s beyond question. But I think you’re underestimating the damage of dogs. Yes they are weaker than birds on moving targets, but only slightly so. On the other hand, each skill they perform (other than the aa) is useful because it’s a form of CC. The bird swiftness is pretty much useless almost always and the vulnerability attack is barely better than the aa.

EDIT:
Another good thing about double canines is that they can bait out dodges, since their skills are worth dodging, the bird only has f2 for that (and with the current taunt bug f2’s can’t be dodged anyways).

Great video regardless! Hope you keep making more!

Another thing that popped to mind when checking out the build is quickdraw over lead the wind, but after watching your video I agree that the quasi-cleaving effect of piercing arrows ends up being more useful in a larger amount of situations. Quickdraw might be more suited for solo que when you have to rely more on yourself to survive. Double stealth or double knockbacks is nice.

@Elorna.5329, don’t get me wrong I do like the hound/wolf combo, but the style and way I play I like having the burst pet, I believe is vital part to making the build work. It’s all about the timing of when and where to use a pet.

@TheDynasty.4672, I plan to make more once more bug’s are addressed and balance is more stable atm very limited to what works and what will work in the future.

@Elorna.5329, if I was defending home or pushing far then I would drop MM trait line completely and take QD and refocus the build around 1v1 and survival. But I believe that’s completely different build and roll. This build is more pressed towards team fights 2v2 3v3 so on.

Nice vid!

/15 char

Sol.4310:

@Elorna.5329, if I was defending home or pushing far then I would drop MM trait line completely and take QD and refocus the build around 1v1 and survival. But I believe that’s completely different build and roll. This build is more pressed towards team fights 2v2 3v3 so on.

Yeah, I had the wrong idea about it just from reading the build, the video made it pretty clear this is more suited for mid point fighting in a premade team. Especially the “piercing arrows on downed enemies while they’re being ressed” comment really made me reevaluate the lead the wind pickup. I mostly play some form of A/T and S/D (or A/D and S/T), so I sometimes underestimate the AoE a bow can bring with that reworked trait.

Hey sol, I came into the same build myself. I posted in text into Eura thread to compare . I tried Eura build and found the healing spring as it is clunky . If they improved that to heal on hp % I might give it a whirl . But I found my dps lacking without ltw especially with the prevalence of mez ; unable to pressure down a single target.
I am still tinkering with double canines as pet choice as that gives tremendous cc.
Why not use the eagle for ws since you are using a bird?

birds are def better if you want to do some burst on an opponent. If you switch out quickening zephyr for sic em I dont think you will be disappointed either.

FrownyClown.8402:

birds are def better if you want to do some burst on an opponent. If you switch out quickening zephyr for sic em I dont think you will be disappointed either.

QZ is also a stunbreak and cond removal with the trait. Don’t think this would work half as well without it. And the uses you can get out of it for ressing and stomping are also great.

Elorna.5329:

FrownyClown.8402:

birds are def better if you want to do some burst on an opponent. If you switch out quickening zephyr for sic em I dont think you will be disappointed either.

QZ is also a stunbreak and cond removal with the trait. Don’t think this would work half as well without it. And the uses you can get out of it for ressing and stomping are also great.

Excuse me … Ressing? Does Zephyr work on reviving an ally? Or is this another form of ressing like rallying via faster stomping – which is stomping itself?

We need to duel sol.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Elorna.5329:

FrownyClown.8402:

birds are def better if you want to do some burst on an opponent. If you switch out quickening zephyr for sic em I dont think you will be disappointed either.

QZ is also a stunbreak and cond removal with the trait. Don’t think this would work half as well without it. And the uses you can get out of it for ressing and stomping are also great.

Excuse me … Ressing? Does Zephyr work on reviving an ally? Or is this another form of ressing like rallying via faster stomping – which is stomping itself?

It increases the speed of reviving, the stomp animation, etc. It basically increases the speed of every action. Useful in PvE for speedy mining as well.

Aye, nice vid mate, looking forward to seeing some gameplay with it

Elorna.5329:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Excuse me … Ressing? Does Zephyr work on reviving an ally? Or is this another form of ressing like rallying via faster stomping – which is stomping itself?

It increases the speed of reviving, the stomp animation, etc. It basically increases the speed of every action. Useful in PvE for speedy mining as well.

Thanks for clarifying. I remember trying it without any effect, so it’s good to learn something new from time to time.

Piercing with your arrows on cleave isn’t the easiest thing. When it works, it works, however when the bodies go down the most important thing a ranger can do is CC. All you have to do is cleave the corpse and then wait until the stab of the rezzers is gone and then CC them and you win. OR you can CC potential rezzers before the targets goes down either with PBS, taunt, or entangle. This is especially because most people won’t rez without some sort of quickness or invuln anyway.

LtW definitely has its pros but I don’t think they are worth it. Comparatively, the guaranteed crits and extra damage from remorseless is better imo. With remorseless you don’t really need intelligence sigil (I don’t think you need it anyway even with LtW).

As for the traveler runes, if you are running clarions bond why not just take the fall damage out of spawn to get the swiftness from the trait instead of using a rune for it?

Always follow PBS with an auto when running MoC.

Some of my thoughts.

@starbreath.8597, I used to live by Healing Spring, but it’s currently bugged and last thing you want is your pet taking too much burst and dying. Would I take it even if they fixed it depends on team comp, if we have great deal of blasts then probably but I used to combo Sword/Horn with it back in Spirit Meta leap + Blast was just to effective. Reason I don’t use Eagle is rather simple Owl/Raven does 2x more damage on their F2 so if I plan to help burst down a target it’s far more effective to land 5k with damage from my pet rather than 3k.

@FrownyClown.8402, ran the hell out of Sic Em, until they fix the bug it’s just not worth taking.

@Elorna.5329, I don’t always use QZ some games if I know what other side is running I might change, as it stands Trolls/LR/Stone/Entangle are my staples for this build, QZ is a great skill now but there still other skills out there I don’t mind using like Spike Trap is really strong and Sic Em once it’s fixed (Sic Em majorly counters D/P Thieves).

Now QZ does work really well with Search and rescue, but the investment is rather large. If you’re with decent players you shouldn’t need to blow your QZ and require a trait to get people up.

@StickerHappy.8052, If we dueled I probably take cheap a/d – s/t bunker conditions with birds and crap load of evades/regen lol. I personally hate dueling these days used to do it allot and make videos but it’s got nothing on Team Que’s.

I just want them to fix ranger bugs tbh, how good do you think Hilt Bash would be if it actually worked the way it’s meant to. I’ve done tests with Sic Em, if you could use any of birds skills “F2” it’s rather impressive damage.

I feel Ranger/Mesmer with Guard support is best combo. This build takes down Zerker Warriors rather fast they are forced to pop Rampagers or overextend which puts them in bad position. The only class I have problems against is D/P Thieves, but if your apart of a Team and on Com’s not hard to ask for peels.

Eurantien.4632:

Piercing with your arrows on cleave isn’t the easiest thing. When it works, it works, however when the bodies go down the most important thing a ranger can do is CC. All you have to do is cleave the corpse and then wait until the stab of the rezzers is gone and then CC them and you win. OR you can CC potential rezzers before the targets goes down either with PBS, taunt, or entangle. This is especially because most people won’t rez without some sort of quickness or invuln anyway.

LtW definitely has its pros but I don’t think they are worth it. Comparatively, the guaranteed crits and extra damage from remorseless is better imo. With remorseless you don’t really need intelligence sigil (I don’t think you need it anyway even with LtW).

As for the traveler runes, if you are running clarions bond why not just take the fall damage out of spawn to get the swiftness from the trait instead of using a rune for it?

Always follow PBS with an auto when running MoC.

Some of my thoughts.

This is why we always been different Eura when comes to builds, remorseless is weaker in team fights by long way imo. Ranger’s best damage comes from range not GS that’s too easy to kite and block and put you in bad positioning if I wanted to go melee take a warrior or thief they do decent melee damage. Ltw’s for team fights and if your backpoint just take Condition Survival build.

Clarion Bond doesn’t work out of combat. After using Shout Heal, traited you come to understand how important having big up time on mobility outside combat is. Only other set of runes I would take are Ranger, but until we get mobility no point.

You can get clarion bond to proc through either fall damage or through staying in combat once you respawn which often happens for a brief second.

I agree, when piercing arrows works, it does a ton of damage.

My dream build would be MM, Skirm, BM but with evasive purity in there…

Eurantien.4632:

You can get clarion bond to proc through either fall damage or through staying in combat once you respawn which often happens for a brief second.

I agree, when piercing arrows works, it does a ton of damage.

My dream build would be MM, Skirm, BM but with evasive purity in there…

Anet likes to keep us Rangers Dreaming, only Warriors are aloud that. lol

Yeah I’ve just cracked the kittens with ranger mobility, Clarion Bond was meant to be our out of combat swiftness.

Thing I hate about using Clarion Bond before game is, it doesn’t work after respawns. Honestly I’ve tested combo’s like Pack+Clarion bond, tested living crap out of Shout’s but I found unless I take LR/Renewal/Stone which is all my utilities I just couldn’t keep up with the survival side of things which then I loss out on utilities like Spike Trap/Sic Em/QZ even Muddy.

If I had to change anything within the build it would be mobility but I’ve got no idea how I can get effective out of combat swiftness.

Can’t you swap to warhorn before game and use #5 to get the swiftness before game starts? Or can you not do that now?

nice to see people running QZ. it really grows on ya. mobility is tricky indeed if not using the 2 shouts + resounding timbre, unless using traveler runes. on my shout build I just spam WHaO, so rune choice remains flexible.

QZ is extremely good and takes a learning curve to use it right. It saved me both defensively and offensively many times over. It’s really nice esp with WK.

@mistsim.2748, Problem I’m having atm is there just seems to be boatload of Reflects/Blocks/Invons you name it. I’m speeding half the fight waiting for the target to be hitable.

QZ helps but allot of the time it goes to waste, you pop QZ blast the guy he just pops his blocks/invons and then you have to wait it out. They will always have them off CD on your burst. The only way I’ve been able to get solid spike is using Taunt+QZ its only way for us to really land some big hitters.

Really starting to hate GS again in terms of damage, you compare it to Warrior’s GS and its shocking, E.g. Maul even with buffs your still no way near the damage output from GS warrior.

I found GS works best with the Remorseless bonus. if ure not mauling someone for 7k then u might as well not maul at all (jk =P) I don’t have too much of an issue 1v1 against mesmers by taking my GS to their face. as u noticed, QZ hugely amplifies GS’s potential. I think it really is the combination of GS play and QZ that makes it so potent. a buff to GS AA would be money.

and yes relying on LB to do damage sucks sometimes, which is why I moved away from builds revolving around the LB. and it’s gonna be reflect galore once elite specs launch, anet went bonkers on reflects. the Mesmer one needs an ICD, like right now.

mistsim.2748:

I found GS works best with the Remorseless bonus. if ure not mauling someone for 7k then u might as well not maul at all (jk =P)

and yes relying on LB to do damage sucks sometimes. and it’s gonna be reflect galore once elite specs launch, anet went bonkers on reflects. the Mesmer one needs an ICD

Problem with Maul + Remorseless combo, it requires Berserker amulet and Ranger or Scholar runes to land that kind of damage and you can only land that kind of damage every 20 seconds and that’s if you land your Hilt Bash. If the target has protection that’s -33% of your maul which is between 3-4k damage. Out side of maul the greatsword doesn’t really have much pressure. Then you need to add in how much survival you have given up and you put yourself into thick of it, lets face it AoE spam is real.

And that combo is to light armor target, damage values go way down once you add in toughness and armor values like Cele Ele, not sure you could get that type of damage.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having crack at you about Remorseless, just point of view on the topic. Too much investment for one skill to be on par with other classes.

Greatsword skill need around 50-100% damage increase. If we got boost to the damage outside of traits and gear the weapon would be so solid, has great utility just lacks damage outside of 1 combo.

noooooo ive been running valk, u don’t need zerker. I keep telling people. damage is huge

mistsim.2748:

noooooo ive been running valk, u don’t need zerker. I keep telling u

It’s only 4% more on critical damage on the multiplier if I’m correct, by using valks you’re giving up loads of damage without the critical chance.

I don’t even see how that is viable, so you’re only going to land a good hit every 20 seconds. What if you miss Hilt Bash? QZ is your only real means of a on demand fury. Game’s too fast for you to ask your target to wait while you cast defensive skill and line up your Hilt Bash followed with Maul.

How do you even do any damage to Cele Ele? I can see how you might do decent damage to other Glass Cannons, but at least they’re putting out tons more damage while keeping decent survival.

well we don’t have to talk about my build here, the thread is about your build. ive had lots of success running remorseless valk, and it works quite nicely with GS. while id love more GS buffs, I just wanted to say the weapon works really nicely with QZ, SotP and Remorseless. that is all.

Sol.4310:

QZ is your only real means of a on demand fury.

this is false, there are many ways to get new instances of fury, which is why the build is so strong (along with maxing out ferocity and power).

mistsim.2748:

well we don’t have to talk about my build here, the thread is about your build. ive had lots of success running remorseless valk, and it works quite nicely with GS. while id love more GS buffs, I just wanted to say the weapon works really nicely with QZ, SotP and Remorseless. that is all.

Sol.4310:

QZ is your only real means of a on demand fury.

this is false, there are many ways to get new instances of fury, which is why the build is so strong (along with maxing out ferocity and power).

Yeah let’s keep to build I posted, I’ve been testing Berserker with Ranger runes but mesmer and thieves just blow you up where before with Marauder’s and Travelers (which I hate having to take) I survive and kill the thief. It’s messed up, without that extra HP stealth teleport burst is just to high for me to recover with 16k HP.

Sol.4310:

This is why we always been different Eura when comes to builds, remorseless is weaker in team fights by long way imo. Ranger’s best damage comes from range not GS that’s too easy to kite and block and put you in bad positioning if I wanted to go melee take a warrior or thief they do decent melee damage. Ltw’s for team fights and if your backpoint just take Condition Survival build.

Clarion Bond doesn’t work out of combat. After using Shout Heal, traited you come to understand how important having big up time on mobility outside combat is. Only other set of runes I would take are Ranger, but until we get mobility no point.

I actually have to support Sol on this one.
LtW increases the damage done in teamfight by 100% only by hitting 2 targets.
But something that is the most important of it all.
- It guarantees to hit your target. And this is supper important for a Ranger. If you know you can will hit the knockback followed by Rapid Fire – that is a key moment. A 25% bonus damage on whatever damage you use will never compare to fact that your focus can be reliable.

That’s just my 2 cents, though.