Guild Wars 2

earlier i theorycrafted this build, today, i put it to use, and goodness gracious, it is brutal.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT8XjEVR2VWCWs2Bkli9oPYKOEG59IWYPR8iluTC-jkCBYLCyUgQEJAJPFRjtoqIas6aYKTLqW5Cw6LYuDLqWIgRLAA-w

New ALTERNATE version: (added survivability)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT8XjEVR2VW+Vs2Bkli9oPYKOEG59IWYPR8iluTC-jkCBYfRGVEI5JrJSDRsMsIas6aYKTLqW7Cw6LYuDLqWIgRLAA-w

you ARE squishy, very squishy. But not as much as pure zerker. You can actually suck up a backstab.
The strong point of this build, is the “surprise” that it gives your enemy. They think you are just another zerker, but none of ’em ever thought you went fully into BM… and when that jag starts mauling them, they back off.

For now, i’d rate it like this;
Damage 9/10
Survivability 6/10 (your damage simply makes people retreat)
Tank 2/10
Effectiveness 8/10

Your brutal damage is your best defense, and offense.

I would like to question a few things on this build.

There is no mobility at all so I would swap out sharpened edges for pet’s prowes because you will deal more DPS with it. the extra bleed with your current build is a bad choice. There is no mobility at all so I would swap out protect me for signet of the hunt because there is nothing worse than a dead pet

Troll unguent with quickening zephyr is a bad choice also.
Troll unguent is also a bad choice with a glass cannon build since you might not even have a chance to get the best out of it so i would swap it out with healing spring.

Vigorous training + steady focus do not make a lot of sense
I also feel that shout reduction for 1 skill is a bad idea=/ when you could swap it for mighty swap.

I would rate it as it is now
Damage 7/10
Survivability 3/10
Tank 0/10
effectiveness 5/10

If I made a build similar to this i would go 30/10/0/0/30 with signet of the wild + with signet of the hunt and quickening zephyre. Which would be deadly burst damage but that is my preference and we all have different play styles but keep theory crafting!

modified version is up

Lets ask Math!

Armor level : Damage Reduction : Backstab Damage Taken
1980 (base ranger) : 7% : 10-11k
2450 : 25% : 7.5-8.2k
3000: 39% : 6-6.6k
And your build is coming in at 17.5k hp.

You are losing 62% of your health on the first backstab, putting you in heartseeker spam territory (lower than half health). At 4k each, it will take 2 heartseekers to kill you before you die. This is generous considering the first will hit for more than 4k and the second will hit for more than 5k.

Will our hero’s haste from petswap let his jaguar surprise-kill a thief before he can heartseeker twice, or will the only surprise be that it wasn’t a Brown Bear? Will he healing spring fast enough to extend the fight out to 4 blows? Find out next time on The Adventures of a Longbow Ranger!

To be fair, if you see a thief attacking someone and can hit rapid fire while he’s unstealthed, you are probably going to give him a hard time. But if its just you running around, anyone and everyone (with the possible exception of a staff ele) is going to kill a glass longbow ranger.

Raven.9603:

To be fair, if you see a thief attacking someone and can hit rapid fire while he’s unstealthed, you are probably going to give him a hard time. But if its just you running around, anyone and everyone (with the possible exception of a staff ele) is going to kill a glass longbow ranger.

I would have to disagree, i am running 100% zerker everything, 30/20/20/0/0 and so far i am about sitting around 70% win rate with the 1v1’s i have come across, with thieves i am about 50% win rate, if the thief jumps me i die, if i jump the thief i have a pretty good chance at winning.

Just going from personal experience in the past few days of running this build.

So far the classes that give me the most trouble are those that have really good healing, if i can’t burst them down really fast and i use most of my utilities for defense/offense, i generally just run away.

Even with 100% zerker i have found between the stability from RaO and Signet of the Wild/(And stone if necessary) paired with either wolf fear/hound immobalize i can get away from almost any situtation i have come across in case a group of people jump me. (It is seriously hilarious and fun when running away to swoop away, look back, target someone, use f2 with the wolf, who then stops and channels the howl, so that by the time those chasing me run past it, they all get caught in a 2 second fear, and by that time swoop is up again, and i get out of combat speed)

(This is using some abilities not available in the build in the OP, just wanted to give my 2 cents about glass longbow rangers not being super effective solo roaming, i do admit that if i get into a group of at least 2 others my survivability and DPS skyrocket. I only solo roam if there arent any others on the BL i decide to head too, and i am still figuring out my zerker setup so i still want more practice before i mess around with my 100% rabid setup)

Xel

Glass-cannon rangers are easy pickings for thieves, nothing more to say here.

anything using glass cannon is ridiculously easy for thieves to kill… which makes your argument null and void.

I like this build in the gauntlet up until Liadri. Ty Prysin, you are a saint

Added to the compilation thread!

jubskie.3152:

Added to the compilation thread!

Man, i think is better to wait before add a build to the “main” build thread. I think is better to way for users feedback then add it only if the feedback was positive… what’s the sense to add an useless build? (i’m not saying that this build is useless… but no one in this thread gave a positive feedback… ).

I will also suggest you to correct the sticked topic because there are tons of builds which are no longer viable for a competitive pve and/or pvp so i think is better to choose few of them (the most representatives) and add a short description of them while removing all those build which can’t be used.

That’s because if the aim of that thread is “are you new? look here for build!” a new player which look at this thread wouldn’t learn “what build should he/she uses”.

Returning on thread discussion; i wouldn’t also suggest you to run a full zerker build for tons of reasons:
- ranger is really easy to burst down especially if you are not using LR, SoS (for active + trait), PM and entangle.
- ranger damage is high… but not so high to allow us to destroy an enemy with a skill or two: while a full zerker warrior is still able to one shot you with “kill shot” we can’t one shot with a single “rapid fire”… so i dont think is a viable one.
- lack of mobility and sustain

Kjeldoran.3849:

jubskie.3152:

Added to the compilation thread!

Man, i think is better to wait before add a build to the “main” build thread. I think is better to way for users feedback then add it only if the feedback was positive… what’s the sense to add an useless build? (i’m not saying that this build is useless… but no one in this thread gave a positive feedback… ).

-snip-

Exhibit A:

I would have to disagree, i am running 100% zerker everything, 30/20/20/0/0 and so far i am about sitting around 70% win rate with the 1v1’s i have come across, with thieves i am about 50% win rate, if the thief jumps me i die, if i jump the thief i have a pretty good chance at winning.

Just going from personal experience in the past few days of running this build.

-snip-

Exhibit B:

I like this build in the gauntlet up until Liadri. Ty Prysin, you are a saint

Just so you know, this forum is extremely negative and what someone sees as “useless,” another sees as “great.” Case in point, this thread, you and the 2 other posts i quoted

As far as GC builds go this looks fairly brutal. I understand why you chose Moa but for me, wolf is forever #1 support pet.

-snip-[/quote]

Exhibit A:

I would have to disagree, i am running 100% zerker everything, 30/20/20/0/0 and so far i am about sitting around 70% win rate with the 1v1’s i have come across, with thieves i am about 50% win rate, if the thief jumps me i die, if i jump the thief i have a pretty good chance at winning.

Just going from personal experience in the past few days of running this build.

-snip-

My response was actually a direct rely to the poster who said that glass cannon rangers aren’t viable in WvW roaming, and the build i mention 30/20/20/0/0 is very different from the one in this thread, i just wanted to throw out my opinion that GC can be, and is viable in roaming, (though you really need SoS with signet of the beastmaster)

I am sure this build is plenty viable in zerg/large group situations, but for solo/small man roaming it is going to have a tough time of it if you get jumped.

Xel

Cufufalating.8479:

As far as GC builds go this looks fairly brutal. I understand why you chose Moa but for me, wolf is forever #1 support pet.

i did use the wolf for a while. That being said, the pets must be changed according to situation. Thats the fundamental knowledge of beastmastery. While the moa will provide overall defense, in some cases, the wolf will provide a better chance at recovering and controlling. Or if you need superior control, Hyena.

jubskie.3152:

Just so you know, this forum is extremely negative and what someone sees as “useless,” another sees as “great.” Case in point, this thread, you and the 2 other posts i quoted

ok man… but 2 positive feedback over 13 posts… aren’t so good…
and nothice that A “was partially positive…” and B “was positive only for a single boss in the new living world”… so i don’t think that’s enough. The aim of the sticked thread is to help players to find their build not to make a list of tons of builds half of what are good only for a single thing (not reported in notes) and not optimized (i suppose)… but the thread is yours… i was only trying to help better beginners.

i gave constructive criticism in this thread (negative feedback if you want to be a sissy about it). the glaring problem with this build isnt the actual build. the build is fine.

claiming that the build is for pvp while running longbow+zerker, that was the problem. if this (gear and weapon choice) ever becomes viable from anywhere other than than the unseen center of a zerg or a keep wall, the greatest ranger in the game will be some some guy named xXLegolassXx and he’ll have 25 videos out the first day. never go full zerker unless you’re a zergtard. even then, it is probably not a good idea.

Raven.9603:

i gave constructive criticism in this thread (negative feedback if you want to be a sissy about it). the glaring problem with this build isnt the actual build. the build is fine.

claiming that the build is for pvp while running longbow+zerker, that was the problem. if this (gear and weapon choice) ever becomes viable from anywhere other than than the unseen center of a zerg or a keep wall, the greatest ranger in the game will be some some guy named xXLegolassXx and he’ll have 25 videos out the first day. never go full zerker unless you’re a zergtard. even then, it is probably not a good idea.

I have about 15 hours of small man roaming with 5> people that completely disproves what you say here. It all depends on how you play, and maybe what server you are on, right now i have never run into a group with more than 5 people with my ranger, so its alot easier to stay alive, and help burn people down compared to servers that have blobs running around every map.

Is it a challenge? Of course it is, is it viable? I would say yes, i have never had so much fun killing perma stealth thieves than with 100% zerker longbow, its fun to burn them down when they are expecting to be able to dance in and out of fights all day long without any trouble.

Note: This is using a variant of the 10k longbow attack build, excuse the somewhat off the topic post, just showing the opposite side of the coin to raven bashing this weapon/armor setup.

This build WORKS in WvW, its not as good as my near-immortal BM Bunker, its kinda like the polar opposite.

While the bunker has low damage and insane sustain. This build has insane damage and low sustain. That being said, it is more forgiving then the normal zerker armor, because you can actually rely on your pet do deal proper damage, unlike when you run standard 30/20/20 zerker.

Xelnok.2397:

…just showing the opposite side of the coin to raven bashing this weapon/armor setup.

i said the weapon/stat setup only works in a group. you said you run around in a 5> man group and have never encountered more than 5 on your ranger. that really doesn’t contradict anything. I agree with you on the thief point, I made the same point in my first post.

generally, being able to win a reasonable percentage of 1v1’s is a hallmark of a pvp setup. this setup won’t, and its important to highlight that distinction. Thats not to say everyone needs to run 3000 armor and 1000 healingpower to outlast any possible enemy, but typically a pvp spec will have at least 2400ish armor so that it can at least beat some people if challenged alone.

Kjeldoran.3849:

jubskie.3152:

Just so you know, this forum is extremely negative and what someone sees as “useless,” another sees as “great.” Case in point, this thread, you and the 2 other posts i quoted

ok man… but 2 positive feedback over 13 posts… aren’t so good…
and nothice that A “was partially positive…” and B “was positive only for a single boss in the new living world”… so i don’t think that’s enough. The aim of the sticked thread is to help players to find their build not to make a list of tons of builds half of what are good only for a single thing (not reported in notes) and not optimized (i suppose)… but the thread is yours… i was only trying to help better beginners.

Thing about this forums, any post that contradicts “rangers are kitten” is gonna get a lot of negative feedback. Just look at the best written guides here and they get a lot of flack regardless of content.

I guess I grew numb with it. If you can help me clean up the sticky, it would be really appreciated. Can you point out which builds are obsolete?

Prysin I like your crazy thinking man. I’m going to try this as soon as I farm enough Zerk gear.

“Pessimists are usually right and optimists are usually wrong but all the great changes have been accomplished by optimists.”
Thomas L. Friedman

Raven.9603:

Xelnok.2397:

…just showing the opposite side of the coin to raven bashing this weapon/armor setup.

i said the weapon/stat setup only works in a group. you said you run around in a 5> man group and have never encountered more than 5 on your ranger. that really doesn’t contradict anything. I agree with you on the thief point, I made the same point in my first post.

generally, being able to win a reasonable percentage of 1v1’s is a hallmark of a pvp setup. this setup won’t, and its important to highlight that distinction. Thats not to say everyone needs to run 3000 armor and 1000 healingpower to outlast any possible enemy, but typically a pvp spec will have at least 2400ish armor so that it can at least beat some people if challenged alone.

Well seeing as how it works in 1v1’s on a regular basis in s/tPvP i’d imagine it’d do the same in WvW. Not sure about this build exactly but the one i ran that was 30 marks 30 BM did fine. And unlike what you’re saying it actually LOST effectiveness when it was in the team because of how squishy it was (would do alright so long as you could stay out of the fray).

Xelnok.2397:

Raven.9603:

i gave constructive criticism in this thread (negative feedback if you want to be a sissy about it). the glaring problem with this build isnt the actual build. the build is fine.

claiming that the build is for pvp while running longbow+zerker, that was the problem. if this (gear and weapon choice) ever becomes viable from anywhere other than than the unseen center of a zerg or a keep wall, the greatest ranger in the game will be some some guy named xXLegolassXx and he’ll have 25 videos out the first day. never go full zerker unless you’re a zergtard. even then, it is probably not a good idea.

I have about 15 hours of small man roaming with 5> people that completely disproves what you say here. It all depends on how you play, and maybe what server you are on, right now i have never run into a group with more than 5 people with my ranger, so its alot easier to stay alive, and help burn people down compared to servers that have blobs running around every map.

Is it a challenge? Of course it is, is it viable? ..I would say yes, i have never had so much fun killing perma stealth thieves than with 100% zerker longbow, its fun to burn them down when they are expecting to be able to dance in and out of fights all day long without any trouble.

Note: This is using a variant of the 10k longbow attack build, excuse the somewhat off the topic post, just showing the opposite side of the coin to raven bashing this weapon/armor setup.

This x1000

Yes, you are vulnerable to Thieves….but, they will learn to know you are around very quickly when keep dieing to your rapid fire when they think the can do the trolling stealth dance. It is a very satisfying thing.

i have updated the first post to include an alternate version of this build.
By utilizing “Rune of the Traveler”, Signet of the Hunt can be dropped in favor of Signet of Renewal. Which adds another stunbreaker + condition cleansing. The loss in precision can be offset by the use of Assassins armor. I also changed the amulet to zerker+valkyrie and updated the weapons to show the ascended stats (as people will be getting ascended weapons sooner or later).

Damage loss is at minimum, while the rather poor survivability has been increased slightly.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT8XnIVUZZXQaBxaZAhV4QePmlYREdPQlOJEzYiIWJB-jkDBYfRGVEgCMwEFQJPasJSCRFVFRjVXDTdKp6VRW5CwaOYeDR2fIpCBMaBA-w

I made another alternative to your build. If you want to roll beastmaster, I find birds more effective in delivering better damage than any pets in game. If you look closely at raven, this pet attacks twice meaning better chances of pulling a crit than any other pets, and raven’s f2 ability also attacks twice plus the bonus blind is nice. Also if you look into attack range of raven (300) compare to jaguar(130), my pet would be striking first.

Changes:
Shout build for survivability of course, but not just that. As you can see your damage is better as my alternative is only at 2986, but with shout (natures voice XII) you gain swiftness (5%) and regeneration (5%) to your self and your pet plus protection from Guard(5%) with a total of 15% increase damage to your pet and 10% increase damage to your self but with 2 second downtime from these boons. (look at recharge).

Also with sword chain skill 1 you can give your pet another increase on damage with might (5%)

Now for condition removal I have evasive purity trait and I decided to put generosity sigil for another chance to remove conditions.

Two stun breakers and vigor gain (5% dmg increase) and 6 second of deflected damage from Protect Me.

And Hyena cause I like getting 2 of them for 40 seconds up time, for damage and knockdown on top of that. Just preference this could be change.

AEFA i think Bountiful Hunter gives you and your pet just 5% dmg increase if you have a boon, not per each type of boon you have on.

Seisyll.5914:

AEFA i think Bountiful Hunter gives you and your pet just 5% dmg increase if you have a boon, not per each type of boon you have on.

It’s IF you have a boon THEN you get 5% damage boost, way back when where balance was a myth it worked how AEFA thinks it does, but not anymore.

Durzlla.6295:

Seisyll.5914:

AEFA i think Bountiful Hunter gives you and your pet just 5% dmg increase if you have a boon, not per each type of boon you have on.

It’s IF you have a boon THEN you get 5% damage boost, way back when where balance was a myth it worked how AEFA thinks it does, but not anymore.

Thats… exactly… what I said

Seisyll.5914:

Durzlla.6295:

Seisyll.5914:

AEFA i think Bountiful Hunter gives you and your pet just 5% dmg increase if you have a boon, not per each type of boon you have on.

It’s IF you have a boon THEN you get 5% damage boost, way back when where balance was a myth it worked how AEFA thinks it does, but not anymore.

Thats… exactly… what I said

Sorry, I shoulda specified I was confirming what you were saying lol.

AEFA.9035:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT8XnIVUZZXQaBxaZAhV4QePmlYREdPQlOJEzYiIWJB-jkDBYfRGVEgCMwEFQJPasJSCRFVFRjVXDTdKp6VRW5CwaOYeDR2fIpCBMaBA-w

I made another alternative to your build. If you want to roll beastmaster, I find birds more effective in delivering better damage than any pets in game. If you look closely at raven, this pet attacks twice meaning better chances of pulling a crit than any other pets, and raven’s f2 ability also attacks twice plus the bonus blind is nice. Also if you look into attack range of raven (300) compare to jaguar(130), my pet would be striking first.

Changes:
Shout build for survivability of course, but not just that. As you can see your damage is better as my alternative is only at 2986, but with shout (natures voice XII) you gain swiftness (5%) and regeneration (5%) to your self and your pet plus protection from Guard(5%) with a total of 15% increase damage to your pet and 10% increase damage to your self but with 2 second downtime from these boons. (look at recharge).

Also with sword chain skill 1 you can give your pet another increase on damage with might (5%)

Now for condition removal I have evasive purity trait and I decided to put generosity sigil for another chance to remove conditions.

Two stun breakers and vigor gain (5% dmg increase) and 6 second of deflected damage from Protect Me.

And Hyena cause I like getting 2 of them for 40 seconds up time, for damage and knockdown on top of that. Just preference this could be change.

the damage increase you talk about is no longer valid, and Hyenas is a bad choice, as you HAVE to use its F2 skill for it to have damage on par with the other dogs (its power stat is halved for this reason alone)

Hyena is good for control, but for damage it is outright horrible.

Kjeldoran.3849:

jubskie.3152:

Just so you know, this forum is extremely negative and what someone sees as “useless,” another sees as “great.” Case in point, this thread, you and the 2 other posts i quoted

ok man… but 2 positive feedback over 13 posts… aren’t so good…
and nothice that A “was partially positive…” and B “was positive only for a single boss in the new living world”… so i don’t think that’s enough. The aim of the sticked thread is to help players to find their build not to make a list of tons of builds half of what are good only for a single thing (not reported in notes) and not optimized (i suppose)… but the thread is yours… i was only trying to help better beginners.

aha and whats with your guide?
feedback from people that we never saw in this forum was, great i give it a try and from people that play ranger for more than 2k hours and testet so much builds!?

B2T:
still same problem as every zerker ranger, in small-sacle you will be hard kitten d..why?
if they see ohh zerker or longbow ranger, one thief jump on you and you dead.
trust me man, today we running around with 5 people and everytime lb ranger was in the enemy group he cant do a kitten

Bambula.3649:

Kjeldoran.3849:

jubskie.3152:

Just so you know, this forum is extremely negative and what someone sees as “useless,” another sees as “great.” Case in point, this thread, you and the 2 other posts i quoted

ok man… but 2 positive feedback over 13 posts… aren’t so good…
and nothice that A “was partially positive…” and B “was positive only for a single boss in the new living world”… so i don’t think that’s enough. The aim of the sticked thread is to help players to find their build not to make a list of tons of builds half of what are good only for a single thing (not reported in notes) and not optimized (i suppose)… but the thread is yours… i was only trying to help better beginners.

aha and whats with your guide?
feedback from people that we never saw in this forum was, great i give it a try and from people that play ranger for more than 2k hours and testet so much builds!?

B2T:
still same problem as every zerker ranger, in small-sacle you will be hard kitten d..why?
if they see ohh zerker or longbow ranger, one thief jump on you and you dead.
trust me man, today we running around with 5 people and everytime lb ranger was in the enemy group he cant do a kitten

oh yes you are right ._. that sad but there are still too many novices on this game which think to be “the best” by “supposing how thing works” instead of do them directly… really i gave up. My question about this build is still the same:
how do you manage to defend? because you can deal damage but you will hardly kill someone with this damage output (unless it is a zerker enemy, a noob zerker enemy).

The problem with those kids who just want to waste their (and our) time is that i tried to teach them “how to avoid the pointed problem” but their reaction is… a kid reaction. Surprise, enjoy.

Sadly :< this is the comunity

I think that all the glass cannon rangers are just nubs who like seeing big crits and don t care if they are 1 hit by a common thief.. They don t realize how much ranger class sucks

Pegaasus.3280:

I think that all the glass cannon rangers are just nubs who like seeing big crits and don t care if they are 1 hit by a common thief.. They don t realize how much ranger class sucks

+1
wow… so i’m not the only one to know that! gratz but i’ll warn you: continue to say the truth and your messages will be reported, sadly.

i hardly die, even in full zerker. It’s just a L2P issue. However, most of the guys at these forums are all “pro’s” that “know” that ranger can’t possibly outdo any other class. Or simply believe that since they can’t pull it off, no-one else can either without cheating.

I’m no pro but imho the zerker=noob assumption is so outdated (no offence to anyone)

As I progressed into the game I have slowly learned to replace my tried and tested bm gears with zerks. It honestly wasn’t an easy transition… I had to replace my gear a few pieces at a time to give myself time to adjust to less toughness and healing.

The biggest adjustment esp for someone who have experienced how tough the bm build and all its iterations are was in picking my fights. I now spend a few seconds checking a group out: who to kill first, who to knockback, etc instead of just jumping in there like I still had the bm build.