Guild Wars 2

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

Zenith.6403:

• Long Range Shot deals more DPS than Rapid Fire.

does this claim account for vulnerability? (assuming group situation)

I believe once you have 3 direct damage builds attacking the same target, then the vulnerability is better. But that also assumes you are at max range. If not at max range, rapid fire is typically better. But you should not be sitting in longbow at less than max range anyways.

gpassucc.5961:

First of all I do love playing my ranger, but for the sake of honesty… Staff eles can do way more ranged/aoe damage than rangers can and have possibly the best support skills in the game on one weapon set. Almost every single ability on staff is good (if not fantastic) in a zerg setting. Oh yeah and the best aoe in the game.

- It’s true that staff elementalists have awesome raw damage output on their skills, because their coefficients are higher. However many of the skills are quite immobile, meaning either your team or enemy team should stay in place for them to have maximal effect. Elementalists are good at area-cleaning and area defending. Ranger’s job is single target damage and sniping.

I would still like to point out that even if you have a skill that deals big damage at 600 range, the short range itself brings all sorts of drawbacks. You can’t run full berserker gear without getting destroyed by AoE spells. You have to get close® to deal any damage. A lot of this is not reflected in numbers, yet numbers and comparisons are what players cite.

It’s true that someone at 600 range has to deal with more enemies than someone at 1500 range.

Still, the main problem still exists. Thieves. They can transport 1500 units faster than your arrows can fly those 1500 units. (traited steal). You could not create a more perfect scenario for a Thief. A glass cannon Ranger standing by himself 1500 units away from the crowd. Game over for Ranger.

As a side note. I am doing what many Thieves have suggested. Roll a Thief. So I did. I am still low level but doing a lot more reading about different builds etc. I didn’t realize a Steal could be 1500 units …instantly. The more I learn the more I realize how vulnerable Rangers are to Thieves.

Thieves are the hard counter for this build. The ranger has to use high ground and other ranged attackers’ support for dealing with them.

What high ground? From a tower or keep?
Other ranged attackers won’t be able to help because you will die too fast. I have seen it numerous times….especially if the Thief is any good.

I do use your type of build from time to time. The only difference is I stay a little closer to the action and don’t shoot at the zerg. I keep my camera panning watching for any Thieves. When they pop on someone else, I pop on them. The hunter just became the hunted.

Edit: When I use this type of build Signet of the Beastmaster is a must. Both for the damage and the Signet of Stone active.

Thief will close that gap and kill you.
Warrior will pop stability and close the gap and kill you.
Mesmer will stealth and pretty much kill you with a shatter.
Guardian teleport and kill you.
Engineer will block/close that gap and kill you.
Necromancer will shrug off that damage and kill you.
Ele will do its role and go straight to downed state for you.
Splash damage from some random fps game will kill you.

You should be running cleric armor with this build, you still have power as a stat so you can DPS just fine. The cleric gear will help you heal your allies with Healing Spring, it’s worth it.

I run around in full zerker with little to no problems. The only problem I run across is if there is a thief between me and the zerg I’m trying to reach. If you want full damage, then you need to run full damage gear and traits. Learn to stay alive; we’ve been given enough now between our weapons and pets that we can in fact stay alive and escape quite easily from 1500 range (despite what some people think).

LB is best for single target yes, but that is all you really need sometimes, especially when you get lucky and single out a commander (or the person the group appears to be following). It’s not hard to pull off 20k-30k in damage in a matter of seconds against a fully tanked target. Despite barrage’s damage nerf, it still does good surprise damage when paired with QZ.

Again, if you want to deal actual damage, do not run in any clerics, knights, or soldiers gear. In zerg play, that gear is negligent when your overwhelmed. Your better off just killing them first before they get to you, IMO.

if you insist on sitting at 1500 range and trying to hit moving targets with a creepingly slow projectile that is well beyond your pet’s attack range, might as well flag the pet off combat and use a moa so you can passive buff with their f2 skill. Have a wolf on swap so if they come after you, you can fear them off and run like hell. I know your intent is to do max dps as a “sniper” but you still need at least 1 escape or you’re just a free kill. I’ve tried a build like this before and gonna tell you right now, your hit ratio is going to be extremely low. players doing simple side strafing will dodge your shots 90% of the time. In theory this is an excellent build. In practice, not so much.

Take out 2 Skirmishing traits and go 2 more into nature magic. Take Vigorous Spirits and Spirits Unbound. For utilities take Storm Spirit and Frost Spirit.

Damage Bonus: You lose the 10% bonus damage while flanking, but have a 70% chance to do 10% bonus damage for the majority of the fight.

Mobility: You lose 25% run speed all the time, but gain perma-Swiftness during most fights, and you will also be buffing allies within range 1000 without having to swap to warhorn. And you will share swiftness periodically with your pet along with other buffs you gain from allies.

Stats: You do lose some power, precision, and crit-damage, but if you consider your nearby allies are doing 10% bonus damage on 70% of their hits for much of the fight… your damage contribution may have actually increased.

Image: People might still look at you as useless, but maybe not as selfish.

Eh. The build seems alright, but I believe mine functions a little better.

The DPS is still bad, though, when compared to guard/thief/war/necro/mesmer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQFATjEVR2JWCWsWCg1DC7bwWBO5MOkRvgBkA-jECBYLAUBAJPFRjtNoIasKkYKXRV7SI2erIa1SBExyI-w

I disagree with gearing up for full berserker for large scale WvW fights, as a ranger you are easily the target of all pugs who are looking to get their kills, rather than the organized guild group that you may or may not participate, who are focusing on mowing down an enemy blob. Not to mention that thiefs will always hunt rangers down regardless of the outcome of the battle. If you go full berserker just to deal big damage, you really need to play carefully and on top of that have someone watch your back. I like to play with a combination of big damage and strong survival, why? Because a dead ranger is worth nothing compared to one that can stay alive. Sacrifice in damage isn’t significant either, you can take a look here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJATRjEVN29VGWo2Bi1DCFoB1ewJLdeXBUdyGq0K-jQCB4fDRjgIY0HJKBqIasF4FRjVXDT7KpqXRWFDQIgQLAA-e

I haven’t had too many issues with survival, and I find that I usually end up beating thieves on my ranger much easier and more frequently than on my thief main. I think a lot of people underestimate as well-timed dodge, proper kiting techniques, skill conservation on longbow 3 and 4, knowing 2 is stealth-tracking, and utilizing bird blinds after the encounter begins.

Rangers’ naturally-higher base hp, impressive healing through regen, as well as burst heal and solid condi cleanse through spring make them resilient enough to eat the first part of a thief combo and dodge out of the stab and reset the fight. I find the ranger’s weakness is about its damage due to the unreliability of pets/no scaling/no burst skills and not so much being able to survive.

Rangers aren’t always the best roamers, however they work amazingly in large groups due to enemy incapability of getting close. I think that’s also equally worth noting.

I feel like the damage output is better if you don’t use eagle eye and stay just behind heavies in WvW. Swap some of the zerker gear for celestial so you don’t get insta gibbed by the thief or warrior that manages to stumble past your commander. The job of a LB ranger in WvW is to keep the enemy ranged at bay until you commander yells charge!!! try to have armour around 2600, and power at 3200ish. Most things will squash you if they get in your face and can stay there for too long, but that’s the point. The opposite is true as well.

The job of LB full zerk Ranger is to suck. There’s even a name for this job.

No, after many tries on roaming, kiting, sniping, anything with LB set on WvWvW I realised couple things:
-I tend to keep second swap weapon for much longer periods, as I’m afraid of losing dps from Shortbow/Sword
-Our immobilizes, cripples… What’s that? Meta builds on WvW will not even care about them. Warriors run -100% slowing effects, Thief drops cripples on dodge, without ICD, Mesemer just ports around and stealths, not even giving a single kitten, Engi will just use one of low cd-blocks, drop massive condibomb on you and that’s over. Necros… If you can keep them at 900-1200+ range with Eagle Eye trait, they’re okay in fight. But if they come closer, well..
Honestly only classes I could kill no problem with “Marksmanship” build were other rangers and guardians.

Huge changes have to be made to Bows in general, traits etc. to make me ever want to come back to trying Ranger as power in WvW. But I’m prepared