Guild Wars 2

I feel like my ranger is just terrible. I like the class, but the build I came up with only works well when running with a large group. Whenever I run into a small man fight or even 1v1, if it’s even a remotely decent player I just get wrecked.

I have every class to 80 and I’ve manage to put together my own decent builds for all of them do run well with large groups and handle myself in small mans or 1v1. But I’m struggling in finding that balance with ranger. I haven’t tried a condition build yet, so I’m curious if that’s a more ideal path for what I’m looking for.

What builds do you WvW guys run and does it work well for you? Or are you just settling for a large group support.

What build have you used so far and what is it you like about it best? show that and me and others can probably help modify it to something you’d like that works well for skirmishing aswell as large groups, you probably can’t make it optimal for both though I think that’s one thing that bothers many with the ranger.

Some professions can do well with a high focus on DPS itemization and traits in WvW solo…

All professions can excel in GW2 with a high focus on regeneration/healing/toughness itemization and traits in WvW solo…

You want to do well 1v1 then gear and trait for it so stack +healing and +toughness and the third stat can be power or precision or a mix, up to you. Stay away from the first 2 trait line -the 30% pet crit trait is good though.

For ranger, go FULL dps. Penetrating shot, and 1500 range, just sit at the back of the group and melt people’s faces. It’s the best thing rangers can bring to a group.

There’s your two opposing views —> @Cempa and @No Walking (cheers to both).

I just yesterday finished a Condition/Healing setup having strong Toughness/Vitality attributes. For me roaming solo, in small group and in zerg, it worked just fine.

With Power/Precision build, I am not quick enough to avoid focus lockdowns and my health pool was too low. I wanted something that let me survive my mistakes and clumsiness (like my power necro). So giving up a bit of front-load damage for bleed stacking, slows and survivability seems to work for me.

It is not yet ideal, but here’s some of the current stats:
Power - 1111
Precision – 1396
Toughness – 1690
Vitality - 1411
Critical Damage + - 0
Condition Damage + - 1027
Condition Duration - 40
Healing Power - 1045
Boon Duration - 25
Critical Chance - 26.86
Damage - 5
Armor - 2754
Health - 20032
Endurance Regeneration + – 50
Agony Resistance – 0
Pet Attribute Bonus – 300

Damage & Survivability
Effective Power – 1322.61
Effective Health (EHP) -30048
Damage Reduction – 33.33
Reference Armor - 1836

Shortbow/axe+worhorn. Lots of tweaking still to do, but it was fun.
But then so is heavy DPS.

Your toon – your choice.
Good luck.

Slalom, can you post your trait lines + utilities for your “survivability” build? I’m having the same trouble as the OP (OK in zergs, dead meat 1v1 or solo roaming for POIs).

Also, what are the best pet(s) for use in WvW? For PvE I favor the hyena (double damage) & polar bear (very tough & the chill-roar can be good against zergs), but they really don’t help much for some reason 1v1 or in tiny groups.

As I said before, this is not my final solution. It is just where it stands at the moment. I am always open to suggestions.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.3|5.1d.h1l|0.0.0.0.0.0|1b.71i.1b.71i.1b.71i.1b.71i.1b.71i.1b.71i|1a.68.1a.68.1a.68.1a.68.1b.68.1a.68|0.0.u000.a0.u000|30.d|4i.4p.4q.4r.0|e

Pets…
I use hyena, drakehound, bears, drake, spiders… get the picture. hehe
Whenever the mood strikes, I change up pets.

I agree on polar bear and brown bear removes conditions.

I like my Bunker build for WvW. I have a couple of Vids and have engaged in discussions on the subject on these boards. Kinda do things a little against the grain but I am having a Ton of Fun in 1v1 and 1vX situations. Not the Typical Condition/HEaling setup but somewhat similar in Theory

Please don’t take this as an insult, but perhaps you are running into better players that are more comfortable with the smaller engagements than you are? It may not be the build but that in zergs you have quite a buffer there of people to hide behind so any mistakes you make are not as glaringly obvious.

Perhaps whatever build(s) you’re running is/are fine and you just need more practice them with?

I don’t do large group support unless you count me wading into the middle of a zerg with my greatsword and dropping traps, entangle, etc. crowd control (I’m not using frost trap).

There is no 1 for all build for WvW as a ranger. In fact after the quickness nerf, bunker ranger is now extremely strong in 1v1 situation in the open field fight in WvW. My ranger just simply never lose any 1v1 fight (and 99% 1v2, only lost 1 single time against 1 mesmer + 1 thief) since the last patch. For some classes, it will be a never-end fight at worst case, for some classes, they are just free badges no matter what their builds are. You just need some patience.

Sebrent.3625:

Please don’t take this as an insult, but perhaps you are running into better players that are more comfortable with the smaller engagements than you are? It may not be the build but that in zergs you have quite a buffer there of people to hide behind so any mistakes you make are not as glaringly obvious.

Perhaps whatever build(s) you’re running is/are fine and you just need more practice them with?

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Pretty much spot on. I have said many times. Really good players could go into WvW without armor and still do well. Player ability > Build

That said, for some of us who have to work at it. The difference between a win and a loss is razor thin. Sometimes when i get on a roll and feel indestructable I end up losing a fight I should have won. Then after the fight I realized I forgot to do a number of things that were serving me well in previous fights.

Plumbers like me can’t lose focus !

Going to share the build that I have been working on, is a balanced ranger with crowd control.

http://gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/ranger/?6.2|3.1g.h17|c.1c.h1j.g.1c.h1l|1c.7j.1c.7j.1c.7j.1c.7j.1c.7j.1c.7j|2s.e14.2s.e14.3s.e16.2s.e14.3s.e16.2u.e14|u687.k4a.k37.0.0|39.7|4i.4w.4x.4q.54|e

The idea here is to support your squad, cripple and root enemies plus doing some decent damage, food and oil is a must for this build for the damage.

To play this build before entering combat, cast horn 5 for the fury and swiftness buff (1 might is irrelevant and you should be doing might stack with the squad before going to battle), swap to LB before going to combat, throw the moody terrain, LB 5, check how the enemies move and decide if you should throw entrangle, LB 3 if a bunker enemy is in your group, LB 4 if a melee dps is near, LB 2 to a distant enemy if they are still all together or jump into the enemies and swap to sword/horn for chill plus some nice damage and dodge habilities.

Of course the key about this build is to look at the battlefield and make the right decision, is not breainded and not a spamming skill build, also turn off auto attack and auto target.

If want to buff the damage, I have an extra LB with bloodlust sigil, once I get 25 stacks I change that to my LB with fire sigil

Sebrent.3625:

Please don’t take this as an insult, but perhaps you are running into better players that are more comfortable with the smaller engagements than you are? It may not be the build but that in zergs you have quite a buffer there of people to hide behind so any mistakes you make are not as glaringly obvious.

Perhaps whatever build(s) you’re running is/are fine and you just need more practice them with?

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I don’t do large group support unless you count me wading into the middle of a zerg with my greatsword and dropping traps, entangle, etc. crowd control (I’m not using frost trap).

I’m by no means offended. However this isn’t really the problem. I have several classes at 80 and really what I’m asking is a balanced build. I understand that I’ll run into better players and sometimes one’s that entirely build themselves around small man fights so essentially I may not be able to beat them. But like for instance on my warrior I run a hammer build that helps destroy zergballs when I’m on the front line with guardians. However in the case where I may not be running with a large group, I can still handle myself in a small man or even 1v1 and actually sometimes can take on several solo depending on the opponents.

My problem with ranger is finding a balanced build where I can bring some nice support whether it be damage or healing or some kind of utility to a large group fights. But then at the same time be able to do reasonably well in the case where I’m solo or havok grouping with small groups.

I can’t find anything that ranger brings to a large group fight besides damage. No nice walls or mass stuns or confusion or blinds. I can maybe do a kind of decent root for a second. But its really not enough. Even healing is pretty much out. Several classes can do all of these important utilities better than a ranger. So with that, I basically just went for a longbow piercing shot and axe warhorn(The axe seemed to do well in large fights due to bouncing axe with a fire sigil for more aoe.) Also tried greatsword but didn’t seem to do much of anything that I couldn’t do better on my warrior. Heck my warrior can even throw the greatsword better and do a 1 second root in the process to everything in its path.

I’m really thinking the only thing left that I could try is running a condition build with shortbow and sword/dagger. However this seems even worse because there’s no aoe, at least the longbow had decent aoe. I’m really beginning to think and even convince myself more as I’m typing this that there’s nothing a ranger does for the zerg that someone else cant do better. Which make sme a sad panda.

Unfortunately that’s true. Ranger is probably the least desired class in WWW. We can stand on our own solo roaming using bunker builds, but thieves do it much more efficiently. As for zerg fight, the only things we can bring are cripples and chills.
From the beginning ranger suffered from lack of role in organized group play. We are neither tanks nor dps class, we lack utility on the level which would enable our class to be competitive in 5 man pve groups. We can still do chillout runs on fractals, instances and WWW, but are sadly excluded from the poll of classes used in serious group play.

@Coldviper: having multiple 80s may be the problem. I know I do much worse on my character after switching to it after playing on a different one.

@Coldviper & Enillion: please take a look at my post in this other Ranger thread about what a Ranger can bring to fights in WvW.

I used to think the Ranger wasn’t bringing much. Now I know that a coordinated group that knows how Rangers work can truly leverage the full potential of a Ranger in groups. Props to Deus Ex Tree in [GF] for showing others and to Xeviel in [GF] as well for listening, learning, and leading like a champ.

I’m happy for you Sebrent, but in my book, healing spring is not enough to put this class on pair with the rest.

Healing Spring is the best water field in the game. It does the most and has the highest up-time by far. Those blast finishers are great. In fact, we can’t bust large zergs the way we can do with much success without them as you eventually get worn down by superior numbers if you can’t heal up with water blast finishers.

On top of that, you have the traps. Those AOEs are absolutely wonderful for damage and/or control (depending on which one(s) you use).

Muddy Terrain is also great for control.

Signet of Renewal is awesome in that you can pull conditions off your allies onto your pet.

Entangle is wonderful for CCing an enemy force. The more CC on a person, the less likely they are to be able to escape. Entangle complements the condition CCs (cripple, chill, immobilize) and the “stun” CCs (stun, daze, knockdown).

True, but mostly for small skirmishes.
In zerg fights traps are near useless, same as condition builds.

I’m talking about zerg busting with 10 people. 10 people killing 30 consistently.

Traps are as “useless” as necro marks, elementalist AOEs, engineer bombs/grenades, etc.

I think the way you think traps are used and the way I use them vastly differ and that is the real issue here.

10 vs 30? you mean undergeared pug slaughter? Killing masses of zerker equipped uncoordinated players? Ok than yeah.

In competitive www conditions are useless, and direct AOE damage is the way.
At least here on the old continent.

No, I mean an organized group of 30 from [SOS] from Borliss Pass or Anvil Rock (can’t remember which server.

Conditions are NOT useless. People only have so many condition removals. To use light fields they have to be near them and are now not benefitting from finishers on other fields as you can’t have a single finisher finish multiple fields.

You can continue to think it’s not possible and stay with the negative nancy crowd, or you can learn to get better. Experiment, practice, learn, improve. Simply trying to put down other’s statements and complain isn’t going to make you a good ranger.

Heck, let’s assume they buffed the heck out of Rangers. There would still be that large gap between the good rangers and those of you who complain. It’s the same with every class. There are those who work at their class with its current strengths and weaknesses and those who simply complain about their class (and other classes). The former are much more successful than the latter for obvious reasons.

Guarantee a guardian can heal tank and condition removal better than any ranger.

I guarantee you a guardian can’t create a field that removes ALL conditions every 3 seconds for 15 seconds and with a 30 second cooldown that is has only 15 seconds left when the field dissipates … nor can they also provide vigor for every one of those 3 seconds.

I bet you those blast finishers in a water field heal better than a guardian and faster. Put some thieves in your zerg buster squads and watch what they can do with a combo field.

I guarantee that a guardian can’t pull conditions off nearby allies without modifying their build to not die from this … Ranger gives to pet and only pet dies or is swapped out and conditions go away.

People can worship guardians all they want. They don’t want to admit it, but they are often disappointed when they find out that they assumed “guardian = good” and they instead got a bad player that is simply playing the “flavor of the month” and/or what others told them was “good” or “the best”.

It’s a good ability, problem is it leaves you vulnerable because everyone has to be stacked there which gives them opportunity to bomb you. Most good organized groups in T1 need to be very mobile. Standing in one spot other to buff up before the initial bomb is ill advised.

People have learned how to totally destroy the turtle thing, plus it was killed a long time ago when they nerfed healing in general. Maybe it was good then. I dunno what groups you run with, but our group has a specific build that pretty much removes conditions being a problem. And we dont run a single ranger. And if we need to refill to full we simply call for a quick stack and someone drops a water field and everyone blasts. And we’re full and clear of conditions in less that 5 seconds.

Also even if you didn’t stand in the ranger healing field all day, it still requires you to return to it just for condition removal rather than keeping superior position in the fight. And at the same time, what if the ranger needs an emergency heal for himself? He just has to use it and now it’s on a 30 second cooldown and unavailable when the group needs it.

There’s just plain better options, guardians can pull them all. And I really have no idea what guardians you’re running with but ours pull them all the time and they still are living the longest if we lose a fight. We also have several elementalists who are almost constantly removing conditions and healing.

You can be defensive of ranger all you like. People play the better classes. It’s just that simple. I’m not a fan of cookie cutter crap either, which is why I’m trying to find a ranger build that brings at least a little utility to a large man fight, as well as small mans. I’m sort of hoping for the patch to give them a little something. But I’ve tried several builds and so far everything, dps, healing, conditions. Someone does it better.

We don’t just stand on it. We move, blast from all the thieves and are back in the fight again. It takes very little time.

I fully agree that standing still when zerg-busting with a smaller group = dead.

I use the heal when asked for or when I need it. I trust the others in the group to provide support while my heal is down. It does us no good for me to hoard it while others die if I could save the group and allow us to win the fight.

As for returning to it, there are other sources of condition removal in groups. This just adds another nice one to it. We usually have 2 rangers in our group as well so we often have a call for “defensive healing spring” and before or after that there is a call for an “offensive healing spring”.

As far as “who lives the longest when you lose a fight” … what does that matter? You lost the fight and Guardians often suck at escaping a lost fight.

When it comes to having Guardians and Elementalists supporting, that great. Everyone has those. It helps to have more options than just those. Elementalist is mainly providing #5 in water and their dodge in water. #2 is short range. Aside from those, it’s just regen. Guardian adds a bit more to this. Then you have the Ranger’s healing spring which can be used with blast finishers to blow any other healing options out of the water.

Just because you have a class in your group that does good damage doesn’t mean the rest of your group shouldn’t bring damaging abilities as well. It works the same for support.

Also, Ice aura is awesome. Blast that onto your group and lol a little.

You need snare skills of some sort, to be viable in PvP. Most Rangers use the sword to snare, but you can also use Entangle, Muddy Terrain, Frost Trap, and/or pet skills. If you aren’t using sword, it’s important that you are aware of condition stacks, so your opponent won’t be able to just remove the snare. If you don’t use any snare skills, your pet won’t be able to hit, meaning you won’t be dealing full damage. Also, the Ranger is very bad at dealing burst damage.

Shortbow has a cripple (#4), MH Axe has a chill (#3), and OH Dagger has a cripple.
You also have pets like the Dogs, Owl, Snow Leopard, etc. that have immobilize, cripple, chill and/or other CC.

You’re talking about highly co-ordinated group play. This happens about 1% of the time in WvW.

vinceftw.5086:

You’re talking about highly co-ordinated group play. This happens about 1% of the time in WvW.

If it happens that little on your server, then I’m sorry.

This happens nightly with multiple groups/guilds on Ehmry Bay. Just take a look at the various videos out there. [FTF] squads, [GF] (formerly [FTF]’s Echo Squad), etc.

Unfortunately, our server seems to have a high population of people that actually sleep at night (see: have jobs, families, etc.) so our night presence is weak aside from the few college kids that stay up and a handful of oceanics.

I’ve found ranger works best with 30/30/10/0/0, berserker equipment, and a longbow and shortbow.

With the longbow you can attack from over 1,500 range which can be very useful. You can hit siege other players can’t and fight from ranges the enemy can’t get you at. The longbow 4 skill, the shortbow 4 and 5 skill, muddy terrain, and entangle are all effective at stopping opponents from running away or reaching, and you can use lightning reflexes, the shortbow 3, and the many dodges you get to keep distance or escape fairly well if needed.

The problem I’ve found with rangers melee weapons is that they are too utility focused so you’ll have trouble killing high defense players or those who know how to retreat effectively. For condition builds you’ll need traps for them to compete with physical damage, but given the wide open areas traps and their 600 range aren’t generally effective. Not to mention neither of these are effective at tower warfare.