Guild Wars 2

How many have you heard say “ranger is only good at defending points in spvp but is an awful wvw zerg profession” as if the lord’s room wasn’t a point? Just more evidence that traps are essential. I love bunker/trap ranger in lords room and your commander should too.

Spirits are actually not too bad on front lines. I love watching the enemy eat a blind because they decided to spam aoe on my spirit.

Yeah wells are nice, yes we love staff ele’s, but the ranger brings something different: speed and control.

Ranger prepares and softens the enemy for the zerg

Case in point: In strikeforce, when we assault a zerg, I get ahead of the zerg by teaming with a thief and using SR. I leap into the middle of their pile with greatsword and just unload traps on them. I have stability so they can’t stop me and the traps are unblockable, chilling and poisoning them (movement negation, skill recharge rate negation, regen negation). It’s just GG

To survive the initial attack, use healing power gear or Soldiers or sentinel, although, sentinel is prohibitively expensive right now. Use RaO for stability so you can escape. It’s easy to drop traps and get out when you use these techniques, you might have to blow a condi clear for immobilize but thats about it.

What other professions can jump in and jump out like that? Maybe there’s one, but for ranger, it’s natural. It’s how we do.

Well I’m glad someone ells got it.

When it comes to pets, it’s also worth mentioning that canines can be a great source of AoE control, dealing either immobilize, chill, or fear. With the trait Malicious Training, the skills can last 3 seconds. Using the Red Moa, Jungle Stalker, and the warhorn, you can also give fury for 30 seconds and 6 stacks of might for 25 seconds. You can even switch out the pets and warhorn after you buff, before going into combat.

Now to wait for everyone ells to catch on…

That’s why I wish stability training was an adept skill applying to most pets (if not all pets in wvw). One of the biggest complaints of ranger is the inability to get the pet attack off. I can see why a stable wolf might be unfair in spvp or tpvp, but it’s quite necessary in wvw. Even so, I prefer bears and drakes in the zerg, they just don’t suffer the issue of getting instantly nuked.

But I don’t want to focus on pets. The message is that adventurer professions get more individual “selfish” abilities because they’re not meant to stay on pin indefinately. Without ranger’s unique long stability or “self centered” evasion skills, leading the zerg to pre-emptively strike would be impossible.

Medium armor classes are, in my opinion, clearly designed for softening zergs, control, and more “figure 8” type positioning where they keep crossing with the front line but try to essentially get away from front line to lead the enemy zerg and keep them from doing/going what/where they want.

Yesterday, in my Hydralisk build, we cleared BG from Hill’s lords room. They were stacked in there and almost capped it, most of them on the stairs having just killed the champion. I popped RaO and swooped through the mess at the entrance and dropped bonfire, dodge roll half way down stairs, dropped frost trap, rolled again to the floor, dropped viper’s nest, rolled again and started attacking normally with the pet. GG, we won. I have to beleive they weren’t ready for traps and I have to believe I did more than just “get carried”. That’s got to be a fallacy.

Chopps.5047:

That’s why I wish stability training was an adept skill applying to most pets (if not all pets in wvw). One of the biggest complaints of ranger is the inability to get the pet attack off. I can see why a stable wolf might be unfair in spvp or tpvp, but it’s quite necessary in wvw. Even so, I prefer bears and drakes in the zerg, they just don’t suffer the issue of getting instantly nuked.

But I don’t want to focus on pets. The message is that adventurer professions get more individual “selfish” abilities because they’re not meant to stay on pin indefinately. Without ranger’s unique long stability or “self centered” evasion skills, leading the zerg to pre-emptively strike would be impossible.

Medium armor classes are, in my opinion, clearly designed for softening zergs, control, and more “figure 8” type positioning where they keep crossing with the front line but try to essentially get away from front line to lead the enemy zerg and keep them from doing/going what/where they want.

Yesterday, in my Hydralisk build, we cleared BG from Hill’s lords room. They were stacked in there and almost capped it, most of them on the stairs having just killed the champion. I popped RaO and swooped through the mess at the entrance and dropped bonfire, dodge roll half way down stairs, dropped frost trap, rolled again to the floor, dropped viper’s nest, rolled again and started attacking normally with the pet. GG, we won. I have to beleive they weren’t ready for traps and I have to believe I did more than just “get carried”. That’s got to be a fallacy.

Brown bear and Red Moa is probably the best friends a zerg can get. Gotta love tanky pets.

we can do it, yes. but traps are weak and you need give up lot of survive things. traits, skills. maybe a sniper with traited traps not a bad idea, but u cant be the part of the zerg.
and trait spirits just to blind once when it killed instantly?
be a thief and spam poison, blind and whatever they do in aoe from range or engi with granades or bombs. more useful. sry

what i can immge is a trap kit. somthing like engi kits. thats something what could bring traps in line.

Ok one criticism at a time, Mcwolfe, first, traps.

“Traps are weak” — Not true. First, note that traps are unblockable and pulse. That means if they don’t get out of the trap, a condition clear would be wasted. It forces disruption and scattering. Traps are also invisible and, in a zerg, the ranger is very hard to track and watch to see where traps are being thrown. Now let’s talk about traps one by one.

• Viper’s nest —Even with 0 condition damage, poison trap still means healing is -33%. Poison, by definition (check the wiki for more info), negates healing--negates regen.

• frost trap — chill is basically completely underestimated by most players. No only is it better than cripple (-66% move speed) it also gives your team a faster cast rate (-66% skill recharge rate on chilled foes). Chill gives a tactical advantage, no doubt. Not to mention the capability for frost armor, reducing incoming damage by 10%.

• spike trap — immobilizes when trap potency is taken, very strong with bleed builds

• flame trap — can be used to stack might, very damaging with condition damage

“You can’t be part of zerg”
The ranger will build either apothecary/settlers/soldiers and be tanky. In fact, I was running full boon duration with soldiers, zero condition damage, and running traps, utilizig the skirmishing line to maximize potential with “on crit” type sigils. And the traps were still very strong. In this case, you don’t kill with the traps necessarily. The traps arw control. In a 1v1, the DPS pet and your tankineas and trap advantage leads to win. In zerg, the control leads to win.

Why? Again, because even without condition damage, poison still negates regen and chill still offers superb control.

What about spirits, mcwolfe? Easy: you already want boon duration if you’re zerging and spirits are in that line, allng with vitality, another good zerg stat.

• Spirits will buff 5 allies around you as well as your pet theough foritifying bond. So the passive effect of spirits are maximized. That’s more protection, more burning, more damage, or more speed, your choice.

• Activation on death means you can proc it twice in a row. Let’s consider sun spirit: a big aoe blind is much better than what thieves do. It’s a double blind each time and lasts a long time—so two sun spirit solar flares is four large aoe blinds. Stone spirit: immobilize/cripple. Frost chills (7s) and storm does at least 3k damage aoe but probably more since it will have might and fury from the zerg.

• Spirit recharge happens in background so you can literally recast right after it dies, you really need stability or quickness to get the casts off though (zephyrs speed or RaO).

• One spirit ranger is 5 bodies, that will take the brunt if an entire enemy AoE cast if it lands on you. This means however much health the spirits have, that’s how much indirect damage negation your friends are getting.

• spirits body block—if you ever played a spirit ranger in spvp, you know how annoying it is just to select the ranger. Closest target keybind doesn’t ever work because you target the spirit or pet. For the opposition, running spirits in a zerg makes targeting real enemies difficult.

• spirits aren’t paper anymore when you take vigorous spirits trait

There’s a lot of good reasons to use spirits in a zerg, right?

Trap builds are very effective. If a group of 5 Trap Rangers telegraph their traps properly, they can really slow down the support line (backline) for your main zerg to finish them off. Without a backline, the enemy zerg will lose its healing, AoE DPS and hand CCs and will most likely wipe or retreat.

I laugh at the current zerging meta because its just 20 players keeping your commander alive spamming AoE by Ele’s and Necros or praying your melee train kills something. This simplistic meta will end but I hope the new one will involve Rangers more.

No condition will stick to any organized groups much longer than a second or 2, everything will get cleansed way faster than anyone can apply them, or worse yet converted to boons. So you are actually hurting your own chances and buffing your enemy.
Sure traps can be somewhat effective to tag some mindless zerglings on eb and they sure are quite handy in small scale warfare.
I like that you try to find positive sides from the current situation but please stop spreading misinformation. It’s not helping anyone.

Boomstin.3460:

No condition will stick to any organized groups much longer than a second or 2, everything will get cleansed way faster than anyone can apply them, or worse yet converted to boons. So you are actually hurting your own chances and buffing your enemy.
Sure traps can be somewhat effective to tag some mindless zerglings on eb and they sure are quite handy in small scale warfare.
I like that you try to find positive sides from the current situation but please stop spreading misinformation. It’s not helping anyone.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

I’m just curious, why jump in when you can use trappers expertise and entangle (instead of RAO) from afar? Is the range not enough?

FYI a well necro is very similiar to a trap ranger. Corruption well is very very good at debuffing a zerg with both removing buffs and replacing them with conditions.

Boomstin.3460:

No condition will stick to any organized groups much longer than a second or 2, everything will get cleansed way faster than anyone can apply them, or worse yet converted to boons. So you are actually hurting your own chances and buffing your enemy.
Sure traps can be somewhat effective to tag some mindless zerglings on eb and they sure are quite handy in small scale warfare.
I like that you try to find positive sides from the current situation but please stop spreading misinformation. It’s not helping anyone.

LOL misinformation. Traps have been good vs organized and mindless zergs. All necro’s do is spam marks and wells in power builds and use the CC condition to them. Frost trap and Spike Trap and Muddy Terrain are great CCs and they stay on the ground for some time and if they are placed right, you are going to start picking off players that can’t provide stability or cleansing on there own. 1 Trap ranger vs an organized zerg is not going to get noticed but when was the last time you seen a group of trap rangers in a zerg. Quite honestly condition removal and stability tend to run dry during a zerg fight and that is the opportunity to start focusing on this soft CCing.

Although I would like to be part of the meta that is standard in our WvW community but thinking outside of the box is hard when players can’t see past the meta they created.

Boomstin.3460:

No condition will stick to any organized groups much longer than a second or 2, everything will get cleansed way faster than anyone can apply them, or worse yet converted to boons. So you are actually hurting your own chances and buffing your enemy.
Sure traps can be somewhat effective to tag some mindless zerglings on eb and they sure are quite handy in small scale warfare.
I like that you try to find positive sides from the current situation but please stop spreading misinformation. It’s not helping anyone.

Exhausting your opponents condition removal is vital in the current meta. If they spend their condition removal from the start, they’ll have less to remove all the condition damage they’ll get stacked on a few seconds later.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has. And that placing just one or two traps can do a lot on their own, leaving you with one or two more traps that you can place after. Or how about the fact that having two or more Rangers doing this, leaves you with almost an endless stream of crowd control.

Traps? Okay. But I’m still not convinced that spirit builds are viable in WvW.

Addressing the points you made:
1. Spirit buff = almost no buff since they die easily. In ZvZ you want easy-to-produce and disposable buffs. Spirits have a long cooldown and they are hard to maintain
2. Cast time is long. You can’t target those aoes precisely and you have to put yourself at risk by running up and activating them. At most, you’ll squeeze out 2 aoes from each spirit before they die.
3. Recharge time will be long since they die fast
4. Random mitigation of some damage from the zerg. Not exactly dependable, but okay.
5. Hard to be targeted? Being targeted is the least of my concern in a zerg. In WvW, aoes, cleaves, piercings are kings
6. Spirits are paper in WvW

Spirit rangers are not totally useless. But the opp cost of running one is too high.

Yes, rangers can do these.
However, an Engi/Necro or even a mesmer can do the same or even better with much safer/more efficient ways.

I’m not really into traps, but GS? Hell yeah! Evade every 3rd attack is imba. I’m always opening with LB and then join melee train with GS, and the only thing I miss in this playstyle is something more than spamming 1., muddy isn’t enough. Running in and dropping traps isn’t exactly what I expected when I started ranger 12 months ago lol

Kasama.8941:

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.

How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.

CRrabbit.1284:

Yes, rangers can do these.
However, an Engi/Necro or even a mesmer can do the same or even better with much safer/more efficient ways.

Engineers tend to be unwelcome to the current WvW open field meta yet Rangers are one of the best bunker professions in this game and will out live Necromancers, Mesmers, Elementalists in the frontlines if played and built right.

Boomstin.3460:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.

How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.

Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.

Boomstin.3460:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.

How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.

Even more than you would think because guardians trait pure of voice is currently bugged in that it cleansed one condition and then flips one to a boon (effectively cleansing 2 and granting a boon).

Kasama.8941:

Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.

this is all soft CC brother. it does nothing to an organized zerg with -65% condi duration. spamming soft CC only deludes little rangers into believing theyre actually making a difference, when the real difference is made by static fields, rings of warding, Earth Shakers, and the sort.

GvG meta has permeated WvW in most of the higher tier server. this basically means perma stable frontliners, unlimited condi clears, staff eles, power wellmancers and the sort.

you cant “whittle down” a zerg that has a lot of sustain. you have to deal with it through brute force, hard CC, burst, and constant presence inside of them.

what do you think traps and spirits will do against a group of 10 guardians rushing your face? spirits will get popped instantly and when u have to wait an entire minute. traps will get totally shrugged off like theyre nothing.

AydenStar.4216:

Engineers tend to be unwelcome to the current WvW open field meta yet Rangers are one of the best bunker professions in this game and will out live Necromancers, Mesmers, Elementalists in the frontlines if played and built right.

incorrect, rangers cant bunker more than 2-3 competent players. once ure past this threshold, the regen ranger crumples.

mistsim.2748:

this is all soft CC brother. it does nothing to an organized zerg with -65% condi duration. spamming soft CC only deludes little rangers into believing theyre actually making a difference, when the real difference is made by static fields, rings of warding, Earth Shakers, and the sort.

GvG meta has permeated WvW in most of the higher tier server. this basically means perma stable frontliners, unlimited condi clears, staff eles, power wellmancers and the sort.

Youre kind of contradicting yourself here… perma stable frontliners are not affected at all by the hard cc you mention, soft cc is where its at until they tone down the stability in the game. There is very little immunity out there to it, unlike hard cc which is countered by one ability. Conditions are more spammable than the cures, advantage conditions.

All of these skills are in melee range. To successfully cast them and retreat you need both protect me with either traited SoS or L-reflex(protect me alone not enough, I tried many times even with brown bear+protect me in front of zerg ball, and it last no more than 3 seconds), and to max the trap, you have to at least invent 20 to Skirm trait. Then you are already at 30/20 in trait and already used 2 utilities which leaves you only 1 slot for trap.
Same idea, your canine won’t survive till they cast immo or fear unless 1-you use SoS or 2-you use shout to stealth+protect them then go. And after casting , they are pretty much instant dead then you have to swap another quickly for your own protection.
Well you can use 5 rangers to do the suicide rush to cast some of these, but what’s the point next?

Kasama.8941:

Boomstin.3460:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.

How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.

Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.

Kilger.5490:

mistsim.2748:

this is all soft CC brother. it does nothing to an organized zerg with -65% condi duration. spamming soft CC only deludes little rangers into believing theyre actually making a difference, when the real difference is made by static fields, rings of warding, Earth Shakers, and the sort.

GvG meta has permeated WvW in most of the higher tier server. this basically means perma stable frontliners, unlimited condi clears, staff eles, power wellmancers and the sort.

Youre kind of contradicting yourself here… perma stable frontliners are not affected at all by the hard cc you mention, soft cc is where its at until they tone down the stability in the game. There is very little immunity out there to it, unlike hard cc which is countered by one ability. Conditions are more spammable than the cures, advantage conditions.

condis arent more spammable than cures, this is the problem right now =( no one is gonna run 10 rangers to counter the 10 frontline guards. rangers do paltry damage and have poor sustain. who’s gonna do the hard work of actually killing these guys?

with hard CC, at least youre catching and guaranteeing kills on a couple of backliners and stragglers here and there who dont have stability. the other alternative are aoe immobilizes, which punch through stability. but saying that “traps and spirits” are the most useful things rangers bring to the table is really stretching it. like, it’s looney toons man.

What I like about my ranger and running traps is theres a very natural transition from being with my guild group fighting large battles to wondering off by myself to camp cap and scout.

No need to change build, no worry that I am built for zerging but cant 1v1 or the other way around because I can do both, you can move from one task to the next seamlessly and its a lot of fun, and how I like to play.

In fact, I have tried all of these mentioned so-called soft CC skills in almost all kinds of combinations, and finally I found the best soft CC for ranger is coming from axe (with good Crit chance)+sigil of ice, it’s relatively safe (at 900 range) and spammable (just axe1 and hit multi targets) although it also has 10 sec cool down.

Kilger.5490:

mistsim.2748:

this is all soft CC brother. it does nothing to an organized zerg with -65% condi duration. spamming soft CC only deludes little rangers into believing theyre actually making a difference, when the real difference is made by static fields, rings of warding, Earth Shakers, and the sort.

GvG meta has permeated WvW in most of the higher tier server. this basically means perma stable frontliners, unlimited condi clears, staff eles, power wellmancers and the sort.

Youre kind of contradicting yourself here… perma stable frontliners are not affected at all by the hard cc you mention, soft cc is where its at until they tone down the stability in the game. There is very little immunity out there to it, unlike hard cc which is countered by one ability. Conditions are more spammable than the cures, advantage conditions.

mistsim.2748:

incorrect, rangers cant bunker more than 2-3 competent players. once ure past this threshold, the regen ranger crumples.

As a trap ranger I still go full P/V/T or Sentinel (if I could afford it) can take some good damage without regen. The signet zerg build we showcase are more forgiving because of the 48 sec stability and 64 sec damage immunity; whereas, Traps need to be play more cautiously. Traps are more about timing, positioning and the Ranger’s knowledge of survival mechanics.

u cant “bunker” with pvt/sentinel without Signet of Stone. i dedicated many hours to actually test this.

“knowledge of survival mechanics” is basically translated to “the enemy zerg isnt rushing your face and focusing you, so you have the time and luxury to run around spamming traps”. when u get focused, and u burn through your dodge rolls, youre done. especially if u dont have stability, LR, SoR, or SoS ready to go.

mistsim.2748:

Kasama.8941:

Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.

this is all soft CC brother. it does nothing to an organized zerg with -65% condi duration. spamming soft CC only deludes little rangers into believing theyre actually making a difference, when the real difference is made by static fields, rings of warding, Earth Shakers, and the sort.

GvG meta has permeated WvW in most of the higher tier server. this basically means perma stable frontliners, unlimited condi clears, staff eles, power wellmancers and the sort.

you cant “whittle down” a zerg that has a lot of sustain. you have to deal with it through brute force, hard CC, burst, and constant presence inside of them.

what do you think traps and spirits will do against a group of 10 guardians rushing your face? spirits will get popped instantly and when u have to wait an entire minute. traps will get totally shrugged off like theyre nothing.

It doesn’t have to be “soft CC” if you play into condition duration. Even just picking Trap Potency doubles your traps condition duration, making for instance Frost Trap deal 2 seconds of chill on each tick. Add +50% condition duration on top of that, and you won’t be dealing with short duration times anymore.

The only problem with your triangle of love, is you need a high number of these professions to do any real harm, as their skills all have really long recharge times. The Warrior will only use AoE stun on the initial attack, trapping a few unaware players, and the Guardian’s wards have almost no use anymore in WvW, as stacking stability is common procedure these days. Meanwhile, one Ranger can continually stack conditions that needs to be cleansed, several times. And which can all be reapplied after a short time.

I can only speak for my own server, and whenever I use Muddy Terrain or Entangle, I can clearly see it slows down foes. Mostly forcing them to prematurely use condition removal, before the fight has even started. Once the fight has gone on for a while, players will try to reset, and then trapping foes becomes even more vital, as most will have exhausted all their skills.

I can’t imagine a situation where I would stand around and let ten Guardians rush me..

Welcome to T1/T2 server. You will find even more guardians/warriors rush you here.

I can’t imagine a situation where I would stand around and let ten Guardians rush me..

Cufufalating.8479:

What I like about my ranger and running traps is theres a very natural transition from being with my guild group fighting large battles to wondering off by myself to camp cap and scout.

No need to change build, no worry that I am built for zerging but cant 1v1 or the other way around because I can do both, you can move from one task to the next seamlessly and its a lot of fun, and how I like to play.

Precisey this. Hotswap to DPS pets and viola: you’re a roamer. To address other concerns about particular match ups, replacing warriors or guardians with rangers, or the math of who clears what faster, I will say this: we use a few trap rangers paired with thieves in wvw and we win. Deal with it.

[quote=2713100;Kasama.8941:]

Um, I have 21k health in full Apoth gear and I have a full set of Dwayna… I don’t last 2 second if I’m anywhere near the front of a zerg on zerg encounter.. Who’s dropping into or out of anything?

What you’re asking is for an entire zerg to focus fire you and you’re going to live? Not on the servers JQ play against.

Kasama.8941:

I can’t imagine a situation where I would stand around and let ten Guardians rush me..

how about every WvW situation where you have to defend something? or a GvG where you have to actually kill them?

hard CC is still the only way of actually securing kills, and it punishes those who dont have stability dissemination perfected, which is actually most people. so as you said, you need more staff eles, more 4-wall guardians, more warriors, which is EXACTLY what the meta is currently. and believe me, rangers are not the solution or counter to the meta (lol)

as i explained, with -65% condi duration (melandru + poultry), your condis arent staying on for long, even if they dont get cleared. but the clearance is basically limitless, especially with Pure of Voice bug. it was before the bug as well.

the only useful soft CC is immobilize, as i mentioned. dog f2 + MT + entangle can be very useful, and i designed a build that revolves around that actually. but it is far from game changing.

NargofWoV.4267:

Um, I have 21k health in full Apoth gear and I have a full set of Dwayna… I don’t last 2 second if I’m anywhere near the front of a zerg on zerg encounter.. Who’s dropping into or out of anything?

What you’re asking is for an entire zerg to focus fire you and you’re going to live? Not on the servers JQ play against.

and along the same lines, my sentinel build has 26k HP, -65% condi duration, 2300 toughness. this is the tankiest the ranger can get. without signets, i aint dropping in and out of anything either, believe me.

I’ve pretty much leveled my ranger in WvW, (PvE was just too easy on a ranger I guess). I’ve run with zergs, soloed, small teamed, escorted dolyaks, and defended keeps/towers. I would say rangers contribute alot, but how much will depend on the player more than profession X vs Y.

My favorite thing to do is flank. I love breaking out from the zerg and hitting the sides of an enemy with two hyenas and me. I love dropping mud on them, trapping or throwing conditions all around. Flanking pulls players from the main effort and I have plenty of evades, regen, and two pets to lay down problems, back-out if needed and jump back in to harass. I also play on a lower level tier so maybe I don’t encounter the highly organized spartan zergs of Tiers 1 through 4 you are use to.

But like I said, how good a player will be or how much they will contribute is dependent on them.

CRrabbit.1284:

Kasama.8941:

Boomstin.3460:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.

How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.

Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.

All of these skills are in melee range. To successfully cast them and retreat you need both protect me with either traited SoS or L-reflex(protect me alone not enough, I tried many times even with brown bear+protect me in front of zerg ball, and it last no more than 3 seconds), and to max the trap, you have to at least invent 20 to Skirm trait. Then you are already at 30/20 in trait and already used 2 utilities which leaves you only 1 slot for trap.
Same idea, your canine won’t survive till they cast immo or fear unless 1-you use SoS or 2-you use shout to stealth+protect them then go. And after casting , they are pretty much instant dead then you have to swap another quickly for your own protection.
Well you can use 5 rangers to do the suicide rush to cast some of these, but what’s the point next?

I just threw this together (notice how all the traps are ranged):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMfdG2IQVcdeljFqdgYVAQtHZiTnn9g/O6Rpcrq0GL-jkxAIsBRnDLiGb9rIasaGMVKRUtHvIa1SBAxaA-w

Dude, I feel your pain, I have 3.1k Armor and 28K HP and I dare not go to front line w/o both protect me + traited SoS.

NargofWoV.4267:

Um, I have 21k health in full Apoth gear and I have a full set of Dwayna… I don’t last 2 second if I’m anywhere near the front of a zerg on zerg encounter.. Who’s dropping into or out of anything?

What you’re asking is for an entire zerg to focus fire you and you’re going to live? Not on the servers JQ play against.

lol, no stun breaker. you can at most cast 1 skill in front of zerg then be stun locked to death.

Kasama.8941:

CRrabbit.1284:

Kasama.8941:

Boomstin.3460:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.

How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.

Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.

All of these skills are in melee range. To successfully cast them and retreat you need both protect me with either traited SoS or L-reflex(protect me alone not enough, I tried many times even with brown bear+protect me in front of zerg ball, and it last no more than 3 seconds), and to max the trap, you have to at least invent 20 to Skirm trait. Then you are already at 30/20 in trait and already used 2 utilities which leaves you only 1 slot for trap.
Same idea, your canine won’t survive till they cast immo or fear unless 1-you use SoS or 2-you use shout to stealth+protect them then go. And after casting , they are pretty much instant dead then you have to swap another quickly for your own protection.
Well you can use 5 rangers to do the suicide rush to cast some of these, but what’s the point next?

I just threw this together (notice how all the traps are ranged):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMfdG2IQVcdeljFqdgYVAQtHZiTnn9g/O6Rpcrq0GL-jkxAIsBRnDLiGb9rIasaGMVKRUtHvIa1SBAxaA-w

Kasama.8941:

CRrabbit.1284:

Kasama.8941:

Boomstin.3460:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.

How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.

Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.

All of these skills are in melee range. To successfully cast them and retreat you need both protect me with either traited SoS or L-reflex(protect me alone not enough, I tried many times even with brown bear+protect me in front of zerg ball, and it last no more than 3 seconds), and to max the trap, you have to at least invent 20 to Skirm trait. Then you are already at 30/20 in trait and already used 2 utilities which leaves you only 1 slot for trap.
Same idea, your canine won’t survive till they cast immo or fear unless 1-you use SoS or 2-you use shout to stealth+protect them then go. And after casting , they are pretty much instant dead then you have to swap another quickly for your own protection.
Well you can use 5 rangers to do the suicide rush to cast some of these, but what’s the point next?

I just threw this together (notice how all the traps are ranged):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMfdG2IQVcdeljFqdgYVAQtHZiTnn9g/O6Rpcrq0GL-jkxAIsBRnDLiGb9rIasaGMVKRUtHvIa1SBAxaA-w

if youre casting from 600 range, by the time youre done, the melee train is upon you. so youre still at melee range. you dont have a single survivability util equipped. you will get crushed.

NargofWoV.4267:

Um, I have 21k health in full Apoth gear and I have a full set of Dwayna… I don’t last 2 second if I’m anywhere near the front of a zerg on zerg encounter.. Who’s dropping into or out of anything?

What you’re asking is for an entire zerg to focus fire you and you’re going to live? Not on the servers JQ play against.

I’ve been doing it all week. I’m one of about three rangers that play for strikeforce. If you see a yellow, human ranger with [SF] tag you know you’re fighting Chopps. :p

See, when you jump in stealth and start trapping, they usually aren’t ready. By the time they focus fire, our zerg is already on their zerg. They cannot respond to me fast enough.

CRrabbit.1284:

lol, no stun breaker. you can at most cast 1 skill in front of zerg then be stun locked to death.

mistsim.2748:

if youre casting from 600 range, by the time youre done, the melee train is upon you. so youre still at melee range.

How the hell do you guys play? Stand still and take all the incoming damage to your face? The Ranger has more then enough evasion to move out of the way. You’re talking like the only reasonable scenario is a hundred foes, with +100% movement speed, vs. one imbecile Ranger. Let’s get back to reality shall we..

If you want more stun removal, then changing Muddy Terrain to Signet of Renewal, or Lightning Reflexes, wouldn’t make the build that much worse. And the build also has Shared Anguish.

I think, at least for me, my biggest problem is the profession mechanic and our weapons. I love using traps in zergs (although I ignore flame trap and Viper’s Nest) but that’s all.

All of our weapons are just not suited for such an environment. Sword competently inhibits your movement, Axe may bounce but that’s not real cleave, Greatsword cleaves but all you do is spam #1/2, Piercing Arrows? Handy, but again, not cleaving and targeting can be a real pain.

Next is the mechanic, I’m sorry but you will never convince me pets are incredibly useful in these situations. Your entire mechanic comes down to one actual active skill that may/may not complete it’s ridiculous casting time while quite possibly exploding into nothingness despite the fact it already inhibits your personal performance.

Until we get real weapons that cleave and some way to either improve the mechanic or replace it all we really rely on is Frost Trap, Spike Trap, Muddy Terrain, and MAYBE Entangle. That’s it. That’s what every single one of these post about how useful we are comes to. It’s so pathetic. Oh did I not mention Whirling Defense? Silly me. I forgot to mention a great Off-Hand weapon that pretty much requires you to bring a Signet, and therefore 30 into Marks. and 20 into Skirm for 5 seconds of self immobilization and reflect. Again, silly me.

Yet we’re all content to sit here and fight among ourselves about how awesome we are in zergs because of 3, maybe 4 skills. Meanwhile we’re still left out, never asked for, and usually just ignored. Yes these “attack” utility skills can be really handy but are they worth giving up useful weapon skills, possibly a profession mechanic that already inhibits you personally, and not allowing you to bring any actual utility? Not a chance. That is why we’re not popular. Want us to be popular? Stop being content with mediocrity because you feel you have to defend your profession against itself. I just wrote up 5,000 words worth of a suggestion overview and I don’t even really feel like posting it now because I should just learn to be content with 3-4 useful skills. Kitty me, Right?

Boomstin.3460:

No condition will stick to any organized groups much longer than a second or 2, everything will get cleansed way faster than anyone can apply them, or worse yet converted to boons. So you are actually hurting your own chances and buffing your enemy.
Sure traps can be somewhat effective to tag some mindless zerglings on eb and they sure are quite handy in small scale warfare.
I like that you try to find positive sides from the current situation but please stop spreading misinformation. It’s not helping anyone.

Most burn conditions does 1k+/pulse and lasts barely 1-2 seconds.

Also, frost trap is OP if you blast finish the field. Gives your zerg Frost Aura, which means whoever hits you get chilled, and you take 10% less damage. Heavily underestimated. Ele with frost field, and a blast train, would lead to epicly OP zergs…. too bad it has a long CD for eles.

Castaliea.3156:

I think, at least for me, my biggest problem is the profession mechanic and our weapons. I love using traps in zergs (although I ignore flame trap and Viper’s Nest) but that’s all.

All of our weapons are just not suited for such an environment. Sword competently inhibits your movement, Axe may bounce but that’s not real cleave, Greatsword cleaves but all you do is spam #1/2, Piercing Arrows? Handy, but again, not cleaving and targeting can be a real pain.

Next is the mechanic, I’m sorry but you will never convince me pets are incredibly useful in these situations. Your entire mechanic comes down to one actual active skill that may/may not complete it’s ridiculous casting time while quite possibly exploding into nothingness despite the fact it already inhibits your personal performance.

Until we get real weapons that cleave and some way to either improve the mechanic or replace it all we really rely on is Frost Trap, Spike Trap, Muddy Terrain, and MAYBE Entangle. That’s it. That’s what every single one of these post about how useful we are comes to. It’s so pathetic. Oh did I not mention Whirling Defense? Silly me. I forgot to mention a great Off-Hand weapon that pretty much requires you to bring a Signet, and therefore 30 into Marks. and 20 into Skirm for 5 seconds of self immobilization and reflect. Again, silly me.

Yet we’re all content to sit here and fight among ourselves about how awesome we are in zergs because of 3, maybe 4 skills. Meanwhile we’re still left out, never asked for, and usually just ignored. Yes these “attack” utility skills can be really handy but are they worth giving up useful weapon skills, possibly a profession mechanic that already inhibits you personally, and not allowing you to bring any actual utility? Not a chance. That is why we’re not popular. Want us to be popular? Stop being content with mediocrity because you feel you have to defend your profession against itself. I just wrote up 5,000 words worth of a suggestion overview and I don’t even really feel like posting it now because I should just learn to be content with 3-4 useful skills. Kitty me, Right?

No one here is content. We are simply trying to make the best with what we have, which isn’t as bad as most want to believe. We already have a lot of complain topics, but negativity never moved anyone forward.

also, the reflect on whirling defence is a bug. It was stated by one of the devs that it was intended to only block, but thanks to some mechanic, possibly related to whirl finisher, it reflects on occasion. Meaning, get ready to have it nerfed.

You have neither LB stealth nor GS3 gap closer. How can you reach opponents into melee range w/o being noticed?
Your shared anguish is the reason why I said you can cast 1 skill before you die.
Yes you can use sword2 to get closer but then you just used the only last hope of escaping after cast that 1 skill when you are lucky enough to be not seen when you try to approach.

Kasama.8941:

CRrabbit.1284:

lol, no stun breaker. you can at most cast 1 skill in front of zerg then be stun locked to death.

mistsim.2748:

if youre casting from 600 range, by the time youre done, the melee train is upon you. so youre still at melee range.

How the hell do you guys play? Stand still and take all the incoming damage to your face? The Ranger has more then enough evasion to move out of the way. You’re talking like the only reasonable scenario is a hundred foes, with +100% movement speed, vs. one imbecile Ranger. Let’s get back to reality shall we..

If you want more stun removal, then changing Muddy Terrain to Signet of Renewal, or Lightning Reflexes, wouldn’t make the build that much worse. And the build also has Shared Anguish.

Castaliea.3156:

I think, at least for me, my biggest problem is the profession mechanic and our weapons. I love using traps in zergs (although I ignore flame trap and Viper’s Nest) but that’s all.

All of our weapons are just not suited for such an environment. Sword competently inhibits your movement, Axe may bounce but that’s not real cleave, Greatsword cleaves but all you do is spam #1/2, Piercing Arrows? Handy, but again, not cleaving and targeting can be a real pain.

Next is the mechanic, I’m sorry but you will never convince me pets are incredibly useful in these situations. Your entire mechanic comes down to one actual active skill that may/may not complete it’s ridiculous casting time while quite possibly exploding into nothingness despite the fact it already inhibits your personal performance.

Until we get real weapons that cleave and some way to either improve the mechanic or replace it all we really rely on is Frost Trap, Spike Trap, Muddy Terrain, and MAYBE Entangle. That’s it. That’s what every single one of these post about how useful we are comes to. It’s so pathetic. Oh did I not mention Whirling Defense? Silly me. I forgot to mention a great Off-Hand weapon that pretty much requires you to bring a Signet, and therefore 30 into Marks. and 20 into Skirm for 5 seconds of self immobilization and reflect. Again, silly me.

Yet we’re all content to sit here and fight among ourselves about how awesome we are in zergs because of 3, maybe 4 skills. Meanwhile we’re still left out, never asked for, and usually just ignored. Yes these “attack” utility skills can be really handy but are they worth giving up useful weapon skills, possibly a profession mechanic that already inhibits you personally, and not allowing you to bring any actual utility? Not a chance. That is why we’re not popular. Want us to be popular? Stop being content with mediocrity because you feel you have to defend your profession against itself. I just wrote up 5,000 words worth of a suggestion overview and I don’t even really feel like posting it now because I should just learn to be content with 3-4 useful skills. Kitty me, Right?

TL;DR: GIVE US STAFF ANET XD

Seriously though, axe/warhorn with torch secondary or greatsword. That’s all you really need. Piercing arrows is ok too if you like shortbow.

its also not so much about being content, as it is learning to work around the issues. Quite a few of us have realized that if you stop forcing the class to be something it aint, it will be much better then you first thought.

Also, people say its easy to play all other classes, so easy to achieve same results as the ranger. Have you ever thought, that because you have played a ranger, which do have its quirks, applying your playstyle to other classes makes them ridiculously easy to play.
I made an ele the other day, the whole swapping system, survivability, mobility, skill usage. Its so kitten easy, if you play an ele like a ranger. It becomes nearly laughable

CRrabbit.1284:

You have neither LB stealth nor GS3 gap closer. How can you reach opponents into melee range w/o being noticed?

Well I can offer one tactic. Most zergs are tunnel visioned. They see the front and push there. Once they have clashed I flank them. Yes this is after they have clashed but I can get in deep enough to drop traps or torch 5 or grasping vines or fear wolf, etc. I get out and then engage on another part.

Again, I play in lower tiers and that could be something that only works there but it works.