Guild Wars 2

I have no idea why I’m in build theory mode, but my mind has been in “curious” mode; nevertheless, here is something else I’m enjoying so I wanted to share it.

Sol posted a few PvP builds (found here – https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/SPvP-Rise-Rangers-Video) and I tried them out and found them to be really enjoyable to play and offered great team support. I got to thinking that the same benefits could translate well for 5 to 10 man WvW groups. So I went about converting the spirit build to WvW use. Here is what I have so far – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjEVl1dV+Vg2BglCBDs9ITNx0po0TP4XrH-jUyA4MBZaBMFKQpwioxWgLiGruBTjuoaFLgHpIa1A-w

NOTE: This is new and I’m still testing it in WvW but so far the results are promising.

Traits – 20/0/30/20/0 I used the same traits for the same reasons Sol points out in his post. Piercing Arrows overcomes body blocks, damages and spreads conditions to all who get pierced. Wilderness Survival line is, well, where all the big survival traits are. Nature magic allows higher proc rate for burning & protection and having two roaming shields doesn’t hurt.

Weapons – Carrion. Right now I’m us SB and SW/dagger but I’m going to try LB instead of SB and see what happens. SB’s quick fire rate helps keep up protection and burn procs. LB has the range and I’m interested to see how barrage is affect by Sun Spirit. Either way I’m just curious. I also want to weigh warhorn vs dagger and see what works best.

Aarmor – Carrion. Why? Power, vitality and conditions. Power and conditions allow to me inflict good physical and condition damage. The extra vitality is to create a bigger health pool to offset the Ranger’s limited condi cleansing and those moments where I get bombed. I’ll address toughness in the runes section. For trinkets I also use Carrion but with Dire mixed in. In the link I’ve used exotic trinkets but they can be traded out for ascended piece as they are acquired. However, please realize there MAY NOT be ascended carrion trinkets. I couldn’t find any on the vendor but I could have just missed them in the long list. If anyone can confirm or deny this please let us know. From what I did see, you’ll have to use a Dire+Rabid, pure Rabid or Apothecary +Rabid stats. Essentially, dire gives more vitality, apothecary gives more healing, pure Rabid more precision. Mix and match to your flavor.

Runes – If you can get Runes of the Forge use them. Faux Sheaux has addressed the synergies between spirit builds and these runes in previous threads so I’ll just summarize – The bonus synergizes well with the additional toughness and increases in both burn and protection. The real shining part is the 6th bonus. At 50% health you gain protection for 10 sec and burn all nearby foes. They are purchasable from the dungeon “Caudecus’s Manor”. If you can’t get these, runes of the earth are an acceptable replacement for the protection duration increase and toughness, but that’s about it. Maybe 4 earth and two grove runes for 35% protection increase might work to but I haven’t tried it.

Skills –Stone Spirit provides you with protection. Add to it Companion’s Defense, Vigorous Renewal and the runes protection duration increase and you have near constant protection. Sun spirit to spread burning around for all to enjoy. Sig of Renewal for condi cleanse. For the elite, I bring Spirit of Nature or Entangle depending on the situation. Oh, and when I run around I have SoH then swap before fight or I just ride all the speed boost fields.

Sigils-put what you want. If there are better suggestions I am open to them.

Food, etc. – I haven’t decided if it better to run condi increase food, condi decrease food so I can replace SoR …I really need to play the build more and see.

I have not tried this in any sort of solo fashion. It might work but I created it with the intent of having others around me. Again, thanks to Sol for providing the PvP version of this build which provided the inspiration.

Any comments, critiques, suggestions are always welcome.
Zonian

Don’t forget to modify this somehow to include the upcoming signet elite, I can see spirit builds benefiting greatly from swapping one spirit for a signet of stone.

Good point AWGE. We’ll see what happens and I will keep that in mind.

Uhm, just wanna point out that if you use Lemongrass and Melandru Runes, you can pretty much drop 10-20 points into Wilderness Survival Line and place them elsewhere.
The pets you selected, with empathic bond, will not work. The smaller the group, the more susceptible you are to condi spam. At 5-10 man size, you need condition cleansing or condition duration reduction (self) to avoid damage.
Empathic Bond will kill your pet within 10-15 seconds of entering combat if only ONE enemy has condition spec. Stop using that horrible trait, it is the polar opposite of what you want.
For WvW purposes, the build has too low effective toughness. That vitality pool only soaks up condition damage, not raw damage. You will be murdered by any thief that spots you, as you have no way to directly mitigate a backstab, which at 2500 armor, WILL hit for around 9-12k.

I’d redo it to something like this;
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YncEVWZXF+VAahAYpAwAbK00SWBDdKK90LOqpH-jUyAIMBZaBEZBgIAnDLiGbZsIas6GMFLRUtDpIa1SBsouK-w

This way, you get more tanky, you preserve your damage, you will do more direct damage and more bleed stacking, which is important. Unless you got warhorn, or plan to run in a group with a SB thief, stick to water spirit or troll ungent. Healing spring cooldown is long, very long, and the condition removal + water field only shines if you can safely rely on your allies blasting it. The spirit however, it applies its effect passively and actively. So you can use it before you need to use it, and still get a few heals from it. Water spirit is not so bad in small groups, you will have to be more aware of your surroundings though as to not get it killed.
You may notice that i changed the first trait in the Marksman line. This is because if coupled with Marsh Drake, and a condition build, that trait can allow the drake to do bursts close to 6-7k. The attack also bounces and applies a long duration poison (5x duration listed to each target hit. Tooltip is incorrect at this moment)

Prysin – Thank you for the feedback.

I am still experimenting with the build so I will take your suggestions and work with them.

I did initially looked at the lemon grass + Melandru runes and you are correct they are powerful together. I went with Forge runes for the increased protection duration and burning (it compliments the spirits well). I have discovered a weakness: the only time the protection buff drops is when the spirit dies. Twenty seconds is a long time.

Again, appreciate the feedback.