Guild Wars 2

Hi all, looking for any help or suggestions with my new build.

Since the Dec 10 changes I have been trying to incorporate spirits into a roaming build, and I think I may now have something that is viable. Using Durzlla’s old longbow/spirit build as a template, this is what I have come up with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJAVRjEVd1lVCWo2BglCBDs9gTLx0po0THQE-jkxA4sARLCUKsIasVzioxqsxUvER1CBoYOA-w

A few points:

- High HP pool, and protection through stone spirit.
- AOE bleeds, burns and poisons.
- Shortbow works much better than longbow due to the condition application.
- Greatsword is primarily for swoop and block.
- Thanks to the high power Maul still does some damage (1.5k non-crit).

The early results are surprisingly good. Piercing arrows with bleeds and burns gives quite decent AOE damage, and the high HP pool plus protection make it fairly tanky.

Flipping camps is easy and small group encounters have all been great so far. The party buffs and high HP make scenarios like 2v4 or 2v5 quite survivable.

I’ve tried hybrid builds before but they all used celestial and had too many wasted stats IMO (like precision/crit dmg). The Carrion/Soldier combo is great as it maximises the key areas for hybrid to work, ie. Power/Conditions/HP.

The only downsides so far is that it seems to be vulnerable when protection is down (as the toughness is low), and the damage feels a bit low with no corruption stacks.

At this stage I am quite happy with it, but I am interested to see if I can achieve more damage, and/or more toughness.

why do you have martial mastery and wilderness knowledge seems that those traits are barely been of any use.

A few thoughts:

1. Replace Entangle with RAO If you are roaming you will want RAO as it is quite long stability and you can quickly stack might on the pet and the pet (espec lashtail) on you.

2. More Defense Focus your armor less on offense and more on defense. I would go so far as to change my rune set to improve healing (altruism I just love) and then get might procs.

3. Go 30 Nature Your survivorability goes way up when you use nature’s voice (which will also heal your spirits) with water spirit. Water spirit + nature’s voice is much more healing than healing spring. Simply put, none of the healing attributes (on proc, heal on activations) are regenerations. So, nature’s voice stacks with the full benefit of WS. MUCH better. Piercing arrows is not worth 200ish hps regen. HS stinks if you have NV for the simple reason that the regen pulses out of a field you have to be inside of all the time. Plus, you have no blast finisher. NV also replaces the need for SotH.

4. Replace Wilderness Knowledge Two choices depending on playstyle. Vigorous renewal plays extremely well with Water Spirit given how it considers “on heal” to be on activation as well as every use of the active heal. You can quickly stack long duration 100% endurance for any 1v1 fight and tip the balance very quickly. On the other hand Expertise Training with mobs that are NOT canines works very well.

5. The Keen Edge Debate. Keen edge has value but so does malicious training with spiders (great for roaming) and beastmaster’s bond.

I like the idea, and i might steal bits of it.

“Martial Mastery” is a great trait, helps you get around the map quicker, more mauls more leap finishers. “Wilderness Knowledge” could be swapped for “Shared Anguish” (you have no stun beakers) or “Soften the Fall” (a great running away skill, and move around the map faster).

I think Piercing Arrows is a bit of a waste i don’t find it that useful in small group stuff. other choices in the same trait line are “Predators Instinct” for another soft cc or “Malicious Training” and use a Spider, Drakehound, Wolf or chill pet. you could also move 10 out of marks for skirmishing “Primal Reflexes” or beast master for “Mighty Swap” or a pet cool down trait.

I think there are better choices for Runes as well, something with Toughness as its primary stat, such as Earth (more protection), Forge (more protection/burning) or Melandru’s (a good set in general for wvw, my default set on alts), the new runes of resistance might be good working with signet of the hunt (i haven’t used them yet).

Either way i like the build idea.

Bombsaway.7198:

A few thoughts:

1. Replace Entangle with RAO If you are roaming you will want RAO as it is quite long stability and you can quickly stack might on the pet and the pet (espec lashtail) on you.

2. More Defense Focus your armor less on offense and more on defense. I would go so far as to change my rune set to improve healing (altruism I just love) and then get might procs.

3. Go 30 Nature Your survivorability goes way up when you use nature’s voice (which will also heal your spirits) with water spirit. Water spirit + nature’s voice is much more healing than healing spring. Simply put, none of the healing attributes (on proc, heal on activations) are regenerations. So, nature’s voice stacks with the full benefit of WS. MUCH better. Piercing arrows is not worth 200ish hps regen. HS stinks if you have NV for the simple reason that the regen pulses out of a field you have to be inside of all the time. Plus, you have no blast finisher. NV also replaces the need for SotH.

4. Replace Wilderness Knowledge Two choices depending on playstyle. Vigorous renewal plays extremely well with Water Spirit given how it considers “on heal” to be on activation as well as every use of the active heal. You can quickly stack long duration 100% endurance for any 1v1 fight and tip the balance very quickly. On the other hand Expertise Training with mobs that are NOT canines works very well.

5. The Keen Edge Debate. Keen edge has value but so does malicious training with spiders (great for roaming) and beastmaster’s bond.

1. Since immobilise changed to a condition I find I don’t need stability. Also the might stacking is only good with certain pets (as you’ve suggested). That defeats the purpose of running Hyena and getting the double KD (plus double sun spirit procs).

2. Its not a regen build though. I’ve purposely gone for high HP+protection over healing power to try something different. Altruism could be interesting with water spirit though…would that give perma might stacking!? (if it can proc of course)

3. Again, trying to avoid regen builds. I intentionally went for high hp+protection to try and avoid having to use regen. I also don’t like having to cast guard repeatedly. I’ve been trying to incorporate piercing arrows for the AOE too, rangers just don’t have any decent AOE without it (except for traps). No blast finisher but have the leap from Swoop. Which is generally what I do when things start to go bad. Drop HS and swoop out of it.

4. I might try this with water spirit. First few goes I found it difficult to heal on demand though.

5. I think the double hyena with sun spirit is quite important, which is why I borrowed that from Durzlla’s build. I was running an immob stacking build with spiders previously but I think that works better with a power burst build. This build is sustained damage over burst so I dont think the immob is so important. Besides the double KD from Hyenas is a good immob/interrupt anyway.

Good feedback, keep it coming!

Eggyokeo.9705:

I like the idea, and i might steal bits of it.

“Martial Mastery” is a great trait, helps you get around the map quicker, more mauls more leap finishers. “Wilderness Knowledge” could be swapped for “Shared Anguish” (you have no stun beakers) or “Soften the Fall” (a great running away skill, and move around the map faster).

I think Piercing Arrows is a bit of a waste i don’t find it that useful in small group stuff. other choices in the same trait line are “Predators Instinct” for another soft cc or “Malicious Training” and use a Spider, Drakehound, Wolf or chill pet. you could also move 10 out of marks for skirmishing “Primal Reflexes” or beast master for “Mighty Swap” or a pet cool down trait.

I think there are better choices for Runes as well, something with Toughness as its primary stat, such as Earth (more protection), Forge (more protection/burning) or Melandru’s (a good set in general for wvw, my default set on alts), the new runes of resistance might be good working with signet of the hunt (i haven’t used them yet).

Either way i like the build idea.

The piercing arrows+entangle is mostly for flipping camps. Short of traps I’ve found that the fastest way to clear one.

I’m not sure about the runes either but the two things I think this build needs more of is toughness and condition damage. Forge could be good, but I thought condition duration didn’t affect sun spirit?

Sube Dai.8496:

The piercing arrows+entangle is mostly for flipping camps. Short of traps I’ve found that the fastest way to clear one.

I’ve taken the attitude that flipping camps is easy, so its best not to spec to much in to doing so. if it takes and extra 10s (even 20s) so that you have a better spec when you get an actual fight its proberly worth it.

The fastest way i found to flip a camp is A/A and A/Wh and RoA this works with most trait set ups, just better with some.

Sube Dai.8496:

I’m not sure about the runes either but the two things I think this build needs more of is toughness and condition damage. Forge could be good, but I thought condition duration didn’t affect sun spirit?

i don’t know either but the 6 slot is a life saver for hp builds, maybe 5 engineer 1 other