Guild Wars 2

So, i’m going to brave WvW for the first time later. I’ve generally only really played PvE in my GW years so i’m looking for a little advice in my foray into PvP.

*top 3 tips for a beginner in WvW
*rough idea of what build to go with

Gear wise it’s not great as it’s only a recent 80. have exotic LB, rare armour and pathetic accessories. Think my preference will tend to roaming. Well, i’m happy as long as i am able to use my LB really as i dislike melee with a Ranger as a first choice weapon.

So fellow Ranger types, what’s the plan?

Umm LB + roaming usually isn’t a good combination, most of times LB as roaming is to try to surprise burst your enemy but with sub gear you won’t burst anything.

Look for condition/regen builds, those are less reliant on gear and works really well for your roaming.

Try to tag a long with a zerg in the beginning just to familiarize with the people, try to get some tips and recognize the map, then begin to follow the zerg from a bigger distance and fight the enemies around your zerg, after a while you’ll have confidence and knowledge enough to roam freely.

Cheers Belzebu,

So, tag along with a Zerg to get my bearings and while have sub-gear. Got it.

Question, while with Zerg is it like being with Dungeon party, should i be having SS and Spotter type support stuff up or should i be going more selfish?

You mainly need to try to survive as long as possible (more meat to soak damage from others and a bit of damage is better than no damage when dead), if you can add spotter then do, but not really needed, there are other rangers there for that, also people will usually expect just healing spring from you.
If you stay at the back line of the zerg to use your LB, then you can go with a more selfish build for sure, and even change HS to TU if you want.

WvW = safety in numbers.

One way to practice your skills while you learn the WvW maps and mechanics would be to do some sPvP.

Edit: BTW what world are you on? There might be someone willing to head out with you.

Hi, I’m pretty knowledgeable about WvW in general, but I haven’t really played my ranger there that much yet, but I will when the patch makes things a bit more viable.

Okay so first off, what server or tier are you on? Fights in WvW will be a lot easier if you’re not in T1 or T2.

Oh I see you want to roam… which is not my specialty since roaming is rather boring to me but I understand the appeal. For roaming on ranger I’d suggest a condition tank build with high regen potential, such as the roaming regen builds on youtube, that use Axe/dagger and sword/torch and have tons of settler/apothecary gear to basically never die. That does not use longbow though, but you could do a glassier GS/LB roaming build, which is less ideal than the condition tank build but will be more viable when the next patch hits.

For large group play in WvW/GvGs (although you really can’t bring a ranger to GvG, but more casual WvW is fine), which I mainly do on necromancer, I’d say that the most important thing about rangers that they offer is entangle, and it will be much better when the patch hits and you’ll be able to use it multiple times per fight, but be sure to always time it with your driver (person in charge) so that you immobolize either right as a bomb happens or right after guardian binding blade pulls go down. Other classes don’t have as strong of an AoE immobolize. The next thing you’ll want to do is incorporate your healing spring in your groups ele water rotation. It’ll be a tad limited because its not ground targetted, but it lasts long (more blasts!) and cleanses conditions, which is really helpful to your group. My guild as a joke runs circle of life on our ranger build, although we only have a few rangers that we sometimes run.

For weapons in large group play when the patch hits, I’d honestly run axe/x and GS (or sword/axe). The longbow has the problem of putting you away from your group, which is really bad, because enemy groups have gank squads of thieves, D/D eles, eviscerate warriors and shatter mesmers that will isolate and burst you down if you’re too far from your group, and you’ll also be unable to share recovery boons or use entangle from too far away. If you want to pug, I guess it works, but for organized groups, I wouldn’t suggest going more than 2 dodges away from your driver for too long, since if they peel back or move away, you can easily be left in the dust.

Anyway I think Axe, with warhorn or another axe will be the ideal ranged set for group fights in WvW since you cleave so much and build so much might automatically, and splitblade can help tag and winter’s bite can help lock down a target thats out of position by preventing them from getting back in position. GS, provides great melee cleave, defense, and mobility which is very useful as long as you can predict and dodge bombs and hammer trains, but you’d need to gear reasonably tanky. Sword/Axe is a bit better for locking down targets with path of scars’ pull and the high powered auto, but thats only ideal if you run a ranger as gank, which is completely suboptimal to thieves, shatter mesmers, evsicerate wars, and D/D eles.

Anyway, keep in mind that these are my thoughts on Rangers in WvW, and I don’t have the experience to back it up (yet).

As for WvW tips, I’d just say: helping your team is more important than helping yourself (for fights not sieging/PPT), positioning will determine whether you live or die, and most importantly, do not be a rallybot for another group. Ever.

Oh yeah, mechanically WvW roaming is close to sPvP, it is a good way to practice rotations and other classes.

Again cheers guys, some decent advise.

Is there Ranger hate in WvW as there are in dungeons/fractals? Will the fact i’m sitting deep and spraying away in a selfish-ish (stutter much?!) build rile the masses?

I’m on Gunnar’s Hold.

helluva post nearlight, thanks for the insight.

In zergs yes, since rangers doesn’t have good group support and when you offer decent group support you won’t be able to deal much damage, and when dealing damage you have bad AoE options, resuming rangers doesn’t have anything a zerg group seeks.

For roaming rangers are among the best classes imo.

EDIT: But with the axe buff, GS #2 range, signet and Entangle change, our WvW QoL in zergs will improve.

think what I’ve garnered is i need to learn how to melee with my Ranger better :|

AdziH.2360:

Again cheers guys, some decent advise.

Is there Ranger hate in WvW as there are in dungeons/fractals? Will the fact i’m sitting deep and spraying away in a selfish-ish (stutter much?!) build rile the masses?

I’m on Gunnar’s Hold.

Honestly yeah there is stigma against rangers for group play in WvW. It won’trile the masses since most people don’t care what other people do, but if you’re with your guild you don’t want to run something totally suboptimal. We see random bearbow rangers a lot, which continues to that mentality.. and like I said, while we do run rangers, right now its more for fun or as a joke with the healing spring on down trait. I think the next balance patch could seriously buff Ranger’s viability in WvW, but I’ll have to test that out firsthand. While rangers will fit into the puzzle a bit better, I doubt it’ll make the GWEN meta into a GRWEN meta, since while we do offer water fields and potent AoE immobolize (although entangle won’t truly be potent until the next patch) its nothing that gaurdians, warriors, eles, and necros can’t do together, and they will always be the main force for WvW/GvGs. But it could be worse. Mesmers barely fit into the comp at all and only due to nondamaging tactical utility and forgettable burst damage. Thieves can only gank and help blast fields, which is not terrible but you’d never need more than 3 thieves or more than 2-3 mesmers (only if you want to chain veils). Engineers honestly don’t fit into the comp at all right now, and I don’t know enough about them to now if their flamethrower buffs will change that.. so I’d say we’re lucky to have this patch, because it will at least make rangers a bit more on par with theives/mesmers in terms of value of what they can offer, but they still won’t be able to match the GWEN classes in terms of what they can offer.

Well Bleh! lol

Not quite what I wanted to hear.

what we need is 3 man ranger hit-squads synch-smacking rapid fire/barrage on targets with some condi thrown in and pets making a pain of themselves, bird/cat/dog or drake combo would be nice…

more of a Zerg outrider role as opposed to full roam…

I don’t know anything about EU WvW, but your server is ranked so low I doubt you get a single person giving you crap for being on a ranger. Even in T1 these days there usually isn’t a queue (so I’m told anyway, I’m on T2.) Just realize if you die, every single downed enemy that landed an ounce of damage on you will be instantly revived. So try not to die!

Once you get your gear and skills sorted out, rangers are one of the best roaming classes. I personally rank them with thieves and mesmers (top 3 in small fight) though I think many would disagree with me.

Edit: One final thing I’ll add. It’s not possible to stay at range against a human. If they want to melee you, they will and there is nothing you can do about it. So I highly recommend you learn how to use sword or GS effectively, probably in sPvP.

AdziH.2360:

Well Bleh! lol

Not quite what I wanted to hear.

what we need is 3 man ranger hit-squads synch-smacking rapid fire/barrage on targets with some condi thrown in and pets making a pain of themselves, bird/cat/dog or drake combo would be nice…

more of a Zerg outrider role as opposed to full roam…

Thats just my experience, but I have more respect for a good ranger than anything else in this game. And so much more respect for a great ranger than a great warrior.

And by zerg outrider, what you describe is essentially a gank squad. I think ranger can work decently on gank, but not for an actual GvG, as there is a ton of burst you can put down with sword/axe using moment of clarity procced by axe 4, then quickening zephyr into sword autos, and in this case a longbow could actually be useful to help burst with LB 2 while closing in, or setting up a burst using the semi-reliable stealth. But LB 4 will make a gank squad hate you, so be careful! I’d have to test it out but I’d rather run semi-frontline to see how that works.. I’ll have to chat with some of my warrior/guardian friends to see how they think when they do frontline stuff since I do 95% peripheral stuff.

If you want to transfer to a higher tier server and become involved with organized WvW play, you’ll probably want a GWEN class to get into that guild, as that is what most competitive ones try to recruit mainly (aside from the occassional thief/mesmer), but they’d let you bring ranger once you’re in and once you’ve proven yourself as competent.

nearlight.3064:

If you want to transfer to a higher tier server and become involved with organized WvW play, you’ll probably want a GWEN class to get into that guild, as that is what most competitive ones try to recruit mainly (aside from the occassional thief/mesmer), but they’d let you bring ranger once you’re in and once you’ve proven yourself as competent.

That’d be too easy, i’m not abandoning my Ranger! heh

Let’s see post patch what happens. And if i have to lead a one man campaign for Ranger love then i will!

and to your previous comments BearBow and LB4 abuse make me twitch too. I normally hit LB2, 3, 4, while closing followed by GS 3,2,5 but skip LB4 when i’m not soloing. Will throw an f2 in there at some point pet dependent

Another tip if you’re going to solo roam, is to record your fights and watch them later. You always remember it if you make some big mistake and totally mess up a fight, but you tend to forget, or not notice at all, the little mistakes. When you watch a clip of yourself, you will see what you should or shouldn’t have done in a fight and learn much faster.
I’m not saying you should watch every fight you have, but perhaps those close ones where you wonder why you got beat. Or those you barely win, but thought you could have done better.

I’m on Gunnar’s Hold as well. I mostly solo roam, but do join a zerg on rare occasions. I’ve never had anyone comment on the fact that I play a ranger or told me to get another class. It really doesn’t matter that much in a zerg.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBHhFakRlGWbZxjFqWDUIUtfhR4EY+uBgzbYGKwnH-TVDBAB1s/wWKJ6SJCaKBl4IAglyAAOBAepUyS1JC5QAkn+gMVZJgHAApAYSZE-w

This is the quick organized group build idea I had in my head actually created. It might be better to take spotter over ferocious axe, but the skirmishing traits are better in my opinon. The idea is to use strength runes with axe to maintain might. With guardian empowers and fire field blasts and the axe autos, having 25 stacks should be very easy. Hoelbrak is another rune that may work better as it helps us passively shrug conditions off, at the cost of slightly less damage. I’ll probably play around with the exact gearing though, as I believe this build needs more ferocity and more vitality, but I don’t want to give up all the toughness and crit chance it has. Right now the crit chance should be just right as it will have almost 100% fury uptime just from self buffs.

So…

I braved the big bad world of pvp for a bit last night and had an interesting experience.

While walking around solo i managed to kill a couple of sentries, escort a resource run or two and then captured one of those resource making thingys back.

I ran my generic pve build and only really encountered pve things to kill. So was a win-win.

Having not been slaughtered mercilessly by pvp i retired undefeated

Late reply but.. I’m on GH too, and I can tell you we have a surprising number of Rangers, many of whom you can find defending the home BL throughout the day. If you’re new to WvW I’d go there.. we have quite a nice bunch of people who roam about our BL and chat through most of the day Pay attention to the chat and you’ll know where people (both enemies and allies) are and where they are going, so you can join in any action thats happening^^

-Play dirty
Fight near your own zergs, keeps, camps, etc. Run away if you know you’re losing. CC if you’re winning and when the other guy starts running away.

-Know your build
Know your weakness. Avoid fighting classes that are easy counters to your build. This usually means mesmers and maybe a few others depending on your build.

Popular builds are generally either full zerker or some sort of condi-regen. There are plenty of viable builds, but the fun parts exploring and building your own ranger imo.

AdziH.2360:

think what I’ve garnered is i need to learn how to melee with my Ranger better :|

It just happens to be so that the melee weapons have amazing escapes while ranged weapons don’t. You could try running with LB and sword + dagger too while roaming, you just need to get used to the bouncing and learn to control it to your advantage along with the terrain to lose line of sight. This way you can still keep your beloved LB but still get away when needed. Just keep your mind open, try new weapons and builds!

As for your server, Gunnars is a pretty solid server wubwub-wise. Nice pug groups, lots of highly skilled roamers. Till Friday you are against Aurora Glade (Lots of condi ganking groups, watch out and get your running shoes ready) and FSP (These guys tend to run with big numbers).

One of the most important things you need to get is the buff foods. Get either the -36% Bowl of Poultry and Leek Soup or -40% Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup one. The -40% is a bit more expensive one, so running with the -36% is good enough really unless you are swimming in cash. This will help you to keep on going, and trust me, you will notice the difference when your food runs out in the middle of the fight…

FrouFrou.4958:

AdziH.2360:

think what I’ve garnered is i need to learn how to melee with my Ranger better :|

It just happens to be so that the melee weapons have amazing escapes while ranged weapons don’t. You could try running with LB and sword + dagger too while roaming, you just need to get used to the bouncing and learn to control it to your advantage along with the terrain to lose line of sight. This way you can still keep your beloved LB but still get away when needed. Just keep your mind open, try new weapons and builds!

As for your server, Gunnars is a pretty solid server wubwub-wise. Nice pug groups, lots of highly skilled roamers. Till Friday you are against Aurora Glade (Lots of condi ganking groups, watch out and get your running shoes ready) and FSP (These guys tend to run with big numbers).

One of the most important things you need to get is the buff foods. Get either the -36% Bowl of Poultry and Leek Soup or -40% Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup one. The -40% is a bit more expensive one, so running with the -36% is good enough really unless you are swimming in cash. This will help you to keep on going, and trust me, you will notice the difference when your food runs out in the middle of the fight…

Cheers Frou for the insight.

FrouFrou.4958:

This way you can still keep your beloved LB

- kitten right beloved!!!!! hehe

You can go with a high damage setup if you sit at the back of the zerg and fire arrows from 1500 with piercing arrows and eagle eye traits. Most people in the zerg tend to have a lot of soldier’s/knight’s gear, so your damage will not be unconsequential unless you wear soldier’s gear – in which case you will be next-to-useless.

You need a different build/gear/traits/food for roaming vs zerging.

Some individuals aren’t really roamers but duelist builds. They aren’t that interested in escorting/killing yaks, taking camps, working in a small group, etc. – they want to win 1 v 1 . A perplexity mesmer might be an example of this.

Most roamers are mesmers, thieves and warriors, since they can escape from enemies fairly effortlessly. You need to figure out what to do when a thief jumps you – since they often single out rangers.

Don’t buy rares – try out builds with green gear and cheap runes/sigils.

Do edge of the mists. Lot of k-training and some big fights too. U will be able to get your wxp levels up while getting some gear too. Start learning and then head into regular wvw. Backlining with lb is cool. U can go a couple of ways. Power or condi. I generally do condi. Either rampagers stats with krait runes. (ie) drop an entanglement bomb in middle of enemy zerg and back out and pew pew with that lb. Or a rabid set with undead runes for a tankier roamer. On the lb u can put on fire and torment sigil and tag as many as u can. The condition damage will help u get massive bags on the arrow cart. But yeah check edge of the mists and follow ur commander and have fun.

FYI your pve build will be good against the NPCs, but it will be weak against others players (where you need to build more defensively, or more for single target damage).

In my opinion conditions are superior for roaming. Axe/dagger and sword torch on swap.

You will struggle to solo roam without all exotics as well. Most players will have much better gear than you. But don’t let that ruin it for you, you can still do well for your server.

Karma training in EotM is not actually a bad idea, it’s a rather fast way to get wxp and you get to gather some gold & badges for your gears too. Roaming isn’t too bad there either if you want to explore and try if you can find not so hardcore people to 1vs1 or 1vsX with. The downside is, once the blob sees you, they will chase you no matter what :< Generally the roamers in BLs are a lot more skilled and more dedicated to small scale than the people in EotM.

As nice as all the wxp traits looks like, the vitality stacks that comes with Defense Against Guards (50 vitality per stack, 5 max, altogether gives 2-3k more HP) should be your first trait line to invest any points in and once you have maxed that, go for the Guard Killer (20 power and condition per stack, 5 max). After that, just go with whatever you think you will need.

Since you are a PvE player, I’d assume you have quite high AP count so you must have gotten a few achievement chests with badges of honor already. You can buy exotic gears (Soldier, knight, carrion, cleric, bersker & rabid) from Wubwub armor NPC with the badges and some gold. Also ascended trinkets and infusions are a tad cheaper when you buy it with badges + laurels. The wubwub infusions comes with handy things like +5 toughness & -1% damage taken from the guards as well.

Again, thanks everyone for your insight, appreciate the constructive advice.