Guild Wars 2

Here’s what I’m planning based on the changes announced yesterday. I’d love feedback.

Going from Hide in Plain Sight plus Shared Anguish in my current build to no stunbreakers at all feels really risky, but I want to give it a shot.

As much as having a brown bear pet might generate a few laughs, I think having the three condis (blind, weakness and taunt) plus 2 condi removals every 20 seconds is a good adjustment to what I think will be a world with more conditions.

I would love any feedback or suggestions!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAnfVjMq0ua3KmrQ1CS5VjIqVA-TFyCABWcIAA4BAAo+gw3fwT1fm4MAkoSwsU+RIgFrBA-w

Skirmishing
- Trapper’s Expertise: Boons and conditions caused by your traps last 60% longer. Your traps recharge 20% faster and your offensive traps cause 2s of cripple.
- Hidden Barbs: Bleeding you cause deals 33% more damage.
- Quick Draw: Combat only. Upon swapping weapons, your next ranger weapon skill used has 66% reduced recharge. This trait has a 9 second internal cooldown. (maybe the short bow skill, but probably not)

Wilderness Survival
- Oakheart Salve: Gain 5s of regeneration when you suffer from bleeding, poison or burning. While under the effects of regeneration you take 5% less damage. This trait has a 10 second internal cooldown.
- Ambidexterity: Gain up to 150 condition damage when wielding a torch or dagger. Your torch and dagger skills recharge 20% faster. (need to see how this combos with quick draw 66% reduction)
- Empathic Bond: Pets take 3 conditions from you every 10 seconds.

Beastmastery
- Go For The Eyes: Your pet gains up to 300 toughness. Your pet’s command [[f2]] ability causes 5s of blindness to foes around it.
- Wilting Strike: Your pet inflicts 4s weakness when you activate its command [[f2]] ability.
- Beastly Warden: Your pet’s command [[f2]] ability causes 2s of taunt to foes around it. This trait has a 15 second internal cooldown.

Here is the updated trait system:

http://intothemists.com/calc/

For added mobility, I swap in warhorn and greatsword (swoop) when running around the map.

Thx Fluff – nice to have everything in one place.

This is what the build should look like. Other than the stunbreak issue, see anything that looks like a problem?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J;4wEFy-x2gEF-0;9-6Y;1Z_b;0256136036;4a-17X;1mAjwmAjwq-k5f2IJ;3ycy7zcz7-d-8DFWF72o;572;9;9;9;9;9;2V6s5M

That’s probably along the sames lines that I’ll be doing for my trap build, although I run it with s/d instead of shortbow.

Nature magic is another possibility to consider instead of beast mastery. This can provide you additional regen for the damage reduction proc, and you can take evasive purity to help with condition cleansing. Protective ward is also a very nice defensive skill.

However, the beast mastery line has some very interesting things, especially with the taunt from the pet. Using that, you can forcibly pull people into your traps, so there’s some great synergy there. You might want to consider using something like an eagle with a spammable F2 so that you could proc is as often as possible (maybe swap for the drake?).

What skills were you primarily thinking of comboing with quick draw? Splitblade and poison volley? I can see that working out nicely, although the shortbow cooldown reduction wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

I think it looks pretty good though, I’ll likely be running something similar.

Thx for the feedback. Since taunt has a 15sec cooldown, I was shooting for pets that would be around that timing on their F2 skill. With the drake, the part that looks fun to me is that the opponent should get pulled into the breath attack

I can definitely see a scenario of dropping traps, swapping the pet to get it next to you and using the F2 to pull in the opponent

On the quickdraw, I see a couple of good choices:
- 2 splitblades about 2 seconds apart
- 2 torch throws possibly only 3 seconds apart (depends on how the 20% stacks)
- Maybe a faster concussion shot on the bow when swapping that way – I like disrupting the opponent

Having no stun break would make nervous. You also only have one evade on the shortbow, but no S/D.

You do have bear and LR to deal with Immob, but I get nervous without LR on my bar.

I’ve been playing with a build pretty similar to this for about the last 6 months. In that build, I have Hide in Plain Sight and Shared Anguish as my only stun breaks. What happens in that build is that I can usually recover from a warriors stun fest if it’s just 1v1. But if there are multiple opponents, I will typically not survive if I get caught in a stun chain.

In that build, I currently only have Empathic Bond as condi removal, so getting immobilized at the wrong time is also really tough.

It’s definitely the weak point of this build, but I’m hoping the toughness and vitality will get me through. We’ll see…

It might be that all those cool F2 procs in the BM line trump other considerations. Owl (16s CD) might be worth a try. The pet stat buffs (base + Pack Alpha) and -20% CD on swaps might be enough to endure the EB abuse.

Good point. I hadn’t looked at owl – that’s a perfect fit.

Hopefully it can stay alive

Like it but would change a trait or 2. Run A/D S/T or S/D SB they are just the best weapon set combos you need sword for a little mobility, definatly take quickdraw if you use 1st combo for Spit blade and throw torch. Light on your feet might be better for the 2nd weapon set.

If you go the beastly warden route use drakes. Just do it for F2 taunt into breath. And do youself a favor and take expertise training, this will add an additional second of taunt so your foe eats the full breath, lighting breath will be fantastic. So will Reef drake with confusion. your foe is forced to attack while confused from drake, omg great combo.

If you do stick with your weaponset id recommend swapping poison trap for lighting reflexes, it will help. Don’t forget your trapper runes! those will be awesome. Healing spring is a trap now