For those times when I am just not feeling the roam/camp flip, I am interested in what others find satisfying when running with the zerg. Are you going glass cannon for dps, tanky pvt with spirits or something, or whatnot? Curious how others are playing currently.
If I was going to zerg run with my ranger considering how our Commanders like to manage the zerg on zerg battles, I would go Trap build with Rampage as One for stability, add to it your waterfield and you’re good to go. I would probably go short bow with either Dwayna Gear or Settler’s. Axe/torch, utilizing all AoE or multi player attacks, fields etc…
There are some real good suggestions over on the WvW discussion board under the thread “Most useless class in WvW”
i do two things. i either go very tanky with sentinel gear to spam immobilizes/cc, or i go for dps with Lb and OH axe. path of scars is by far our best AOE ability, and it’s on a very short CD. main thing is u wanna go for a power build. condi damage is more appropriate for smaller engagements. check out my sentinel guide if you like to zerg stomp.
1.) Full Soldiers and smth like 30/20/20/10/0 for example
You´ll be a freaking tank so you could be in the frontline BUT remember you´ll not do as much damage as warriors and will not be as supportive as guardians!
AND you don´t get on demand condition cleanses.
2.) Go full DAMAGE a mix of zerker/valk.
Stay in the backline… Be a sniper, burst ppl down.
Even if your squishy you can avoid most damage in a zerg fight if you just stay behind the frontline.
A full zerkers barrage is extreme powerfull.
I personally go full zerker when zerging and usually I don´t die a lot cuz of the 1500 range advantage.
1.) Full Soldiers and smth like 30/20/20/10/0 for example
You´ll be a freaking tank so you could be in the frontline BUT remember you´ll not do as much damage as warriors and will not be as supportive as guardians!
AND you don´t get on demand condition cleanses.
2.) Go full DAMAGE a mix of zerker/valk.
Stay in the backline… Be a sniper, burst ppl down.
Even if your squishy you can avoid most damage in a zerg fight if you just stay behind the frontline.
A full zerkers barrage is extreme powerfull.
I personally go full zerker when zerging and usually I don´t die a lot cuz of the 1500 range advantage.
It tends to do pretty good damage while maintaining a decent level of survivability. It will rely more on active avoidance of damage rather than tanking because of the lack of healing power but you get hard hitting crits consistently and can take a good amount of damage while doing it.
i focus on survivability first and damage second (though i do have a lot of power)
i change my weapon set depending on my mood either LB, GS, A/A or A/WH and flick a few traits around to suit.
pets: either dogs, drakes or moas. doesn’t matter just assume that there going to die. Though drakes tail swipe first after swap so you ‘might’ get a blast finisher every 1 min or so if you swap pets straight after healing spring. if i’m standing back and using my longbow i might use a red moa on passive for fury to help fire sigile proc
1.) Full Soldiers and smth like 30/20/20/10/0 for example
You´ll be a freaking tank so you could be in the frontline BUT remember you´ll not do as much damage as warriors and will not be as supportive as guardians!
AND you don´t get on demand condition cleanses.
2.) Go full DAMAGE a mix of zerker/valk.
Stay in the backline… Be a sniper, burst ppl down.
Even if your squishy you can avoid most damage in a zerg fight if you just stay behind the frontline.
A full zerkers barrage is extreme powerfull.
I personally go full zerker when zerging and usually I don´t die a lot cuz of the 1500 range advantage.
When with zerg.
It’s mean victory or wipe well…it up to commander type you stick around.
I Try to alive with Settler/Shaman gear.
0/30/30/10/0 or 10/30/30/0/0 Trap type on zerg.Not powerful on itself but good to interrup emeny moveing around by spike trap and poison trap is hard to notice when start zerg kiss zerg combat.1stack of poison is make whole healing zerg get to soft to kill.
0/0/25/30/15 Beast master well…it’s not it just Nature voice+Shout set for fast moving zerg.
Good for team if you can grand them regen/swiffness when see your face.
And another good thing if you put sick’em you will look like UAV to spot stealth class for whole zerg you can catch a class to get Revealed 4s is easy to make them death befor it make trouble/anoyying.
0/0/30/10/30 Regen typebase and not get hope high your pet die in3sec when zerg looking at it.
I use Axe/x main hane Axe is good random jumping on random enemy head and good to condition DMG.Sometime shotbow.
Healing Forget HaO and TrollU already…I use Healing Spring.
30/25/15/0/0 LB/GS
Gear to have 1700 toughness and 1500 vit. Around 40% crit chance. Rest is power. Traveler runes. Sigil of fire x2
HS, muddy, LR, SoR.
Spider (most of fight) + wolf (for on-demand fear around me)
I use it for normal zerging and guild raids (1700/1500 is guild req.). LB mostly for opening, chasing leftovers after enemy is mostly wiped and to keep hitting enemies while we restack. And sometimes to push enemy whenwe are near cliff. Rest of fight is GS… sadly :/
My zerk wvw/pve build, if i’m on a tower, i can crit about 2.5k a normal hit on other zerkers, and my path of scars can hit 1.5k-3k depending on the enemy’s stats and its also very good for pulling them to your zerg. I also have 88 percent crit chance with 25 stacks of precision and fury which deals a lot of damage on barrage with hitting 1.1k each hit and with a ice bow….i hit about 2.1k-4k depending on vulnerability stacks but i do die in 3 hits in the back from a zerker thief..
For zerg stomping u guys seriously need to run OH axe. Path of scars does too much aoe dps to be ignored. Sword/axe/lb will give you the most damage and utility.
Gs is more of a small skirmish weapon as it’s mostly defensive. Unlike guards and warriors, gs Rangers do terrible damage and only have access to cleave. No pbaoe attacks. Properly specced lb/oh axe does competitive aoe damage while also dishing out tons of cc.
Then u gotta think about what ranger does different from other profs and spec accordingly.
In organized zergs (like guild raids) you need at least 1 melee weapon. Sword is bad idea when it comes to melee rush… unless you click 1. only once and wait for it to reset to don’t use next skill in chain.
Ranger does not have enough to offer in the frontline so you’re better off playing as a tanky dps in the periphery, spamming cc’s, barrage and path of scars to pull people when their stab is down. I’ve secured countless kills for my team with well timed muddy terrain and pulls.
I tested the crap out of gs and frankly it doesn’t do anything too well due to slow maul animation, reliance on cleave, lack of aoe’s, and weak debuffs. It’s mostly just for running away.
It’s for stacking. If I’m there, I share 5 target limit on enemys AoEs, and evade on auto attack nicely helps me survive it just as good as other first liners. Also, with blocking targets counting towards target limit since last patch, GS 4. is also nice thing for sharing AoE.
I can’t use barrage in guild raid, because stopping to cast it means ending over 1k range behind rest of train = dead. Only time I can do it is on the initial crash, when I have option to stay behind first line to do it, and then swoop to them – but for it I need GS :P
Yes, we don’t bring as much as guard or warr in front line, but we also don’t bring anything special when staying behind. And I use muddy from melee too
Btw. all 3 parts of GS chain are 3-target, while other classes 2h melee weapons (hammers in this case) also have 3 target limit on first 2 swings, and only 3rd one hits 5 targets.
frontliners are there to kill things mostly, not just to soak up the 5-target limit. warrior and guardians have spammable aoe nukes and dont rely on just cleave attacks to burst people down. so you would contribute a lot more by using a dps build and playing the periphery. as things stand right now, ranger is a waste of a frontline slot, i.e. it’s better to bring another guard or warrior, and is actually quite strong in the periphery. barrage, path of scars, spammable kb, spammable pull, MT, entangle, canines – all better applied from the flanks, which also allows you to give up survivability to basically double or triple your dps. tanky GS ranger hits like a wet noodle, whereas other PVT or sentinel frontliners hit quite hard.
this points more toward the utter uselessness of the GS as an offensive weapon, but i cant blame you for trying to make it work.
