Guild Wars 2

Just wondering for those of you still dabbling with beserker gear, how do you feel about our current position and where we should be?

Compared to the last few months I feel the zerker ranger is in the best position it has been in post-quickness nerf, maybe even a better position. #3 on longbow, after getting used to it is extremely useful for barrage as well as another defense increase for survivability. Great sword damage is better than it has been in the past, warhorn #5 and torch #5 is great for a quick 4 stacks of might for additional power, and if running signet builds you can get up to 20 might popping your signets as well. We may not be able to 1 shot people (unless you’re using maul on a glass cannon player) but I do think with 1500 range and a pet we can dish out some great damage and have many ways to mix up fights. One thing that is annoying is using barrage on a zerg, pretty much suicide if they have guardians with retaliation.

This leads me to my question which is your guys opinion on beserker rangers right now, and what you would like to see changed (or kept the same) in the coming updates?

berserker ranger needs to be more like the rifle warrior. LB still hits like a wet noodle, and i tell you this after spending 60g on valk + zerker gear (way better than full zerker because u get about 3-4k more HP), appropriate runes, and quite a few hours in testing. i had 50% crit, 2400 base power, 100% crit damage, and some survivability. i was gonna make another guide about the LB, but the weapon is so full of fail that i couldnt go on. even with the recent buffs and Hunter’s Shot.

LB is garbage. you cant really focus down single targets, because they RESPOND when you channel damage at them (barrage and RF), even with QZ (which was more viable pre-quickness nerf). if you just autoattack, then you have NO BURST. your only real aoe is barrage, which doesnt do anything against a packed, mobile mob because it’s channeled. cripple is a very inadequate condition. barrage needs to briefly immobilize, or combine weakness with cripple, and cast time needs to be no longer than 1.5s. RF needs to be completely reworked, or its channel also needs to be reduced to 1.5s similar to the warrior’s version. MAYBE with some of these changes id be willing to try the LB again.

if you want to play a long range damage dealer, try a full glass rifle warrior and u wont regret it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyUDtmWhzw8). GS full glass mesmer is another option, but slightly less effective at range than the warrior.

I think valkryie / remorseless crit after stealth has more potential than zerk ranger. It already does more damage. Ranger needs more stealth.

Edit: longbow isnt garbage and ranger isnt warrior fwiw

sorry for using such strong wording. i want to emphasize that this is my opinion and experience with it after thorough testing in dungeons and WvW. i played a zerker LB build in spvp and enjoyed it there the most actually.

rifle warrior is the better version of the LB if the LB was a single target weapon. faster animations, faster projectiles, more burst. the only thing that makes LB kind of an aoe weapon is barrage, but damage and utility are subpar compared to other aoe abilities (Well of Suffering, Earth Shaker, etc.), most of which are instant!! my fav LB ability is actually point blank shot, especially with piercing arrows…it’s quite strong.

Berserker LB/GS ranger are glorious fun in WvW roaming or picking off stragglers in zergs. I can do 6-12k hits on the longbow auto attack ranging from tanky guardians to squishy upleveled folks.

With roughly 120% crit dmg and traited signets I can deal massive damage on the first 3-4 shots and most often ending the fight there. Sure it’s a high risk vs reward build but when you manage to pull it off it’s all the more satisfying.

I am a 100% pure zerker. No beryl or knight crap. Longbow / shortbow full zerker.

Our biggest issue as a class is clunkiness. Damage isn’t too big of an issue. My longbow hits for up to around 3-4k on other zerkers and 1-2k on bunkers. #2 LB skill does 10k+ consistently unless they’re heavy bunkers. However, the issue is the arrow. Half the time, it’s obstructed, out of range, or evaded even when it’s not obstructed, out of range, or evaded.

For the person above, I don’t know what kind of drugs he’s on or what the heck he’s doing, but I have never seen a 6-12k autoattack in my life, and I run 115% crit damage with 3.5k+ power. My maximum on squishies hits around 4k.

6-12k? That’s not even weed level high, please pass the ketamine.

Beryl isnt crap dude. It hits harder because you stack more power with vitality than you can with precision due to food. I’m breaking 4000 attack fully buffed with valkyrie. You are not with berserker, I know that for a fact.

@ Lyndis

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/10k-Autoattack-Longbow-PvE-Build-WvW-fun/first

Based on this build. Hits like a truck at 1500 range.

Using a 30/30/x/x/x signet build with a maximum crit damage setup absolutely does allow you to hit for over 8000 with the longbow autoattack after signet activations (as well as Maul for 10,000 and full channel Rapid Fire for 12,000) on low-toughness targets, especially uplevels in WvW. It’s a very high damage build.

So why don’t you see tons of berserker/valkyrie longbow signet rangers in WvW? Well, the build has unusually low survivability even for a glass cannon build so it can very quickly become frustrating to play. It’s really only suitable for zerg surfing where you can consistently keep allies between you and the enemies.

With the changes to hunters shot to grant invisibility my survival has gone way up since I can go invisible the swap to GS and swoop away, if I start getting ranged dmg I can use GS #4 to block.everything for few seconds and then swoop away again.

5k, 10k, 12k etc., leave those numbers for PVE because the risk is way to high for the ranger doing that damage. where you do 12k with rapid fire, glass rifle warrior can do about 16k in less time with volley. GS mesmer will do about 12k as well (15k if using mantra of pain), but his dps is more reliable as lasers and izerker cant be side-stepped.

if we’re talking WvW, some thief will 1-shot you for 10k (the other 5k you would have lost to retaliation after one barrage). other glass eats zerker rangers for breakfast. reason is pretty simple: they have more target drops and more burst than you. after extensively pvp’ing with the LB, i concluded Hunter’s Shot is extremely unreliable. chances are it will get dodged or blocked.

glass rangers will never do as much damage as other glass profs simply due to our ridiculous pet mechanic. with the exception of PVE where environment is very controlled and pet can dps stationary targets, ranger dps is probably 20-30% lower compared to the other profs for this reason. this answers the “where [zerker rangers] need to be” from OP title.

“beserker ranger and where it needs to be”……………………….

Weak and useless…………… that’s how I feel.

I don’t think the Ranger was ever designed to be a great burst profession. While all professions can do all roles, not all professions can do all roles perfectly. You can do some good burst between Rabid Fire, River Drake, and the greatsword, with the Ranger, but we aren’t going to be Thieves.

I play a Power Ranger build, not full zerker but about 40%. It’s fun to play, kitten it is… but recently I made a Guardian because before the patch prices were kinda low and I could level one to 80 for only ~30 gold + scroll. Imagine my surprise when that guardian with only zerker weapons and only greens equiped was dealing the same or higher damage + godly utility. Yes Zerker builds are in a good place now compared to some other PvE Ranger builds, but this is as far as it goes. Rangers cannot compete with any of the other class if you disregard pet damage. We might be in a better place after the next patch since 70%+ hp boost for pets is quite a lot. I might even drop some points in Skirmishing in favor of BM.

On a side note, I do use LB now and I feel its an OK weapon. Vulenrability is always nice when facing HP blobs in PvE. The damage isn’t that great, but for me its acceptable for a secondary weapon and I largely prefer is over SB and Axe atm.

rangers class mechanic is offensive in nature and the utlities are pretty bad . Ranger is therefore forced into condition and defensive play

It is extremely weak in the current condi spam and stun lock meta that rules the entire game. Ranger lacks active condition removal and stun breakers on short cooldowns and therefore can’t deal with either of these very well, especially if you don’t drop 30 in WS.

The “best” offensive build I can think of utilized a hefty amount of defensive gear (valk, knights, and/or soldiers) instead of zerker because without that extra defense, you won’t last long enough to be able to damage your foes (Which ties into my other point that I haven’t mentioned where ranger lacks escape mechanisms outside of weapon skills and has few gap closers forcing you into low mobility in combat, barring a few evades, while almost every other profession has some sort of instant 900+ range gap closer.).

Rapid Fire without Zephyr Speeds or Quickening Zephyr just mskes the longbow on Rangers so bad. Zephyr Speed should not be 30 points in Beastmastery Tree. Sorry.

Chopps.5047:

Beryl isnt crap dude. It hits harder because you stack more power with vitality than you can with precision due to food. I’m breaking 4000 attack fully buffed with valkyrie. You are not with berserker, I know that for a fact.

How do you compensate for the low amount of precision/crit rating? Presuming a 30/30/0/10/0 build you will have high crit damage and health but about ~26% to 30% crit rate. It’s entirely possible you don’t need it since you hit hard, just curious.

Thanks.

“6-12k? That’s not even weed level high, please pass the ketamine.” made me lol

Yeah I have full zerker and ascended zerker, at times I do wonder if valkyrie is better for the ranger with the options we have but I have spent too much time/gold on beserker to switch gear for the moment. As for my own experience, posted a pic below of pretty much the max damage I hit with a longbow. I have hit 5.5k on a low level squishy ele once, but nothing above 6k. I think stealth gives rangers a whole new dimension with burst damage. Hitting a target with longbow until they come close, popping #3 on them and then switching to greatsword for a #5 and maul works surprisingly well.

I think that rapid fire does need to be reworked in some manner. It is extremely useful for tracking thieves in stealth, but aside from that there are so many times where I am using rapid fire and people just double roll through the cycle. In my opinion though the longbow is in a good position, considering the fact that they just “reworked” the skill sets. Without changing the skills again I am not sure what else they can do to help improve longbow, aside from increased arrow speed maybe increased damage and the obstructed issues. I wonder what the devs have in mind for longbow ranger and beserker ranger because I am not sure what other direction they can possibly take us in, aside from some sort of overhaul of the class.

@Chopps beserker fully buffed has insane attack too, well above 4.5k. Probably not as high as valkyrie but it’s pretty good imo and great crit too for sustained damage. Not health pool though :P

They need to remove the low-end longbow damage and make it deal the same damage from 0-900. 900+ gets the range benefit.

They need to make Rapid Fire a faster channel. Shave 1 second off the channel and leave the damage alone.

They need to remove barrage and give the class a aimed shot similar to what the Warrior has.

Make Barrage a skill, up its damage.

At least at that point the weapon would be complete. Then you could worry about improving knockback and stealth so it can properly defend itself. Things like making the knockback unblockable for example.

Expiatus.4210:

Chopps.5047:

Beryl isnt crap dude. It hits harder because you stack more power with vitality than you can with precision due to food. I’m breaking 4000 attack fully buffed with valkyrie. You are not with berserker, I know that for a fact.

How do you compensate for the low amount of precision/crit rating? Presuming a 30/30/0/10/0 build you will have high crit damage and health but about ~26% to 30% crit rate. It’s entirely possible you don’t need it since you hit hard, just curious.

Thanks.

Stealth or skill → remorseless trait procs opening strike → precise strike trait procs crit on opening strike

Chopps.5047:

Expiatus.4210:

Chopps.5047:

Beryl isnt crap dude. It hits harder because you stack more power with vitality than you can with precision due to food. I’m breaking 4000 attack fully buffed with valkyrie. You are not with berserker, I know that for a fact.

How do you compensate for the low amount of precision/crit rating? Presuming a 30/30/0/10/0 build you will have high crit damage and health but about ~26% to 30% crit rate. It’s entirely possible you don’t need it since you hit hard, just curious.

Thanks.

Stealth or skill -> remorseless trait procs opening strike -> precise strike trait procs crit on opening strike

Ahhh. Clever man. I hadn’t thought about it in that way.
Thanks.

Taku.6352:

@ Lyndis

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/10k-Autoattack-Longbow-PvE-Build-WvW-fun/first

Based on this build. Hits like a truck at 1500 range.

Please send me a screenshot of you hitting an enemy player for 12k damage with a longbow autoattack and I will post a video of me eating both my shoes. My valk thief with full zerker trinkets and D/D stealth traits with 110% crit damage hits for 12k on a backstab. I highly doubt a longbow autoattack comes even close.

Paz pls let me know how you manage to keep 23 might alone?

The only changes I want on LB is #2 shooting as fast as thief unload. Barrage also shooting faster maybe not as fast as unload but faster than what it is now. And if I’m really pushing it, let the ranger move while using barrage.

Paz Shadow.9715:

@Chopps beserker fully buffed has insane attack too, well above 4.5k. Probably not as high as valkyrie but it’s pretty good imo and great crit too for sustained damage. Not health pool though :P

Attack is a meaningless stat. Your damage is based on (power)*(weapon damage). Attack is (power)+(weapon damage), so has nothing to do with the damage you deal.

waka.9826:

The only changes I want on LB is #2 shooting as fast as thief unload. Barrage also shooting faster maybe not as fast as unload but faster than what it is now. And if I’m really pushing it, let the ranger move while using barrage.

This is actually badly needed. LB #2 barely does more DPS than autoattack, and if you interrupt your autoattack at the wrong time to use it you can actually decrease your DPS. So you’re better off not using LB#2 and saving it in case combat moves closer than 900 range, or to track someone who might stealth. If they’d increase its rate of fire, it might actually be worth using the skill outside of those cases. Right now the only reason to spam it is for the vulnerability.

Attack isn’t really meaningless. It’s just an easy way of saying “my weapon and power sum together into this number”. It’s a mixed stat. Higher is always better in terms of how much one crit does. I get what you’re saying though about it not being, on the surface, as precise as a strict power calculation, it’s in the game so clearly it correlates well with measuring direct damage or else it wouldnt be there.

Lyndis.2584:

Taku.6352:

@ Lyndis

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/10k-Autoattack-Longbow-PvE-Build-WvW-fun/first

Based on this build. Hits like a truck at 1500 range.

Please send me a screenshot of you hitting an enemy player for 12k damage with a longbow autoattack and I will post a video of me eating both my shoes. My valk thief with full zerker trinkets and D/D stealth traits with 110% crit damage hits for 12k on a backstab. I highly doubt a longbow autoattack comes even close.

11,441 dmg on a up leveled engineer fighting some harpys. Before that the 9k hit was on a lvl 80 enigneer. (yellow underline shows where i had my signet of the hunt active on)

Full berserker armor and trinkets with scholar runes and 30/30/0/10/0 build gives me 2,900 power and 4,034 attack when having max bloodlust stacks and using Butternut Squash soup and sharpening stones.

If everything goes as planned my first arrow will have a +110% dmg buff (10% from steady focus, 5% from eagle eye, 10% from Hunter’s Tactics, 10% from Frost Spirit, 50% from Signet of the Hunt and 25% from the Signet of the Wild)

(Edit: Forgot to add the Signet of the Wild)

And since you wanted an over 12k hit here’s an almost 13k hit on an upleveled ele. Poor thing downed on the first shot.

Taku.6352:

And since you wanted an over 12k hit here’s an almost 13k hit on an upleveled ele. Poor thing downed on the first shot.

For a second I thought you were riding your river drake.

Have you tried do that with path of scars? I think that it would also show nice numbers.
Added screen, lack of bloodlust stacks, died right before.

Yeah I’ve tried it but just can’t get the feel for sword/axe. Ans GS is invaluable if things don’t go as planned and I need to hightail it out of there.

And if i really want to instagib someone I’ll use the GS Maul with the same buffs and get +15k hits.

Longbow #1 skill needs to either:

A. Take away or decrease the severity of Damage drop off in association with range.
B. Have the longbow attack be faster. At the current rate of fire, you MIGHT get 1 full powered shot at 1000+ range. But if your opponent has any gap closing skills off cool down, you probably won’t even get that. So to punish them having their gap closer on cool down, allow us to land 2 or 3 hits at long range.
C. Increase longbow damage overall.

I’ve been running full zerker with LB and GS with 30/30/10/0/0 for quite a while now. With food and bringing an extra weapon to stack precision I get 90% crit chance and 110% with RaO. If I can get rapid fire off AND hit with every single shot i can hit upwards of 18-19k that plus a few long range shots at full range will down most people.

Problem is every single LB attack you can basically just step out of the way of if you know where its coming from. Soon as they close range the LB is basically worthless. I usually run with a 5 man group made up of mostly melee so i can kinda sit back with how slow the arrows move and how slow the RoF is the LB at this point is almost more of a hindrance.

Yes there are a few ways to counter this like sitting up high but that’s not always an option. I feel the LB has huge potential but in its current state kinda blows with a crap damage output unless you go full zerk, especially when you compare it to a rifle warrior who has the potential to hit for 30k with the adrenaline skill.

The LB needs its damaged buffed, projectile speed buffed, and RoF buffed to really make it worth while. Rangers are supposed to be the masters of ranged combat in this game(according to the description for them atleast) when in reality the only thing that gives them somewhat of an edge is the 1500 range if they trait for it.

Point blank shot can be devastating also if buffed. Managed to do a 11k hit with it on an upleveled mesmer. Can post the screenie when I get home.