[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

It seems my zombineer ranger rubbed off on me when it come to choosing playstyle for my ranger and i ended up with this hybrid build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJAVRjMqUxaDLmsQ1aAChYVQ74yU2FRPlsimA-TZRAABfcIAG4KAAwDAIw9HGrMAA

On the surface it’s a condi ranger. But under the hood that’s not the case. This build is very balanced. It has condi pressure from shortbow, sharpened edges, cave spider pet and most importantly rune of the mad king + entangle, which turns your elite into Hitchkitten’s classic. be sure to swap your weapon right after connecting with entangle for that tasty fury for your little beaked friends (more damage+more bleeds from sharpened edges!) The TERROR is PRICELESS!

After swap you’ll either power your way through their hp or condi their rear – choice is yours.

Another benefit of mad king’s rune is extra power and +40% duration on bleeds. If you want to hunt them down with condies you can. The cave spider is there for that additional condi pressure from it’s F2 skill, giving you weakness and vulni on opponent right after entangle, so they won’t wiggle their way out of your horror show with any old cheap condi cleanse.

On the other side of the fence you got greatsword for some power damage. It’s nowhere near the output of class zerk/assasin ranger, but it still hurts, and those evades, block and 3s daze/stun on hiltbash work wonders in defense.

Both shortbow and gs benefit from moment of clarity and respectable shorter cooldown traits – giving you some respectable cc options, along with your wolf.

Defense also has not been neglected. There’s emphatic bond and healing spring for condi cleanse. signet of stone boosts your armor to 2.8k when not on cooldown and every ranger knows it’s active is a lovely panic button if there’s a need.

Signet of the wild gives you a little passive regen and some stomp stability/extra movement speed for few seconds when in dire need of them.

Quickening zephyr is mostly there for the elite+rune of mad king follow up. Shortbow flanking follow up. But it still is your only stunbreak so use it wisely.

Overall you got yourself a mean all-rounder here. The damage may not be through the roof, but you got all your bases covered, more or less, and it works kitten well in practice – least for me.

(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: Tragic Positive.9356

Tragic Positive.9356

Yup, I can see it in duels…
… The problem comes in teamfights and such. You are squishy in order to camp fights. And your can’t really sneak or get to the priority targets you’d like to lock. They will be the ones to target you.

If you intend to bunker a point, that should be fine. But not better than other builds suitable for bunkering.
Have you been thinking of this build with Carrion amulet? Power, Condi, Vitality. You do not focus on crits anyways – and if you do – that’s a Sigil of Intelligence.

“Observe, learn and counter.”

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

Well i use this build for holding a point, and indeed in duels it does great. When it’s a zerg vs me then yeah i won’t hold on forever though calling it squishy is going overboard.

2873 armor, protection on dodge, greatsword defenses + shortbow evade and signet of stone active when in a pinch are definetely not squishy. Unless my team’s brain dead i manage to hold it long enough for backup to arrive on point and prevent it from getting decapped.

And yes I do focus on crits! with high ferocity and gs being power not condi weapon, and shortbow being half power and half condi, but both reliant on crits (damage modifier from crit and bleeds on crit trait) precision matters a lot!

That’s why i also suggest taking superior rune of the pack as an alternative to mad king’s if you need more fury uptime badly and are willing to give up on that birds bleed+damage burst.

(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: Tragic Positive.9356

Tragic Positive.9356

Um, well…
… You do not really focus on crits. Your sigils clearly say that.
The whole point of critical strikes is burst. And you have none. If you do – that comes from MoC and sigil of intelligence if that matters.

Crits from shortbow is a laugh, so are from GS auto-attacks. The only crit that matters is Maul and possible Swoop and Counter-Attack.
Nothing more.

Sacrificing stats for 3 abilities altogether is way off the board. That’s why I suggested for going into more power and bleeds via Carrion, since in your case – power gives exactly the same dmg increase as precision (if not more).

“Observe, learn and counter.”

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: Manekk.6981

Manekk.6981

Um, well…
… You do not really focus on crits. Your sigils clearly say that.
The whole point of critical strikes is burst. And you have none. If you do – that comes from MoC and sigil of intelligence if that matters.

Crits from shortbow is a laugh, so are from GS auto-attacks. The only crit that matters is Maul and possible Swoop and Counter-Attack.
Nothing more.

Sacrificing stats for 3 abilities altogether is way off the board. That’s why I suggested for going into more power and bleeds via Carrion, since in your case – power gives exactly the same dmg increase as precision (if not more).

He’d be way squishier in carrion though and the way he has it setup conditions are more support damage, if he had traps carrion might be a good option or axe instead of GS but I’m pretty sure his damage would drop quite a bit along with his survivability if he picked carrion for this, I do think he should consider other sigils though.

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Posted by: Tragic Positive.9356

Tragic Positive.9356

@Manekk
Condition damage is doubled (he said it himself – his pressure comes from bleeding), Power goes up, crit and ferocity go down,…
He can deal with Power specs because of SoS and increased Vita helps him deal with conditions as a compensation of the lack of Healing Power.

Greatsword is not what kills people, it only helps him do that. You won’t persuade me that he’s going to kill anyone with Greatsword only in celestial setup. Thieves, Mesmers, and clearly not Warriors and neither Eles.
Shortbow is his main pressure weapon (I assume). Which means that doubling the condi damage is obviously not a DPS loss. Greatsword doesn’t really do that much damage even in Zerk. Taking away the already low damage wouldn’t really be an issue for me. Especially if I can utilize the Sigils afterwards.

Well, if he decides to go for other sigils choice where he needs the precision – that would be another story.

“Observe, learn and counter.”

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: Manekk.6981

Manekk.6981

@Manekk
Condition damage is doubled (he said it himself – his pressure comes from bleeding), Power goes up, crit and ferocity go down,…
He can deal with Power specs because of SoS and increased Vita helps him deal with conditions as a compensation of the lack of Healing Power.

Greatsword is not what kills people, it only helps him do that. You won’t persuade me that he’s going to kill anyone with Greatsword only in celestial setup. Thieves, Mesmers, and clearly not Warriors and neither Eles.
Shortbow is his main pressure weapon (I assume). Which means that doubling the condi damage is obviously not a DPS loss. Greatsword doesn’t really do that much damage even in Zerk. Taking away the already low damage wouldn’t really be an issue for me. Especially if I can utilize the Sigils afterwards.

Well, if he decides to go for other sigils choice where he needs the precision – that would be another story.

He’ll have bigger ticks on each bleed but he’ll stack less of them with lower crit aswell and the physical damage is bound to go down alot, and he would also be squishier it could still be decent but I wouldn’t go that route myself.

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Posted by: Tragic Positive.9356

Tragic Positive.9356

He’ll have bigger ticks on each bleed but he’ll stack less of them with lower crit aswell and the physical damage is bound to go down alot, and he would also be squishier it could still be decent but I wouldn’t go that route myself.

Truth be told, I wouldn’t even play the build in sPvP =D
I was just thinking it might work.
Better Bleeds (a lot. The crit bleeds deal +- 150 damage, that can’t really be considered a thing if you don’t go direct spam weapons like Torch, Longbow and stuff) and better spike through Int Sigil.

But well, I haven’t played the build more than a few games, and I played it a bit differently. With Knight’s armor and Air+Fire sigils on both. I didn’t need bleed damage to kill my enemy since I had MoC.

“Observe, learn and counter.”

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: Manekk.6981

Manekk.6981

He’ll have bigger ticks on each bleed but he’ll stack less of them with lower crit aswell and the physical damage is bound to go down alot, and he would also be squishier it could still be decent but I wouldn’t go that route myself.

Truth be told, I wouldn’t even play the build in sPvP =D
I was just thinking it might work.
Better Bleeds (a lot. The crit bleeds deal +- 150 damage, that can’t really be considered a thing if you don’t go direct spam weapons like Torch, Longbow and stuff) and better spike through Int Sigil.

But well, I haven’t played the build more than a few games, and I played it a bit differently. With Knight’s armor and Air+Fire sigils on both. I didn’t need bleed damage to kill my enemy since I had MoC.

I wouldn’t play it either, and the crit bleeds aren’t the big damage that’s my point about it being support more than the main damage shortbow is spammy as it is though with just autoattacking so it is a noticeable extra, the intelligence sigil would be good on his GS but that is only 1 weapon for 3 hits all the rest is lost it’s 20% something less crit after all it will make a big diffrence just because shortbow doesn’t crit big it’s easy to forget it will crit very often instead, if he were to use carrion I think he would need to use more condition focused weapons and sigils and/or possibly traps aswell for it to be worth it.

I’d say sticking with the setup he has currently he’d probably be better off with air and fire/earth/leech/geomancy on the shortbow doom/leech/intelligence/geomancy on GS or similar like this, he doesn’t have that much power but it’s high enough for air to be the highest damaging sigil I’m positive on that and he has enough crit to make it proc pretty much on CD.

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

So we have here two commenters saying that it wouldn’t work and won’t try it vs me who actually plays it and it works…hm….

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: Tragic Positive.9356

Tragic Positive.9356

So we have here two commenters saying that it wouldn’t work and won’t try it vs me who actually plays it and it works…hm….

I never said I wouldn’t.
… If you don’t mind being shown that your build suitable for duels only is not even better at duels than my current team-fighting build then… Well… I’ll give it a try.

“Observe, learn and counter.”

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: LughLongArm.5460

LughLongArm.5460

So we have here two commenters saying that it wouldn’t work and won’t try it vs me who actually plays it and it works…hm….

Hi man, Iove hybrid builds, i have been using tons of variations for the last 2 years.
I made litle modifcations for your build which i think will preform even better than your current setup.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBlYDbkRlWWrYxhFqWDQIULDg3tdMUspAzCIePY1nH-TpBFwACuAAu3fQxRAIxBBAaZAAPAAA

(edited by LughLongArm.5460)

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: Manekk.6981

Manekk.6981

So we have here two commenters saying that it wouldn’t work and won’t try it vs me who actually plays it and it works…hm….

No I only said it’s not what I would play and I was actually saying your build was better the way it was rather than with carrion wich was what Tragic suggested, I meerly said you could probably improve a bit with other sigils other than that keep it like it is.

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

Well i did change sigils as indeed the gs ones were…just to put something there. Now it’s sigil of intelligence and sigil of rage. I’ll add some more on that once i got some experience with that.

Also my build it has both power and condi pressure. with weapon swapping you get fury from minor trait and for 5s get around 66% crit chance. And celestial gives high ferocity.
Sure there could be more crit, more power or more condi damage, but question is – at what price? Cele amulet keep this build’s defense at reasonable levels, and as for rune – mad king’s rune provides the badly needed power, greatly boosts your bleeds (via 40% duration buff), and it’s mass hunter’s call after entangle is really a game changer.

So until i find better i’m sticking with this one – it serves me well.

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: LughLongArm.5460

LughLongArm.5460

Well i did change sigils as indeed the gs ones were…just to put something there. Now it’s sigil of intelligence and sigil of rage. I’ll add some more on that once i got some experience with that.

Also my build it has both power and condi pressure. with weapon swapping you get fury from minor trait and for 5s get around 66% crit chance. And celestial gives high ferocity.
Sure there could be more crit, more power or more condi damage, but question is – at what price? Cele amulet keep this build’s defense at reasonable levels, and as for rune – mad king’s rune provides the badly needed power, greatly boosts your bleeds (via 40% duration buff), and it’s mass hunter’s call after entangle is really a game changer.

So until i find better i’m sticking with this one – it serves me well.

I added to your build 100% fury/swiftness uptime for you and nice uptime for party(support), spotter-crit chance for you(62% crit chance-~100% of the time), your pet and your party(support), synergy with hunter’s call and “sharpened edges” (if u like it on elitle, u’ll like it as a weapon attack) , 2 blast options with HS(horn and drake swap, so more support and survivability), more pressure on SB with fire and air(raises SB dps by alot). The only thing taken away is your MOC combo which is very inconsistent and unrewarding with celec amulet(so u’ll crit maul for like 3.5k, once in a blue moon).
Try it out – almost same build , didnt change concept, more dps, more mobility, more survivability, more group support. What not to love?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBlYDbkRlWWrYxhFqWDQIULDg3tdMUspAzCIePY1nH-TpBFwACuAAu3fQxRAIxBBAaZAAPAAA

(edited by LughLongArm.5460)

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

I tried it. I got bruises on my bruises. While that’s result of this build being quite different from my own, there’s undeniably one thing that went south with your version – you replaced Quickening Zephyr with lightining reflexes, killing the build’s only burst button.

With cele’s moderate offensive stats, quickness is a game maker for me – entangle, quickness + weapon swap for fury, then flank them with as much shortbow bleeds as possible. With quickness this turns into swift execution, without it it lacks the punch to deliver before they catch on and stop the “burst”.

Also sword completely changes the build’s role and style. it’s a great pursuit/disengage tool, with best raw damage, but it’s defense is nowhere near the gs. I ate quite a lot of nasty ele damage, because auto attack rooted my #2 evade and i leaped backwards only after eating most of it.

I take it that’s the reason lightning reflexes took over quickening zephyr in your version. Also MoC is not used for 50% damage boost if i land an interrupt, but for doubling the amount my daze/stuns last. With shortbow concussion shot and gs hilt bash i’m looking at some quality cc time. Ofc with sword instead of gs that is indeed a useless trait and spotter is a much better fit there if that’s the case.

Fire+Air sigils on shortbow are one evil idea! I’ll play around more with those.
Thanks for the feeback, but you got it wrong – that’s not almost same build – that’t totally different build you got there! Yours is a skirmishing roamer, mine is more of point holder;)

[sPvP] Celestial hybrid ranger

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Posted by: LughLongArm.5460

LughLongArm.5460

I tried it. I got bruises on my bruises. While that’s result of this build being quite different from my own, there’s undeniably one thing that went south with your version – you replaced Quickening Zephyr with lightining reflexes, killing the build’s only burst button.

With cele’s moderate offensive stats, quickness is a game maker for me – entangle, quickness + weapon swap for fury, then flank them with as much shortbow bleeds as possible. With quickness this turns into swift execution, without it it lacks the punch to deliver before they catch on and stop the “burst”.

Also sword completely changes the build’s role and style. it’s a great pursuit/disengage tool, with best raw damage, but it’s defense is nowhere near the gs. I ate quite a lot of nasty ele damage, because auto attack rooted my #2 evade and i leaped backwards only after eating most of it.

I take it that’s the reason lightning reflexes took over quickening zephyr in your version. Also MoC is not used for 50% damage boost if i land an interrupt, but for doubling the amount my daze/stuns last. With shortbow concussion shot and gs hilt bash i’m looking at some quality cc time. Ofc with sword instead of gs that is indeed a useless trait and spotter is a much better fit there if that’s the case.

Fire+Air sigils on shortbow are one evil idea! I’ll play around more with those.
Thanks for the feeback, but you got it wrong – that’s not almost same build – that’t totally different build you got there! Yours is a skirmishing roamer, mine is more of point holder;)

Thanks for giving it a spin. I also put the 5g to get the mad king rune and gave the 2 versions a spin. Like you saied with my vesion, i found myself wanting to be in the mid, giving my group the spotter, horn buffs and blast finishers, while giving cover to far bases. I thought that the fire+air will coever for the QZ, so you wont be nneding that burst source. I realy liked to put presure with horn 4 + elite, ppl dont understand whats hitting them.

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Posted by: Manekk.6981

Manekk.6981

I’m pretty sure the mad king birds hit any target in range even if they are in stealth, thieves always hated me when I used that rune.

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Posted by: ZeftheWicked.3076

ZeftheWicked.3076

That’s for longbow users, I use shortbow. But i’ll keep that in mind:>