Guild Wars 2

1 DB bleed stack does over 3000 bleed plus physical damage plus any venoms you use if not cleansed.

Yeah, if you’re fighting an anti-condition guardian you might have trouble, but that’s hardly common. Most people have 1 condition removal ability. With conditions so easy to apply its hardly ‘useless’.

Not to mention its AOE. meaning if you steal into a group of, lets say, 3 ppl, and trigger the poison and torment venoms, then do db 3 times, you’ll be applying:

1 5s stack of torment to each of 3 enemies for about 405-810 damage (depending on if the enemy is running

2 6s stacks of poison (so 12s) to each of 3 enemies for 2592 damage (plus weakness to all 3)

9 10s stacks of bleeding to each of 3 enemies for about 9720

If the enemies don’t cleanse the total damage possible is 39,366 which you applied in about 5s, and now you can stealth/run away.

Oh yeah, but that’s not optimal play so don’t bother doing it…

The op specifically stated he wants to do this, so stop telling him not to.

I’m not claiming this is the best, but I’ve had a lot of luck and a lot of fun using this build:

Deadly Arts 30 IV, VIII, XII
Critical Strikes 0
Shadow Arts 0
Acrobatics 20 II, VIII
Trickery 20 III, X

With Carrion equipment. D/D and P/P. Gives you the option of switching to direct damage if your conditions aren’t working.

Best? No. And I know some people hate poisons, but you could probably switch that.

Can be very effective at times. Kind of plays like a grenade. Venoms x2 or x3 (might), Steal, DB DB DB, dodge out (caltrops might and swiftness) Pistols, direct damage. You could also finish with a stealth and use the pistol bleed stealth shot.

1. Ranger
2. Thief
3. Engineer

Hayashi.3416:

AH doesn’t benefit much from healing power, the scaling factor is horrendous. If stacking healing power, healing symbols, skill 6, Empower, regen, Virtue of Justice (and its party-shared version) will benefit. If running AH, damage reduction via toughness will be more significantly more effective for sustain than the pathetic increase via healing power.

AH requires 69 healing power to increase its heal by 1%. In comparison Empower requires 15, VoR requires only 14, writ of the merciful requires 14, regen requires 10.4, etc.

Buffing healing power to increase AH is even less productive than buffing condition damage for a permburn guard build.

Dodge heal only needs 1.29 in pve, double that in pvp.

Starts out really low though, that’s the other part of the equation.

roachsrealm.9284:

I just crafted a set of this armor and here are my findings so far.
(before this I ran alternatively with a set of Clerics armor and a set of Zerker armor. I have full ascended Clerics trinkets, because I enjoy healing)

With zerk I do more damage, of course, but my healing feels a little sub-par compared to what I’m used to.
With clerics I do very little damage and I never crit, but I can full heal myself with more than 4 skills.

So far with Zealots I notice I damage like a zerker (when I have fury) but I also have plenty of healing. With things like symbols and other passive healing effects, I feel like I’m getting the best of both sets.

It seems only really viable in competitive play if you are excellent at applying and timing blinds and dodging. Traiting into Fury w/meditations seems almost required to keep your dps up. I’d recommend Rage runes. With that set up at least you can give yourself a lot of flexibility with a zealots armor set.

That being said, it still has some issues. I can not kill anything quite as fast as I did before, and I can’t tank something out quite as long either, but overall the fights are shorter and a little more exciting.

Was worried that it would be an attempt at getting the best of both worlds, but failing at both. From what you described it isn’t a complete flop, but may be an increase in difficulty level for some. Thanks for that.

Edit: After testing the first build is much better. The signet active abilities are extremely useful.

Z 20 – II, VII
R 10 – II
V 0
H 20 – I, IX
V 20 – II, IX

Signet of Resolve
Bane Signet
Signet of Judgement
Signet of Mercy
Renewed Focus

Weapon: Greatsword
Stats: Full Cleric

UPDATE:

Okay, if you change the build like this:

Z 20 – II, VII
R 0
V 0
H 30 – I, IX, XII
V 20 – III, IX

Healing Breeze
Wall of Reflection
Hallowed ground
Sanctuary
Renewed Focus

Weapon: Greatsword
Stats: Full Cleric

Losing the radiance line and the power signet loses you about 11% damage, but you gain 9% of that back (10% of 90%) from Honour GM Trait (Elusive Power). This build has almost the same effectiveness 1 vs 1, but has SIGNIFICANTLY improved in group support.

Passive healing ticks to allies is over 200/tick. Healing breeze is over 3000. Resolve active is over 4000 including the regeneration.

That’s what I was wondering, good to know.

Its so new its hard to tell if it will work or not! There are entire builds that can be built around it and the new healing skill, for example. Who knows?

Try it and let me know if it worked.

SilverGarmore.2089:

Hey, folks. As someone who’s not very in the know about builds for Guardians, or even the relative value between stats in this game, I’ve got a question. I read a lot about berserker’s armor being generally superior if you want to put the effort into dodging well on a consistent basis, but if you wanna be more lax, you can get good results out of knight’s armor or soldier’s armor. Looking at the stat lineups for those, I couldn’t help but wonder if Zealot’s would be an alternative as well – like, would the increase in healing allow the guardian’s regeneration abilities to pull the weight in place of the added toughness that the knight’s set would offer? Because, if so, then it oughta be a bit better at dealing damage since power is its primary trait, yeah?

I guess my big question is, then, how big is difference between added healing allowing the player to recover damage more quickly via regeneration versus damage that wouldn’t have been taken by virtue of a higher defense stat? Is it small enough to warrant trying Zealot’s armor instead of Knight’s?

Zealot’s armor is new… Can you even get it yet?

1) RF doesn’t even do more damage than long range shot, so who cares if someone dodges it? They’re only avoiding a few stacks of vulnerability. Its no different than dodging any other attack, its not like they’re dodging some huge-cooldown burst damage skill.

2) All of rangers weapons have lower coefficients than other classes due to pet damage, long bow is no different. For example: Guardian hammer skill 2, mighty blow, has a coefficient of 1.75, where as Ranger greatsword skill 2, maul, has a coefficient of 1.5. Guardian skill is also a gap closer, Ranger isn’t, and its an AOE (not just a cleave attack), and it has a shorter cooldown (5s/4s vs 6s/4.8s), and its a blast finisher.

It is possible. Your 26k damage number is flat out wrong though, at 328 + .25*condition damage / second you’d need 13545 condition damage to reach that number. Unless I’m missing something, which is possible since I cant access your builds from the PC I’m on.

I’ve tried a condition build. It costs me 10 bucks for a set of equipment, I tested it out in SPVP first and had success but…

Well lets just say eventually I found out that the only class I consistently lost to was Guardians who were using a great sword. So I finally (I’ve been playing Guardian since launch) gave in and tried to get over my hate of the great sword. I made a guardian with sigils/power/toughness/healing.

My guardian was playable when he was condition based, but he is MUCH better now. My passive healing ticks for over 200, my greatsword attacks heal for 55 each swing, and I do way more damage than before.

You give up WAY to much in order to get the extra condition damage. I did the math. Fire damage has a very high damage floor at 328 / tick. Its better used as a supportive portion of your build, not the main focus. The question should be “healing or condition damage” not “condition damage or power”.

Warriors get 100% swiftness too? Ugh…

That’s why I said don’t trait it, then you can just remove the skill. Its just an easy way to add an extra 300dps by having fire up all the time.

foofad.5162:

Anthony.7219:

Purging flames, even untraited and without condition damage investment, can be a good skill to use for aoe damage. Its confusing to understand, but they changed it a while back.

As I understand it at the moment, it casts 5s of fire damage on cast to everyone in the area of effect. The enemy doesn’t have to stay in the ring. In fact, as they leave the ring (walk over the fire) they get an additional 5s. If they’re dumb and keep going in/out it’ll keep adding 5s each time.

Much better than (I think) it used to be at 1s of damage each second they’re in the area.

It also removes 1 condition on cast, and lowers incoming conditions by 33% if you stay in the ring.

You’re mixing up the new and old effects.

Currently it removes 3 conditions to everyone in the AOE instantly on use, and applies burning once instantly on use. The only sustained effect is the 33% condition duration reduction on allies in the AOE.

Re: conditions, I thought it was bugged and removed only 1 instead of 3. I know it used to remove 1 and then another 1 if you entered/exited the ring, which it no longer does. I haven’t tested this, so it may be 3.

We are agreed on how the fire works though, yes?

To be honest I just started a new fire build for the first time since the change and I’ve been googling purging flames since I can’t log in game at the moment.

*just found out that this was fixed in October, so it cleanses 3 conditions now.

Purging flames, even untraited and without condition damage investment, can be a good skill to use for aoe damage. Its confusing to understand, but they changed it a while back.

As I understand it at the moment, it casts 5s of fire damage on cast to everyone in the area of effect. The enemy doesn’t have to stay in the ring. In fact, as they leave the ring (walk over the fire) they get an additional 5s. If they’re dumb and keep going in/out it’ll keep adding 5s each time.

Much better than (I think) it used to be at 1s of damage each second they’re in the area.

It also removes 1 condition on cast, and lowers incoming conditions by 33% if you stay in the ring.

Update: In the discussion tab on the wiki someone has stated that they tested it and this spirit, unlike the other spirits, doesn’t have an internal cooldown. So yes, while its up, it is a 7% damage increase.

Has this actually been verified? I ask because I didn’t see 70% proc after I traited from sun spirit. Is there an internal cooldown or something after it procs?

cymerdown.4103:

I think they’re actually ok in PvP if you build it and play it right. Not like top tier viable maybe, but they’re better than most people think. Since they offer you so much extra damage, you can afford to go a little tanky and still do solid dps. Best in smaller encounters like 2v2 and 3v3.

Try this in sPvP sometime if you enjoy spirit weaps: http://tinyurl.com/kenguardsw01

I actually found them extremely useful under water in that one spvp map. That is about the only time they weren’t a liability. Having the extra damage that automatically follows the enemy players and knocks them around is great under water when a lot of other skills aren’t as viable.

The biggest issue for me is that shield and bow don’t necessarily activate their abilities on or near you. Those things should be stuck within a distance of 100 from you. I know the shield flies off and causes weakness, but frankly i’d rather it cast shield skill #4 and be stuck hovering just behind you and to the right, the bow can sit behind and to the left.

Thorwyn.8469:

oh yeah right, was doing some stuff while writing this, so I forgot to mention it.

The third utility skill is variable. You can take Wall of Reflection or Sanctuary. It just depends on the situation. You can also use Trade III for ground targeting on Consecrations or if you dont use any consecration, just take longer retaliation.

And well, the last build you created. This new heal skill is crap. You have to go offnesive to get heal when you maybe should try to escape/kite.

I dont wanne offend you, but you should stick on the common builds instead of creating your own stuff.
There is a reason why most ppl play with this builds. The current meta just let them be the best.

If you don’t find making builds or being unique is fun, that is.

Definitely isn’t high damage, but because the toughness and the healing making it a tanky build it still works.

Did some number comparisons with about 2000 power and no condition damage as a comparison.

(- means power build is better)
Mace 1 Sequence: -300 damage
Mace 3: Even
Torch 4: +2.2k / -200 if thrown
Torch 5: Even
VoJ active: +1.5k
Judge’s Intervention: +800
Purging Flames: +1.2k

The problem I was having with a power/healing build was that the abilities weren’t as good. Every single ability 1-9, F1-F3 on my bar right now does either significant fire damage, healing, or both.

And its not like I’m doing 0 physical damage…

Bombsaway.7198:

Anthony.7219:

Love the thread topic. I haven’t played all the classes so some of this is a guess.

Melee physical damage
Melee condition damage
Ranged physical damage
Ranged condition damage
Boons
Healing/Condition Removal
Control

Hrm… Necromancer (N), Ranger®, Warrior (W), Guardian (G), Thief (T), Elementalist (E), Mesmer (M), Guardian (G), Engineer (P)

Best to worst

MPD – W, T, G, M, R, E, N, P
MCD – T, W, P, M, R, N, E, G
RPD – E, R, N, P, M, W, T, G
RCD – N, P, M, E, T, R, W, G
B – G, P, W, E, M, R, N, T
H – P, G, E, N, R, W, T, M
P +2
G -1
E 0
N -1
R +1
W +1
T -1
M -1

I would add Damage Mitigation (Melee), Damage Mitigation (Condition), Cleansing as my defensive skills with healing. And debuffs with boons for my utility.

W would be near the top of each of the defensive skills. Ranger really is at the bottom of the defensive skills.

In short, the issue of balance these days is far more about defense. Rangers have too little defense for the relative amount of damage they put out. Warriors excel both in damage and defense. That is the source of imbalance imho.

/shrug

You make some great points.

Tongku.5326:

Small scale or Solo stuff in WvW, maybe, a more serious team effort, not really.

Not enough overall self sustain. In fact, we had a team mate trying out something similar for about 2 days recently. The biggest problem he ran into was that due to extremely low armor/health he was just dead most of the time. Many times he killed himself by using “save yourselves” as he drew everything from everyone around. He switched out real quick to his old build.

I never feel safe using “save yourselves” without contemplation of purity.

Blind would go away before Aegis just because the attack starts with the attacker first, your character won’t need to defend an attack that doesn’t happen.

Maybe I should clarify, if you haven’t used it, I still want to know what you think. Do you see an obvious flaw I’m missing?

The builds I enjoy most are the ones where your talent points, armour stats, and overall build goal all line up neatly to compliment each other. Guardian seems to be the hardest class for me to accomplish this in. This new stat combo is neat, but I’m still not convinced yet.

Just wondering if anyone has run something like this and what they thought of it. I’ve got a level 80 guardian I was getting bored with and haven’t played in quite some time, then I thought of this build 2 days ago and tested it last night for 30 min in spvp. I was ranked highest on the server, which is a first ever for me on any class, so I figured I might be on to something.

Used settler’s equipment (I think this is Shaman in pve edit, its not, its settlers as well. Oops! I was considering Shaman, Apothecary, and Settlers and guess which one was available in spvp to test?, I’ll be attempting to use this build in all build modes, but I don’t really have time to do dungeons, so I’m less worried about that. Respeccing my PVE equipment is obviously going to cost me quite a bit, which is why I’m asking for opinions first)

Lowish physical damage, fire dots for about 620 in spvp, lots of healing. Concentrating on toughness instead of vitality increases the effectiveness of healing (smaller health pool means smaller heals are a bigger deal) but makes you more vulnerable to conditions.

Toughness(Pri)/Condition Damage/Healing

Mace/Torch

Z 0
R 20 – III, VII
V 10 – II
H 20 – VI, X
V 20 – III, VIII

Shelter
Judge’s Intervention
Purging Flames
Sanctuary
Renewed Focus

Offensive abilities: Judge’s intervention for burn + teleport, purging flames for aoe, torch 4 and torch 5 (torch 5 procs burning 3.3 times due to rapid attacks), shelter (blocks proc burning, so shelter becomes a situational offensive weapon vs rapid attack enemies or when you’re being mobbed), virtue of justice

Defensive abilities: Dodge heal, aegis heal, shelter, sanctuary, mace 1, mace 2, virtue of resolve, virtue of courage

Thanks,

Yeah I know my rankings are wrong because they don’t reflect how I feel about the classes. There is no way that Engineers are the strongest class in the game. Truth is, doing this properly will likely get extremely complicated, and when you get it right, everyone else won’t instantly know its right.

Love the thread topic. I haven’t played all the classes so some of this is a guess.

Melee physical damage
Melee condition damage
Ranged physical damage
Ranged condition damage
Boons
Healing/Condition Removal
Control

Hrm… Necromancer (N), Ranger®, Warrior (W), Guardian (G), Thief (T), Elementalist (E), Mesmer (M), Guardian (G), Engineer (P)

Best to worst

MPD – W, T, G, M, R, E, N, P
MCD – T, W, P, M, R, N, E, G
RPD – E, R, N, P, M, W, T, G
RCD – N, P, M, E, T, R, W, G
B – G, P, W, E, M, R, N, T
H – P, G, E, N, R, W, T, M
P +2
G -1
E 0
N -1
R +1
W +1
T -1
M -1

/shrug

I don’t like playing a game that is going to massively change soon.

Chrazel.7085:

It’s been a few months since I’ve played my ranger and I have recently re-geared to berserker’s.

I’m curious mainly on my pet’s damage:

1. Does the the trait ‘Remorseless’ affect the F2 Skill of the Jaguar?
2. Does ’Pet’s Prowess’, ‘Spotter’, Frost Spirit, Hilt Bash, “Sic” em , and the (active) Signet of the Hunt and Signet of the Wild work in conjunction with each other to increase my pet’s damage?
3. If I’m under 25% health and I have the trait ‘Bark Skin’ (50% dmg reduction) , protection (33% dmg reduction, and weakness on a boss (50% dmg). How much damage will the boss do, percentage-wise?

re: 3, educated guess. Bark skin / protection may or may not stack. I’d guess not. You could easily test against the spvp practice guys if you have access to protection… Looks like stone spirit would work. Put your attack on manual and when you’re getting close to 25% health start trying to get protection to proc. If you can get both at the same time, watch your damage and try to get a rough number. It’ll be one of three things: 50% reduction (higher number wins, they don’t work together at all), 83% (addititive reduction), 67% (bark skin and protection both reduce the damage separately, multiplicative reduction)

Weakness affects the enemy, so I’d expect that to act separately from the defensive boons.

Ie: attack that would normally deal 1000 (after power, toughness/etc is considered) is reduced first by weakness on a glancing blow. Damage used is 500. Damage is further reduced by the percentage indicated above. You should see 250 damage max, 85 damage minimum on a glancing blow.

Just a guess though.

I’m pretty confident that the people who hate rangers most are rangers.

McWolfy.5924:

but that diference make them better

No…

McWolfy.5924:

in spvp where your only job is to hold or capture a tiny point and you or your pet dont need to move the pet is not bad. but a newbie with half brain learn after the first encounter and just move around you and you will lose half of your dmg. maul and rapid fire are slow and very spotable. utilitys need 30 points, no aoe or decent cc. roots die from 1-2 hits if not miss what happens every time… i think they want this class to be bad. if u meet a ranger, u know u will win and if u reroll you will feel the power!

Only a couple of classes are obviously/significantly better, most are just different.

Akisame.9508:

Anthony.7219:

so id hardly consider the skill useless.

Well, I didn’t call it useless. I was just trying to state that it wasn’t that big of a DPS skill when your comparing it to Maul. I agree that Rapid shot has it’s uses, and it’s not useless, but I wouldn’t call it a high dps skill like Maul. That’s all I meant by comparing it to our #1 skill.

Was comparing it to #1 longbow attack. Maul is on a melee weapon, pretty standard to run with 1 melee and 1 ranged so you can adapt to the current situation unless you’re trying to be really niche.

runeblade.7514:

Substance E.4852:

The problem is we really only have burst with Maul and that’s it. LB lacks the utility to make it good for anything other than sniping at max range where it does decent presure but only because you are far enough away to not lower dps by trying to kite or dodge. Pretty much everything else we have is either a condition attack or a dodge skill that means they all do terrible damage. We don’t even have decent power build utilities that don’t require 30 marks to use.

Rapid Fire does not calculate Range as damage. It is only for Long Range shot. Which means you can be in any range you want to make full use of Rapid fire.

Rapid Fire does good damage, Maul does good damage. Combine them both, and you get great damage.

I find that Rapid Fire’s long channeled time is actually very useful. Whenever I use rapid fire, the enemy tends to use dodge twice to dodge almost all of my arrows.This depletes their endurance for the GS. If they dodge once, they will take most of the hits. If they don’t dodge at all, 7k of their hp will disappear. Follow it up with Maul and the enemy will have to fight with very little hp left.

It sounds like that you want to play with one weapon only. Rangers are meant to be a weapon switching class. Look at Tail wind and furious grip, they grant boons when you switch weapons.

Finally, someone who sounds like they’re not insane

Akisame.9508:

runeblade.7514:

Rapid Fire does good damage, Maul does good damage.

I have not tested it personally, but a lot of people here keep on mentioning that the regular #1 attack does better damage then rapid fire. So if this is the case, then Rapid Fire does not do good damage. However, I agree that Maul does good damage, however, it’s the only skill we have that does good damage and it’s easily avoided because it has a huge and long ‘tell’ that lets your opponent know what’s coming.

Rapid fire does good damage, long range shot does good damage at a range of > 1000. Rapid fire also applies 10 stacks of vulnerability, and it makes the two very close to the same damage (auto attack and rapid fire). The difference being that Rapid Fire works at less than 1000 range and long range shot doesn’t.

Ex: The coef on long range shot > 1000 is 0.9 with an attack speed of 1, the coef on rapid fire is 3.75 but with the vuln stacks (only considering the rapid fire attack itself) that boots itself up to 3.92 with an attack speed of 4.5 seconds. 3.92/4.5 = 0.871, so a tiny bit less damage, but everything you do for the next 5.5 seconds is doing 10% more damage, so id hardly consider the skill useless.

FYI, its not the only skill in the game that is technically less damaging than an auto attack. I’ve found others with minimal searching.

Rapid fire, due to the lack of range restriction, is also a much ‘easier’ skill to use properly than long range shot.

kiwituatara.6053:

Anthony.7219:

kiwituatara.6053:

Anthony.7219:

kiwituatara.6053:

Anthony.7219:

kiwituatara.6053:

I’m surprised the topic about “Rangers aren’t range-ers, its a misconception”, “Aragorn from LOTR is a ranger, but doesn’t use bow”, “Traditional D&D rangers blah blah blah” hasn’t sprung up. Anet’s already define their version of rangers as being as “unparalleled archers”, so we can leave it at that before people start spouting nonsense.

@Anthony.7219 Axe is much better than shortbow, unless, in certain circumstances, you only want to hit single targets.

@Chrispy.5641 People who run bows are the real rebels lol XD

But yeah, our bows suck.

Uh huh… Throw about a hundred and fifty ifs and buts in there and you might be close.

If someone is beyond 1500 range running at me with minimal toughness I can do 12-14,000 damage without using point blank shot before they reach me, then switch to greatsword and hit for 4,500, block their attack, knock them back and hit for another 2,000.

But I should drop my bow and charge at them instead. That’s smar.

Yea, its not like I haven’t done it either. My zerker LB/GS ranger has 4100 attack and has 1 shotted lvl 80 guardians before (Screenshot isn’t the highest dmg I’ve done, but its all I have for now). If you’ve been using rapid shot, you’ve been doing it wrong- it actually has lower dps than autoattack. Nevertheless, it is my go-to-troll build and its far from viable. The only time you’ll pull of kills is when your opponent doesn’t expect the attack. Overall, zerker ranger is probably the glassiest zerker class out there and it only takes a few dodge rolls and a leap to easily take out the build.

I never thought to look that up. You’re right on paper, 3.75/4.5s < 0.9/1s, I wonder if the 10 stacks of vuln make up for it.

Yea, especially if you’re using valkyrie you’ll need to abuse that first hit u dish out for the initial burst. Its all good fun, but not viable. Also spvp valk has different stats from pve/wvw valk.

And no, I don’t think 10 stacks of vuln make up for it. Everything looks good on paper for rangers, but maul follow up animation is so obvious and hilt bash roots you so you’ll be missing you’re hits quite frequently actually.

PS. I forgot, rapid fire>autoattack in mid-close range. But I still wouldnt use rapid fire close range coz the skill cancels if your target dodges left or right.

1)Valk is weaker in spvp as far as I know.
2)Did the math, you need to be at the equivilant of 0.9 coef / second to be the same as the auto attack. If you include the vuln that the attack creates and assume 0.01% more damage on each subsequent attack you get up to 3.92 instead of 3.75. You need to be at 4.05 to be the same as an auto attack.
3)I tried the “power sigil/maul” build and it was COMPLETE crap, this one is much more balanced… Its probably the best build I’ve played with on any of my 3 characters. Well… except my thief human hand grenade build, but I hate that one.

Meh. I’m too lazy to do that kinda math. I just get my stopwatch out (might not be the most accurate way XD).

If you’re enjoying valk build spvp, try mine… (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Power-spvp-build/first#post3494917). Its an experimental build I’ve been running in spvp. Let me know what you think of it if you decide to run it.

PS. whoops my bad. You’ve already replied in that thread. I’ll type out the build

Just gotta check it when I get home

And since I feel like doing the math for the first time ever, I checked guardian’s sword, same thing, zealot’s defense does less dps than auto attack. /eyeroll come on arenanet, does every class I play have to be the broken one? Expected response =>“Are you going to play warrior?”

kiwituatara.6053:

Anthony.7219:

kiwituatara.6053:

Anthony.7219:

kiwituatara.6053:

I’m surprised the topic about “Rangers aren’t range-ers, its a misconception”, “Aragorn from LOTR is a ranger, but doesn’t use bow”, “Traditional D&D rangers blah blah blah” hasn’t sprung up. Anet’s already define their version of rangers as being as “unparalleled archers”, so we can leave it at that before people start spouting nonsense.

@Anthony.7219 Axe is much better than shortbow, unless, in certain circumstances, you only want to hit single targets.

@Chrispy.5641 People who run bows are the real rebels lol XD

But yeah, our bows suck.

Uh huh… Throw about a hundred and fifty ifs and buts in there and you might be close.

If someone is beyond 1500 range running at me with minimal toughness I can do 12-14,000 damage without using point blank shot before they reach me, then switch to greatsword and hit for 4,500, block their attack, knock them back and hit for another 2,000.

But I should drop my bow and charge at them instead. That’s smar.

Yea, its not like I haven’t done it either. My zerker LB/GS ranger has 4100 attack and has 1 shotted lvl 80 guardians before (Screenshot isn’t the highest dmg I’ve done, but its all I have for now). If you’ve been using rapid shot, you’ve been doing it wrong- it actually has lower dps than autoattack. Nevertheless, it is my go-to-troll build and its far from viable. The only time you’ll pull of kills is when your opponent doesn’t expect the attack. Overall, zerker ranger is probably the glassiest zerker class out there and it only takes a few dodge rolls and a leap to easily take out the build.

I never thought to look that up. You’re right on paper, 3.75/4.5s < 0.9/1s, I wonder if the 10 stacks of vuln make up for it.

Yea, especially if you’re using valkyrie you’ll need to abuse that first hit u dish out for the initial burst. Its all good fun, but not viable. Also spvp valk has different stats from pve/wvw valk.

And no, I don’t think 10 stacks of vuln make up for it. Everything looks good on paper for rangers, but maul follow up animation is so obvious and hilt bash roots you so you’ll be missing you’re hits quite frequently actually.

PS. I forgot, rapid fire>autoattack in mid-close range. But I still wouldnt use rapid fire close range coz the skill cancels if your target dodges left or right.

1)Valk is weaker in spvp as far as I know.
2)Did the math, you need to be at the equivilant of 0.9 coef / second to be the same as the auto attack. If you include the vuln that the attack creates and assume 0.01% more damage on each subsequent attack you get up to 3.92 instead of 3.75. You need to be at 4.05 to be the same as an auto attack.
3)I tried the “power sigil/maul” build and it was COMPLETE crap, this one is much more balanced… Its probably the best build I’ve played with on any of my 3 characters. Well… except my thief human hand grenade build, but I hate that one.

kiwituatara.6053:

Anthony.7219:

kiwituatara.6053:

I’m surprised the topic about “Rangers aren’t range-ers, its a misconception”, “Aragorn from LOTR is a ranger, but doesn’t use bow”, “Traditional D&D rangers blah blah blah” hasn’t sprung up. Anet’s already define their version of rangers as being as “unparalleled archers”, so we can leave it at that before people start spouting nonsense.

@Anthony.7219 Axe is much better than shortbow, unless, in certain circumstances, you only want to hit single targets.

@Chrispy.5641 People who run bows are the real rebels lol XD

But yeah, our bows suck.

Uh huh… Throw about a hundred and fifty ifs and buts in there and you might be close.

If someone is beyond 1500 range running at me with minimal toughness I can do 12-14,000 damage without using point blank shot before they reach me, then switch to greatsword and hit for 4,500, block their attack, knock them back and hit for another 2,000.

But I should drop my bow and charge at them instead. That’s smar.

Yea, its not like I haven’t done it either. My zerker LB/GS ranger has 4100 attack and has 1 shotted lvl 80 guardians before (Screenshot isn’t the highest dmg I’ve done, but its all I have for now). If you’ve been using rapid shot, you’ve been doing it wrong- it actually has lower dps than autoattack. Nevertheless, it is my go-to-troll build and its far from viable. The only time you’ll pull of kills is when your opponent doesn’t expect the attack. Overall, zerker ranger is probably the glassiest zerker class out there and it only takes a few dodge rolls and a leap to easily take out the build.

I never thought to look that up. You’re right on paper, 3.75/4.5s < 0.9/1s, I wonder if the 10 stacks of vuln make up for it.

kyubi.3620:

cute…. can you do that much damage in spvp :/

Yes, that’s where this is tested. Now, am I always in a position to use the bow, no, that’s why the build isn’t built around using the bow 100% of the time.

Er… you were talking to him, haha, that 10,000 sounds too high to me.

kiwituatara.6053:

I’m surprised the topic about “Rangers aren’t range-ers, its a misconception”, “Aragorn from LOTR is a ranger, but doesn’t use bow”, “Traditional D&D rangers blah blah blah” hasn’t sprung up. Anet’s already define their version of rangers as being as “unparalleled archers”, so we can leave it at that before people start spouting nonsense.

@Anthony.7219 Axe is much better than shortbow, unless, in certain circumstances, you only want to hit single targets.

@Chrispy.5641 People who run bows are the real rebels lol XD

But yeah, our bows suck.

Uh huh… Throw about a hundred and fifty ifs and buts in there and you might be close.

If someone is beyond 1500 range running at me with minimal toughness I can do 12-14,000 damage without using point blank shot before they reach me, then switch to greatsword and hit for 4,500, block their attack, knock them back and hit for another 2,000.

But I should drop my bow and charge at them instead. That’s smar.

N 30 2, 10, 12
S 10 1
W 0
N 30 5, 9, 12
B

Stats: (using Valkyrie equipment)
(I’m not level 80, so this is math, but verified on sPVP)
Power 916 + (300 + 140) talents + 120 orbs in armor + 1002 equipment => 2468 power
Precision 916 + 100 talents => 1016 precision (crit rate is 11.62%)
Vitality 916 + 300 talents + 84 orbs in armor + 698 armor = 1998 => 19980 health
Toughness 916
Critical Damage => 1.5base + 0.1 talents + 0.12 orbs in armor + 0.62 equipment => 2.34

2h weapons are about 1000 damage, basic armor on a light opponent with no toughness bonuses is 920, + 916 toughness, so 1836.
Damage = WEAPON * POWER * COEF / DEFENSE * (1 – Crit Chance) +
WEAPON * POWER * COEF / DEFENSE * Crit Chance * Crit Damage

Battle sequence:
Long range shot (0.9 coef, guaranteed crit) => 2860
rapid fire (3.75 coef) => 5366
Barrage (4.8 coef) => 6898
Hunters Shot (0.4 coef, steah resets opening strike) => 509
Maul (1.5 coef, guaranteed crit) => 4469

I’m at 20,102 damage and I didn’t include the 5% bonus damage from traits to longbow and greatsword, so its actually going to be 21,107.

Still think bow is useless? And don’t give me some condition damage crap, a lot of players press one button and conditions disappear.

Tried it last night, death blossom is pretty good as an AOE bleed. It tags each enemy near you 3 times with a 10 second bleed, with a carrion setup in spvp that’s about 4500 bleed damage per death blossom, and with my build I could do it 4 times in a row. Add in some venoms and you’re doing a ton of damage to a cluster of enemies.

Felt a lot like being a human hand grenade. F1-3-3-3-3-RUN AWAY

Akisame.9508:

You only mentioned the stuff that was added. How about mentioning all of the nerf’s we got, like Pet damage being nerfed, short bow damage being nerfed (and calling it an animation fix), Short bow being nerfed a second time for range. Endurance regen nerf, barrage damage nerf, and the list goes on. Nerf’s that the class does not need because we need help! Just the nerf’s I mentioned here already outweigh all the small decent stuff they did for the class. The acknowledgement that pets are broken and not working as intended but they refuse to fix it out of fear of breaking something else. Name me one other class who’s class mechanic is broken and ANet refuses to fix? And that the class mechanic is ‘suppose’ to be responsible for 30% of their damage which they are not receiving because of the broken class mechanic! Don’t take this as a personal attack, and if you did then I apologize as of now. I just get frustrated when I see people posting stuff on the ranger forum as making it seem that we’re doing good when in reality we are sub par compared to other classes, and yes, I know about other classes, I also have an 80 thief, 80 warrior, and 80 mesmer. I can kill more and die less with those three classes then I can with the ranger, and I play the ranger more then them.

I have a Guardian and a Thief, and I only started playing Ranger recently (tried it at launch and hated it) because I enjoy the changes to the class. I know they’re small, and on the whole Rangers have been nerfed, but the class is very strong in areas that other classes are very weak in. Balanced? Perhaps not, but with the way I like to play, this seems like my best class at the moment.

Pets definitely need to be fixed. They need to do a bunch of programming to make them an exception in the server side code so that they think/respond faster. This will make them stop stuttering whenever something changes (incoming command, person runs away, etc.) and will allow them to add other fixes like making pets dodge when you dodge, or something similar to fix the dungeon problem.

This isn’t the only class that has these issues. The way things are designed, there will be things you want to do that just aren’t viable.

Guardian sword/shield, for example, has no finishers, no conditions (well… blind), no fields. Their ranged options are wand or staff, not very good if you don’t consider yourself a caster. And the staff range is 600. The entire class has only fire as a condition available to them.

Bombsaway.7198:

I agree that I hardly consider an archer someone who picks two bows too. But I certainly, didn’t expect the meta to be NO bow.

My point is that I always considered the ranger to have at least one bow and these days, that isn’t really the source of strength of the character. It is often much better to run your ranger with axe/sword and 2 off hand weapons.

I disagree, I wouldn’t consider axe a superior choice for ranged damage compared to bow. Bows have their time/place.

Besides, what specific circumstance are you talking about? SPVP? WVW? PVE? Dungeon runs? Speed runs? There are different builds that are viable and fun in each of those different game segments, and there are builds that are viable and fun for all of them except speed runs (if you like to stick to one build). Bow is an option in a lot of those builds, you just have to know when to use it and when not to.

Bombsaway.7198:

We are laughed at when we take two bows (and perhaps there is a bit of reason tied to DPS, certainly).

But how many rangers picked the class because it had bows?

In short, ANET has it where playing the class “as the player wanted to” results in others hating your playing the class. Talk about missed expectations.

Sure, some folks wanted a melee ranger but I am guessing the vast majority thought ranger-archer or ranger-pets and a few ranger-traps. In both cases, that would be ranger-worth less (not per se worthless). Fairly sure, the expectation wasn’t ranger-lots of eye candy spirits.

Now let’s talk pets. Ranger seems “woodsman” in the stereotype I brought to choosing the class. What are our best pets? Would you find them or a bear in the woods?

The whole class just feels odd like it shouldn’t even be called a ranger.
Can you have fun with it? Sure. Is it what you expected? I seriously doubt it.

Can we still have fun, I suppose. But ultimately, the ranger

I picked ranger to be an archer, but I hardly consider an archer someone who carries two bows. Historically, archers throw down their bows and pick up another weapon when the enemy gets too close for the bow to be effective. Since archers weren’t as rich as knights, they would be using cheaper weapons, not fancy swords, but I’d say this game is doing fairly well at portraying a true archer. Closer than most games at least.

Having a strong ranged weapon and a strong melee weapon can cover up a lot of weaknesses that other classes have to deal with.

If you like bows, pick one. I’d suggest determining whether you want conditions or power, shortbow for conditions, long for power. Then pick a melee weapon. And if you’re worried about stigma, pick any pet other than a bear.

And as for being told how to play, try figuring out talents in the guardian tree, or playing as a guardian when you like to think of yourself as a warrior, not a caster (good luck finding a ranged weapon). Or play as a thief who wants to be an agile warrior, not a lame stealth-backstab machine.

Xerion.8014:

Rangers can spam endless Fury, Swiftness and Regen with a Shout build, while still having a great amount of DPS, spike damage and survivability.

But it requires some good knowledge of your class you are playing and it isn’t that easy as playing a “boring” Hammer Warrior. You are focusing on your pet alot, since its key to keep it alive in the first 10-30 seconds of the fight.

I tend to use my ranger every now and then during raids, just to try and show that rangers can be usefull in their own way. But all the hate stays, even when you dont die that quickly as warriors do when they get focused or spiked.

All the hate we rangers receive from people are people who play the easy class, its bandwagon hate, it has become normal to hate rangers, for what reason? No one can explain, they only say rangers suck, but dont say on what things we suck, why can’t they. Because they never played a ranger

Even in roaming im seeing less rangers these days, those rare ones are mostly Longbow ones. Not that hard to take on.

I consider myself forced-casual, in that I don’t have a lot of time to play, but if I did, I’d probably be doing fractal runs and have 5 level 80s. My ranger is only level 27, but from what I’ve seen in spvp there is a lot of truth to the 2 posts above. I logged in last night to test 3 builds, a ranger power shout build for longbow/gs/birds, a ranger power sigil build with gs/longbow/birds, and a D/D condition thief build.

The thief build worked, but it felt very much like chucking a hand grenade and hoping the enemy panic’d instead of throwing it back out the window. Hated it, but that’s just a playstyle thing I guess. First time I played it I had the most kills on the server that round.

Ranger sigil build sucked horribly. I don’t know what you people are thinking, sacrificing everything just to get one big number pop up once in a fight is dumb.

Yeah it turns out, for me, the best build is the one I came up with myself. Turns out it is not always best to just blindly do what others tell you to.

Really, all anyone should be trying to do is improve. You don’t have to blindly spec what other people tell you to spec, but there are nuggets of truth in there, so try to be the best player you can be. Learn, get better, and work your way up to ‘elite speed run player’ status. They’re the elite players for a reason, don’t expect to be instantly invited into their groups just because its fair.

One time I played through a dungeon, we got to the end boss, and couldn’t beat it. We noticed one guy was always AFK, always getting killed fast, and we looked at him, he was naked. All his armor was broken. “Go back and repair” we tell him. Nope, he is broke, can’t repair. And some people wonder why they get kicked from groups.

Pretty new to Ranger. I tried it when the game started out and I’m now just coming back to it because I’m enjoying a few of the minor changes to the class.

I’m just starting to realize how ridiculously clunky pets really are. Its really too bad. Thanks for linking that dev post because it does explain a lot. The way they programmed it wouldn’t be a problem for a mob or something that we weren’t controlling, but the stuttering after an attack, delay in responding to skill commands, it all fits with his explanation. Unfortunately I can’t think of a way to fix it that doesn’t involve some amount of reprogramming. Really, the AI for pets shouldn’t be handled by the server, but handled by our systems, and the pets should be treated like players by the server.

Death blossom has 3x 10 second bleeds, sneak attack (pistol stealth skill) by comparison has 5x 4 second bleeds. So a stealth attack inflicts 20 bleed hits over 4 seconds, and a regular attack stacks 30 bleed hits over 10 seconds. Death blossom should work as a condition damage stacking ability, you should be able to steal into range, spam death blossom 3 times, and use another skill to get out of range.

Actually, I might just start playing my thief again and try this… I haven’t played him since I got bored with my pistol/pistol power build in November.

Detharos.3157:

Made a big complicated post, but what it comes down too.. power ranger is just weaker than condi ranger because it’s an ACTIVE play build in a meta that supports PASSIVE play builds. On condi ranger, you can launch 3-4 fire and forget attacks stacking 2000-3000/second ticks on your enemies and then focus entirely on evading and kiting while that just keeps ticking away hurting your enemies even though you’re running around with swoop and leaps. On power builds, you can either hurt your enemies or avoid attacks and kite… you cannot do both simultaneously like condition builds. Every time you attack you are exposed to danger, and because you must attack more than a condi build to pressure your foes, you are also exposed to more enemy attack and burst sequences for longer periods. When a consequential period where you are heavily damaged and most start kiting away happens, you are not pressuring your enemies simultaneously like condi.. which means your enemies if they get the better of you can pressure you a lot more while not worrying about their health bar when you are on the defensive. They have less need to watch their health bar when you are fleeing from them, whereas with a condi build they still have to worry about healing themselves and curing their conditions, and trying to time their heal to go off when they are not poisoned which they frequently are.

That coupled with the fact that condi just seems to scale better and that it ignores toughness means that even condition removal rich builds get hurt more by condition damage than physical damage reduction builds (via evade/invuln/protection/whatever) get hurt by physical damage.

In the end you get this stupid situation where many power rangers get screwed over because our pet doesn’t work, but because condition rangers are built so that the pet is not as much a key issue to them, they get in arguments with us that buffs and fixes to the pet will make them (And I say only them) OP and is consequently not fair for the class. Which is total bullkitten, pets could be fixed and then the condition output on the popular condition weapons could be reduced to accommodate for higher pet hit ratios. It’d be as simply as giving all melee pets an auto-casting distance closer skill like swoop and an attack combo on their auto attack that pounces like sword one while simultaneously reducing the numbers on the condition staples. Condi builds would still have the same damage, just delivered differently with the pet contributing more than before. Power builds would become more viable as the pet would be holding us back less with less grotesque miss ratios.

To bad there are as many brainless condi rangers as incompetent balance team members who don’t get that and have the same objections, so this class never gets anywhere on the forums.

Great post. I definitely find my power ranger clunky and awkward. I just can’t stand condition heavy builds though. Just isn’t as much fun for me.

Kind of sad really, I built a guardian (my only level 80) around passive healing ticks for the group and being able to take away everyone’s conditions and convert them to buffs, and I never seem to be able to catch anyone who even HAS conditions on them. I think if anyone gets stacked with conditions they either have a way to remove it themselves or they’re dead.

I think I just need to find a way to motivate myself to like conditions then I’ll be able to enjoy some of the classes more.

Arrys.7145:

Sube Dai.8496:

Yes all of those things are new. However the state of the ranger is relatively unchanged. We have a few viable condition builds (trap, spirit, regen), but no power builds. Same problem as always. We can’t take the damage traits and have survivability.

That’s what burnt me out on the game. trying to find a survivable burst power build that didn’t involve pet bursting for me….. I simply can’t resist putting square pegs in round holes. Even back then a few power builds showed some promise but not enough….

You and I sound a lot alike. Fit darn peg, FIT.

Arrys.7145:

Anthony.7219:

I’d be interested in your comments on why my power ranger (posted in the build thread) won’t work. You might save me a lot of time and effort.

Go go power rangers?

I particularly enjoyed hitting with maul last night for 4500 and seeing the little asura turn tail and run.

Checked out your build. Power Shout I guess I’ll call it. Shouts weren’t too viable/used alot when I played previously. AKA other than protect me(defense) and sick em for pet burst builds.

Does “guard” stealth You and your pet or just the pet? Just adding up the opening strike auto crit resets in the build.

Guard doesn’t stealth you, just the pet, so you only have one opening strike reset every 12 seconds. Weapon swap time is 10s so that works out okay…

Guard does give your pet 10 seconds of stealth, 13 seconds of protect, 16 seconds of swiftness, and 18 seconds of regeneration on a 15 second cooldown (+ 1 second cast) ^this is only the case if the pet is in range of the shout, otherwise he gets 10 seconds of stealth, 13 seconds of protect, 3 seconds of swiftness, and 5 seconds of regeneration.

Kind of removes the need to take skirmishing VI to allow your pet to stay with players and actually hit them, considering the amount of cripple/etc you have access too.