Guild Wars 2

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAnf8YjEqQ5K2xCusAVLGMEq+dD2WgDgRvB+c/2r9D+V7B-TZhHwADeIAAOCAILDE4EAAa/BA

just hopping in to give you guys a link to the build i’m enjoying a lot at the moment.
I’m not sure if someone has posted anything similar to it yet, so i don’t want to take credit for anything.
With upcoming bug fixes this will get even better and once healing spring is back to working the way it used to again, it can be used instead of TU for added teamsupport, for soloing purposes TU might still work better.
If you feel too squishy with this, feel free to take forge runes, or give the protection moa a try, even though i think the pressure on downed foes with the river drake is amazing and hard to give up. Also feel free to adjust the build any way you want to and ask questions about my choices and i’ll try to explain them the best i can.

@ Sol.4310 you propably used jaguar back in the days – jaguar is somewhat special due to its f2 ability.
it’s the only f2 that works in conjunction with sic’em, also keep in mind thatpet damage got nerfed a few patches ago, thus the damage used to be higher as well… there have been some ridiculous numbers possible back then… maybe i still have some screenshots around – think i got a 16k crit from jaguar somewhere ^^

It’s been like this since release – think I’ve mentioned it a few times already, but it has been falling on deaf ears. Sorry

Sol.4310:

Traits (6/2/6/0/0)

• Pet’s Prowess is a must take, you need it to punch out that extra burst damage on your RaO combo’s. You can’t count on Rapid Fire being your only real big burst skills. Your bird’s F2 is a massive part of the burst build don’t kid yourself traits like Primal Reflexes isn’t going to break your target or save you. Most of your defense comes from your ability to force your target into a panic and blow CD’s and play defensive.

Pet f2 abilities are not affected by pet’s prowess unfortunately.

rom was consulting me about ranger alot and we’ve come up with a few builds to use in tournaments, also as denshee has played with me for ages and had to endure my usual habit of explaining things in detail wether he wanted to hear it or not, he could help rom as well, making rom not an unexperienced ranger at all.

the build he was using is a great build with good utility for both teamfighting and 1v1s as well as for skirmishes, given you can still customize it towards what your team needs – as for soleley playing sidepoints s/d a/t could bring better results due to more on point pressure.
if people want to fit in burning to this build you could swap SoS for flame trap as well, with having 4 100% projectile finishers + splitblade in this build the burning uptime is at an okay level, also it is unblockable and combos well with muddy terrain or entangle as each of the pulses can procc sharpened edges, so the added fury from SotF makes it really good offensively.
trying to cover the bleeding condition on your opponent is kinda tough though, muddy terrain helps a little, but you’re applying bleeding at a really fast rate – so it’s almost always the first condition to be cleansed.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjMqUzazKusQ0aABhaVA0uGS2Ww9RsEfdJjqC-TJhHwACOIADeAAAOCAp3fAA

either with celestial or with carrion amulet – you can run muddy terrain instead of SS

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjMqUzazKusQ0aABhaVA0uGS2l19RsEfdJjqC-TZxCwAAOIAn2fQxFAYyTAIbZAA

while i might not be playing that much lately this is a template build that you people can experiment around with as there’s a lot of other propably viable, yet situational skills/runes/sigils to take – but start out with this.
not a brainless build, high potential – keep evolving it.
cheers!

actually healing spring is arguably the strongest heal in the game in a team environment – and it removes 6 condis, not 5 as it clears one condition on the initial cast.
10 second waterfield that clears conditions and buffs regeneration, too bad they took the vigor on every pulse away, but it was clearly not intended.
also the current meta builds feature a lot of blast finishers, so with a coordinated team the healing and sustain you can get out of one healing spring is tremendous.
(as in warrior,guard,thief – all having rather easy access to blast finishers)

then again for roaming in wvw troll unguent is the best heal in 99% of the situations.

jcbroe.4329:

It’s a whole bunch of changes that don’t in their totality even remotely address the balance equilibrium whatsoever.

The weakest part about ranger power builds, or the thing they are lacking the most, especially with the underwhelming burst options outside of Greatsword, is the inability to remove protection/regen/stability/etc. If we had a reliable, consistent way of removing boons like protection, then even in their current state, power builds would immediately become more viable than they ever were.

It is why thief and mesmer burst builds are so strong; they have readily available means of removing protection so that they can guarantee their maximum damage output. Warriors not so much, but Healing Signet and good damage coefficients and stability access gives them ridiculous staying power in order to keep in an opponents face until they have an opportunity to deal their burst damage.

The other issue is Empathic Bond. No ranger player in their right mind is going to stop running Empathic Bond in PvP or small scale WvW because of the plethora of condition spam and the lack of valuable removal options outside of Empathic Bond.

Until either of these issues are addressed, ranger builds will stay largely unaffected unless the weapons get retooled.

this basically.
key issues of the ranger class aren’t getting adressed at all.
main issue being active condition removal, also kinda want to see how reliable pet f2s are after the patch – this might just be a step into the right direction.

contrary to popular belief trap ranger has always been a viable build, if you knew how to adapt.

the way condition clearing works is that the condition that gets applied last is the first to be cleansed, also healing spring clears one condition on activation (and then every 2 consecutive second totalling 6 clears over a timespan of 10 seconds)- so let’s take a necromancer using ds#5, if you time your healing spring right you’re going to instantly cleanse the immobilize from tainted shackles as it gets applied last.
another hint, because people started running torch a little more ( please go s/d and a/t if you play spvp ) dropping bonfire on a point will most likely be responsible for your long burn from throw torch being the first in the chain to be removed. ( usually passive removal, be it other rangers, guards or warriors – fighting warriors on point is hard, as your melee pet usually offers free condi clearing due to cleansing ire even when they’re using hammer, not even talking about berserker stance)

so try to put a little more thought into condition application, even though it might not be as impactful as it used to be.

when setting it up in spvp the maul crit can get even higher than that. 50k+ is possible, with a setup mind you.

i played NA occassionally.
Sir Battosai is my name on EU.
been kinda inactive the last few months, but i didnt think that the i’d be forgotten this quickly on the forums.

Sol.4310:

@Battosai.5620, can you please use breaks between your text, I did read all you had to say allot I agree with and some I don’t.

I use my Weapon dodge skills differently to most rangers, I normally use them right after weapon swap to mitigate damage and apply poison, or I use the hard dodge for when I get immobilized, #5 LB warrior skill you can’t dodge unless your at 900 range and when your in a point fight that’s not going to happen. There on extremely low cool-downs so rather stupid holding off on using them.

My style is different to your style, you have an idea of how I should play my build where as I have my own style and in the heat of the moment doesn’t always work out the way you want.

but using your weapon dodge skills right after swap most of the time in a 1v1 situation particulary makes it easier for the opponent to read you, i know mindgames in this game aren’t that high on the scale and most of the people aren’t used to those, but it is really effective and what it came down to in spvp between skilled individual anyway, that’s also where the animation cancelling with stow weapon comes in handy.
Basically what i want to say is that you need to pay more attention to positioning ( pet, yourself, opposing player(s), allies) and watch cooldowns (count them even) as well as dodge rolls and the buffs/debuffs going on.

you should always be ready to adapt and alter your playstyle to the situation your in – then again only reacting isn’t going to help you win in duels/games.
also just because something is on a low cooldown, it isn’t always feasable to spam that ability – while warrior pin down is a difficult animation to read at the moment, it has nothing to do with LoSing when he’s popping berserker stance or just cleared your condis with lyssa when you have CDs.

also i was just commenting on the things that i noticed when i watched your most recent video – and wanted to share my experience, guess i’ll have to make some myself to show you what i mean.

your right about the heat of battle though, it’s certainly not always going as planned and as i kept saying i’m nowhere close to using the rangers full potential ( and as long as there’s not some money in the game to make all the effort worth it, i won’t ever be using it)
i just wanted to show you the next steps you can take to improve your gameplay.

few things to improve your gameplay :
stomp from behind your pet ( engineer, warrior)
bind stow weapon to interrupt a stomp or a skill ( f.e. mesmer, interrupt the stomp halfway through and start the stomp again, sth like shift + f is great if you have interact bound on f ) skills if you see the warrior reflect is up, berserker stance etc etc stuff like that.
bind look behind and about face and try to play with it for some time, takes a little to get used to it, but it’s going to increase your overall effectiveness.
also not a fan of triple traps – you’re getting way too squishy and you’re lacking tools of repositioning yourself in combat – then again the sustain you can bring with warhorn and river drake is nice due to double blast, but if you’re going for utility you could consider swapping out vipers nest for either signet of renewal or LR – the loss of the poison application can be compensated by switching to marsh drake or running a spider as well ( marsh drake would be a better choice then as you’re devoid of interrupts otherwise when dropping wolf)
also i’d save serpents strike for dodging a telegraphed skill, when you’re out of dodges or to poison a downed body – apart from that it’s not that useful as the dodge frame ends before the animation finishes setting you up to get wrecked by anything with cc.
also fighting against warriors on point while they have berserker stance up isn’t going to do you any good – neither your pet, as you make clearing condis easier for them ( due to hitting both you and your pet and the pet cant dodge ) and all the aoe is taking care quickly of your pet, furthermore you take unneccessary damage.
hope this is considered some good advice as i don’t mean to be rude.
good thing you’re doing some videos and sharing your builds/ideas about the ranger though

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8IjEVx11VW2Bi2jMZeMxeYIH9IXB/PgK-TUAgyCpM8Y5xeBA
this is basically what you want to run.
2nd pet is depending on team composition ( your team and opposing team ) and role you’re going to take over.
same goes for the runes.

berserker stance is silly because it’s a 8-10 second complete immunity to a certain damage type – while immunities with a short duration are fine, as in timing is required to avoid the big hitters or just to survive for a tad bid longer till your heal is back off cooldown, such a long lasting immunity surely isn’t and is pretty much devoid of skill, add in the other factors like healing signet and cleansing ire and there you go, a pretty dull experience that (offers little to)no counterplay at all, which is a wrong approach imo.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fQAQNAodWjMaV6Vbib07JEoH5Cu4MRFGGqHrT68hA-TsAA1CnIKSVkrITRyisFNsYFxkAA
best.

you could just go 10 pts into nm and pick up natures protection – and run s/d + sb, which is basically the build i ran for the longest time – forge is good, but so is speed or 4 nightmare + 2 lyssa, but i think they fixed it and you don’t get an extra tick from flame trap anymore.
with sb + s/d you have 4 100% projectile finishers – so the burning can be stacked up rather decently, and the pressure from sb in a teamfight is just really handy to set up targets for a kill or interrupt a rez/stomp and you gain another active dodge, making it 5.
wolf/spider, spider/spider, wolf/drakehound, wolf+river/marshdrake usually functions really well, depending on the map and the role you play as this is basically a jack of all trade builds, yet master of nothing, thus you’re strength comes from adapting.
also s/d + a/t > s/t + a/d i cringe everytime i see s/t and a/d.
apart from that it’s really solid.
and double geomancy is beast.

power ranger is not quite there yet – sure, it’s decent for hotjoins and against less experienced players, but still lacking.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAsYVjEVd1lV+Vg2BiVBB1ekJzjJ3jSdKSNgK-TsAgyCpIATBmDMDYSwsgN8Y5xcBA

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7601]
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C:\Users\User>tracert 206.127.146.43

Routenverfolgung zu 206-127-146-43.plaync.com [206.127.146.43] über maximal 30 A
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1 1 ms 1 ms 1 ms Speedport.ip [192.168.2.1]
2 12 ms 9 ms 9 ms 87.186.225.37
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5 14 ms 14 ms 14 ms 80.157.129.70
6 14 ms 15 ms 17 ms xe-4-0-3.XT2.FFT1.ALTER.NET [146.188.4.213]
7 18 ms 16 ms 14 ms ae1.GW8.FFT4.ALTER.NET [149.227.16.54]
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9 16 ms 14 ms 14 ms 206-127-157-86.plaync.com [206.127.157.86]
10 28 ms 23 ms 21 ms 206-127-157-102.plaync.com [206.127.157.102]
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C:\Users\User>

taken: 12/16/2013 12 pm gmt +2

happening on every map – happens on NA servers as well.

ip : 206.127.146.43:0

about the video : that’s like tanking a shatter while you see the clones walking right at you.
it can be avoided by just moving behind the pet or dodging into it and usually requires a setup of the ranger or the team he plays with, consisting of an immobilize or some cc to lock the target in place.

as for pets scaling with amulet – hard to pull off in a balanced way as overall the pet/ai system needs changing as it makes it easier for bad players to get into the class while keeping good players down and thus closer together skillwise, which is definately not something i like.
so in order to start balancing out the AI stuff and to make it a fun mechanic to play ( as in outplaying someone not by random chance due to the pet chain fireing off the right skill at the right time, but actively controlling it) and play against( as in providing a way of judging the players skill,awareness and experience) rangers need full control over their pet skills.
adding in scaling with the amulet + the above would propably not benefit a lot of pets per se, as f.e. why would you run jaguar in a dps build when wolf offers more control with just a little less damage – furthermore why would you take a dps pet if you go for a defensive build, when the scaling and the utility provided is poor.
it’d just pigeonhole rangers even more into running canines in spvp – arguably some other pets might become good, but that is with direct control over the pet skills only, not with adding pet scaling with amulets as i think that’s going into the wrong direction and wouldn’t provide a wide variety of playstyles.
i mean imagine pet f2 skills would actually benefit from the 30% critical damage trait while running a soldier/knights/valk/berserker amulet – the complains would be huge, especially on birds and felines again and if pets would share the same base stats, then why take anything else than a canine in most situations?

add rune of resistance to spvp please – could prove to be very strong with power rangers, even more so, if they get some active condition clearing.

if you want to play to win, spirit ranger is the best option, as it offers the biggest potential out of all possible ranger builds currently. ( also it beats warriors and pretty much everything else in the game 1v1 – don’t go a/d and s/t though, it sucks)
if you want to play for fun – just play whatever build you want, it can be decently effective – from bleeding burst to power ranger, doesnt matter as it comes down to your team and your individual skill, being not only well-versed with the mechanics of the ranger class but positioning, awareness, communication and coordination as well, so even something subpar can be decent or decently viable.
then again, speaking about 1v1s rangers are usually really strong – no matter the build you run.
also running something that is not meta adds the element of surprise – so i was using power ranger every now and then as well during team queue, back when ranked queues were still around – and it worked, just for 1-2 matches though as people usually adapted fairly quickly to it.
if we ever get controllable pets ( moas please! ) valk power ranger is going to be the kitten. could work fairly well with fern hound now too, then again i’ve been saying that for months now – not going to write it down again.
also if you play spirit ranger your challenge shouldn’t be winning every 1v1, it’s supposed to be winning every 1v2 … well basically it’s 5v2 – you, your pet and 3 spirits vs 2 – just add quality to the quantity and profit

Josh Davis.6015:

Unbelievable! I didn’t think anyone could carry Denshee that hard.

Just kidding! Congrats!

who is this denshee you’re talking about grouch?

on topic – gratz scrubs!

actually it always depends on the player and the role you want to fit in.

offhand axe is pretty great in teamfights and it’s also good to set up your spirit bombs, it comes down to what your teamsetup needs in the end.
while forge runes are really great against power teams, i personally run melandru now against most teamsetups ( that is if i find the time to play ) because it helps a lot against warriors and condition based classes.
another thing that’s different for me is that i run double geomancy – just the strongest on swap sigil for damage and pressure, a little less safe though than just going double energy, although i can compensate that with dagger offhand.
oh and one more thing is different as well – i run carrion amulet + rabid jewel, as it doubles your critchance from 4% to 8% while increasing your toughness as well, netting you 2520 toughness with 23772 hp with near permanent protection, which i found is one of the more balanced and really survivable set ups to play against both condition and power classes ( mainly the stun lock warriors that some rangers have problems with )
and i cant really stress enough just how good sword/dagger as a combination for survivability is.

about the sword/dagger thing – this is where the mindgames i really liked against skilled players came into play, but i feel that currently this isnt necessary anymore due to the game shifting more towards spam overall, also capping the skill nowhere near the (possible) skill ceiling thus bringing the artificial skill ceiling and the skill floor closer together, making the game feel less rewarding and providing fertile ground for claims that this game is devoid of skill and classes are easy to master.
i could get into more details and special matchups with various outcomes, but it is impossible to cover all the odds and outcomes in this game.
if i can make it again to the podcast, i can go into specifics against certain (meta)builds, might not happen anytime soon though as i am moving and there’s quite some other stuff happening in my real life as well, making it hard to stay up that late to overcome the timezone difference between the U.S. and Europe.
thanks to you guys for listening though, i had a blast as people finally listened to (and hopefully enjoyed) my somewhat shortened, yet quite long monologues about the ranger class in this game.
my teammates didnt have that choice – they are by now, wether they wanted to or not ranger experts.

anyways, feel free to contact me via the forums or in game ( if i can make it ) and i will check as often as my schedule allows.

cheers!

think i’ve apologized a few times already for my performance on the SoTG – it was 2 a.m. in the morning for me and during my internship, while this is not a perfectly fine excuse, i still should have done better.
so sorry again for that.

longbow for warriors is great as it provides a lot of utility and aoe pressure – and you dont need to hit anything with f1 to trigger cleansing ire.

as for rangers – longbow is currently not viable, even though the weapon and its kit might have its uses it is mostly due to power builds paleing in comparison to a mixed dps/ condition focused build in spvp due to the classes mechanic.
granting players active control over the other 2 pet skills would propably make power builds a lot more viable.
( as in using moa + TU with a valkyrie amulet and scholar runes. sth along the lines of 30/25/5/10 )
but as it stands right now, longbow is barely viable in spvp – i tried longbow with 30 pts in bm for the stealth + quickness stomp but it was gimmicky at best.

as i’ve said countless times over and over again, the skillfloor on spirit ranger is quite low on the same hand though the skillcap is actually quite high and it is propably the strongest ranger build so far ( not counting betas ).
as for the video : everyone played quite poor and they’re nowhere near close to realizing their classes potential, so it is good ( to some extend ) that low skillfloor builds exist that are beneficial, nevertheless a skilled/more experienced player should be able to counterplay/outplay a guy that just started playing with a low skillfloor build.
currently this is barely the case and while there are ways to distinguish good players from bad players – it often doesn’t matter that much which has a lot to do with passive mechanics promoting to spam abilities that provide little to no counterplay.
( burning proccs from sun spirit, incendiary powder and dhuumfire to name a few )
another thing against spirit rangers is that it is quite often ( not always ) a l2p issue on the opposing players side as well, if you run up on point and stand in the spirit actives you’ll get melted, if you rotate in and out of the fight you can kill the spirits while putting pressure on the ranger – necro is a great example of a class that is able to kill a spirit ranger, stack up conditions on the spirit(s) or spite one of them and epidemic. ( well be advised to trigger emphatic bond by an autoattack or any condition you can apply, which will give you a 10 second timeframe to unload on the ranger) same applies for certain warrior builds to some extend.
but hey guys – let’s keep crying, while this is still arguably the worst meta so far, you guys can still use your braincells.

think i’ve said it quite a few times already, one change that would adress a lot of the issues currently occuring in the meta with condition providing too much pressure with little to no counter play to procc related traits and abilities ( such as dhuumfire, sun spirit procc, incendiary powder) would be to change the procc chance to 100% with the following conditions being met :
- add a skill icon to the affected players health bar that informs opposing players that his next attack will apply burning ( just like doom sigil f.e. )
- if the attack misses due to blind,block or dodge or some other circumstance the internal cooldown is triggered

this would allow for actual counter play, spam would be less effective and you’d actually need to put some thought behind your actions and count dodges, defensive skills etc. to apply the same pressure you did before.
it’d also help people to see who is actually doing it right – it’s really hard to gauge any skill in this current meta unfortunately.

furthermore – controllable pet skills, make it happen!

DXIEdge.2789:

Parisalchuk.9230:

overlord.7283:

explain a little more about the swapping?

Because your rank is tied to the individual and not the team, teams form quickly and disband quickly, or players will leave teams to jump to a better team because there is no punishment.

In GW1 there were requirements in place for their automated tournaments where you had to be part of the team for X amount of time or you could not play in their monthly automated tournaments. This forced players to become loyal to each other and not themselves and allowed teams to build synergy. Its no coincidence that the top teams in NA and EU have been together a long time, while all the other teams around them seem to rotate rosters a bit.

AL and USA have done nothing but change rosters since day 1.

Only eu teams stock together bro.

And overlord. Saying “where’s our support” to “oh we lose w/e” doesn’t help your cause. Earn respect. Don’t beg it.

Don’t assume anything about your opponent. I mean anything. Steamhawke will play what he believes is best.

I’d like to know why BAM didn’t get in

it just seems as if they don’t want us to play in this tournament at all for whatever reason that might be.

the problem with the s/d thief though is that it snowballs ridiculously hard – if one of your dps is getting trained by an s/d thief it’s really hard to peel for the guy being trained, he needs to go defensive immediately as he dies otherwise in a few seconds.
thus taking off a lot of pressure from his own team in the teamfight while having a necro spamming marks for the constant aoe pressure – your dps will go down eventually and if you try to go for the thief he’ll just reset while you get eaten alive by conditions.
so if the player that was being trained by the thief now is in down state the thief can just swap target and still have all of his burst/pressure up, due to its design making fights really snowbally as he can just start to train another target that now needs to be on the defensive instantly again.
meanwhile you have a bomb engi just funneling into far that will decap the point eventually and with supply crate up being a really tough match up to take 1v1.
overall the comp is really kitten simple and easy to play – the current meta and the current game is too dumped down skillwise imo.

i have one suggestion that would actually adress 3 of the 4 classes that currently feel kinda mandatory due to their low skill floor ( not saying anything about the skillcap ) is changing the function of the burning traits being dhuumfire, incendiary ammo and the sun spirit burning procc.
add a tooltip icon into the players buff bar ( engis/necroes/players affected by sun spirit) that informs the opposing player that the next attack will procc burning – if he dodges this attack the procc will vanish and trigger the traits icd thus introducing actual counterplay to the mindless condition spam right now.

also s/d thiefs #3 ability is completely flawed in design and broken – it just does way too much while pretty much every other skill in this weaponset pales in comparison.

i suggest running ten points into marksmanship and taking sharpening stone on procc.
i run the spirit build with a carrion amulet + rabid jewel ( think i’ve explained it somewhere here a few days ago) and with forge runes.
forge runes give burning duration + protection duration.
so with 30 points into nature magic you get 3 seconds of protection on dodgeroll.
furthermore you will increase your burning duration by 25%, also your survivability is higher in this condi meta due to the high hp pool ( you still have 2520 armor with around 80-90% protection uptime; once you drop below 50% health you get 15 seconds of protection from forge #6 on a 60 second cooldown, which makes it an effective 45 second cd) and your pressure is higher than rabid as well due to the added power damage.
the thing that makes spirits atm so strong is that each spirit can procc each others spirits passive effects – so the immobilize suddenly burns and same goes for the active of the lightning spirit, giving you little to no downtime on burning without going for torch offhand or any other burn utility.
there’s some more tricks to it i’m not willing to share as of yet.

a spirit build currently is actually the strongets build we have access to at the moment in tpvp.
running 10/0/30/30 with a carrion amulet + rabid jewel ( if you never want to die go shamans and play healing spring, it’s also more group support as you can trait for heals grant vigor thus basically granting reg,vigor,protection and swiftness to your party + burning on procc)
23772 hp, 2520 armor, 8% critchance, 1585 power, 1223 condi damge, 10% condi duration and 30% boon duration.
running forge runes on top of that will net you at 50% increased protection duration, thus granting 3 seconds of protection on every dodge roll.
combine that with the spirit procc and you basically got permanent protection on yourself, which is huge – also your pet hugely benefits from that, permanent protection + swiftness on your pet and the burning procc as well.
why spirits you say?
well the good thing is that each spirit procc can actually procc on each spirit active, making it possible for you to have 5 sources available that all can procc burning individually ( if you run around without a team already).
furthermore setting up spirit bombs is one of the most fun things ever in this game, as it’s not easy to land and actually feels rewarding ( maybe a bit too rewarding, as the pressure is quite insane).
another thing that makes spirits incredibly good is that you can provide them with boons like protection, swiftness, reg – but more importantly also with might an fury.
this is where storm spirits active call lightning comes in handy ( also path of scars is great to set it up, precast stone spirit immob then path of scars and then call lightning – by doing it right your victim just got hit by 3 sources of burning, is cced and immobilized and just got hit by 2,8k-4k noncrit) anyways back to mightstacking – so far the highest crit i could achieve in an spvp match with call lightning was 9,2k aoe. mind you that is with applying huge amounts of condition pressure and support to your team as well.
there’s some more depths to spirits that i dont feel like spoiling yet – try it and have fun fellow rangers!

Hey there guys,

things on my list so far are :

Removing the passive/rng stuff that is going on on rangers atm to open up more viable builds, this would include pets and condition removing mainly.

- Pets and microing : As in giving the player more active control over the pet removing more rng from the class and promote a more active playstyle.

This would also increase the viability of currently underused pets.
Example : Moas, with the healing on demand they might make a longbow/valk build viable.

-Condition clearing : The ways of actively clearing conditions is really limited for rangers ( looking at you emphatic bond ), thus limiting build diversity greatly, especially in spvp forcing you down into the condi/bunker role.
We’ve got a new way of clearing conditions on ourselves though with this patch, but it’s not enough imo and more like a bandaid ( running guard/shouts with soldier runes).

By adressing these things it would make it more rewarding to play a ranger while increasing the skillfloor and -cap of the class at the same time; this is on the expense of newer players having a harder time to get into the class.

-Marksmanship

the minor traits in this traitline seem lackluster, compared to other traitlines ( again wilderness survival is one of the best examples here as it is our strongest one )
adding an internal cooldown ( 20 secondish? ) on top of it + making it reset on kill might make it worth to go for it.

Eagle eye affecting the shortbow as well and bringing it back to 1200 range

Regarding spirits and their viability in the 3 different parts of the game – spvp,wvw and pve.

While i think that spirits currently are in a good position in spvp, they seem lackluster in pve and wvw as their survival is an issue.
Making them immune to damage/taking reduced damage ( aoe for the most part) in dungeons and pve encounters seems like the right way to go and would increase the rangers ability of supporting his party, thus making him more attractive to bring to a dungeon party.
Changes like this would be too strong for spvp though imo, so there definately needs to be more seperated changes in between the 3 parts of the game.
Another way of adressing this issue might be to add a toggle for the spirits to either move and follow you and a stay command to have them stay behind out of harms way.

That’s just a quick overview guys, i have more on my list including:
pet survivability/damage – which is more of an issue in wvw/pve
trait overhauls/merges
pet responsiveness to player commands
future plans for the ranger – might ask about new pets/weapons and plans down the road and their view on the ranger as well
weapon and weapon role diversity
ability to dodge during swords animations on autoattack
To be honest i am happy if i can only fit half of the things i just wrote in there and explain them well enough for people that are not familiar with the ranger to understand the issues as well.
Again sorry in advance to you guys, if i can’t cover all of the good suggestions and questions you brought into this thread.
Also bear with my poor formatting skills.

Erro.2784:

Hey Battosai, nice one on making SotG! Out of curiosity are you the same Battosai WL from WAR?

Ideally what I would like to know is if the Ranger can be provided with some more group support for WvW. At the moment it is severely limited in what it can do for a group. Simple things like would go a long way:

• making Maul a blast finisher (perhaps on longer cooldown) or;
• a Trait in Nature’s Magic which allows for buffs gained through traits to be applied to nearby allies.

I think I am one of the few players happy with the pet damage nerfs. Some of the stuff they were putting out was ridiculous to say the least. Having said that, it was mostly just OP in 1v1 or small scale. In large scale conflicts the mechanic of having a pet is pretty much useless. Are ANet contemplating inclusion of a trait which allows for stowing of pet in return for additional damage buff (similar to WAR’s loner WLs)?

Yup that’s me.
I’ll try to read through all of the threads you guys are mentioning and recommending to me as well.

Hey there again guys!
Just wanted to let you know that I’ve actually read through all of your posts so far, some really great questions and suggestions in it and they’re constructive.
My time today is rather limited, but i will try to compile a priority list tomorrow ( latest on monday) on what I want to ask and talk about on the SotG.
I’m afraid I propably won’t be able to put all of your questions/suggestions in – so sorry in advance for that.
Also this thread actually has more replies then Supcuties general thread for the SotG in the spvp forums.
Last but not least thanks a lot for your encouragement guys.

Hey there fellow rangers!

The State of the Game discussion is coming on Tuesday the 2nd July at 4:30 pm PST.
I will be joining Grouch, Zombify, Supcutie and the developer Jonathan Sharp discussing the recent patch and the effects it had on PvP in Guildwars 2!
Obviously i will not let this chance slip by and I’ll try to fit in as much ranger talk as possible!

The purpose of this thread is to gather suggestions, questions or feedback you guys want me/us to talk about during the State of the Game discussion.

Looking forward to your input guys!

Cheers!

HPLT.7132:

Battosai.5620:

traps are actually viable – just not the standard rabid + 3 traps + entangle + TU and sword/torch stuff.

I have quite a lot respect on your opinion but there is a difference between viable and worth to pick. I played trapper (sb+sword/dagger+3 traps+hs+entangle/spirit) when BM was already Meta…however these desperate tries to make BM less strong also affected trapper pretty heavily. First it was affected by haste nerf – Now, with the next patch it will not have any haste+ reduced shortbow range+ reduced pet damage+reduced pet range+ no save stomping capability. Tell me in which world this build is superior compared to bomb engis? Also you cant just exchange the traps…poison trap -> essentially for downed control , burning trap -> your main damage, spike trap-> Without you will have less cc and might get chased heavily (then also lightning reflexes will not help much).
They want to increase build diversity, however for rangers they killed all possibilities to do anything different from 0/0/30/X/X. And these ridiculous longbow (really projectile speed? This thing is so kittening slow and clunky….) and spirit (They bring no substantial group support which would be worth risking to bring them AND they will still die in seconds – 360 range for such a kittenty spirit sorry these things need a complete overhaul like they promised for this patch.)

first of all bm rangers had a too low skillfloor, thus not much was needed for it to be effective – same thing applies to other builds atm, its not just a ranger specific issue.
the trapper build you mentioned above is indeed not stronger than an engineer – the thing though is, that people try to force the ranger into a certain role that doesn’t really fit him, thus only making use of barely half ot the potential it has, if even.
the only thing the range nerf on sb will really hurt is chasing down fleeing targets – it never did really good pressure on maximum range in pvp anyway as it is more of a skirmishing weapon and flanking gets easier.
the ranger is a great harrasser, he can easily put pressure on a main dps like ele/mesmer/thief using control pets to help out his teammates or the traps for down pressure if you coordinate it right, thus taking a lot of pressure from your teammates as one of the opposing dps is focused on surviving.
also mobility wise the ranger is really strong – thing is with that build, that it basically can do everything decently well but it will always get outshined by a more specialized build in that specific role. the rangers greatest strength imo is adaptability and versatility, given that you could argue that a bomb engi is more versatile at the moment.
i’d like them to give the player more active control over the pets movement and their respective abilities – make it function like a kit or change f1 – f4 to pet abilities and have the control for it elsewhere, would make rangers that much more powerful while increasing the skillfloor on most of the builds.
a well played trap ranger offers quite a lot to the team, it’s not as easy to do well as it is on bm though.
i’m glad the fotm guys will vanish and bm ranger will actually still be a decent build, while not being that mandatory anymore. furthermore the ranger gets pretty much forced 30 pts into wilderness survival right now as well as it is our strongest traitline by far.

traps are actually viable – just not the standard rabid + 3 traps + entangle + TU and sword/torch stuff.

Substance E.4852:

Dardamaniac.1295:

Substance E.4852:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Substance E.4852:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Expiatus.4210:

Are these verified? Why decrease SB to 900? Call me suspicious but hey, “Trust but verify” you know.

People weren’t taking LB because SB had the same range for more DPS and conditions. Now that’s been replaced with less range for more DPS and conditions.

Anyone who thinks a 15-20% increase in damage on SB 2-5 is a dps boost has never used the thing before.

DPS = Damage per second

Conditions play into that, and #1 does all the DPSing, not the other 4.

So then explain your logic that they reduced the damage but increased the dps because, according to the notes, they didn’t touch the damage or conditions on crossfire nor did they increase the duration of poison volley.

Also let me inform you that you have 3 projectile finishers at Shortbow…Well i geuss that youve never fired above a fire field with dakittens ok,you will do it now

No, I wouldn’t, because I’m not a terrible player that blows their utility skills for a few ticks of burning.

the fact that 3,4,5 on sb are 100% projectile finishers and knowing how to use them can provide more utility and damage to the ranger – as in using combo fields, flame for more damage and light for condition clearing f.e. which is something you will have to do if you want to up your game on ranger.
firing of #5 lightly is not adviced though – potentially with the right runeset and 30 pts into skirmishing taking the trap traits and running dagger offhand instead of torch because it also has a 100% projectile finisher lets you apply about 12 seconds burning on one target so you can sustain burning and pressure quite a lot on targets.
running control pets on top of it will give you a huge amount of constant pressure which you can easily increase by going to close/midrange on shortbow because of the flanking and standing on point forces people to stand in your traps as well.
as for condition bursting setting up flame trap with spiketrap + spider/wolf using 4 + 3 on sb ( potentially 5 – depends on the situation) and swapping weapons mid animation of #3 will cancel the animation out while still evading and if you run geomancy/hydromancy they will take about 5-800 dmg noncrit ( if running carrion) on top of chill/ 3 bleeding stacks, if you follow it up with dagger #5 you will now have added 3-4 seconds of additional burning on your target.
so overall it’s : 3 bleeds spike trap, 3 bleeds geomancy, 3 bleeds crippling talon, 3 pet bleeds, flame trap + 3-4 seconds of extra burning and cripple ( if you continue the chain use dagger #4 for poison if the spider didnt use his poison field) in a really short time frame. given you’ve started harrasing earlier with sb #1 this condition/hybrid burst can easily bring down a target.
just one example.

also rangers always did great in applying constant pressure on targets – and bm being purely played for backpoint wasnt my perception of it, as you didnt use its full potential – it will certainly shuffle things up quite a lot, but in the end it increases the skillfloor of pretty much every ranger build and even though it appears that not many things have changed for you guys(or gotten worse even) , the perception people had of the meta will certainly have changed after the patch, so it possibly creates new viable roles for older builds or builds that got outshined pre-patch.
can’t really give an exact statement about the changes yet though, as i’ll have to test them first.
power rangers might be viable – trapper will be good and beastmaster will still be decent though imo.
for the rangers that want to play a bit more offensive and play a hybrid build utilizing the new weakness a lot i will suggest running the cave spider and using monarchs leap through poison gas to get more weakness.
also axe offhand is a great weapon and might see some use in tpvp to set up kills/spikes or for great interrupts/neutralizes.
just make use of the rangers most defining quality – adaptability and versatility and we should be good to go (even) after this patch.

thanks a lot for the reply jon!

just hit me up ingame if you guys want to discuss builds, tactics, synergies or practice some 1v1 stuff or just anything related to this event.
cheers!

first time hearing about this contest bas – but i guess better late than never.

farewell offhand training i guess.

i hope you guys realize that this ability now – at least in spvp is worse off then before.
furthermore they reduced the dodge from 1 1/4 seconds to 1/2 a second.

jcbroe.4329:

Awesome, love the response and the views Battosai.

For awhile now, I’ve been thinking rangers biggest issue is the source of cleansing. Empathic Bond, while having a great function, is so alone (for lack of a better word) at what it does and how effectively it does it, that it is basically imperative to take it if you want any sort of strong cleansing source.
Without it, you’re left with Signet of Renewal and Healing Spring, and both of which have outside functions that may take some priority over cleansing (Healing Spring being the heal, and SoR being the stun break).

That means that if a person chooses to not run Empathic Bond, but still wants cleanses, they are forced into a heal and utility option, and if they want a reliable stun break on top of that, they are going to be forced into taking Lightning Reflexes as well in case their SoR is on cooldown because it was used as a cleanse over a stun break.

Fortunately for rangers, Empathic Bond is in one of the most useful trait families at our dispense. But for other classes, their cleanses are in trait lines that serve little to no offensive and defensive use beyond picking up a single trait and whatever passive stats are added.

Beyond that, it’s just an issue of trait and utility cleanup, with weapon versatility. There are SO MANY traits in this game that are literally never used because of how bad their function is, or in what trait line they are placed. Same type of argument for utilities.

And by far my largest issue with weapons is how evenly matched the shortbows damage output is with the longbows. There needs to be some better role distinction, and there is no justification for Rapid Fire doing the same damage as Crossfire.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Those are the things that I personally think hinder the ranger class the most, and pigeonhole rangers into many similar but ultimately same builds. Lots of those issues, on a broader scale, are what plague every class though, and trait changes is probably the easiest way to handle that.
In fact, the best quick fix is Grandmaster Trait selection. Grandmaster Traits should be cornerstone selections that make or break builds. Rangers have such good examples of that, Signet of the Beastmaster, Trap Potency, Empathic Bond, and Spirits Unbound. They define utility choices and/or enhance the capabilities of rangers to a degree where entire builds are built around how those traits function.

If other grandmaster traits could be as defining or as game changing as some of those listed, build versatility, while still existent without utility fixes, would be a much more miniscule problem for the metagame than it currently is.

Sorry for all that, I don’t have a podcast lol.

i agree with it for the most part.
but i see spirits unbound more of a bad trade off as you can’t really keep the spirits out of harms way, with aoe beeing one of the dominant factors in this game.
also evasive purity doesn’t seem to be worth a grandmaster trait f.e. – it was arguably too good in beta, when it cleansed 1 condition aoe on dodge role with 10 sec cd, but now if you compare it to the master trait elementalists get in water f.e. ( dodging removes chill and burning) it seems to be kind of lackluster.
emphatic bond being mandatory in most builds and the minor traits in wilderness being so strong as well, really force you to invest points into wilderness survival.
traits overall in wilderness survival are awesome.
50% passive increased endurance reg, 2 seconds of protection after dodge – only the grandmaster minor trait seems to be lacking.
i’d like to see the pet more as a tool that supplements your build – thus making them more control/supportish while gaining more active control of them.
a major trait overhaul, more distinction in weapon roles ( and their scaling with power f.e.) and rebalancing the pets would be necessary though.
the ranger has so much potential build wise as the ideas behind each traitline are pretty great and would always be played differently and increase the one factor that stands out the most while playing ranger – versatility.
yet what i mentioned above is kinda in the way.
not easy to pull off i guess – but the ranger community has some great ideas, even though some of them are a bit over the top.

sorry for the late response – had a flooding and the river is right next to the house, so i was kinda busy this weekend.