Guild Wars 2

Durzlla.6295:

Oh no, the horrors… you need to choose between traits, the kittening horrors…

Not to mention Poison Master, Survival of the Fittest and Invigorating Bound may be the greatest things since sliced bread…

I, like you, am much more optimistic about our the updates, than most rangers. But the biggest and most direct impact doesn’t come from these traits at all. It is the crit damage nerf, which is an indirect buff to rangers.

We’ll be able to scale down our defense and boost our offense as well, since we don’t have to deal with the insane bursts of thieves and mesmers.

Otherwise, it is FAR too early to make informed, broad claims about how our effective our traits will work once new builds start to emerge.

Durzlla.6295:

I hear there’s this thing called SoR, and SoTF, that also remove conditions, and rumor has it our best heal ALSO, removes conditions and that we even have a pet that can not only remove conditions from us, but ALSO up to 4 allies WITHOUT killing themselves!! Wanna know the best part? There’s also this strange myth going around that GASP allows you to dodge incoming conditions just like direct damage!! The best part is EVERYONE can do that and it negates the entire condition!!! There’s also these things called runes and sigils that supposedly have this magical ability to remove conditions, but those can’t possibly be used by rangers now can they?

But you know, better run EB instead cause everyone knows we have no other good condi removals…

One thing about SOR—and this is as much a question as comment—I hardly find the active condition removal reliable. The range for the pet actually pulling the conditions off of you seems so small that it often doesn’t work. I know, I know, I try summon a pet right before I use SOR, but the thing is , when you need to use it’s active, you NEED TO USE IT’S ACTIVE NOW! So your pet summons may not be off CD and if you are at range, and your pet is melee (or visa versa), you’re screwed.

Anyone else notice this problem?

This is a game changer. I may go back to birds—love their burst and their aesthetics. I just couldn’t tolerate the insufferable delay in their F2s.

I wonder if these changes hold any hope for a power-based beast master…

Pets are a bit more responsive now, so that means they are actually in the fray more frequently. This could mean they are more likely to be hit by cleave damage and hence take more damage.

Name: Trève
Tarnished Coast
WvW (some PvP)

hyjaxxx.1584:

….( The Reason i diddnt mention the Birds right now is im assuming that anet will do something to change the 6 second f2 abiity.)

anyone have some thoughts on this?

Jaxx.

My completely baseless guess is they weren’t aware of this low cooldown ability and may only now be considering the implications.

But to the point…I don’t see this ability being worth more than natural healing or justify 30 in BM unless the heal is really substantial. Guardian dodge roll can heal well over 1-1.5k every 8 seconds, with the possibility of nice burst healing. Unless our heal is close to or exceeds this level (or maybe has a much larger radius), then this ability won’t provide much relative group utility (given we can’t share stability at all or protection easily).

I really see this ability as also depending largely on improvements to pet responsiveness and attacks. If F2 fires right away AND if pets land their attacks more often, then healing heavy pet builds may be viable (at least for roaming/small fights).

Energy works great, but I’ve found that once you master the sword evades the extra energy doesn’t help as much as a bit more damage. I picked battle because those might stacks also apply to your pet, giving them a bit extra punch. You also have good boon duration, so those stick for a long time.

But use energy if you want, they are a good choice, as are sigil of force. Once the balance update comes (march 18th), everything might change. So don’t break your bank on completely gearing up for this build—especially on sigils for your weapons.

Game Mode
WvW

Proposal overview

Make signets apply active effects to player by default; allow Signet of Beastmaster trait to apply active effects to team mates.

Goal of Proposal

Currently rangers have very little group/team utility for large and medium scale fights. This change will build diversity and group utility for rangers.

Proposal Functionality

1. All signets will apply active effects to ranger by default
2. Change range of all active effects to 1200—currently active effects like Signet of Renewal are very unreliable because the pet, if you are using it as intended, is often out of range. This is especially true in group fights.
3. Signet of Beastmaster applies active signet effects to allies
4. change the following signet active effects for balance and to maintain signet oriented themes
a. Signet of Hunt active—3 seconds of quickness; increase CD to 45 seconds.
b. Signet of Stone active—6 seconds of protection
c. Reduce CD for Signet of Restoration to 45 seconds and make active remove only 3 conditions.

Associated Risk

Some signets in current form would be overpowered if made to applies to allies (e.g., Signet of Stone). These would need to be tweaked as per suggestions above.

Another risk is that the ranger comes to replace and surpass the role of other classes that provide group wide buffs.

You need need the grandmaster marksman trait for this to work that allows signets to work on you. Otherwise it will only proc on your pet. This is a completely useless trait. If ANET makes signet active effects work, by default on the player, then this will be a really useful trait, especially for shout builds!

Glad you are enjoying the build! I’ve run your exact variant before and it works great—though as perverse as empathic bond is, I’ve found it hard to do without in the current condition meta.

I think the key features of this build are the LB and S/D weapon sets. They synergize amazingly well. I’ve been trying this build without Shout, and although it is less robust, I’ve noticed my pets landing more attacks. I wonder whether casting “Guard” screws up the pets attack sequence, putting key attacks (eg knockdown) on cooldown.

Anyway, keep me posted about how you like the build and what tweaks you made to it. I’m excited about what possibilities for ‘classic’ ranger builds the new patch and CDI will bring.

cheers!

The ranger shouts are all very lackluster. The offer no where the utility of Guardian shouts, so comparison of risk v reward is a bit off—it would be a good way of thinking if the shouts were reasonably balanced in their effects.

What “Guard” offers is really weak compared to other classes shouts. Essentially it replaces a signet (for speed). It does provide perma regen, but there are other ways of getting that. It offers terrible group utility because swiftness and regen are relatively weak and easy to come by buffs AND because the range of the shout is so short (compared to guardian shouts) that you rarely hit all of your party members (except in sPvP).

Shout absolutely should be insta-cast. I could see raising the CD to 20 seconds but increasing the range to 900 or 1200. Then with a trait you are at 16, and with the right traits and runes you still can have perma swiftness and regen.

And on a somewhat tangential note: the ranger is a lesson in frustration and masochism. “Essential” traits and utilities can disable our class mechanic (EB and active SOR) as can some useful utilities (Protect Me). Our class mechanic is unreliable (F2) and is completely unviable as a build theme—impossible to have our pets do our damage for us (although the mesmer can do this). Anyone quibbling over request to make shout function like every other shout in the game isn’t doing our class any favors.

Empathic bond is as Prysin says, awful because it destroys our class mechanic! What other class has to deal with that?

That said, we have few other good choices. HS in practice is tricky to use, as it has a long cooldown and you need to sit in for condition clears. I’m looking forward to promised tweaks for 2handed weapons and sigils—we might be able to replace EB with sigils of purity/generosity. It is possible to manage EB and keep your pets alive against condition builds. The problem arises when fighting a smart player who specifically target and kills your pet—leaving you screwed.

The shout serves several functions. First, it gives you perma swiftness, freeing up a utility slot—the swiftness also applies to your pet. Second, it gives protection to your pet, making them MUCH more robust. Third, it gives your pet stealth, making it somewhat easier for them to land their attacks and to get them out of harms way. And fourth, you and your pet get regen. Granted over 10 seconds, you are only getting back about 1.3k, but that i still nothing to sneeze at over a lengthy fight.

About the traits—Nature’s bounty is a complete waste with a shout build. You have on demand, nearly perma regen. Evasive purity is a good choice, but I’ve found it to be of less use than I hoped for against blind or poison builds. As is often the case, they can re-apply the conditions too fast given the 10 second Evasive Purity cooldown.

The -20%CD for LR is very nice, and definitely what I run in duels. But for roaming, I’ve found it much more useful to have the reduced damage on falls. I can’t tell you how many kills I’ve gotten by luring people over high drop offs!

And I agree that crit damage is low. I’m currently running Sevan’s build which has me sitting >60% crit chance, at the cost of some toughness and HPs.

My build is definitely NOT optimized for dueling. But I’ve found it effective for roaming. It provides good mobility, good sustain and acceptable damage, though the damage output is definitely the weak link.

These are old videos, poorly edited and they have no cool music. But they do show the essential game play. I’ve updated the build a couple times since these videos ankitten ow running a more offensive version that Sevans shared with me—less forgiving but it packs more punch.

This is a video of 1v1s: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUL5Ferww4I

This is a video of 1vxs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUACn5w3LYQ

Hope this is helpful and you find this or a related power build fun and effective!

You can always go to Obsidian Sanctum for duels in a WvW context. No stacking sigils and no bloodlust buffs, but you can use food.

Practice here is excellent. You get to fight against really good duelists and learn how to counter different classes and builds.

I have just a few comments on these builds and the ranger in general for WvW (for the CDI). I play a ranger 95% of the time in WvW, the other 5% I play a guardian to support my guilds raids.

These builds will work in so far as you can push the buttons, and sometimes get bags and survive. However, the zerg builds (the first 3) are significantly disadvantaged compared to other classes. The first build will have decent but not great AOE DPS, and will almost completely rely on support for sustain—no good heals, no mobile condition clears, but good stability (though selfish—no sharing with group). The second build is fine, but the pets and spirits are completely unreliable and there is again weak condition clear and weak buffs (mostly fury). No sharing of stability and the protection sharing, while good in principle, is simply MUCH less reliable than what a guardian can bring. Kudos for appropriate selection of bear for condition clear—it is a shame even that is unreliable in a zerg.

The backline DPS build will indeed do great damage and with active and smart position, you can stay often alive—unless someone actually wants you dead. Your AOE damage is quite weak and you have few tricks to survive being focused make this is suboptimal choice for zerg DPS.

These are not critiques of the builds or Prysin, but of the class. These builds (or variants of them) SHOULD not only work in WvW, but bring something to the table that would make others want a ranger for support or DPS rather a guardian, warrior or ele. A good outcome of CDI would be to increase build diversity and comparative effectiveness of builds for group wvw play.

The ranger works in zerg WvW the same way a Mini Cooper could compete in Indy 500. The gas pedal and breaks work. You can travel the course and even pass other cars if they are in a pit stop or crash. But what driver in their right mind would opt to get behind a wheel of this car?

Jhughes.8341:

Someone has to have come up with something semi viable to roam around with., come on.. Tell me (:

So, I play this build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNAT8YnAV0FclF+VwaZAp9YSsEMhVwQcP8PUJELYTF-jUDBYgBCjJzUgwEEYkIBKBqIasVSFRjVvAT5SIWDLqWzB2gOqeDYyAwMGA-w

It is a shout build with 0 healing. You rely on evasion and the utility of the longbow to stealth, knockback and kite. It is extremely fun, survivable and very effective. You can fuss around with sigils (generosity vs. force) and pets to suit your situation. I enjoy it much more than condition/bunker specs.

It is a very active build that requires active defensive and well timed dodges and evades. I’ve posted a few videos of the build in action if you are interested.

1. Ranger
2. Elementalist
3. Engineer

Yes, if we could move while channeling and a reduced cooldown would make it a great attack skill. Yes, great. Not just good, but great.

Rangers deserve some great AOE attacks. And it wouldn’t even be great damage, just great control. As it is now, it’s far too situational to be of general use in WvW large scale fights.

Me too! LB and S/x, usually Dagger. I don’t have too much of problem either, but I do run EB. My hope is that I might not need to…

The upcoming balance patch will allow 2 sigils for 2 handed weapons AND alter the “on crit” sigils to proc 100% of the time when a crit occurs.

I was wondering how this might alter our reliance on EB for condition removal. If one specs with SOR (1 condition per 10 seconds) and has both Sigil of Generosity and Sigil of Purity on both weapon sets, you will essentially be guaranteed of removing about 3 conditions per 10 seconds (the cooldown for the sigils is 10 secs), with 1 of those conditions being transferred to your target. This is assuming you have a decent crit rate you will be reliably crit’ing every 4 or 5 attacks.

This set up (SOR on utility, sigil of generosity, sigil of purity) will produce better results than EB, because it won’t kill your pet, doesn’t go away when your pet dies, and transfers 1 condition. You’ll give up offensive sigils, but you will no longer need 30 in NM.

Alternatively, if you kept EB, you’d be dropping 6 conditions every 10 seconds or so.

What are people’s thoughts? Will this open up build diversity?

Suggestions:
1. Rework condition removal. It is uniquely perverse to make our only condition removal also destroy our core class mechanic through condition transfer. No other class has this ‘feature.’
2. Make condition removal ALWAYS work. Signet of Renewal doesn’t work when pet not in range. Increase the range to 1,200. Why not? Guardian condition removal has a large range…

3. Make signets apply to rangers by default and have us trait to make it apply to our pets. Maybe have it be the 5 point trait in the BM line (which is currently useless)

4. Move empathic bond to a lower trait or give us other condition removal options. This is ESSENTIAL for build diversity. Otherwise we are locked into 30 in NM.

5. If you can’t fix the pet AI, then SIGNIFICANTLY increase their speed, by like 50%. Stupid but fast would work (only WvW and PvE—would be unbalanced in spvp).

6. Make F2 skills fire instantly. How would having the wolf’s fear ALWAYS cast when you want it be overpowered? It SHOULD always work—it can be counted like every other fear through stability. Same goes for immobilize, etc. Many other classes have similar abilities which always work. Our pet abilities which are on lengthy cooldowns should always fire.

Dahkeus.8243:

Lalangamena.3694:

give rangers a new pet [fox hound etc] that on F2 will sniff out [reveal] close enemy (240-360 radius?) in stealth .

momentarily rangers will be welcomed to WWW and the thief epidemic will stop.

it is also unnecessary nerf to veil, but what can you do….

I main a thief…but I think this would be fair. The F2 should probably deal some damage though or else the pet would be incredibly niche and not used anywhere outside of solo roaming in WvW…which would be a shame since foxes are awesome.

However, I don’t think this would really make much of a difference for rangers being desired in WvW since the skill would still be pretty useless in zergs.

Or if the current F2 skills worked everytime they were pressed, rangers would be in a much better place…they simply do not work reliably.

OneManArmy.9732:

high skill and active play (much more than other classes).

123111111111111
pff

What ranger builds is this? The spirit build? Not something that works well in WvW…

Fenrir.6183:

Umad.7528:

Please post a build that shows me what a ranger can do, why it is usefull and why any other class cant do that better. The spirits are useless the pets are useless and pretty much anything else i can think about what a ranger can do some other class will be able to do that better. Nothing personal its just a broken class.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAR3XjEVJ2xVOWo2Bi1DCt/B1UwJLxUwfHdytaUL-jECBofERzEEwEIBK1sIaslhFRjVrETDjIq2cuIa1yAwsAA-w
Better immobilize / cripple / chill than other classes. Very resilient build and good damage while staying in the pain train. Ability to pull enemies with axe #4.
You can swap traits and use a LB with piercing arrows / 1500 range with the same build.

This is my current build, it’s very good in wvw but maybe you could enlighten me as to how the class is “broken” instead of trolling ?

I run a similar build to this when I run melee with a zerg. I don’t run traps and put enough in NM to get barkskin. You will have GOOD survivability, VERY GOOD mobility, GOOD stability/stunbreak, GOOD damage, SO-SO burst, and GOOD control (axe 4 pull, muddy terrain). You will not be EXCELLENT at anything though and you will rely on your team for heavy duty condition cleanse.

So, the “rangerz is awful” people, like the noob who said rangers have no stunbreaks, are completely wrong. With a smart build and good play, a ranger can contribute to a zerg. That said, people are correct in saying that ranger does NOTHING better than another class.

—Just don’t even factor in your pets during large group/zerg play. They contribute nothing reliably

—Your pseudo burst is really good for a couple of targets, but is nothing compared to ele’s or warriors.

—You provide little to the group, compared to support eles or even DPS guardians. Swiftness and regen are nice, but not that important.

—You have weak legitimate AOE.

—You have limited escape tools when focused. You have some, and can often escape, but when I play my guardian in a zerg, I feel like a god. When I play my ranger I feel like I’m one mistake away from respawn.

Rangers are very good for duels. They are also very good for roaming, but require solid builds and high skill and active play (much more than other classes). They really need some buffs that translate to group utility for zergs.

It will take time to fully evaluate, but after one night of playing in EOTM I’d say it is a big win. Interesting terrain, nooks and crannies, plenty of choke points, all of which add variety and equalize utility among classes.

I’ve seen more small group combat than in the BLs. I personally like some AI in PvP. It is an MMO—the pvp is traditionally inherently different than the pvp in TF, for example. There’s spvp and OS if all you want is open terrain to have contrived fights.

There’s a group of hardcore pvpers who were raised on open world pvp, where fights were unpredictable and tactics involved positioning, using terrain etc. EOTM holds considerable promise.

Actually SB has very poor synergy for S/D power builds, although it has somewhat superior DPS for close fights. It offers a redundant and less effective poison & cripple, and poorer/less effective interrupts. The knockback on LB is amazing, and the stealth is a life saver and can be used offensively as well to close distance and reposition. I’ve also found the extra 300 range for LB to be very important in roaming fights.

CRrabbit.1284:

In my opinion, LB is a totally waste to your build, SB+S/D will be much better.
It’s a hybrid tank build but you can’t call it a bunker build with 0 healing power coz it’s not bunker at all.

…

I run a LB and S/D Evasion Tank setup that works extremely well for roaming and actually does very nicely for dueling as well. It is a shout-based type of bunker with high power (2200 power/3300 attack unbuffed), 3000+ armor, 19k health, 48%/37% crit chance/damage. You will have perma regen, perma swiftness and a constant stack of 6 might.

Build: Updated Evasion Tank

I’ve posted this on the forum before and no one really paid much mind to it (which is fine by me!). However, it performs extremely well. There is great synergy between LB and the S/D weapon set and if you run a shout build, you can have good sustain with 0 healing power.

And most importantly, it is extremely fun to play!

You can run a power based ranger for roaming, be tanky and do very decent sustained damage so you can get kills. I run this version of a shout-evasion tank (http://tinyurl.com/lwtu66o).

This still works well with with the endurance regen nerf. It requires a lot of practice and you have to work much harder than other classes to attain a high level of play. But it is very fun and very effective. A bonus is you can swap out just a few weapons and utility to run with a zerg.

That said, the recent patch did help with LB damage, but I think a few other classes received MUCH stronger boosts than ranger did.

Jamoke.1523:

This is a repley back to Fluffy…just because you can kill uplevels and noobs doesn’t make you good. I’d like to see your Ranger run away from a thief who actually knows what he’s doing.

I’m just curious…why would a ranger run away from a thief???

OP: I play this build in WvW and have had very good success solo roaming and small group roaming. You can switch a few utilities and provide decent zerg support without being a rally bot.

Build: Evasion Tank

Atherakhia.4086:

Mesket.5728:

KeyLimPi.9031:

Unnecessary imo, the only thing that needs changed for this to be an absurdly useful weapon is just removing the animation lock on AA. It’s suicidal to use due to not being able to dodge mid AA

I put it in another thread. Removing the lock will remove the leap. Sword is unique on rangers because it shortens the gap with its target automatically with #2 and #3.

I don’t care for the leap myself, but we need to agree on what we lose to have a working sword AA.

Right. Remove the leap and call it a day.

No thank you. That would nerf a very useful attack for skillful WvW/PvP players. Allow dodge to take priority in the attack que to interrupt the autoattack sequence. That would solve the ‘rooting’ problem.

Thanks for the thoughtful post, Shinra!

I think you hit on the two major limiting factors that make rangers inferior to other classes in some instances: 1) lack of synergy between weapons and PETS, and 2) extremely poor condition removal options.

There is now pretty good synergy among our weapons (I love how LB complements S/D), but limited options for pets other than hitting RAO and a channeled attack to stack might. Rangers have no BAMMO (at least not without sacrificing survivability) attack, like pretty much every other class has access to. I can’t count the number of times I’ve downed someone in a 1v2 only to have their partner get them up because I lack enough burst to down the second fast enough.

But I’ve found the real weak link is the way our condition clears work. Empathic bond shifts conditions to our pets! That seems like an extremely poor design decision—what other class has their only viable condition clear (or any other defensive mechanic) that disables their class mechanic?

How about this?
Empathic Bond: any time your pet lands a hit, it removes 3 conditions from itself and you. (10 second cooldown).

Or, you could keep Empathic bond as is and replace Vigorous Training with:
Infect—Pet transfers conditions from itself to target on successful hit (10 second cooldown).

Anyway, Shinra, looking forward to seeing your other ideas.

This would allow us some control over when conditions are removed and wouldn’t screw our pet over to keep us alive.

@Meskat: The cripple on the sword isn’t enough. The leap is essential to stay on mesmers that pop around, or when your target evades, dodges, leaps away. You can even deselect your target mid attack and use it to create distance if you need to disengage—somewhat better than an evade if you get used to it!

I’d hate for them to remove the leap. If they could make dodge over-ride the leap, that would solve the problem while keeping one of our precious few borderline OP attack options.

Kilger.5490:

Bredin.5368:

One tip: don’t spam your sword 3 and dagger 4. Save them for when you see a heavy enemy attack coming or when you are immobilized.

Does the evade on sword 3 work when immob? If so, cool, learn something new everyday.

I’d like to try sword/dagger, but I find the buffs on horn too powerful to give up.

All evades work when immobilized. You don’t move, but they still miss you. Horn 5 is great! However, depending on your build, if you solo or if others in your group keep up fury, the offhand dagger is superior to horn in terms of damage done and, importantly, applying poison on a short cooldown. That is a 33% reduction in heals—which can make much more of a difference than the horn buff for bursting someone down.

I use s/d and it is great offensively as well as defensively. You have 2 poison abilities you can apply to significantly boost your DPS by reducing your foe’s healing.

One tip: don’t spam your sword 3 and dagger 4. Save them for when you see a heavy enemy attack coming or when you are immobilized. I like the combination of dagger 4, sword 2 (leap away, leap towards) then sword 3 (often followed by dodge for creating some distance and to get protection).

second tip: when fleeing, deselect target and use sword 3 , which will often turn you around while evading, which allows you leap away with sword 2 which also is as an evade. Then turn around and get your second leave with sword 2.

1. Are you concerned that your server’s WvW activity will decrease during these matchups? If so, which timezones are you most concerned about?

A bit. We have some fair weathers that don’t log on when we are losing, which makes us lose by a larger margin than we should. I imagine this decreases BG/SOR/JQs gaming experience as well.

2. Are you worried about queues on your server, and/or lag in WvW?
Queues have been annoying and lag is awful when fighting T1 servers. I worry mostly about the lags due to T1 sized zergs.
3. Do you like the league changes?

4. Do you like the old Bloodlust buff (stats and stomp points) and mechanic, and do you like the new Bloodlust buff (stats and stomp points)?

Either. I roam, and it didn’t bother me before, and doesn’t bother me now. I DO like the stomping points and which they had increased the stomping points and maybe even lowered by more the stat bonus.

5. Are you in a roaming guild, a point per tick guild, an open field guild, or a combination?

My guild is a hybrid/combination. Concerned about objectives, but more concerned with having fun and teamwork. It seems we enjoy good open field fights the most. I personally mostly roam (99% of the time).

DevonCarver.5370:

We are in the process of making a change to the requirements for most things that take the vial of essence to make them acquirable outside of the fractals. We don’t have more to announce right now. We 100% agree with the premise of that statement in regards to fractals, however.

Bless you.

Atherakhia.4086:

As many have said… this is a roaming class. If you enjoy playing a condi bunker/regen build you’ll be fine. If you want to play anything else, you should look anywhere else. …

I agree that we are a roaming class, but there are effective roaming builds that do not fall into the condi/regen category. It is certainly possible to build a power/prec ranger that has very good sustain and does very good damage. You just must rely on avoidance rather than heavy healing for your sustain.

In fact, I’ve found our condition/regen builds to be increasingly less effective as other classes have moved to the condition meta. This has caused many people to bring tons of condition removal. As of now, I think a tanky power/prec ranger is more effective and versatile than a condi/bunker for roaming and small groups.

I agree with our poor on demand condition removal. Empathic bond is essentially a random condition removal—we can’t use it when we need it most. SOR is too long a cooldown to use for its active effect.

I disagree with about LR. When traited it has a reasonable cooldown and is a real life saver. LR is very good as is.

I use Guard Me all the time, with the Nature’s voice trait in the WS survival line. It provides perma swiftness and perma regen, plus gives your pet 33% damage reduction. Without the trait, it is certainly lackluster, but when traited, you can create a build around it!

And don’t get me started on F2! I agree that it really doesn’t work. Every other class when they press their class mechanic button, something happens. The thief mugs someone, the necro gets that shroudy thing… F2 works, right away, no delay. Always.

No reason that the F2 for pets should ALWAYS fire, and immediately. Fine for it to have a reasonable cast time to allow for dodging, etc, but it should START immediately, and not after the pet has finished its current action, run around, and moved position.

I just hope that when we do get some Anet communication in the forum, we don’t act like jerks and try to keep conversations and comments mature and productive. I got the feeling that even Robert didn’t post here often because he would be crucified made comments that the some of the more vocal posters didn’t agree with.

One problem is the cast time. Another problem is the abilities que, which is invisible to the player. You press F2 and the skill activation time doesn’t even begin until the pet is finished with its current action. So, if it is doing an attack that has an activation time of .5, and the F2 has 1 second activation, then it will take at least 1.5 seconds for the pet to do anything.

The second problem is the unpredictable way the pet moves prior to launchin of an attack or ability. I have pressed the F2 for my birds, which has an activation time of .5 and timed it taking >2 seconds to activate. It seems like my pet is weighing the pros and cons of listening to me.

I think this is the same problem as Sword 1. The skill doesn’t root you per se, but you can’t initiate a dodge until the skill is over. As a player, we know when we’ve pressed Sword 1, so we can time our dodges (even if you don’t like this mechanic). But that is impossible with pets.

The part of pets we have no control over (pet autoattacks) interferes with the only part we are supposed to control (F2). By trying to simplify the pet mechanic, I think ANET has unintentionally made the pet in this game more difficult to manage than in any other.

@mistim
Usually you have good insights, but you’re quite incorrect in this case. As you point out, there are 3 evades in the S/D weapon set that actually do damage and apply conditions! You are indeed doing damage while you evade. And it is possible to have an effective power/direct damage build with s/d, so you aren’t restricted to a condition build.

Also, by evading attacks that apply conditions, you avoid the burning/bleeding damage.

So, yes, evasion builds are very viable for solo and small group roaming.

A direct damage, 0 healing evasion build is very viable for roaming in WvW. I think it was one of the most versatile and fun builds to run.

I am running this build: Evasion Tank.

You can visit this post to see how it is set up and look at some videos to see the gameplay.

Substance E.4852:

zero.5316:

Shiren.9532:

I do find it ironic that this patch is supposed to be about support options but the nerf to Healing Spring would means it hits hardest at the ranger’s most powerful support skill.

If im not mistaken, the healing Healing Spring does will be buffed. So in a sense, Healing Spring will heal the same amount, shorter time

It’s a flat nerf in WvW, which hurts double because it was about the only thing we brought to the table which garnered any respect.

Wrong, it is not a ‘flat’ nerf in WvW, whatever that means. The vigor change is a nerf, but people don’t consider vigor a critical buff. The duration is reduced, but will only effect blast finishers that go off after 10 seconds and before 15 seconds now. In my experience, the VAST majority blast finishers are launched early in the water field duration. Given the condition meta, increasing the rate of condition removal is a buff, as is more rapid stacking of regen.

It is certainly a change that consists of buffs and nerfs. If you think the nerfs outweigh the buffs, say why. Simple, unfounded assertions do nothing to inform the conversation.

Mara.6782:

Playing ranger against thief is like human vs predator.

Not really. A well-built and well-played roaming ranger is a match for any thief. And by “is a match” I mean, is able to live through an initial burst and force a good thief to withdraw or being able to kill a thief that sticks it out.

As for the topic of thread, I initially thought a thief was more like a ranger than a ranger, and leveled both to 80. I know think that there are a couple great ranger builds for WvW that feel very much like a ranger. The one thing I think ANET should have done is NOT give thieves shadow refuge, and instead give a less potent version of that to rangers. That skill feels more rangery than thiefy.

lmaogg.7325:

1. ranger’s longbow, rapid fire takes too long to deal the full damage and is easily dodge/out of range at max range.
2. Pet AI is crap. Dies too easily and bad pathing, delay of skills(F2).
3. Sword 1 is kitten with that self immobilize problem.
4. Survivorbility is actually crap compared to other classes unless your running some healing build. But this might just be my own opinion.

and

Hellmood.2097:

Pets:
They simply do not work properly in this game. They have stupid AI and are built around damage soaking, in a game where damage avoidance is paramount. Their utility is also very limited

Weapons:
The bows simply lack utility and do not have that much damage output.
The 1-hand sword deals good damage, but has a very awkward autoattack.
The greatsword also has awkward animations and deals low damage.
The axe is basically only good against exactly 2 enemies.

Traits are all over the place

1. Actually, I find the longbow rapid fire excellent, especially for tracking targets into stealth. Longbow utility is fantastic, with knockback, stealth and two attacks that can hit stealthed players. I agree the SB lacks utility.
2. Agree 100%!
3. Sword 1 is fantastic in WvW—allows you to stick on an enemy and burn them down. Just don’t spam Sword 1 and time your dodges
4. You can have extraordinary survivability with 0 healing, if you build high toughness and build for evasion.

You can even see it on this forum. Plenty of people will post to threads that are negative or solicit complaints. Much fewer posts for people posting on build or other constructive things.

I agree about the pet mechanic problem, but we’ve had enough posts about them. I miss the posts about builds, gameplay and tactics.

I’ve been playing an evasion tank build that has been updated (see this thread for the original dodging ranger WvW build) to reflect recent changes to traits and weapons. This build is probably not as strong for dueling as are condition-regeneration ranger builds, but I find it more flexible for grouping in WvW and much more fun! It also is quite effective for solo-roaming. I thought I would post it because there seems to be the view that the LB is a poor weapon and that direct damage builds are not viable.

I am currently running this variant of the Evasion Tank build.

How does it work?
This build works by relying on evasion, mitigation and steady healing to providing staying power to keep up sustained damage on your enemy. You kill by outlasting your opponent. You can’t burst them, so the idea is to keep moving and evade their bursts while you wear them down.

The corner stone of this build is Nature’s Voice, which allows you to keep (nearly) perma regen and perma swiftness up on yourself and nearby allies using Guard. On demand regeneration actually allows effective healing even with 0 healing power and provides needed survivability for your pets.

Weapons
The build relies on Sword/Dagger and Longbow. Be sure to turn off Sword autoattack. You can swap to warhorn when in large groups, but Dagger is superior when roaming because it adds a high damage ranged attack with cripple, and a long lasting poison attack that includes an evade. There is tremendous synergy between the S/D and Longbow—you can move into and out of melee range, evade, interrupt and stealth.

Pets
I run dual birds (raven, owl) or dog (wolf) and bird (raven). The birds do amazing damage and I find that enemy tend not to notice them because they are small. The Raven blind is a lifesaver as well. The wolf for the knockdown and fear is great as well. I tend to run Wolf/Raven lately (but switch out bird when in larger group fights for a sturdier pet).

Gameplay Positives

Fun and active gameplay! You are quick, dodgy and will frustrate your enemies. You can almost see the look of horror and embarrassment on their faces when they realize they are about to lose to longbow ranger. I feel like a ranger moreso playing this build than any other.

Flexible. This build can work for solo, and easily be adapted to large group fights. You can even convert to the condition-regen meta build without respecing just by swapping traits and gear

Cheap. This build doesn’t need ascended trinkets at all—in fact it benefits far less from adding ascended trinkets and can actually be rendered less effective. Ascended weapons are great, though.

Gameplay Negatives

Weak against conditions. Even with the empathic bond variation of this build, they are your bane. Approach with caution.

Weak passive defensive. You have weak passive healing and your main defense requires active dodging and evasion. If you screw up, there is nothing to bail you out.

Susceptible to CCs/Immobilize. This is true of most ranger builds, but this is really a problem for the Evasion Tank. Mobility is your lifeline—if that is removed, even for a moment or two, and you can be finished.

Evasion Tank in Action
These videos are not well edited and have no cool music, but I think do a decent job at showing how this build plays. I make not claims about my skill or that of my opponents—only that the encounters are fairly typical of my experience in WvW.

This is a video of the typical 1v1 fights I have while solo roaming. I did try to select clips featuring me in a variety of situations and fighting different classes, but otherwise these fights are fairly typical of what I encounter when solo roaming.

This is a video of the 1vX fights I have while solo roaming. One note about 1vX—you can’t do it against equally skilled opponents who run builds optimized for roaming/havoc. The key to successful 1vX is to quickly determine whether you need to bail or whether you can stick it out. The fights I picked are those that I chose to stick out and that highlight the mobility and survivability of this build.

The ascended trinkets are not at all bad. Minimal gain and you get them naturally from WvW (except for the backpiece). The weapons aren’t too bad, but you really do need to PVE for them, and it is a bit of a grind, since the events that yield some of the mats are difficult to get into (Teq) or infrequently occurring.

If they make ascended armor JUST as easy to get via WvW as the trinkets, it will be OK. But if they make it so you need to do PVE to get them, then that will be a bit of power creep that could create the “have’s and have not’s” in WvW.

The other problem, which people haven’t talked about I don’t think, is that if Ascended armor adds armor value, that will hurt direct damage builds MORE than condition builds. This could create unintended imbalance…

I’ll add one more comment on this. I do think the way the sword #1 attack works adds depth to the combat system. When fighting in WvW, you have to anticipate when to dodge, time your sword 1 attacks accordingly to be able to allow for a dodge. For PvP at least this is a fine trade off with the benefit the sword provides of sticking to your target, even if they dodge away.

For PVE, which I rarely do, I can see why this would be an unnecessary annoyance.

Nice post, jcbroe!

Had a discussion with guildies about this—they are condition builds, but none are rangers. They claim that 2 stats are needed for their builds: crit % and condition damage. Still, direct damage benefits from 3 (power, crit % and crit dam).

For rangers, part of the problem is what Ryan points out. We are sort of forced (or strongly urged) to go for 30 in WS OR relatively high healing.

All that said, I think it is most useful to look at synergies among weapon sets and traits in evaluating the relative effectiveness of different builds (eg direct damage, condition). The OP does this, but I wonder whether people think good direct damage builds must have high burst. I don’t think they need to…

You can have very effective DD ranger builds that don’t rely on large bursts, but rather rely on sustained damage and pressure. The problem is its difficult to construct a build that has the defensive elements of sustain (toughness, healing) and solid DD stats (@2000 power, +40% crit , +40 crit damage). I’ve found that by building around our extensive evasion/dodging abilities we can forgo healing power and still be very survivable.

mPascoal.4258:

Bredin.5368:

I run either of two updated versions of the Evasion Tank.
An Offensive version and Offensive version of this build. They use LB and S/D and rely on Nature’s Voice to keep near perma-regen up.

It is highly survivable, has good mobility, and does very good sustained damage. It is NOT the best duelist build for the ranger, but it is very fun and very effective to play. You can 1vX effectively, solo roam and contribute to small groups with this build. I can post more info, including a video of the build in action, if there’s interest.

Yes I am
A Longbow Roaming build is kinda what I want to try first before Shortbow. Beside all Shortbow Builds posted here, sounds pretty good but they have really expensive Items. It will get me more than a month to farm for all those items, so for first build I think it wouldn’t be great

OK, will do. By the way, the second build should have been labeled “Defensive” and it is the one I’m currently using. You can do this with all exotics and have it be nearly as effective as with ascended. Here is a cheaper version with only exotics.

I’ll PM you with a link to the video demonstrating this build. I might do a guide at some point the Evasion Tank 2.0.