BTW after he switch to condition/regen ranger, my guardian get owned by all means and my warrior have to run condition build too to have a equal chance to VS his ranger.
I just tested with a friend in opponent server last night.
I use guadian or warrior (PTV), he use full zerk LB ranger, I just use all kinds of defending skills or dodge etc and run around+ let him shoot me with LB.
No matter I use warrior or guardian, I can maintain near full HP for at least 2 mins till I get bored and begin to hit him, once I did that he either escape away ASAP or get melt in seconds.
Have to say LB’s damage suck as hell in 1v1 especially when player get fully prepared.
I just tested with a friend in opponent server last night.
I use guadian or warrior (PTV), he use full zerk LB ranger, I just use all kinds of defending skills or dodge etc and run around+ let him shoot me with LB.
No matter I use warrior or guardian, I can maintain near full HP for at least 2 mins till I get bored and begin to hit him, once I did that he either escape away ASAP or get melt in seconds.
Have to say LB’s damage suck as hell in 1v1 especially when player get fully prepared.
Condition/regen rangers shine at 1v1, sometimes 1v2 when vs certain classes, however, you have thief/warrior/mesmer/engi there laughing. And after 1 hr hard play, you won 10 1v1 fights in WvW, then you ask yourself — what’s the point of this in WvW?
LB zerk rangers can do some damage during zerg surfing, but ele and necro are loling at your pet.
If you wanna some fun in WvW, go zerk LB/GS, that’s the best use of ranger in WvW now.
If you are running with pug zerg, go with EE+PA, you need not RTW.
If you are running with organized group, consider yourself as a thief, go with EE+RTW, focus on 1 target, you are helping a lot since you are a real killer since in a tight fight, every single 1 counts.
Condition/Regen ranger shines in 1v1, but that’s it, roaming =/= 1v1, in most cases you are facing 1vx, you will still have a hard time.
RF doesn’t work sometime, it’s not missed, not obstructed, from the animation all 10 arrow hits target, but it just shows nothing. no damage, no numbers, just NOTHING…..
I tried on 6 mobs and on 2 of them I got this problem when I use eagle eye + read the wind. After I switch EE to piecing arrow , I don’t get this issue anymore. It seems the piecing arrow can solve this problem, but it force me to not use EE anymore…
Any1 else has this issue, seems it only happened after the recent patch…
The real problem of ranger in WvW is this class is not designed for a competitive purpose/level.
Ranger can do perfectly fine when your zerg overwhelming the others, range can make it better;
While your group get wiped, ranger die as the others too.
However, while in a close fight, especially an well-organized fight, ranger can DO NOTHING.
Use a maxed ranged LG to shoot ? Thief will take care of you.
Stay range + Barrage to a packed group? Retaliation will take care of you.
Use melee weapon and run with melee group? Either do no damage or have no survial.
Therefore, there is just simply no room for a ranger to stay.
That’s the issue.
If you want real roaming experience, go thief, there are no other classes even close to 1/2 of what a thief can do in roaming. All good roamers in every server are ALL thief. It’s a pity but truth.
If you want reliably counter a roaming thief (well there is never a way you can kill the good ones but you can still troll them), go for condition engi, that’s the only choice and hope.
Yes , roaming build is viable for ranger, but remember, it’s just for fun. You just can’t take it serious. You have to over play/ over geared your opponent like at least 200%.
A equal skilled thief can still troll you easily even with all blue gears.
After seeing LB+untraited SoS, I know there is no need to continue to check the rest of the build. I guess OP played in some bottom servers which only has some occasional pug fights. Come to Top 6 servers and test your build vs those well-organized teams, no matter you atk or run away, feel what is called being-melt instantly.
It’s not bad for a 1v1 situation. However, roaming is not only 1v1, actually in most of time roaming means 1vx and you need to either win 1vx or successfully escape the 1vx. I can’t see a big chance you can handle either of these cases
Ranger can do 20k+ damage in 2 seconds as well, but the build has no survival ability.
I think the Topic should be — Viable/Playable Highest burst class right now is ?
Vote for thief, they are the ones who can have highest burst and superior survival ability together.
Immobilize is fine itself. However if you dodge roll while immobilized you got perma immobilized forever, this bug exist since day 1 and 233,555,234,565,344 ppl has reported it, but Anet just simply ignore it.
It just makes LB power build more viable while roaming. Still sucks in zerg especially VS organized team. Tried a couple of hours with my rangers, still killed myself many times when pop barrage or piecing RF on a group of melees (coz the retaliation). QZ + RTW are just killing myself quicker…. :-(
RF make little sense, at least it kills ppl sometimes.
However, who ever got killed by Barrage??? oh well, I forget ranger himself, everytime a ranger barrage on a group of zerg with retaliation, ranger himself got killed. Yes a zerk ele suffer the same too, but he rallies up 10x times after getting down, watching+laughing at the ranger beside him.
That’s the biggest joke of ranger’s LB —- the only AOE skill of ranger is a suicide skill.
You forget the most important part of healing guardian.—- Book.
Book 1 used to have coefficient 1 to healing power, it was nerfed to 0.5 now but it’s still a lot. with 1500 healing power, you can group heal 2k+ every 3/4 second and if you trait for elite you can keep book up for 30 sec, so that’s 80k healing and it’s mobile.
So a healing guardian is basically a moving water field+blast combo himself, if your team have 2 or more of such guardian, they can keep your team alive for pretty long time.
I’ve been lurking around pretty much these days about the future build of my guardian, though I still can’t decide what to do.
I (only) play WvW, and I aim to being some support guy in the Zerg. Therefore I focused on rolling a guardian that is almost unkillable.
I’ve tested AH mainly, which is pretty strong in survivability in the middle of the zerg (the #4 staff just heals me more than my actual healing skill, without even having cleric gears). However, after reading lots of thoughts on both build, people seem to find Healway much more enjoyable and powerful while doing WvW zerging.
The thing is: I can’t figure why. Sure the 1.5k heal / dodge is pretty nice, but is it stronger than the AH build? Apart from this, there’s no more “group or self healing” (I’m not counting the 150-ish heal / second from the Virtue of Resolve, which is a bit worthless in a zerg fight. And you also have it in the AH build)
I also don’t get why it spends 30 points in Virtues. Am I missing a point here?
I’m all ears for your arguments on this I’m really wanting to understand a bit more the depth of the Healway build compared to AH, since I really feel like I am missing something.
If equally skilled, ranger has no chance vs thief. As a ranger , you have to over play a thief to win them. It’s not your fault, it’s Anet’s fault.
Even a mesmer will have a hard time against an equally skilled thief, class wise the only class who can really challenge thief is engi. Go to thief forum and see how they feel. less than 1% thief will complain about how to vs ranger, but >50% of them will discuss how to deal with engi.
I prefer to run shelter but I did not change that for you.
Thx for the share. You think it’s better to go more for PVT gear rather than knight/cavalier?
There is noticeable difference between using shelter vs signet (for WvW shelter>signet). For gears — PTV vs your knight/cavalier, there is little difference , not significant. Just stick on your current ones, you will be OK.
Tried a few days and had some fun with this build.
It’s fairly strong when 1v1, but it becomes sucks when 2v2, when turns into 3v3 or more it becomes extremely useless.
Just a fun build, can’t really take serious on this class. Sad but truth.
I would say the antitoxin rune is not worth it since you don’t use -condition food together. -20% condition duration may not make any significant change. If I were you I would rather go for undead for extra toughness.
Also it’s wired to me that a trapper traited trap duration but no GT+radius. I would replace shortbow trait for that.
Have to agree with Cufufalating that this is a L2P issue. Especially your weapon setup shortbow/axe+dagger, it might be perfect VS a guardian, but VS a BS thief no matter what build you were running you deserved to be killed.
Yes I used to traited for pet speed+crit, but based on my old experience, opponent’s conditional cleansing sometime is the key factor to counter my GS burst, so I use bleed just to provide 1 more condition and hopefully opponent’s cleansing work on the bleed but not the chill or immobilization.
It’s an Apple vs Orange choice. Really hard to decide.
Sharpened edges seems like abit of a waste here, companions might or agility training seems a better choice to me, or pet’s prowess if you have a bird or cat on swap for even more burst.
Never even think about going to zerg (if there is any, I will just stay away and watch + wait to pick some lonely target) basically just for roaming fun, hopefully 1v1. That’s all.
I don’t want to make a serious WvW build, come on, it’s a ranger, just wanna some fun.
I don’t think you’ll live long in this condition meta with no EB and no vitality. You’ve got a little bit of toughness but that wont go far with only 15k HP.
Don’t think you’ll live long enough to do any damage, particularly when you’re full melee!
Not tried yet, just an idea now. Since I have tried many other ways to improve the success rate of GS burst landing but none of them seemed to work well. So I think about this skill, used to use it long time ago when I level my ranger, it can do its job, but well, in PVE.
Yes I know the pain of missing hilt bash, I have tried QZ/Entangle to improve but still have hard time especially when you face some good players. Also tried Spider, but it won’t work for me, it missed a lot so seldom can land an immo when needed. You can’t rely on your pet — this is a common sense to me.
So I am thinking about the human racial. It may perma chilled target for 15 sec which is more than enough for a burst.
I run something very similar for roaming on my ranger. Though with less toughness, more vit, and rampage rather than a racial.
The burst is quite strong if you can land it. I’ve landed a fair number of 7-9k mauls on squishier targets, even 80s. Easy enough if you can pull into the hilt bash, but otherwise you have to make sure they’re slowed. Even if they’re running away and you swoop up behind them, the stun often won’t land. I recommend running with the jungle spider for the 4s immob.
Sword/axe is absolutely incredible if someone decides they just want to run. Once you’ve got them crippled they’re not likely to get away (stealth aside). I also run sigil of rage oddly enough, and find it helps quite a bit when it procs for sword auto attack or axe 5. The reflect, by the way, is actually pretty strong once you learn when to time it. Very satisfying to send a warrior’s pin down back at them.
Against a single opponent, I feel like the mix of blocks, dodges, and leaps make it easy enough to kite for CDs if you need too. And in larger fights, I really do enjoy being able to pop absolutely everything and just juggernaut through.
Didn’t try yet, but have all gears rdy to go.
Mainly just for some WvW roaming 1v1 fun (since tired of condition bunker) or pick up lonely target in zerg.
It has the best mobility which ranger can get.
Initial burst will be a stealthed (hopefully) or a fully booned GS spike (with signet). Swoop-bash-maul, reaper is to increase the success rate of this combo since it’s not that easy to land on any non-bad player. Then switch to sword-axe, pull + sword 1 spam.
Gears don’t want to go full zerk since it’s a full melee build.
any1 have tried sword/axe combo and want to share some experience ????
Yes I am sure it’s under plague form, if I was not in plague I won’t be that surprised since I have get some 4k+ dagger on lv80 mobs when I ran zerk gears in PVE.
I poped up plague with about full HP, then I think I was focused by the group, then my HP get down slowly as usual, after 5+ sec I have about 1/2 left, I am expecting to last another 5-10 seconds but I died instantly. This is in-normal to me, so I checked combat log to see who give me the deadly strike then I found these crazy numbers. A ele hit me 600 with meter shower right before that, and a warrior hit me 400 with hammer smash right after that and of coz there were some other small damages, but the main part is the necro dagger. I just don’t understand how a necro can hit that hard even with the extreme boon stacks.
Are you certain that the damage was dealt after you were in plague form?
If you died almost immediately it could be that the Necro had hit you before you entered plague but the damage only registered afterwards due to connection issues or lag.
It would require a ludicrous amount of buffs to allow a necrotic bite to hit 5k damage on a 5700 armor target.
today when I running WvW fighting a group of ppl, I turned to plague form, running around, then died almost instantly from like 1/2 HP.
I checked combat log and saw some crazy numbers —- necrotic slash 3.7k, necrotic stab 3.3k, necrotic bite 5.6k… while at the same time, meter shower hit me only 600, hammer slash about 400……
I have 5.7k armor while in plague form and most likely that necro is in weakness (coz I am using #3), even I have 25 stack of vul it will still be counted as 4.3k armor, that necro hit me about 12k in like 1 sec (most likely with weakness), which means he can hit someone with 3k armor for about 30k in 1 sec —-—- how can a necro hit that hard >?????
Is there any trick/build I don’t know?
Use it before head. Once siamoth F2 rdy then just use it, You can keep feather/tuft in your hand for 30 seconds. I am not using siamoth as my pet in combat, I use Juguar(me +juguar = both stealth). There is only 10 second window that you don’t have it in your hand.
Go try it a few times then you know how to use it. It’s not that hard.
Would be nice if the enemy doesn’t kill me before Siamoth decides to put RNG in my favor and the enemy let me pick up the feather without me being killed.
Already posted many times, here I post 1 more last time.
Use Siamoth as pet, keep feather/tuft in your hand.
The easiest way is simply stealth + back/flank maul, target will not see the animation until it land.
Of coz there is more combo related to stealth which can ensure you more and secured damage, use your imagination to create your own combo, it’s not that hard and it rocks in 1v1. Just remember — Siamoth is your best friend for GS maul build.
Don’t need that. Even if target has protection, you can still 1 hit kill him. The only counter boon is ages, but just let your pet hit him 1st.
From this, I don’t think this patch note is true, if it’s true it just mean Anet developer is stupid.
You know I would like see changes/buffs on ranger as everyone else expect, but not this way, it just simply bring a certain build cheap and OP but other still remain the same.
Maybe they are hoping the greatsword wielding rangers will equip a sigil of nullifaction in that extra slot two-handed weapons are getting.
All and all I think we really need to have a talk with the developers on what the word “amazing” means. Then again I am almost amazed (mostly stating to get used to this level of explicit) at how bad these patch notes are so maybe my point is moot.
GS burst will be far more than that. You should be able to deliver 20-30k maul if you traited all for damage. Also don’t forget you can do this burst in stealth as BS thief did. But since you can 1 hit kill anything, why need survival?
IF this patch note is true, it will totally change the current 1v1 balance.
i see some potentials on this new moment of clarity..
A x/30/30/x/x Ranger with a zerker amulet, Empathetic bond, moment of clarity and a Greatsword can hit for about 3,5 k dmg with maul..
If we assume that Signet of Beastmastery becomes an elite skill you can pick signet of the hunt and deliver an 7k maul…
Skirmishing XII—Moment of Clarity: This trait now applies the Moment of Clarity effect to you and your pet on interrupt and now grants 200% damage on the next attack, up from 150%. This trait is now able to stack with the Attack of Opportunity effect for a total of 250% damage. This trait now has a recharge time of 10 seconds, up from 5 seconds.
This is impossible to happen. It means increase maul burst by 66%.
If Anet dare to do this, I bet every ranger will use a GS maul build and 1 hit kill anything, ANYTHING!
This gonna make ranger even a cheaper killer than the old BS thief before they got nerfed.
Before patch I can hit what I was expecting, sometime little bit lower maybe becoz my pet failed land vul or I didn’t manage to flank, but the number can still satisfy me and in most of time just 1-hit kill.
However, this is just not going to work now. My best guess is certain modifier bugged (it calculate as 10% instead +10%) , VS those 2 thieves, 16k / 18k should be the number which I used to get. (instead of 1.6k and 1.8k)
#CRabbit: I don’t know what’s going on then…
I created my signet build for this reason: I tried to burst with Maul. I didn’t get the crits I was expecting so I made a spreadsheet do check my results. The number in this sheet are MUCH higher then what I see on my screen. It can be a Ninja-nerf or wrong calculation.
Of coz I have the signet traited for a GS burst build.
13340 is the damage vs 2700 armor target, BS thief usually have only ~2k armor, so theoratically I can land 20k+ on them, but I have never achieve that yet before patch.
The 6335 is with traited Signet of the Beastmaster and using the Signet of the Hunt and the Wild… This gives a multiplier of 1,875 (1,5 and 1,25)
So your 13340 must be divided by 1,875 = 7115 crit
It is still not the number you mentioned in your original post, but much less then the 15k.
P.s.: that’s why I stopped playing power build. Heavy investment in traits and gear, sacrificing all the survivability for what? A 4000-5000 crit once in a year IF it hits at all???
Your number is about right, but I do have 3000+ power but not 3000+ atk (I have 4000+ atk).
I have posted my build and status before, my ranger has 2697 power (3852 atk) w/o any buff. I always kill some cheap mob near spawn to get 25 stacks of bloodlust 1st, and 2 signet give me another 210 power, I have 2697+250+210=3157 power. If plus other resources (e.g. more might stacks, server bloodlust), I have even more power.
And steady focus that’s another 10%, rune of scholar another 10%, flanking another 10% (I use siamoth steath 1st so flanking is not big issure for me), sigil of force antoher 5%, and in most of time my stealthed juguar will apply 5x vul just right before my maul land, that’s anther 5%.
So you number 6335/2000×3157×1.1x1.1×1.05×1.05=13340 is the avg number I can land on a target with 2700 armor. And thief (especially BS thief) usually don’t have that much armor. 15k is really not a big number on them.
My ranger build is not viable build either for zerg or roaming since I have no survival, but it’s a fun build. I play it time to time when I got bored with other classes. It is to surprise ppl, especially when BS thief think they can get some cheap kills behind others’ back, I am hunting them and 1 shot kill them behind their back.
However, this patch take away this fun from me.
likely that your power is around 2000+, the formula counts with the Power from the Hero Panel, not with the attack (from the first column not the second).
I have a spreadsheet exactly for LB AA and Maul.
Entering your numbers but using 2191 Attack and not using the SoH and SoW bonus damage (also might, no ranger runes, no flanking, etc…):
Go calculate yourself. Maybe less than 10k vs some extreme bunkers, but I have landed 12k+ on a lv80 bunker guardian before patch.
My highest record on thief is 19.5k (lv80).
But today —- 1.6 or 1.8k, it’s either certain of modifier above bugged (maybe 10% instead of 110%? then it will make perfect sense) or those 2 thieves have 30k+ armor.
I am not expecting anything good for ranger class, just return us the old one from launch. It’s 5x times stronger than current version.
The worst way — just leave it as is now, please just don’t nerf ranger anymore.
Haven’t try my ranger since patch and tonight I tried it again. And guess what ? — I found my burst build no longer work !!!!!!!!
I build for extreme GS burst, have 3k+ power, 115% crit damage and all my trait / utility is set for a super big maul hit. Before patch I can constantly hit any1 10k+ with my 1st maul, VS thief it will be 15k+ guaranteed as long as my maul land (it’s either 0 or 15k+), But today, guess what damage I did to a thief ?? --— 1.6k !!!!!!!
I tried again VS another thief, my maul landed — 1.8k!!!!!!!!
From 15k+ to 1.6k or 1.8k !!!!!!!!!!! It’s almost 10x time nerf !!!!!!!!!!!!! This is extremely ridiculous and unacceptable.
I don’t know what happened to either GS damage or damage fomula but it makes my build totally useless……
I require an explanation…..
if you use a ranger for zerg surfing in WvW, you are doing something wrong; if you use a ranger and do zerg surfing w/o siamoth , you are doing something seriously wrong.
Siamoth might not be the best pet for ranger, but it’s a necessary pet for ranger in WvW. You can carry another what ever pet you want, but you always want a siamoth, always, always.
Go try it, then you know why. it simply bring range to another level.
current status, could hit harder with more ascended gears, but right now damage is already enough. The key part is how to secure the 2 hits to land. So I use QZ + Entangle. It’s a you die or I die game.
For my GC ranger, my biggest hit record vs lv80 is 19.5k on a GC thief.
A typical burst for my ranger is swoop (10-11k on medium/low armor, 7-8k on heavy) + stun+Maul (15-20k on medium/low armor, 10-12k on heavy), usually I pared with QZ to ensure all these lands in 2 seconds. If both hits land 90% of targets will die instantly.
However, there are a lot of counters(especially passive trait effects) vs this combo such as dodge/block/invul etc. If you miss one of these 2 big hits, you will be in danger. It’s very breath-holding play style and fun to play.
Strengths:
Very strong at 1v1
Might be the Top1 anti thief class.
Weaknesses:
Bad at 1vx
Not good at escaping espcially when 1vx, (need very good timing + skills, much harder than some other well-known roaming classes)
You pretty much need Swoop and be clear of cripple or chill or you will never get away.
As one of the pioneers who used shout build as a ranger very long ago, I can give you some suggestions:
Solder rune+shout is good in imagination but crucial in real life. The most effective shout(so called on-demand condition-removal) with relatively short CD(still 12 sec traited) — guard — need 1 sec to cast. Especially in zerg fight, if you are relying on this to remove condition, you will feel the pain — when you need it, it’s not appearing, when it appeared you already died.
And for other shouts, most useful one is protect me, but you definitely need it for stun breaker but not just simply cast it for a condition removal.
But the condi removal with soldier’s rune is still good enough to make me want to try making a competitive one for zerg/guild raids ^^
Thanks for the heads up on the 5 targets thing though it is similar to the heal on the warriors shouts as well.
I know I’m complaining about weak burst, but Maul can crit for over 10k in WvW on glassy targets
It’s not only on glassy targets, it’s on anyone/anything as long as it crits.
My maul build was guaranteed hit anyone w/o protection boon for 10k+ when crit, my record of maul is 19.5k vs a lv80 GC thief (someone got 22k , I haven’t got anything >20k yet)
GS can be specified to be an extreme DPS weapon for ranger, but it also casues the ranger to be extreme squishy too as compensate.
DPS (over a period of time) of Assassin vs Berserker is about the same, but berzerker has the potential to do higher burst if you get luck. So berzerker>assassin in most of time.
Strengths:
Very strong at 1v1
Might be the Top1 anti thief class.
Weaknesses:
Bad at 1vx
Not good at escaping espcially when 1vx, (need very good timing + skills, much harder than some other well-known roaming classes)
For my ranger in WvW:
God Tier —-- Siamoth , this is the most reliable pet I have used simply becoz it gives me the opportunity when to use the portion, 66% chance I gain stealth before I enter a battle, so it’s my call whether to engage or disengage, even a plasma is better than any other pet can offer. Recently I carry a Siamoth all the time. Key is use F2 as long as it’s rdy, grab it, it will last 30 sec in your hand. So most of time, you always keep a feather/tuft in your hand.
Tier 1: Spider (immo) or wolf/dog. Prefer spider > wolf/dog, same reason, it’s my call when to use it, not pet. Spider is instant, wolf/dog is kinda slow some time, but considering the 600 range, it’s acceptable.
Tier 2: drake / bear, basically survive longer. Living pet always > dead ones.
Shelter can be interrupted for sure, it’s just a block.
RF shouldn’t be interrupted theoretically since it’s invul, but it did happened sometimes for me.
I’m just curious what people think of the build from the gear perspective. I’ve intentionally left the traits sparse and skills absent for room to adapt for different things.
The idea is a high damage build that can still have reasonable toughness and vitality, depending on traiting.
I’m really wanting to understand a bit more the depth of the Healway build compared to AH, since I really feel like I am missing something.