Guild Wars 2

Sube Dai.8496:

alvarez.3159:

What I don’t like about celestial is the waste of most of the power stats, because unlike ele, engi and warrior, the standard weapon sets (a/d and s/t) have horrendous powerdamage attached to their skills. As it stands now, I feel like Settlers does everything Celestial should be doing, just even better.

I agree. Settler has so much more sustain than celestial, AND more condition damage. Plus you can still try and stack might with it if you want to.

Celestial is a good amulet, just not the best for rangers.

I actually don’t think that Settlers gives more sustain than Celestial because of the way that damage is calculated. Its attack damage over armor. Celestial will give you 2700 armor vs the Settlers 3200. Essentially, above 2700 you’ll get diminishing returns against all but the strongest hits, which you should be dodging. Celestial also provides about 4k additional HP. As Silvio stated, the extra healing power provides a negligible benefit unless you’re running a regen spec.

Stacking might is far more useful with Celestial. In part because of diminishing returns to condition damage, but also, your stacked might is a more effective power boost because of the crit% and ferocity.
Based on my Celestial build, with the 9 stacks of might that Silvio mentioned, you’ll have a decent 1679 power and 1228 condition. Keep in mind that above 1200 condition damage is about where the diminishing returns kick in.

The Celestial Hybrid Ranger utilizes all of the stats at their peak efficiency.

P.S. Here is neat breakdown of relative survivability:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/60838-math-damage-reduction-toughness-and-vitality/

By this metric of armor*health, on a 0/2/6/6/0 spec, celestial actually provides more survivability, but they are both in the top end of the spectrum.

Its a good build. I run a celestial variation with emphasis on pet might and wh for mobility.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHhx+1IhKts2viHLUtGIRoafC76TzKAc/CpQUfxDVJB-TZBBwAAOBAeeCAaOIA62fAcZAA

It turns the build into a powerful hybrid. With axe/wh and companions might it it only takes a few seconds to stack 20 might on your bird. There is also your powerful AOE condi bomb.

My favorite part about this build is how easy it is to tweak into different roles. For 1v1 side points I’ll use poison master and dagger instead of WH. If you don’t have a heavy, swap in bark skin and healing spring and you can sit in the middle.

On the whole I like celestial more than rabid. It simply gives you more stats. My rules of thumb is that if you’re going for 5 or more stats, celestial is better. Your physical damage will have more bite from str and ferocity. The extra healing and vit help with conditions.

Thats the spirit!

But, I think that build would get leveled by conditions. The original post build was a lot closer to what I was thinking for poison and chill with survival of the fittest for condition removal and all.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjEq0xa/KusQ1aAFhqdJkrNNrAwd6eCPdJb6J-TZhBwAAOCAaOJA52fIyDAwbZAA

Also, Can you get two weapon swap traits at the same time?

I had also been trying to get a poison master build to work with almost that same set up, but to no avail. It got me thinking about a chill build as well. It would make sense tactically to try to get the chill and poison together, but it doesn’t really work with our skill lines.

I think you could make a really good signet perma chill build with a power set up; 6/x/6/x/x, Axe/Axe, GS or something. … Like this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR3XjEqUxaBLOsw1aA/gadDEALQ7cIGqhXXbBTqA-TphBwAAuAAaeAAWOCAkLDwb/hIHEAA

Sigil of intelligence on swap for burst.

Have you saved up 240K Karma? Go to Orr and buy the Dwayna Arcon Armageddon armor. It will give you a little bit of everything and some survivability while you put together a build set.

You can also get a full set of soldiers stats by shopping around the Orrian temples, but you’ll have to add in a rune set.

I’m glad you all are liking it. Its been so long since I’ve used the short bow. I’m going to give that a try too.

Does anybody ever think about the wilderness survival grandmaster minor Peak Strength? Having good regen can often keep you up above 90% or if you’re off to the side not being targeted or something. Then with Hunters Tactics (flanking) that is 20% extra damage. Thats a lot of potential for the short bow.. and with the extra bleeds too. I’ve noticed it with the sword if someone starts to run away from me all of a sudden my sword damage jumps up.

I haven’t tried the sigil of earth yet, but I will. My original thinking was that on that set its more important for an attack to crit than to proc additional bleeds. And, I really want Hunter Call to crit for the 17 stacks of might. I’m assuming that anything I apply will be cleansed fairly quickly, but that pet might will just keep stacking.

You’re right about Off Hand Training. Having the bonfire take up almost an entire cap point alone is worth it. It also allows you to keep fury up 100% of the time if you keep casting Call of the Wild and swapping weapons consistently.
I could also see taking Oakheart Salve and dropping natures bounty for natures protection for a little more sustain.

I’ve returned to GW2 after a break to find that my build has been buffed in PvP. Folks on SOAC: Arrow To The Knee mentioned celestial builds so I thought I’d throw mine out there.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRBHhx+1JhK0yiVsgrgw1iBMEq2pQwWCsHgA4ActDXc1RVA-TpBBwAfOCAcOIAAOBAaeAAgLDMb/BA

Everything that celestial provides is useful for the Ranger because of our hybrid weapon sets. This build takes advantage of the remarkably high ferocity provided by the otherwise good celestial set. The celestial stats also make the build flexible. If one aspect of the build is countered by your opponent, the other aspects probably wont be.

The base damage comes from having a high fury up time (giving upwards of 60% critical chance). Most auto attack hits will land for 500-700 damage. We will land as many crit hits as we can because every one gives our pet might and proc bleeds(60% chance).

Celestial also provides 700+ condition damage. So many of the other attacks apply conditions. The build doesn’t max any one condition, but instead (in the spirit of celestial) consistently applies as many different conditions as possible. At least a couple of them are going to stick.

Celestial also provides us with good healing and toughness. I pair this with Runes of Dwayna, Natures Bounty and Signet of the Wild. You will have regen up most of the time from multiple sources. With SotW that is about 300 hp/s. About a third of the time that gets boosted to 1200 hp/s with TU. Other heals can work, but I find this most useful because we will be moving in and out of melee combat and around our opponent as much as possible. TU heals while you’re evading like a thief heals in stealth.

Some other key concepts for the build:

Swap every 9 seconds for 5 seconds of fury and swiftness and to apply AoE chill/bleeds; auto attack a little bit for some damage; use the rest of your skills when convenient; then swap; repeat.

Pet Burst: stack up the pet might, slow your opponent.
Try torch 5(fire field), swap, wh-5 (blast), wh-4 (17 hits), axe 2 (5 hits), Sic Em, axe 3(chill). Also, try with RaO, using TU preemptively to be able to get in their face and auto attack with the sword. Usually you’ll proc quickness (sigil of rage).

You also have some support in the Call of the Wild, Bonfire, AoE regen(Dwayna’s) for whatever thats worth … really, its worth an AoE Bleed.

Lastly, a note about key bindings. Sword 2 is your mobility. I bind about face on ‘X’. Strike about face: Hornets Sting, use your mouse to turn around in the air and walk forward as you land, Monarchs Leap. Remember to de-select first. You gain about as much ground as with swoop.

Celestial/Crit build, crits proc might on pet + sicem. Strong all around build. You could swap a sb in for the sword/torch for a different play style.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQRBHhx+1JhK0yiVsgrgw1iBi2DOZeMxeYI+nIXhRVyoqA-zkCBoiBEbMy00wkHAEIQEBgJqFRjtupIasqaER1qkYBAQAYiTciTciTMA-w

This is my standard advice for new lvl 80’s looking to get their feet wet roaming in WvW:
Take ~240k Karma to Orr and buy the Dwayna Arcon Armageddon armor. I’d say buy some exotic clerics trinkets, they shouldn’t be to expensive. This will give you a little of everything. Trait X/X/30/10/X for oak heart salve and empathic bond or bark skin in survival. Also, grab natures bounty in nature magic. Do with the rest of the trait points as you will. It will take a while to get proficient with a lvl 80 ranger, this basic gear should keep you alive and kicking until you figure out what works best for your play style.

I’ve been running this same build for a good long time, still works:
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHhx+1JQFVWmYhVQsWGIaP4k5PP7hh4ficFGVJjqC-j0CBoiBEbMy00wkHAEIQEBgJqFRjtupIasqaER1qkYGxFRrGA-w

As a rule of thumb, if your going for more than 4 stat categories, celestial(which gives about 10% more stats overall + high critical damage) provides more stat points than mix and match armor types.

Also, yes, looks squishy. In my opinion: good toughness for a ranger is in the area of 1700; good health looks like ~20k; healing power to make regen effective is ~600.

I don’t have so much experience with power ranger builds, but I’ll take a crack at it.
Fighting outnumbered is an endurance game. Abuse your mobility and pick the right time to burst down the weakest target. You’ve got the stuns going for you. Players tend to panic when they get stunned. Try and hit them with one and see if you can get them to blow a break or a heal. Their cooldown should be longer than your 20 second hilt bash. On the next round lock them down and finish them off… at least in theory.

I play a celestial 0/30/30/10/0 hybrid condi/crit build which uses the regen/mobility/condi to wear them down and hunter’s call/RaO/Sic ’em to finish them off. Not so different, but not really the same either.

Maybe you should play a thief… :P

Its an interesting build. I like the mobility you’re going to have. You’ll need the get in and out of fights pretty quickly because while your toughness is decent, your health is on the low end and you have next to no healing. I’m going to go right out there and say the weakness is going to be survivability. The three ways that I’ve seen ranger survivability done well are with:
1) A longbow using remorseless/invis to control the pace of the fight.
2) Signet of Stone to get the invuln which I’m going to say is more common with these power builds.
3) Regen and evades.

You’re doing none of that so let suggest an alternative. Switch out one of your sigils of enegy for a sigil of leaching. For your heal use healing spring. Switch out your axe for a WH. Use your two leap finishers and blast finisher in the water field for extra healing. Hopefully this well let you keep up the pressure long enough to take your target down.

And yes, I think you can get rid of Sic ‘Em. That isn’t because I don’t like the skill, but because I’m skeptical that you’ll be beating thieves. Muddy terrain would help you keep your enemy where you want them.

For a pet, a wolf never hurts. Oh, and try companions might instead of carnivorous appetite. I think its the pet crits that grant the pet health, so not so handy in WvW where pet hits are harder to come by.

The key to condition damage is to get as many types of condition on your opponent as you can. Conditions get cleansed by type, not stack or time, so the more types of conditions on someone the more damage you’re going to do. Don’t just go for bleeds, cycle through. Try and space out your three fire casts with one or two different conditions in between.

Also, right now condition is a secondary stat for you. You could throw in some other dire armor and bump it up to 1400 or so.

I used to, and probably still would if I was running axe/dagger instead of WH. Its nice to have the extra dodges without the evade on that weapon set. Which is the other thing, its only useful half the time and the real heavy hitting strait damage comes from the sword and pet anyway, at least roaming. I like to switch to honed axes for zering still.

The radius of the bonfire is very helpful and so is the range on the dagger 5 cripple. Its doubly so when you’re relying on your traps and skills as defense (without a stun break).

Just from personal experience I find that dwayna/rejuvenation/nature’s bounty don’t actually keep your regen up 100% of the time, which is another important part of your defense. Its all you have when you get surprised by a thief while you’re soloing a camp. A roamer needs to be able to make it out of that situation.

The good part is that its super easy to switch between the two to try it out right? If you’re going into a zerg where you know you want the extra bonfire radius, just switch the trait. In the same vein I would suggest dropping nature’s bounty for nature’s protection proc on the heavy it, and keeping oakheart for the regen up time. Something else to try out. I’m not sure if it would keep your regen up as much as you would want or not. … depends on the opponent I’d guess.

I disagree that you need offhand training. If your spamming your traps you won’t have a problem with cooldowns. The reduced cooldown won’t have any effect and oakheart salve will keep your regen up 100% of the time.

That said, I run almost the exact same build with celestial instead of apothecary and without the traps (but using offhand training). The benefit of a stun break, SoW and an extra utility far outweighs the extra conditions from the traps which will just get cleansed right away anyhow. With celestial you end up with 700 instead of 1200 condi and a whole lot more of everything else. Takes a month to farm out the celestial gear though.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHhx+1JQFVWmYhVQsWGIaP4k5PP7hh4ficFGVJjqC-j0CBoiBEbMy00wkHAEIQEBgJqFRjtupIasqaER1qkYGxFRrGA-w

cafard.8953:

Forzani.2584:

I can’t seem to not lose time when I try and turn around for the 1st backward jump …

The first jump is always away from your current target, so if you’re running away, and have a target selected behind you, hitting the skill will automatically have your ranger turn around to face the target, then jump back. The jump being slowish will give you plenty of time to turn the camera around again to turn and continue running after you landed (and use the second leap).

I can’t use that skill to gain any time while just running, but when chased, it’s easy to pull off. Extra points if you can use the second leap to cross a chasm.

I bind the ‘about face’ button to (x) with ‘forward run’ bound to (w). It takes some practice to get the timing just right, but if you hit the about face while running and then tap hornet sting you’ll make a consistent leap in your running direction of 400 units with a slight gain on distance traveled vs just standard running (out of combat).

While your in the air use your mouse to fix the camera in your direction of travel and hit (w) to keep on running forward.

You’ll then have a few seconds to cast your 600 unit monarchs leap which is just pure distance gain. If your trying to run someone down select them before you leap and you’ll go right in their direction, bonus if your close enough to hit you’ll cripple.

If your running from someone its a good idea no to use the ‘about face’ for your hornet sting, but to instead use the ‘look behind’ camera function to select your pursuer. You’ll gain a fraction of a second by not stopping to turn around before you cast. Its kind of a pain, I usually forget.

The Condi/Guard build uses apothecary and works well for solo and small group support.

0/0/30/30/10

Natures voice in the Nature Magic trait line and Shout Master in Beastmastery are the essential traits. Bring guard as a utility and cast it very 12 seconds for perma regen and swiftness. Everything else is up to you.

I’ll agree that rangers aren’t as dominant as they used to be at roaming, but I don’t have a problem winning 1v1s or at least surviving to escape 1v1 or 1vX. I’d say the strength of the ranger in roaming is being able to do that, and efficiently solo camps and take out yak’s(which are being defended). That is how you’re being useful to your server. The dueling is the fun in between. Really, in that frame, a ranger roamer is unstoppable.

The axe is a ranged cleave weapon. You can see how it differs from bows by bonus you can trait for it, honed axes (critical damage). The axe is best when its racking up critical hits. The other side of that is the bow bonus(cooldown reduction) encourages sitting on the same weapon for extended periods of time. The axe is meant to be swapped.

Forzani.2584:

Demus.4218:

I run a Axe/Warhorn Sword/Torch condi crit hybrid with celestial gear to great effect.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHhx+1JQFVWmYhVQsWGIaP4k5PP7hh4ficFGVJjqC-j0CBoiBEbMy00wkHAEIQEBgJqFRjtupIasqaER1qkYGxFRrGA-w

It has loads of conditions, almost 100% fury and swiftness up time in combat if your swapping correctly (as soon as you’re off cooldown). With the 60-70% crit chance and 90% crit damage you’ll be seeing mostly 800-900 damage auto attack. Each crit grants your pet might and plants a bleed.

Try Torch 5(fire field), swap, Wh-5 (blast), wh-4 (17 hits), axe 2 (5 hits), Sic Em, Axe 3(chill). For nice pet burst damage. Also try with RaO.

I bet that build does very nice damage. Lack of speed as a WvW roamer always concerns me though.

You know, I used to run it with SoH instead of Sic ‘Em, but I found that it doesn’t actually make a difference. The thing about running in WvW is that you’re often in combat, so the sword 2, evades and regen are what really keep you alive. Because of all of the swiftness and gap closers out there, SoH’s 25% doesn’t always save you. You can get away from any one person without it, and any group that can catch you would have caught you anyway. Give it a try.

That said, if you want to maximize mobility you can always run sword and great sword.

I run a Axe/Warhorn Sword/Torch condi crit hybrid with celestial gear to great effect.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHhx+1JQFVWmYhVQsWGIaP4k5PP7hh4ficFGVJjqC-j0CBoiBEbMy00wkHAEIQEBgJqFRjtupIasqaER1qkYGxFRrGA-w

It has loads of conditions, almost 100% fury and swiftness up time in combat if your swapping correctly (as soon as you’re off cooldown). With the 60-70% crit chance and 90% crit damage you’ll be seeing mostly 800-900 damage auto attack. Each crit grants your pet might and plants a bleed.

Try Torch 5(fire field), swap, Wh-5 (blast), wh-4 (17 hits), axe 2 (5 hits), Sic Em, Axe 3(chill). For nice pet burst damage. Also try with RaO.

I think that the cut of for diminishing returns for condition damage is 1200. If your not going to max it, then that is probably a good number to shoot for.
My rule of thumb is when you start going for more than 4 stats, put on celestial. It gives 10% more stats all in all in addition to lots of critical damage.

For condi builds in wvw, apothecary is an excellent choice. I’ve run rabid too, but I miss the survivability.

Its also pretty common to get a few different armor sets and celestial trinkets, because ascended trinkets take some time to put together.

I’m not huge into PvE, but I’m skeptical of the condition damage as well. I can see how it would be useful with the traps and the torch for clearing groups, but is that such a large part of PvE?

On a different note, I run a build with similar traits to this in WvW and find that celestial armor and trickets work better. You’ll have about the same amount of stats on the skills you’re trying to max, but more of everything else, and another 20% crit damage to boot.

Have you saved up 240K Karma? Go to Orr and buy the Dwayna Arcon Armageddon armor. I’d say buy some clerics trinkets, they shouldn’t be to expensive. This will give you a little of everything. Trait X/X/30/10/X for oak heart salve and empathic bond or bark skin in survival. Also, grab natures bounty in nature magic. Do with the rest of the trait points as you will, skirmishing for short bow with axe/horn, marksmanship for longbow and short bow.
It will take a while to get proficient with your lvl 80 ranger, this gear should keep you alive and kicking until then.

Oh, and the bear will make people think your an easy target. Maybe pick a different pet.

I posted a simple idea just yesterday. Give the pets a sic ’em like ability for speed and quickness for a short burst of effective attacking or to cast the F2.

The analysis I’ve seen says that if you are dependent on 3 stats, use regular armor. If you need more than 3, Celestial gives you more benefit.
Most ranger builds do a little bit of everything anyway, so I think Celestial is the way to go. It gives about 10% more stat points over all than regular armor in addition to a whole lot of critical damage% that you don’t see outside of glass cannon builds. It also gives you the flexibility to switch between builds depending on how you spec your trait lines. You won’t be min/maxing you’ll be highlighting.

Cheep and easy axe torch build:
Karma armor from Orr: Armageddon armor of Balthazar
Rabid Trinkets
x/30/30/x/x

This seems like a fun little BM build for PvE. I think a short bow would serve you better. Also, you probably don’t need shared anguish.

Problem: Right now its really hard to get your pet to do what you want it to.

Fix: Free up a tool spot with an attack/return toggle and make the F1 a variation on Sic ‘Em. I don’t think the pets necessarily need the damage boost (or the reveal), but the massive speed increase and maybe some quickness would make it a lot easier to use your pet when you need it. Maybe you could use its quickness to help cast the F2 faster (it would be nice if they fixed some of the target acquisition issues as well). Or, you could use them alone to increase the amount of time that your pet is being useful.

Remaining issues: It doesn’t really help the AOE suicide issue, or the lack of a dodge roll(I think our pets should block when we dodge).

It seems to me like something they could totally implement with a little balance adjustment here and there.

ItIsFinished.9462:

Any further thoughts? Or maybe a mistake that I overlooked in my testing?

As a ranger in a 1v1 I spend a lot of time evading my opponent. Conditions continue to do damage while you’re not attacking. Also, I find regen so potent on rangers precisely because I spend so much time evading.

This is something I’m still trying to work out too. The most useful thing that I think we can bring to a zerg is a little bit of chaos. The frost trap, spike trap, muddy terrain and wolf howls all do a pretty good job of slowing your opponents down and thinning them out.
I’ve seen builds that go heavy into PVT with a great sword and axes for a front line position and zerker long bow builds for sitting back and racking up tags with piercing arrows. Those are probably more effective at netting you loot bags, but you’re not helping your team very much.
I prefer what your proposing, somewhere in the middle with an axe and a war horn, traps and utilities, without many bags on the ground a the end. And, for hybrid builds like that, I always suggest celestial.
Short answer, ranger and zerg don’t go hand in hand.

I think Condition/Regen gives us more in 1v1.

Regen doesn’t work so well w/o condition cleanse. I feel like we’re married to empathic bond, so coni/regen.
I think if you’re going power, you vitality does more for you than regen. The problem there is that you’re missing out on 300 toughness, which is why condi/regen does more for us.

neol.5438:

Thanks a ton. I went theorycrafting for myself a bit and decided to let spirits out of the game. I’m kinda layed out on a might for pet build. It is kind of an overkill with RoA, however it is still really entertaining since it allows me to stack get load of might on my pet even without.

That is a good decision. I think your theory crafting started from the wrong direction. The ranger trait lines are pretty contrived. You can’t just pick mechanics willy-nilly. My advice, pick one thing you want to be able to do and trait that out. Then see what other benefits you find in that/those lines and try to maximize those benefits as well.

Might stacking is a lot of fun. And, extra might is always helpful, but you can’t really count on your pet outside of PvE. I find its better to pick a different starting point, and let the pet improvements be a secondary benefit that you may or may not maximize.

Sunt.6835:

only problem i have with this type … Dps is so low. not enough conditions to spam unless you go for trap

i ended up adding more power i still didn’t like it. maybe it may work with plex runes. i never use this rune

I had the same issue. There is a kind of inherent problem with Axe and Sword condi builds, being that the Axe and Sword are strong power weapons. I found a solution though. Instead of just adding power, use celestial with the skirmishing/survival lines and dwayna runes.
Crit, Condi, Regen. A nice bonus of celestial is the crit damage. Without fury you can pretty easily hit 50% chance and 80% damage, about 900 damage per hit on auto. Condi sits at a healhty 800. Crits proc bleeds and pet might.
With axe/horn sword/torch almost everything you do applies a condition. The play style is almost exactly the same, but you’ll be doing more damage and wont have to fuss with guard for regen and swiftness.

That looks like an excellent signet build. The only thing I can think of that you would want to try is main hand axe instead of sword. I don’t think its necessary to have that level of mobility if you’re going to be zerging. The ricochet is a consistent ranged “cleave” and projectile finisher which pairs well with the range of the war horn. Its some added flexibility in play style.

Rangers are challenging to play, but great at WvW roaming. You won’t make much money, but you can cause a lot of damage all by yourself slapping yak, taking camps and spotting zergs. Eventually you’ll be able to smash just about anybody you run into, but that takes a lot of practice.

In my experience most ranger builds can be converted to excellent/uncatchable roaming builds by as long as you incorporate 4 things:

- 25% movement speed from SoH or Travelers runes
- A sword or a great sword (I prefer the sword)
- A stun break (Lightning reflexes adds extra mobility)
- Decent sustain (most easily from ~600 healing power + traited regen)

You know, a nice cheep Pearl Siren might just do the trick.

That sounds like a plan. I do often get surprised while I’m flipping camps, which is why I like to have signet of the hunt all the time.

What about if you switched the axe off hand for a war horn? It would give you an extra blast finisher for frost armor, or healing in your HS. You’d have the leap finisher on one weapon set and the blast finisher on the other. It would also give you some swiftness if you need to disengage quickly and help you with your fury up time.

This could very well work, but there are a couple of things that might get you in trouble. I think you’ll be moving to slowly. Without more healing power or toughness you’ll get cut down by other roamers or small groups. A solution might be to put in superior runes of the traveler.

Also, one reason trap build work so well for flipping camps is all of the indirect damage. When you’re flipping alone, the blind from the two veteran scouts becomes pretty annoying. Evasive purity would help with that.

I ran something similar for a long time. It was a variation of Arrow’s Celestial build for dueling: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Updated-Arrow-s-Celestial-Build-for-WvW/first
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;5F-v-f2JEV-0;9-9a;29T9J;10;047A2;056-4NF4;2QitaQita20kKsH56;2VMVRWWXa2g3m_0DWDF310;5W61VY-sP

It is pretty pet centric, and has lots of healing for you. Also, you can get the cheep Dwayna Karma armor to get started, and then sub in something else as you go. You can use cats for PvE. or Drakes for taking camps in WvW. The birds he uses are good for dueling and roaming because of all the extra vigor.

I have since moved away from such pet centric builds though. Especially in wvw, pets just aren’t that effective because your target is always moving. I really don’t rely on them at all. It took a month, but I got myself a full set of Celestial armor and trinkets and put together a regen/crit build. I’m very satisfied with it. It has lots of sustain from regen, lots of power from crits and condition damage.
http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;5F-v-f2JEV-0;9F5E;2TT9;214856A2;34NF710;0QitaQita20kKsHmYI0;0Vq5rar5sas5ta0DWDF310;5W61VY-sq

The easiest way to get geared once you hit lvl 80 is to head on over to Orr (you’ll know where that is). Get yourself a set of Exotic Armageddon Armor(I suggest Dwayna) for 242k karma(purple triangle currency) from one of the vendors there. The armor looks pretty good and you should have enough karma saved up by lvl 80. Then, use the gold you’ve saved on exotic weapons and trinkets while you grind for the skins you like.

Other advice: crafting is a good way to level, so save your materials. Sell anything you don’t need in the black lion trading company tab, not to vendors.

I agree with Vaxx. Its great with a decent crit chance. Obviously, its more efficient against more than one opponent, but we’re good 1v1 no matter what. I’d just call it versatile.

I’ve been running a full celestial Hybrid Crit/Regen 0/30/30/10/0 build: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;5F-v-f2JEV-0;9F5E;2TT9;214856A2;34NF710;0QitaQita20kKsHmYI0;0Vq5rar5sas5ta0DWDF310;5W61VY-sq

It works very well roaming and capping camps. With sword 2 for mobility, and all the regen, you can’t be caught if you don’t want to be. The damage with 93% crit dmg, 50% crit chance and 750 condi is nothing to scoff at. You can swap around some of the utilities and off hand weapons to make it more useful in a zerg. I’ve been having a blast….

It seems to me like the pet was originally designed to be a formidable opponent. I’ve heard and accepted the reasoning behind the long cast times on the pet F2 abilities. With that in consideration it makes sense that the pet should be able to be killed. However, in practice, the pet isn’t a factor in any fight. Nobody even pays attention to them as they are easily kited and therefor ignored by most opponents. (Has anybody ever purposefully interrupted the wolf howl?) Also, the pets attacks are to unreliable for ranger CC/pet burst to be effective. These problems have persisted, so I agree, another solution is necessary.

Generally, I would support these changes. I also agree that these changes really wouldn’t be that major. I don’t think they would affect the way that I play at all. There would definitely be some kinks to work out: Would they still pull conditions to them through empathic bond? Would your pet be invulnerable while rezzing in the downed state? But, I think these can be worked out.

Howdy, combo fields area great, but I don’t think the main hand axe is the best finisher. Try switching to your short bow for the three 100% projectile finishers.

Regarding spvp, I think you’ll have trouble with survivability, specifically, dealing with conditions.

I’ve been running a little trap/crit/regen build for wvw roaming/duels which works well for sword/dagger play. Best with celestial trinkets and gear, but you can get close with exotics. You can swap out the bow for axe/axe and get honed axes as an alternative. I like to play it in real close and swap often for the fury and proc on swap effects.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjAV11BWWWs2Bi2DO1fMxekIG1IXhRVymqA-j0BBYhCyUFAkHROHqIas1NFRjVVjIqWdDDA-w

I forgot to mention that the pet damages comes from the crits. They will have between 5-10 stacks of might most of the time.