Guild Wars 2

This is the one i have been using, its on page 5 of the build list on the front page stickies. Courtesy of gussjr

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmOD7keVomVskVwgFgoVsgJYw30e6Q1Jx14qZNLrBQAokPUG-TRSDABOcBAMUJYWK/0T3wxHEgLV/BjjAAAPAAV2fIAACwG3YasGDG5IH5IH5IbkjckjckjsUAfr3C-e

Experiencing a lot of lag during Hearts and Minds chapter as well as the one before it. I don’t usually have issues with this, not even during big fights in WvW.

And the game keeps crashing during the Hearts and Minds Story.

I run a SB+ A/WH build with Sinister gear, Initial burst i have seen bleed ticks for 5k+(i saw a 6k tick once on a vinewrath boss) avg i see ticks from 3.5k to 4k through out the whole fight. This is what i run

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNQQNBlODbkQFqZxSWwiF4axghQ9HwzmzdHcCtAHAjepfxUnMB-TFCBABVoEMinAgg7P8suhpV/BgLCADm/cS5HpAsbOA-w

For pvp and wvw i like a lil more toughness so i swap SotW to SoS and SotP to Entangle.

Other than that, i use this build everywhere and have been kittend at left and right about my bleeds so…well…and the murderous rainbow unicorns

So…for the auto attack…will we have rainbow beams?

robertul.3679:

Rangers always had burst bleeds especially with stuff like sharpening stone and earth sigils. Axe stacks bleeds faster though.
Not op, just gimmicky.

Everything about the ranger is Gimmicky!

Yea, been doing the karka and helping other guildies do it as well, everytime we get one or 2 done, 2 or 3 more show up and away we go again!

Still haven’t ventured outside Lions Arch…

Anyone else?

Yup it’s 10% on dodge, not evade, and it doesn’t stack

Edit: And it also seems to only last 2 secs…..

Sadly this seems to be typical for the class.

My guess is they will say that the 20% is correct and that the 33% in the notes is an error.

See, i was hoping that the enemy would “detarget” me and pick up my pet as a target. That would have been useful.

choovanski.5462:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Taunt

thats the best you will get

I guess that explains it…thanks!

Is this not explained anywhere?

Will the enemy player actually “detarget” the ranger and then target the pet? Or will it be that the pet takes the damage of an attack like Protect Me?

Speaking from a Ranger’s point of view, I am not sure you have too much to complain about. But i do understand your frustration.

Also, in my opinion, the warrior long bow hasn’t ever really been much more than an alternate weapon to begin with. I think i remember a back line bow build a long time ago, but i rarely see anyone using it.

I should also probably mention that I haven’t played a warrior much, and never at max level or end game content(if there was such a thing).

As the devs say each week in the twitch shows, mechanics are final, but not the numbers. It’s better for them to lower the numbers then try and raise them, in terms of balancing.

All i can say is, just wait till the dust settles, and the smoke clears.

Sebrent.3625:

It’s not so much that Ranger “is a 2nd class citizen” so much that Ele/Guard/War have had solid positions in the meta of every game mode. With the large changes coming from the Specialization System, we’ll have to see where the dust settles.

Well said.

I have been playing ranger as main ever since i have been playing GW2, as a lot of you have. We have gone through so many changes, and rarely are they in our favor. I think most of us got upset when we saw the DH setup, the mechanics alone were enough to get me going.

After a few days of settling down i came to the same conclusion as you did, just wait till the dust settles. We don’t know exactly what we are getting with the druid, and as they repeatedly have to say, they are still tweaking numbers and such.

I will say though that they had better bring their A game when unveiling the druid. I already have a guardian at lvl 80, and have started to play him here and there, and its actually kind of fun.

Aside from that, I am also waiting to see what they give the Thief (thief forums are thinking rifle..yea…sure…) and I think a warrior SB would be nice.

So if they fail to bring it with the druid, I myself will probably switch to something else, but I will at least try and give druid a shot. I mean, Im working on my unicorn bow, i just bought the unicorn finisher, all i need is the rainbow staff…I MEAN CMON!!!

Ragnar.1546:

Surely our range will trump theirs.

I actually lol’d at this. Never assume that because your a ranger you will have the best of anything when it comes to ranged weapons. Currently yes, we do have the max range.

But c’mon…think about it. How long do you think that will last? And no they won’t increase the DH’s range, they will just reduce ours…cause…you know…we’re rangers.

Sebrent.3625:

I’m still trying to figure out where my arrows and axes are coming from … they’re never-ending!

Change your characters name to Hawk, and you will run out!

Duka.5864:

Explain them that they can swap weapons!!!! Greatsword can do insane damage! TY!

Zelda was the best Sword Swinger in history, I don’t think i could live up to that!

jcbroe.4329:

Wait, wait, wait….

If I’m at 3k range shooting autos that do 10k and doing 20k rapid fires, wouldn’t swapping to a weapon that doesn’t do that be a nerf?

Most definitely. Don’t get sucked into this nonsense. It’s all just a fabrication by the evil Mordremoth minions, aka Slyvari, to try and rid the only hope that Tyria has in surviving the Dragons corruption!!!

When i first some the little intro of the DH on the main website, i /sigh. Then i watched the ready-up video, now i just…../facedesk.

Sure, numbers wise, things can still change…but mechanics wise, thats what will launch, and i have to say I am jelly.

Although, when it comes to characters, aesthetics are important to me, and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around a Slyvari Guardian. That coupled with the Kudzu, which imo only looks good on a sylvari….

The only thing that could make this worse is a new legendary longbow skin that is perfect for a human/norn guardian.

I’ve been maining a ranger ever since i have played gw2, which has been since they released the game on Mac(thats what i had at the time) and to be honest, I’d give up a the whole new weapon and the set of skills that goes with it for improvements/fixes on what we already have.

Eggyokeo.9705:

I’ve been think about sinister for a while as a glasses condi roaming stat (if they remove bleed stack caps then it might be use pve as well)

I’ve been meaning to mix in some to my rabid gear as i got the jewelry from living word achievements and i have the dreamer. so i can go mostly sinister and use either my rabid armor or celestial or make some exotic sinister.

I would suggest that i would run it and play it as a typical rabid build just more glass and it does seam to be a match made in heaven for shortbow. Maybe something like this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAV3YjEq0yaBL+rQ1aADhqdL8uVNrAw9O8CXdBbqA-TlSFABMcQAA4IAQsyP2uAA+qDQPlgBr+DcaGSZ/hkfAAkC4upRA-w

My only real concern is that condition take a little longer to kill then power as it damage over time but but the extra power on the short may be the difference i reall need to test it

I share the same concerns as far as condi dmg, it does seem to take a bit longer. I don’t mind it too much, its just a tad bit to slow. And i was thinking the same, that the extra power would be nice to provide some sort of “base” damage of sorts.

I been playing around with the editor here and there all night and have been trying to hit that magic number of 3k armor, but it seems everything i adjust takes the power or the condi damage down below what i would like.

I’ll keep playing with it a bit more before i make anything. I’m tired of making armor sets only just to figure out that its not worth it.

The other thing i was trying to stick with was the travelers runes, so i could give up the signet and put in something else, but i might have to change them.

So i was wondering what you guys, and gals, thought about the sinister stats and possibly making a hybrid bleed build.

This is just a first attempt at throwing something together click.

Main use would be for roaming and open world pvp.

Thoughts?

I’m a Superstar!!

Kaybosh.5183:

Fester.9328:

It would be awesome if you came over to tier one! We’d love to have ya. Although i will say that the roaming fights can be found, sometimes its hard to get them cause…zerg…another zerg…hey look there..another zerg, oh wait…nope i was right…its another zerg.

I got good news for you, i moved to gandara this monday and i’m planing on spending some time around with the fights.

:/ Didnt know you was EU. But cheers anyway sir!!

thefantasticg.3984:

Fester.9328:

I find the short bow has its uses and is fine just the way it is. There are some fairly decent builds, especially true for pve, out there.

You obviously didn’t play the SB before the animation fix… If you did you weren’t paying any attention to the amount of damage the SB was doing before the animation “fix”.

I started playing around the time GW2 came out for mac, because that’s what i had at the time. I started with ranger and leveling with a sb and used it quite often everywhere i went…pretty much. I do remember how easy it was to stack them bleeds.

However i don’t seem to remember much else about it or what the fix was. I took a break from the game, a few times actually.

What was the fix?

It would be awesome if you came over to tier one! We’d love to have ya. Although i will say that the roaming fights can be found, sometimes its hard to get them cause…zerg…another zerg…hey look there..another zerg, oh wait…nope i was right…its another zerg.

I like this post, people do the opposite of what you asked them not to do…such is the way of forums eh?

Anyways. First i would say that it kind of sucks that you have to go so far into the precision trait line to get the trap traits, but with the way you got it set up with the power, precision and condi damage, id say your on the right track, but if your looking for more condition damage or at least you feel like your not doing enough, there might be other ways to do it.

For example, maybe do something other than traps. Signet of stone is nice. It will help you get more bleeds. Also if you dont use traps you can put those prec points else where.

Id probably do something more like this.:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNUQJARVlUzpmlNrwiFUtMAggsMQh2py1y5xlpsrQAVE-TxRAABAcJAYa/hofCAKqLAV1fmUJ4YK/IFAMTjA-e

However i feel that healing spring is still a better option and aslo note that using spirits can sometimes be…not fun. Placement is key and also when you moving from spot to spot to spot, its kind of worthless cause they last for 60 secs and its 20 secs cd AFTER they die.

As always you can tweak this to your liking, but as others have said, condi’s are not the best in fractals/dungeons. however if your running with guildies/friends you can pretty much do what you want. Not everyone need to clear a dungeon in 30 secs

And i feel this really boost your condition damage/duration without having to rely on crits or traps.

The pets i chose because thier F2 abilities are conditions and tehy are ranged. Just keep them on passive and have them fire from ranged. Or feel free to send them into the fight if you can keep them alive.

Edit: As someone else said, axe/torch would be good rather than the great sword, but you have it so…yea keep it if you wish.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’ll just say it once and I’ll try to say it in as tolerant way as possible.

Anyone who thinks that mastering the Ranger class is easy is a desperate.
Ranger’s highest damage output comes from auto-attacks – which is true – which means two things.
~ His damage has no burst whatsoever (they have very high tunnel potential)
~ Ranger cannot use any utility or defensive abilities while trying to maintain the damage

In order to compete with other PvE classes – the ranger has only 1 viable trait road that has close to no variations. Also, his auto-attack pattern on his highest DPS weapon (sword) is broken and will lead you to death plenty of times.

Regarding PvP – Rangers clearly lack the “stuff”. Power Builds are just not viable, even though I see plenty of players playing it and even more of those complaining about them (but doing nothing to deal with them – which is honestly a child’s play).
While Rangers do not need to press abilities to deal damage, they have to keep track of enemy casting animations in order to evade them, keep track of enemy cooldowns in order to root them in place or apply their conditions so they won’t get cleansed in a second… Axe actually requires a bit of skill, so I’ll assume that OP has problems with Shortbow Users. Those shortbow users that require around 4 seconds to set up some conditions that get cleansed in one shot and have to use most of utility abilities just to deal their damage.

While Rangers do not need to think by which key to deal damage, they have to think WHEN to deal it, not to mention that their condition pressure is not even that high as other classes’.

I have to agree with this 90%. Sword is our highest damage melee weapon and i avoid it like the plague because of the locked in animation, and it causes more deaths than a BG Blob! Perhaps i am using it wrong, which is truly likely but still, i refuse to use this weapon.

For me when it comes to pvp, which i don’t do much of, its really 50/50 whether i am gonna win a fight. I either blow them up with a power build, or tear them down slowly with a condi build. Bleeds are the weakest of the condi’s and ya just cant get enough of them up to make up good numbers, you use to, but not these days.

As far as auto attack being our highest damage…im not so sure what you mean. There are plenty of burst skills, and even condi skills spread out across our weapons, which of course you have to use properly. Is this what you meant by timing?

For example: Torch 5 is a good burn, but if they dodge out of it yea…wasted, but if you can lock them in field….mmmMMM BBQ for everyone! Same with LB 2 and GS2 and axe 5 and wh 4.

SB isn’t necessarily a condi weapon. yes it is good in condi builds, but you can easily use it in a power build, however instead of the big bursty damage and large numbers you get with LB, its more lower numbers, but still a lot of crits and steady damage.

I put this in another post about someone looking for a sb build, i have used/played around with it for some time in ope world. trying different weapons on swap(GS & A/A) and it has been a lot of fun. Its a bit outdated but still fun and could be tweak a bit to your style.

http://intothemists.com/guides/1757-the_lazy_murderer_crossfire

I’ve been using this in open world a lot lately, and the name rings true. it’s a lot of fun, and i have played around with it a bit, even swapped in a gs and dual axes.

http://intothemists.com/guides/1757-the_lazy_murderer_crossfire

Its a bit outdated, but like i said, play around with it and find what you like.

Thanks for the info! I’ll have to try it out!

Looking good, good fights all around!

Whats your build?

The reason I ask is most times i see videos like this, Sw+T/X the elite is usually entangle for the cc + condi’s it has.

Ok, i can see how it can be boring for some. But i wouldn’t say that it is bad content, and i have seen way worse. And sure, by now everyone knows the powers of Rapid Fire, but ya know, I’ve seen worse….

dylan.5409:

Yea shortbow can work in WvW due to sigils but in pvp you’re trying to stack 1 condition that will be cleansed vs any build with decent cleansing/ teams that cleanse for each other before it does good damage.
Shortbow needs to be able to apply multiple conditions, woudn’t be as much of a problem if spirits worked in this meta but they dont.
Maybe instead of more bleed on 4 it could be torment and change spirits to auras that cant be killed (burning)= shortbow that works well again (if traited for bleed on crit and spirits, which seems fair imo).
Edit: Ranger needs some splash damage as well so maybe give SB auto the same chance to bounce as a thiefs pistol

Well one thing to keep in mind is that Rangers have other weapons that can do these things. Sure it would be nice to have them on a bow, i most certainly prefer using a bow over anything else, but if i NEED to do something specific, I have other weapons for it.

Not talking about the torment though, cause yea…we don’t have that.

I also find it frustrating that as far as condi’s go, we are stuck with mostly just the one, and its the weakest one at that.

anduriell.6280:

The #4 ability from the Long Bow doesn’t work the same as the knock back from the warriors or mesmers, they can push back champions but the PBS (#4 from the longbow) doesn’t work with anything more powerful than a Elite.
What most of the times when fighting a champion is a problem, because they mostly fight in close distance and the ranger does not have the power or the armour to stand a chance at melee with one.

Why is that?
Shouldn’t the ranger be equivalent to the other professions?

It’s hard as it is to play with the ranger: crappy damage because of the pet doesn’t work, mild healing not good enough to keep the player alive, elite skills don’t worth a thing (actually i would love to be able to choose one of the others in the elite skill slot), elite traits that are completely crap (seriously, one elite trait to make the arrows flight faster?), medium armour is not good enough for this kind of profession with all this nerfs.

So just thinking, what the other rangers say about this?

As far as the #4, as all the people up there, * points above * have said, defiance prevents cc and when the stacks are all gone then the CC will work, so you can watch for that. Sometimes if your trying to position a boss just a little bit, than you want to use the #4 just to help bring down the stacks so the he can be positioned.

Ranger has great melee, 1hs is one of (use to be THE, not sure if still is) best melee weapon in the game. It hits really hard! GS is also very nice for clearing bigger groups of trash mobs, especially when you cant get them all stacked up in one nice little tight spot. And the #2, pffft I have one-shot players with it, and most certainly lower level npc’s, not champions of course but it hits really hard.

As far as armor goes, if you find your having some survive-ability issues, trade out some of your bersker gear for some PVT armor, 2-3 pieces even. Until you get more comfortable with fighting in melee.

Healing spring is one of the best Group Heals in the game.

The elite, well i always find myself tied to either RaO or Entangle, but its not like any other class has more elites then we do to choose from.

Read the Wind (the elite TRAIT) is the best you can use while wielding a long bow, faster attack speed + faster projectile speed means you do more attacks faster which means you do more damage faster. Yes it is very specific to the long bow, but there are traits like this through out the entirety of the different traits.

My advice, and this took me a long time to comprehend as well, is to not think of a ranger as a ranged class, because it isn’t. Explore the melee options, and check out some guides/videos/builds they are out there and there are a lot of them.

Wyrden.4713:

Fester.9328:

Well the title of the video talks about High Damage…which is what he showed. And just because its labeled as roaming…doesn’t mean he never goes inside a keep/tower.

I think most people are just still miffed about the ranger’s damage when played properly. Good on ya for a nice video, ill give an 8/10.

lets say he played properly, wich is.. well.. the skillfloor is honestly pretty low on longbow focused speccs…

that said, most of the footage were of enemys not noticing him , was either of fully even terrain in wich he had the full advantage as the enemys couldnt rly obstruct the ‘almighty’ longbow, or he was in a fort , unable to get hit by the enemys.

(i said most of it, dont hate me )

its just that most ppl including myself dont like watching such vids / think its just boring , its nothing personal rly

ofc he had several nice fights either, but u know ppl, they only see the bad stuff, most of the time, and i cant rly blame them here

Well i don’t know his build or his gear but by going of the health and the dmg numbers alone i’d say he was mostly berserker, which is the thing to do these days whilst roaming as a ranger.

Now as far as sneaking up on people or taking the high ground, or making sure he had the upper hand in the fight from the start…what exactly is wrong with that? That would be like saying, “Oh he was a scrub thief because he started the fight with stealth!”(class tactic or not, an upper hand is an upper hand)

When it comes to any kind of pvp, I am under the belief that all that matters is who is left standing at the end. Don’t get me wrong there are some pretty kitten things that people can do to win and i agree, that’s just…bad gaming i guess you could say.

But in this particular situation, roaming on a ranger, I’d do the same things, and not feel one way or the other about it.

Now sure if your going to duel someone there is a code of conduct to that(maybe?), but that’s not what this is, so..yea.

I’m sure it is.

I find the short bow has its uses and is fine just the way it is. There are some fairly decent builds, especially true for pve, out there. While i do agree with the #1 change idea of removing the positioning, I don’t think it would be fair to go further than that. As for the rest of the changes, it just seems people need to learn to use the SB better.

The main problem i have with pets is how everyone thinks they are bad. There are ways to tweak your build to make them just a little bit more surviable. My pets are always up in pve, because i make sure to keep an eye on them, and i use them properly.

I do however wish there was just a little bit more control of them, take the canines for example, it would be nice to be able to use the knockdown when i wanted them to. But other than that, i don’t have any huge complaints.

Oh and the name thing…please..please look into that!

Well the title of the video talks about High Damage…which is what he showed. And just because its labeled as roaming…doesn’t mean he never goes inside a keep/tower.

I think most people are just still miffed about the ranger’s damage when played properly. Good on ya for a nice video, ill give an 8/10.

Also, once back in regular weapon mode, cannot swap the skill for something else.

So with the new leveling experience, everything is locked behind a level requirement, no problem.

However, currently level 13 and only have 1 utility skill slot unlocked. BUT when i equip the grenade kit, all my utility skills unlock and then i can equip skills, swap out of grenades, and still have use of those utility skills.

Also filed an in game report with screen shot.

Not sure if it has been reported, seeing as how its kind of a “good” bug, but i figure i should let ya know.

Thanks for keeping up with this, really much appreciated. Ill give this build a shot too.

I have no problems using GS, its a fun weapon to use. My main concern is being somewhat decent with a SB. I’m still working on getting the Armor, currently I have Soldiers(PTV) I think it should do for now, only got 3 insignia to go for the bag of Celestial.

I use to run a similar build, same weapon sets but with full apothecary gear and dwayna runes.

Think that gear would do fine with your build or has healing power taken a turn for the worse in the past few months i was gone?

Been running with this build all night, and its ok, I’ll stick with it.

Any way to put a Shortbow in a power build, and not rely on conditions much?

Thanks, I will adjust it!

Thank you so much! I was actually looking into making a celestial set of armor, only need 3 more insignia for the exotic set. As i’ve said before, I dont need, nor want, to be #1Ranger NA or anywhere or kill Lupi in 5 seconds. I enjoy good fights, 1-2 shot kills are not enjoyable to me(maybe that is why I don’t play sPvP very much :/ )

As for you questions:

1: I play everything, and am one of those people who wants to play everything on my main. Truth be told my alts is…another ranger. Really the only class I enjoy playing. I also understand that there is no One Build Fits all, especially not any one weapon set! And I have no problems carry around extra weapons, each for there own purpose. And with the need to swap weapons/traits out here and there, I often wondered if Celestial armor wouldn’t be best for me.

2: I like the range play style and really do not like melee. Now with that said, I don’t really like the long range fighting either. I often find myself in melee range using ranged weapons. I’d have to say my second favorite weapon set would be A/WH or at least A/x. I use to run a bunker build using A/T and S/D and often found myself favoring axe, and only using sword when things were on cd.

3:I don’t have any gear restrictions, I got max professions and have been slowly working towards ascended gear, and whatever i don’t have, I have no problem working towards it.

I looked over the changes you made and will definitely give it a go over the next few days, and will keep in touch if any questions come up.

Questions for you
With the buff to axes, might on hit, is there an alternative to the Sigil of Battle?
Would Omnomberry Ghost be fine till I can get the pies?

Thanks again sir!!

Thanx for the input and the video link(even though I already seen it. Brazil is a good player and I DO watch his stuff when it comes to dungeons, and I know that LB>SB in dungeons, even before the buffs.

Any thoughts on the build in the OP or suggestions/changes? Anyone?

I did some browsing of builds and i did find This

I was running it last night after the long wait getting in to WvW after reset. However i found myself favoring the Longbow, and just finding myself good positions to snipe at people in the blob, dumping barrage in the middle of them (much loots!)

I was think that with a little bit more suitability i could main the sb and stick with the the zerg instead of moving outside of it, but maybe that is not possible. It would be nice if the SB had some sort of bounce/ricochet or even a trait that would do it. Makes sense right? (think Legolas in Helms Deep!!!) Then again, we have that with the MH axe, and with the might buff on hit…against a group…its just…wow.

Also just want to reiterate that my goal is to find a build using Shortbow as main weapon, even it is only like..80% of the time.

I know it seems like a crazy concept to use a Shortbow atm, considering the LB buffs. But even i , who is in favor of the buff, don’t expect it to last. Plus as I stated in my OP, I have a precursor, and want to find a build to use it with.

Again, any input is greatly appreciated, good bad or otherwise, my feelings wont be hurt!

Would a P/P+SB work?

Any thoughts are much appreciated!