Guild Wars 2

Gray The Great
Riverside
WvW

I’d mix in some valkyrie and take strenght of spirit…

Diehard.1432:

Isnt this the good old BM bunker build long time ago?

It is more or less, yes. Still viable in wvw IMO, but I don’t like it in this way.

e: I’d go for commanding voice and shared anguish, but that’s just my taste.

Dalent.9358:

I’m not saying how are you achieving these numbers, I’m curious is what method you are using to get these numbers. There’s no in-game DPS meter as far as I can tell.

Also, can someone help me find a source that says rangers have lower base damage to accommodate the pet? Friend of mine mains a ranger, and refuses to believe that’s the case. She’s convinces Rangers are a gift to the game.

Just go to the wiki, for example here http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Greatsword
Have a look at the damage and the coefficients of the different professions, this should help for a first glance. Additionally it should be said that we have easy access to extra damage which isn’t considered here.

I think you’re getting a poorer impression of this thread than it is, but I may be wrong.

e: oh, regarding dps, that’s indeed a good question, cos there really isn’t a 100% viable method in this game…only killing a mob and measuring the time, I think that’s the best we can do, but still it isn’t very accurate.

Kasama.8941:

Fjandi.2516:

Kasama.8941:

It’s also still one of the top tier professions in tPvP.

More precisely the ranger has one top tier build which relies on autoattack spamming and screen cluttering.
You can win 3v1 with every profession if your opponents are upleveled players in wvw or lvl1 players in spvp. But ye if you meant “bm regen bunker is strong in duels” i’m sure we all agree. Most passive builds in this game are strong 1v1.

I’m not sure what your point is here. Whether or not you think the builds are boring to play, is besides the point. The point is that they are viable builds, which means the Ranger is not a terrible profession. I’ve won 3v1 in WvW using my power build as well, against level 80 players.

we’re still comparing different settings here, wvw, pvp, pve, dungeons, these are all different playstyles and what is viable or not differs enormous. It’s very nice that you can do 3vs1 in wvw, but it doesn’t change the fact that THE pvp build (spirits) is incredible boring…+ isn’t viable in wvw.

Back to topic, again we have to differ pve, wvw, pvp for sure. But the truth isn’t “we’re totally awesome” either “we suck monkey balls everywhere”. There are some major flaws which are lying in our way, pet AI sucks badly and some aspects of the game aren’t fair for our pets at all. Our damage coefficients aren’t so good, but we do have many ways to buff our damage, so that’s pretty ok too meanwhile.

To take a side, we are pretty ok at the moment, everyone who says that our dps is kitten has no clue (see videos on youtube from brazil for example), group support is ok too (spotter, frost spirit, healing spring), so finally…the whining is over the top, we do have enough reasons to complain (so do have other professions), but it ain’t that bad.
I’m a 90% wvw player, just for the record. We’re still one of the top 1vs1 professions there (yea, tell me “wvw isn’t about 1vs1”, I don’t give a kitten).

it would be SO awesome if we could control more than one attack, suddenly some pets would become much more useful.

Kasama.8941:

Grayback.7148:

pure utility weapon for power-builds (zerker, valkyrie,…) or “power-based-builds” (pvt, knights, clerics,…). yes, with the right setup you can pull off a nice burst with maul, but that’s it, you should have another weapon to keep your dps up IMO (sword for example).

1. auto-attack is very “ok”, the evade is nice, but dps are mediocre
2. maul is one of (or even the) best burst we have, just the animation is very very obvious, but you can lead an enemy to waste the second dodge for it, somehow useful from time to time
3. swoop is a really nice get-the-kitten-out-of-here utility, or nice for swoop-hilt-maul combo…+ it’s a leap finisher
4. counterattack is an awesome block, just remember to use the crippling throw if you only blocked projectiles beforehand
5. hilt bash is great to interrupt targets or just for the daze/stun, don’t waste it if stability is up…
   oh, and try to stay at max. range with it, ranger GS has a range of 150 (1 and 2 in the auto-attack chain) as far as I know, that’s a scrap farther than most other melee weapons.

The secret to using the greatsword, is using the auto-attack as little as possible :P

yea, that’s somehow really true.

pure utility weapon for power-builds (zerker, valkyrie,...) or "power-based-builds" (pvt, knights, clerics,...). yes, with the right setup you can pull off a nice burst with maul, but that’s it, you should have another weapon to keep your dps up IMO (sword for example).
#1 auto-attack is very "ok", the evade is nice, but dps are mediocre
#2 maul is one of (or even the) best burst we have, just the animation is very very obvious, but you can lead an enemy to waste the second dodge for it, somehow useful from time to time
#3 swoop is a really nice get-the-kitten-out-of-here utility, or nice for swoop-hilt-maul combo...+ it’s a leap finisher
#4 counterattack is an awesome block, just remember to use the crippling throw if you only blocked projectiles beforehand
#5 hilt bash is great to interrupt targets or just for the daze/stun, don’t waste it if stability is up...
oh, and try to stay at max. range with it, ranger GS has a range of 150 (1 and 2 in the auto-attack chain) as far as I know, that’s a scrap farther than most other melee weapons.

If you can’t afford scholar runes, then switch to full ruby orbs, put 10 into NM for strenght of spirit. You should be at about 3400-3500 then. Crit chance would be ~56% then, but you should be fine with fury.
That’s all just for maximizing (with zerker gear), no survivability taken into account.

I’m sorry conix and no offense here, but that’s just some horrible advice. Encounters are going to take forever with such a setup and that’s the reason why people die…
Additionally it’s been proven numerous times that ranger dps aren’t that bad at all in the last weeks. You can avoid more than 90% of the damage you would take by dodging, so why fiddling around with bunkerish setups and loosing a ton of dps.
Then you are complaining that pets don’t benefit from your gear, but you don’t use one of the most important ways to let your pet benefit from boons (fortifying bond).
It’s not that dungeon content isn’t doable with such a build, but it isn’t even in the near of something called effective.
To the op, for dungeons, go zerker gear, ruby orb ors scholar/ranger runes.
If you aren’t that experienced and want to be on the safe side, then start with something like 10/15/30/15/0. 30 in WS is gonna safe your kitten a few times at the beginning, if you start feeling more comfortable start putting points from WS into Skirmishing and Marksmanship. You can also use signet of stone at the start, then switch it out somewhen for quikening zephyr.
Use spotter, healing spring, frost spirit for your team. Equip a warhorn for fury/swiftness/might and the blast finisher for some more team love.
Use the sword as your primary weapon, even if the rooting sucks from time to time, you can get used to it and get comfortable with the rhythm.
In the end you should be able to dish out 3-4k (sometimes more) autoattacks with the sword, and you know, the sword attacks fast…so that’s some quite neat dps.

I’m really amzed about this topic.
Even with the wolf fear I’m killed before this bullkitten of skill is available in about 90% of the cases. So, the problem here isn’t the skill imo…
(Except we’re talking underwater)

some mix-n-match.

How about you guys stop posting endless walls of bullkitten-text, screaming “lol, COF p1, everyone can do this without actual eyesight” and just look at his youtube channel, there are actually more vids with ranger involved in other dungeons.

Aether McLoud.1975:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Aether McLoud.1975:

JonPeters.5630:

Among other benefits the stealth on hunters also let’s you cast the beginning of barrage without detection.

So it’s ok for rangers to have stealth now, but eles cannot have mobility? My double standard sense is tingeling.

Most elementalists run D/D, which is already mobile and tanky enough. I don’t think they need a buff to mobility, tyvm.

1 skill on a 40 seconds cooldown does not equal mobility when everyone else has the same skill on 12 seconds cooldowns.

So now you opened 2 threads about this and continue your crying in the ranger forum…It may be all ok with the mobility and stuff, but what on earth does this have to do with the new stealth of rangers, we were really hit by nerfs and nerfs and now 3s of stealth is so cry-worthy? srsly

ChillyChinaman.6057:

Forzani.2584:

I honestly thought these were fake when I first read them.

Ditto. And I’d rather not rain on anyone’s parade, but we’re not out of the whole yet, though we are climbing out with everything we’ve got.

Also thought they were fake or again some kind of wishlist from someone…
But, ok, I like it, gonna have to try GS/LB when the changes are online. Vulnerability everywhere…

I think you mean the video from brazil. Yes, works well.
He has some videos of it uploaded.
http://www.youtube.com/user/t3llularman/videos

naphack.9346:

This video contains content from BMG_Rights_Management, UMG, SACEM, The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA), Warner Chappell, EMI, Believe and UMPI, one or more of whom have blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

kitten.

have fun

oflegions.8247:

My human Thief: Mar de Oran

Head: Carrion Duelist Mask (transmuted)
Shoulder: Noble Shoulders (crafted)
Chest: Human T2 (transmuted)
Hands: Noble Gloves (crafted)
Leggings: Stalwart’s Leggings (transmuted)
Shoes: Human T2 (transmuted)
Dagger: Glyphic Handblade (transmuted)
Dagger: Zenith Kris (transmuted)
Shortbow: Mystic Crescent

Colors: Brick, Dust, Autumn, Rose Shade, Stone & Ebony.

Def. not finished yet, but I like it so far

I like it

I think in another thead before some mentioned that it would work out in their power-based-build, but for me this never performed well. In group fights it isn’t that bad with high crit-chance if you can make sure that there will always all the bounces hit. But normally this is a pure condition weapon imo and does it’s job good with axe/dagger in a condi-build.
When I did some tests in the mists back then, axe really performed just bad with power. Even if you manage that the target gets 2-hits all the time the axe still doesn’t performe any good.

Miyu.8137:

Bunker/regen ranger build is one of the best or even the best which ranger has. While being able to outheal lot of incoming dmg, you still keep the power thanks to your pet and 30BM. I don’t want to decrease the level of your skill, the vid is truly great and you showing the knowledge of the class and its skills, you mastered this build no doubts about that. However it’s one of the easiest ranger builds to play, would you agree with me?

I generaly don’t like bunker builds, I think they are kind of out of hands, on all classes. On the other side power builds are in the backgrounds of bunker/condition builds (unless you have unlimited posibilities to hide and vanish from fight anytime you want when your hp is dangerously down, then here it’s working), specially by rangers.

Full power (berserker) build requires much better timing and precize skill usage. One mistake and you can be down in a sec. Would love to see a vid of someone who mastered such build.

This build isn’t easy-mode at all. It was already mentioned some post before that it isn’t. Most common builds are much easier to play. You have to play it really tactical or you’ll fail fast. Full zerker would kill faster with higher risk for sure, but I don’t think something like that would ever be viable, or only until you meet your first decent opponent. Oh, btw, I don’t think that most bunkers are still using 30 in BM, it really isn’t worth it most of the time.

Really nice vid (again).
Makes me happy that still some other people are running melee-clerics-bunkers, still can’t really get to like condition-bunker builds (made a rabid-condition-bunker). I’m running something similar, just with some zerker-trinkets mixed in.

JorneMormel.9850:

Well until the question has actually been answered I suppose. Let me remind you;

Did the developers confirm if it’s working as intended?

Until they do the question will remain because it’s uncertain if it should be adressed or not. And since so many people question if it actually is working as intended, it is obvious that a lot of people are discontent with the weapon in its’ current state.

Well, this may be true, but I can’t wait for the day when Anet will “adress” it and “fix” it…

hint: SB – “fix”

e: By the way, I also use the weapon-evades to dodge, running sword/dagger most of the time. So I’m using sword #2, #3, dagger #4, if everything is on CD (which won’t happen so fast with martial mastery) I’ll switch weapons, works very well with steady focus.

It’s 1320HP + 0.2 * Healing, so with only 0.2 I think it doesn’t make a big difference. Even with, let’s say 1500 healing that’s just 300HP.

I don’t see the meaning behind timing this, but I don’t know of any normal mob (veterans included) which takes much longer than 30sec…

Kain Francois.4328:

Grayback.7148:

Kain Francois.4328:

My tests:

snow Wolf… 6k
White Moa… 5.2k

Is it my gear? I doubt it’d make a 3k dmg difference…

Even without all ascended gear you should at least end up like this in my picture. Only one ascended trinket in my gear, no stacks, food (not even the best one), fury, 30/30/0/10/0, all zerker and the back-item is soldiers.

How do you get such high crit rate? Both of us are using full zerker with ranger runes?

And does 200 power and 10% crit% dmg really make such a huge difference?

I’d like to hear someone else’s numbers on a Snow Wolf or Moose?

Like mentioned in my first post, yes, full zerker. But that’s even the cheap version I use, which means ruby orbs and no runes. Also no stacks and only “artisan oil” and “minotaur steak”, so, yeah, the cheap variant I’d say

Maybe I can do some testing later…

e: oh, by the way, forgot to mention that I don’t possess zerker weapons, so these stats are with clerics weapons.

Kain Francois.4328:

My tests:

snow Wolf… 6k
White Moa… 5.2k

Is it my gear? I doubt it’d make a 3k dmg difference…

Even without all ascended gear you should at least end up like this in my picture. Only one ascended trinket in my gear, no stacks, food (not even the best one), fury, 30/30/0/10/0, all zerker and the back-item is soldiers.

Hey there, nice skills. We had some kind of duel, ranger with the jag/wolf here, maybe we’ll meet again.

blud.8174:

Dante.1508:

Where can we get a recap of the episode.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/425001837

You really should use maul on GS more often, our strongest single attack overall I think…

I’m zerging only on rare occasions, but if you don’t want to go condition damage, then full zerker with 30/30/10/0/0 or 30/30/0/10/0 is really viable. LB + Axe/Axe, SotW, SotH, SoS. Your life insurance is nature’s protection, rejuvenation, and SoS. Red Moa (fury) + a ranged pet. SotW and SotH should be always used when not on CD (Axe #4 crit + opening strike + signet(s) right into the zerg makes some really nice damage). Well, you won’t contribute much with this setup, except for healing spring, but you do a “good” amount of damage to many enemies. Positioning is very important here.
Xorus build is for sure more nifty, and this one is the more clumsy approach, but you have damage and enough survivability here…

That’s because it wasn’t “increased” like stated, should be “decreased”, from 5000 to 2000 units I think.

Forzani.2584:

Grayback.7148:

Forzani.2584:

Grayback.7148:

hm, somehow nobody likes rune of earth
Changing your second pair to earth would result in an additional +5% protection, not game-changing, but just saying…

Wouldn’t 15% Boon duration do the same thing for protection as 15% Protection duration ?

yes, but the second bonus is +20% protection duration (in PVE) afaik.

Sorry man, I’m not sure what you mean

Ah, now I understand it I think.
Intothemists.com shows +15% protection duration as the second bonus on rune of earth.
But the wiki states that it’s +20% protection in pve and 15% in pvp.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Rune_of_the_Earth

Forzani.2584:

Grayback.7148:

hm, somehow nobody likes rune of earth
Changing your second pair to earth would result in an additional +5% protection, not game-changing, but just saying…

Wouldn’t 15% Boon duration do the same thing for protection as 15% Protection duration ?

yes, but the second bonus is +20% protection duration (in PVE) afaik.

hm, somehow nobody likes rune of earth
Changing your second pair to earth would result in an additional +5% protection, not game-changing, but just saying…

lin.6487:

Zardul.3952:

i mainly WvW. im a ranger so i dont PVE… lol
why cant we buy PVT gear for gold

yeah u can buy ptv gear with gold check the TP and search sentinel gears.

Isn’t sentinels more VPT than PVT?

Faux, really like this concept.
Unfortunately I don’t think that I’ll get my hands on Runes of the Forge, so I was thinking about something else. Maybe I’m completely wrong here, but what about Runes of Earth, this would lead to:

- +20% protection duration
- 25% to gain 4s protection when hit
- companions defense for the 2s protection
- natures protection for another 5s protection

All the protection with the 20%/30% boon duration form NM.
Spirits still aren’t really good I think, but with the new spiritual knowledge and stone spirit…don’t know how this would work out. I’d run clerics gear, GS – Sword/Dagger. Maybe someone could tell me if this could work out

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Mcrocha.3891:

Thats pretty much our best build at the moment. Its just an apothecary bunker. As Axyl said he was prob using torch in offhand for Bonfire which is the #5 skill.

You can check out the build here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Update-6-4-Faux-s-RRR-Build-Conditions/first#post1784691

Are you sure this is right? OP said he was using a sword/dagger & GS combo. I thought that was a power/bunker build, not condi. Though he did say he was using conditions. Really confused here.

yes, that’s what confused me a bit too…I think S/D + GS (+ maybe traps) + cond. damage isn’t that common. But well, there are for sure many variations out there which aren’t common. On the other hand, I’m playing S/D + GS, mostly cerlic gear + mix’n match and on some occasions I’m mixing in fire trap too…

You know that you still can evade while being immobilized? You’re running S/D, which means you should be able to evade most attacks until you’re again able to move.

e: and yes, signet of renewal or empathic bond should remove immobilized

If it’s only about the observation of “bow-rangers”, I have to admit that it’s something I also noticed. Just recently I fought a ranger with SB/GS, he kept hitting me with this legendary SB, I didn’t bother to catch him at this moment, non-crits with ~250-300 damage…My healthbar doesn’t even move with this incoming damage. Plus he immobilizied me with the krytan dog, entangled me, stunned me, but couldn’t do anything. Makes me sad somehow.
I’m sure there are good rangers out there using bows, but most of the time they aren’t a threat.
It was mentioned here several times that our damage scales really bad with “power”, maybe with bows this is even worse, don’t know…

e: just saw that there are some bow-ranger vids here, gonna watch them when I’m at home, maybe there is still hope

pretty standard I guess.

Chopps.5047:

Grayback.7148:

It’s IMO like this with ranger in wvw, the more people are involved (both sides) the less usefull we become. On the other hand, small-scale battles and solo is fine.

Where did this notion originate?

Which of my two statements do you mean?

Anyway, It’s my experience until now, because of the following things:
- pets are more likely to be dead the bigger the fight is
- we do have limited aoe attacks, so it’s really ok in smaller fights, but if the battle grows we’re getting outshined more and more at this point
- sharing boons with the crowd isn’t one of our strenghts either

I’d really like to be proven otherwise, but I think that our strenght is more shining in small-scale or 1vsX fights.

Additionally, I suck at zerging :P

It’s IMO like this with ranger in wvw, the more people are involved (both sides) the less usefull we become. On the other hand, small-scale battles and solo is fine.

Cleric-hybrid-bunker-melee-whatsoever ranger here, really looking forward to your attempt on cleric-build.

Wvw-wise I think axe/torch + SB is really viable if you’re going BM, and hopefully condition dmg, your damage output wouldn’t be very good when going for power.

By the way, I’m running sword/dagger + GS, couldn’t live without the sword and I really dont’t care about this evade on autoattack on GS, people have to show me how to time this if the enemy isn’t a NPC. Almost only use GS for the utitlity, block, daze/stun, swoop, most enemys are going to burn their dodge for your maul…

e: Another thing i like about the sword, for example I do have problems with mesmers from time to time, so if I lose track of the real one, I de-select my target and start bouncing around like crazy with sword autoattack…not really professionell, but gives me time to pick the right one and makes me hard to hit

Really had some fun last night on AGBL, kudos to the AG thief squire, told me a nice lesson. What I really don’t get with these boring discussions here is, all the complaining that RS won’t fight with equal numbers, but I can’t count the encounters when AG or DL ran from me or had to wait until they had me Xvs1…won’t mention names, but you can find them in this thread.
So, have fun everybody, complaining won’t get us anywhere.

greetings,
a RS roamer