Guild Wars 2

Haven’t fully fleshed out this idea but what do you all think about a condi build that combines a couple shouts with rousing resilience?

I’m at work and can’t use a build editor, but here’s the general idea:

Sage’s amulet
Tempest runes
Defense: top/mid, top, bottom
Tactics: top/mid, top, mid(whichever is the shout trait)
Berserker: top/bottom, mid/bottom, mid
Sword+x(prob war horn for swiftness & condi clear) and longbow (mace+shield?)
Outrage, shake it off, for great justice, head butt
Healing sig, to the limit, or defiant stance (can see a case for each, actually)
Sigils are up for debate but probably generosity+intelligence on each

Each shake it off heals for 6k if used as a stunbreak, while other stunbreaks heal for over 4k. Nearby allies will also receive a bit of healing. Rousing resilience covers lack of toughness. Damage should be decent with 1050 power/1050 condition damage. Obviously, this won’t be a tournament build, but is it workable?

I understand the reasoning behind almost all of your selections, and it is solid. A few things stand out to me (all for SPVP, I’ll leave WVW to others), though:

• Spirit of Nature is nearly unusable – The fact that it can’t move and has to be within 240 units of your allies (600 for the active) leaves it way too vulnerable. Strength of the Pack is a better choice, especially since you have Remorseless. Currently, you only have Two-Handed Training as a way to proc fury, so I suggest either adding other sources of fury or dropping MM for another line.

• Taking SotP means you can drop Enlargement for Clarion Bond, which is both more supportive and more synergistic with Remorseless.

• This may be a personal thing, but I’m not sold on the Cleric amulet because the only group healing you bring is regen at 280/tick. Nice, but not enough to justify an inability to kill things imo. The Crusader amulet makes more sense, and even then, your damage won’t be amazing.

• I get the reasoning behind the A/A off set, but I’m not sure I love the reality of running it. Probably why quite a few people are using GS + S/A with shouts.

Anyway, I hope my feedback helps. I’m not sure we rangers quite have everything we need to make a truly great shout/support build atm. Here’s to hoping staff will expand our options in that direction.

Edit: Threw together this more offense-oriented version of what I describe above. Could drop S/A and use longbow as a utility weapon.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAR8XnMqA9Ci9rA2CCctgh/gaf9MIA4PIf3gPN+hh/kL8hVA-TJBHABAcFA6Z/hsLDEwDAAA

Alrighty, I’ll see if I can reproduce it today.

Snow, that is exactly what I’m talking about. Wish I knew what was causing it!

Coincidentally, I noticed a few people RPing in HotM today. I’m not an RPer, but it was nice to see that people were leaving them alone, at least in map/say chat.

Several times today while playing spvp, I swapped to my second pet only to have it be already dead. I didn’t see it mentioned in the compiled list over in the bugs forum, so I’m bringing it up here. Not sure what causes it, but in one case I distinctly remember coming off of respawn and my wolf was already dead when I swapped to it about 30 seconds later.

During the course of another fight, I swapped from my raven —> wolf —> raven —> wolf, and my wolf was already dead both times.

Please get this fixed bug fixed quickly because it can change the outcome of a fight and is extremely debilitating when it happens.

Hey guys and gals,

Several times today while playing spvp, I swapped to my second pet only to have it be already dead. I didn’t see it mentioned in the compiled list over in the bugs forum, so I’m bringing it up here. Not sure what causes it, but in one case I distinctly remember coming off of respawn and my wolf was already dead when I swapped to it about 30 seconds later.

During the course of another fight, I swapped from my raven —> wolf --> raven —> wolf, and my wolf was already dead both times. Needless to say, twice swapping to an already dead pet was EXTREMELY debilitating, and this bug is game-breaking in some sense.

Has anyone else noticed this happening? I’m going to mention it to the bug thread as well.

Here to say thanks as well! I had a lot of fun!

Eval.2371:

Malhavoc.8976:

That is also without regard to the fact that ranger signets/traits provide a narrow window in which to land one highly telegraphed skill for 10k damage. MoC cannot be procced repeatedly, and Maul probably won’t do 10-12k with Remorseless alone. Of course this would be less of a problem if we could effectively combo Maul with another highish damage skill (as if rangers have many lol), but Maul is too slow to make that work reliably.

Pre spec I would totally agree with you word for on this. With quick draw now we have the option of doing various things. You can totally bait someone with the first maul, hilt bash/swoop to stick them, entangle and then proc MoC while SoW is still up. Allowing the second hit to be the big maul. Or we can completely fake out both mauls and make them burn their endurance and swap for higher damage path of scars. Quickdraw allows ranger to be sloppy, or have a second chance as someone would say.

Malhavoc.8976:

By the way I’m not trying to pick on you. I just saw your post as a good opportunity to make a few points lol. Friendly tip, warrior relies on heavily on weapon swapping. Probably every good warrior build ever packs the Fast Hands trait for this reason.

I totally understand what your saying. I am glad other people can be critical of other people. Which is really uncommon here it feels. Fast hands(even though we do not have the trait) style of play with ranger the only way to play remorseless. Additionally just likel warrior if your not using fast hands to your advantage your hindering your self. I feel that people that do not leverage quick draw are in the same boat as it is our parallel to wars fast hands.

Malhavoc.8976:

tl;dr Greatsword is balanced around theoretical conditions that are out of touch with how things play out in game. This results in rangers having to pop cooldowns and/or meet specific conditions for traits in order to do the same damage other classes do with one skill. Additionally, Maul is relatively hard to combo with the few other heavy damage skills in the ranger’s repertoire due to its cast time. While I focused my post on Maul, my points generally apply to the other greatsword skills as well.

As the ranger profession’s biggest source of power-based nonlinear cleave, the great sword needs a damage buff. A lack of this type of cleave is one of the main factors holding rangers out of the meta.

The whole point of the remorseless based build is you get to pick a skill to do more damage. MoC and SoW allow you to amplify this. All of greatswords skills except hilt bash have 1.0 or higher skill coefficient. All them are good bases to apply those multipliers to be a high damage skill. With wilderness knowledge you have basically absolute control of which skill you like to amplify.

Maul is out of line being a higher medium damage burst skill on a low cool down when not amplified. It does have a longer cast time, as does swoop and and counter attack.

We do lack consistent power cleave, but its not the only thing holding us out of meta. We struggle in other areas that I think that if they were buffed we would be a lot better off than having more damage(such as mobility, group support, bugfixes, and better utilities).

QuickDraw can help, but it also forces one to use abilities in a certain, predictable order almost immediately after weapon swap. Still doesn’t change the fact that we have to use multiple abilities to do damage other professions do with one, either.

I absolutely don’t disagree that rangers need better support and mobility. While we probably haven’t yet reached a stable meta, thief is about the only profession that will be meta without good cleave damage. It also has one distinct purpose that no other class will ever compete with in conquest. Ranger will struggle to compete for a meta slot as long as it is designed to do some of everything while failing to perform as well as others. One of the areas where ranger fails is cleave (can’t even effectively cleave downeds). As this thread is about damage, I’m focusing on that aspect.

Sol.4310:

Malhavoc.8976:

Are we sure that pets benefit from Remorseless? The wording on the wiki and in the patch notes makes me think not.

On the other hand, I have to assume MoC is working atm as I’ve seen 5.5k hits from my drakehound after landing Hilt Bash.

Fury proc’s Opening Strike from Remorseless on the pet, so maybe the pet only gets Opening Strike and not 25% bonus in damage. So is that tool tip bug or is that Remorseless bug.

Can someone please go test, Moment of Clarity, Remorseless, Hilt Bash and Signet of the Hunt. Or am I just reading this all wrong and totally confused myself.

Ah, I was questioning whether we are sure pets are supposed to get the bonus damage. I’m thinking no, which is dumb. Predators Onslaught specifies the pet damage boost individually iirc while Remorseless does not.

Apparently opening strike only refreshes for pets when the ranger gets fury (source: wiki). This is piece is actually really good design imo.

Are we sure that pets benefit from Remorseless? The wording on the wiki and in the patch notes makes me think not.

On the other hand, I have to assume MoC is working atm as I’ve seen 5.5k hits from my drakehound after landing Hilt Bash.

On a similar note, should weapon swapping be disabled in these situations, too? Don’t get me wrong, I make use of this feature all of the time to proc on-swap sigils and have even downed people as a result.

Eval.2371

Some other people will disagree with me here, or flat out saying I am lying but great sword is the highest spike weapon ranger has.

GS is my primary weapon set in wvw and pvp. Landing 10-12ks mauls in spvp is devastating and being able to stick to the target to land another 6-8k maul(using quick draw) with swoop is priceless. Then we have evade frames and blocks as well as the daze. Greatsword is fine weapon and really only lacks sustained damage which is where sword and longbow excel. I am perfectly happy with that. Unlike warrior I actually have a reason to swap out of the weapon but still have plenty of incentives to swap back.

I think ranger needs buffs for pvp, but in other areas, mainly to how we interact with groups. Some QoL changes on gs would be nice, such as the rootfix for hiltbash as someone else mentioned or a fix for swoops sometimes extended flip. Ranger has tones of 1v1 potential we already excel at it, adding more damage wont do anything but push us further into that niche. We need better tools for groups; better utilities and group support not more damage.

For those who are going to say 10k+ can’t be done in spvp here is a screenie of 10k log during a match: http://i.imgur.com/3djHXus.jpg

And I’ve hit harder on others; upwards to 13k. Edit here:
http://i.imgur.com/yF597kt.jpg

I can see your damage, but I can also see, not that it isn’t obvious, you are relying on trait procs (and cooldowns at other times) to get at those numbers. You’re demonstrating that rangers have to land trait procs to do the same damage other classes do by hitting one button. Do you see the problem? Do you know how much damage other professions do when factoring in situational traits?

That is also without regard to the fact that ranger signets/traits provide a narrow window in which to land one highly telegraphed skill for 10k damage. MoC cannot be procced repeatedly, and Maul probably won’t do 10-12k with Remorseless alone. Of course this would be less of a problem if we could effectively combo Maul with another highish damage skill (as if rangers have many lol), but Maul is too slow to make that work reliably.

Ranger greatsword could absolutely do with a damage buff. It is a ranger’s only purely power-based weapon with multiple abilities that cleave in an arc (as opposed to a line). Rangers absolutely lack this type of cleave and absolutely need their limited sources to be better.

By the way I’m not trying to pick on you. I just saw your post as a good opportunity to make a few points lol. Friendly tip, warrior relies on heavily on weapon swapping. Probably every good warrior build ever packs the Fast Hands trait for this reason.
____________________________________________

As an aside, like all ranger weapons, greatsword is balanced around the (theoretical) addition of pet damage. However we all know how long bursty pets last in the thick of things against today’s popular builds.

Couple this factor with Maul’s animation and the reasoning behind its present state becomes clear. To elaborate given that the animation is unlikely to change, the skill needs a low cooldown because players will often fail to connect with their targets. The low cooldown necessitates that the damage be moderate. As a result, we’re left with a “damage” skill that hits for less than the third hit of the warrior mace auto attack chain, albeit with greater range and cleaving ability.

tl;dr Greatsword is balanced around theoretical conditions that are out of touch with how things play out in game. This results in rangers having to pop cooldowns and/or meet specific conditions for traits in order to do the same damage other classes do with one skill. Additionally, Maul is relatively hard to combo with the few other heavy damage skills in the ranger’s repertoire due to its cast time. While I focused my post on Maul, my points generally apply to the other greatsword skills as well.

As the ranger profession’s biggest source of power-based nonlinear cleave, the greatsword needs a damage buff. A lack of this type of cleave is one of the main factors holding rangers out of the meta.

Edited for clarity.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Sol.4310:

Just make it a shout and give it larger radius, biggest reason it sucks due to radius no control over pet movement so half the time it goes out of range or requires you to cast right after pet swap.

If it were shout radius and triggered Resounding Timbre, it would be good

Seriously though, I don’t think we need more healing and parties don’t either, I would think boon support would be better than another heal.

Sadly, IB is shout radius. Well, technically, IB’s radius is 60 units smaller, but the pathetic 360 unit radius of Resounding Timbre is functionally just as useless. There are no good reasons why RT doesn’t apply in a 600 radius anyway. This kitten needs to be fixed.

With PVP in mind, I’m all for the small tweaks needed to make this trait work. A viable secondary ( i.e. non heal skill) source of aoe burst healing is currently a big hole in rangers’ supportive kitten nal.

@blitzkrieg, good suggestion!

Fwiw, I put together this cele build the other day:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-JFk73;0sEkx-p2ZDF-0;9V2E;1ba_;0237137137;4VoG6V;1jwmAjwmA0z

It’s not perfect, and typical of a/d+s/t builds, it doesn’t really have a place in tpvp. Like you, I feel zephyr’s speed is required to get a decent number of might stacks going. While beastly warden is definitely great, I feel that packing a bunch of quickness provides decent utility, too, for everything from fighting to rezzing to healing (without being interrupted). Another nice perk is that the dogs will cast their F2s faster on swap, though their leaps will be shorter if used with quickness.

With 10 might, I’m sitting at ~1900 power and 1300 condition damage, which leads to pretty solid damage output. So far I’ve skipped using a drake since I feel the cc from the dogs is more important than extra might, especially without beastly warden.

I do think that having to run dogs for is one of the weaker points to this build; I’m not able to maximize wilting strike for instance as obviously, there are no canines with super low F2 cooldowns. That being said, I’ve had good results while queuing solo with this build.

Among many other builds, I’ve started toying with a cele s/t + a/d setup in pvp. The play style is that of a typical survival condi build, so I’m not going to go into too much detail about that. My deviations from a typical build are nothing new, either. Mainly, I’ve found that the relative abundance of quickness provides some really dynamic utility, and might stacking is obviously important for using a celestial amulet in a condition build, given the recent changes.

I’m using battle sigils in conjunction with zephyr’s speed to gain might; I’m finding it pretty easy to stack 10+ might, which gives me ~1900+ power and 1300+ condition damage (the stat calculations on the build editor are slightly off). As a result, my damage is pretty good, but I am a bit disappointed that I can’t abuse wilting strike more.

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions/feedback??

Link:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-JFk73;0sEkx-p2ZDF-0;9V2E;1ba_;0237137137;4VoG6V;1jwmAjwmA0z

+1 to you and +1 to your new computer. Your stream quality is fantastic.

After thinking about this some more, I think the most simple solution would be to have both MMRs affected by a character swap. That would keep the “penalty” small for the occasional swap but “punish” abuse by having profession specific MMRs converge.

I’m still curious about how the devs handle this.

nearlight.3064:

So then how do we get teams of 3+ rangers or mesmers form together if the MMR takes profession into account? This happens a lot, and a mostly mesmer team is going to struggle being on point.

Profession MMR reflects a player’s performance while playing a specific class, at least in theory. So for instance, I expect my MMR is higher on my main class than it is on thief. In your example, the system factors in those players’ MMRs on ranger and mesmer when creating the match.

You’re describing a separate issue, supposedly caused largely by the number of people queuing on those professions.

I’m curious which profession MMR is affected by the outcome of a match in which one swaps characters before the game starts. Say I queue on my thief and then switch to my ranger before a match begins. Will the outcome of the match count toward my thief MMR or my ranger MMR? Surely it’s not the latter, right? Otherwise, what is to stop players from gaming the system for an easier (or harder) match?

I’m going to shamelessly bump this up and say that if you’re looking for a change of pace, give ItIsFinished’s melee build (page four of this thread) a try. It’s hella fun and quite effective, at least for my play style.

Sebrent.3625:

I’m failing to see how you calculated that Healing Spring favors Valkyrie. Given that Valkyrie gives you 0 toughness and 0 healing power … it does nothing to improve Healing Spring and the Leap … so it should be +0% … so I fail to see how it has a +21.30% and +2.20% in favor of Valkyrie.

He’s talking about the PVP Valkyrie amulet, which has +331 healing power.

That being said, amulets will more than likely change alongside the roll out of the new trait system, so HotHit’s conclusions only hold in a more general sense.

No one uses the honed axes trait in its current form, so axe will only be made worse by the fact that other weapons will gain the opportunity to be better than they are now.

Looking at the proposed version, the cooldown reduction is not that important as axe cooldowns are already pretty low. This is also the perfect chance to remove the ill-fitting ferocity bonus and replace it with something better, but it looks like anet is opting for a lazier approach. Depending on what AOE winter’s bite means, I could end up being wrong about this trait. Idk, AOE winter’s bite better be really frickin good, or this trait won’t be worth taking.

That brings me to my next point. Honed axes’ placement in beastmastery is NOT an issue. Honed axes’ placement as a grandmaster trait is. I think this fits better as a master tier trait. Axe (huehuehue) the ferocity bonus if need be. Then also get rid of instinctual bond and move natural healing to that minor slot. Remove the periodic player heal, since it’s not in the tooltip anyway.

OP does have a point about the whole offhand training bit, though the wording of honed axes suggests ALL axe skills will receive 20% shorter cooldowns.

Agility Training: You and your pet move 25% faster while it is alive.

@jcbroe: Thanks a bunch, man. I’ll have to try your versions out.

Edit: The more theorizing I do, the more ready I am to admit defeat regarding this combination of weapons. S/T just plays so much better.

jcbroe.4329:

Did I see you in game? After I made the post about GS and Axe/Dagger, I started testing it and ended up in a match with somebody running the exact same build haha.

So if so, small world!

But yeah, you’re choices are slightly different than what I was running, and after playing it for a longer period of time and getting accustomed to it, the build itself feels really great, but as you mentioned, versus it stacking up against meta-builds, it doesn’t really “edge out” any of them right now.

Still, I do think it should be recognized in its own light at least. I’m glad to see somebody else having success with the idea!

Haha perhaps you did! Funny how that can happen.

Idk if you posted your version already, but would you mind doing so? I’m curious about what you did differently. Lol I know mine isn’t perfect.

@Fluffball: You are right that my build is probably too skewed toward condis. I ran with six in WS out of habit. I’m curious about whether a might stacking approach would be better, tho harder without torch, obviously.

Otherwise, your two main points about GS and cele match my thoughts as well. I’m experimenting with GS any way because rangers just don’t have any other weapons that cleave the same way. It’s nothing other than a desperate attempt to find something that checks every box well enough lol.

I brought the owl to buff up my DPS, and that plus GS skills plus 10-20 bleeds definitely adds up. There were times when I really missed having a wolf, tho.

@Eurantien: with solid might stacking, my first thought is cele ofc. I just don’t know what our role is at that point. Among the typical cele users, we’re not as tanky as eles or shoutbows while engineers put out better damage (correct me if I’m wrong, here) and cc.

At least with settler’s and a bit of regen, I feel confident in my ability to fight on point for quite a while, but then I have all of the issues that have been so well-catalogued in this thread.

@ Thread: I pretty much always run with muddy terrain, renewal sig, and lighting reflexes if using SotF, and last night I tested GS, A/D in conjunction with them.

Edit: Here’s the build.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR3YjMq0xaLL+rQ1aABhaVA0uGShu2dTcDf9B/O9A-TZBHwAFeAAAOCACuIAt2fAZZAA

Once I got used to the setup, I felt like I did pretty well. GS felt much stronger in team fights than sword/torch or short bow, and I still won my 1v1s. This setup definitely felt stronger against shoutbows than my normal settler’s build.

All of that being said, I just don’t know where it would fit on a team. It brings good survivability, okish cleave, a large water field, some team condi removal, decent mobility, aoe immobilize, and good hybrid damage. Yet I still found it a bit lacking compared to say, shoutbow. Ofc the more I play that build, the more I’m convinced it’s wildly OP.

@Sebrent: NP, man. I actually did use the average damage values, just for ascended weapons. No matter, it looks like the difference between the two is roughly the same for ascended v. exotic. Thanks for providing updated values for the other weapons! Idk whether to laugh or cry, looking at the axe.

Also, that’s a salient point about having to land all three parts of the GS chain. Obviously, there are many times when doing that is either not possible or not the right course of action.

StickerHappy.8052:

Just a question to all folks here,

Why do people say SB otudamages GS? how does that happen?

It doesn’t. Even comparing only auto attacks, GS comes out ahead in terms of direct DPS but only by a miniscule margin. The previous calcs in this thread added the tooltip damage, which is incorrect. Obviously bleeds tip DPS in favor of the shortbow, but like all other greatswords in the game, ranger GS is absolutely about using skills 2-5.

Using average weapon damage values from the wiki and holding power and opponent’s armor constant, here are the calcs for coefficients/second * average weapon strength:

Shortbow:
(0.4/0.54)1,000 = 740.74

GS Chain:
((0.55+0.55+0.65)/2.56)1,100 = 751.95

Thus, the full dps calc for a shortbow auto is (740.74*power)/opponent’s armor and for GS auto is (751.95*power)/opponent’s armor.

I think starting with supply is potentially problematic. An organized team with heavy damage can initiate a lord rush without ever having to leave the attack lane. Too often tonight, both sides were opting for this tactic, resulting in it being a race to put out the most damage.

Sure, executing this strategy requires good organization and some skill, but it also completely bypasses some of the core objectives of the game mode.

I tried a few different builds to varying degrees of success. Since players start with supply, an organized zerker team can end the game absolutely insanely fast, without ever even having to leave the attack lane. Obviously glass bow works best if this is your strategy.

When the game was moving at a more regular pace, I still found power really strong, but I also really liked using a cele s/wh, a/t build.

Please this. It interferes with my pvesports duel with chieftain and then I get rekt.

Fluffball.8307:

Malhavoc.8976:

Fluffball.8307:

If they ever buff pets/pet controls, I’d love Invigorating Bond builds to become the meta. That trait need a very slight buff to be awesome, but right now it’s in a weak traitline.

I think a slight radius buff and making the ICD apply on a per pet basis (20s per pet), rather than the blanket 20s, would make Invigorating Bond a really nice option. I don’t see it as an especially complicated fix, either.

Very reasonable. If you compare it to vigorous shouts (I know I know, bad to compare between professions) IB is really a terrible grandmaster. I think healing every 10 seconds is extremely reasonable, especially considering many pets like wolf have very long F2 cooldowns.

That trait (and Restorative Mantras, to a lesser extent) was exactly what I had in mind when I made that suggestion. I do feel Invigorating Bond needs to be slightly weaker because rangers aren’t forced into taking specific utility skills to use it.

This would make IB more useful but not completely brain dead since spamming F2 skills off cooldown is generally a terrible strategy.

Fluffball.8307:

If they ever buff pets/pet controls, I’d love Invigorating Bond builds to become the meta. That trait need a very slight buff to be awesome, but right now it’s in a weak traitline.

I think a slight radius buff and making the ICD apply on a per pet basis (20s per pet), rather than the blanket 20s, would make Invigorating Bond a really nice option. I don’t see it as an especially complicated fix, either.

Nice vid. I like how you showed a few fights against builds that necros tend to struggle with.

Thanks for sharing.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0yaDL+rQ1ag+ga9DEAjd7fYFuBW/bJrIK-TpBFwACuAAMOCAIOEA12foaZAAPAAA
Here is a variation I would recommend using if you have hard times to deal with conditions. Shadowpass, Infantry and other good rangers use these traits as well and it works out pretty well for them too.

I’m not in the same league as those guys but fwiw, I run this exact setup (now including HiPS) when I play power. I primarily queue solo or with one friend, so the personal condition removal helps significantly. In a proper team, I’d be more inclined to run 6/6/2/0/0 or 6/5/3/0/0.

HiPS is now quite nice on a power build.