Guild Wars 2

Nice video. but really its not my build besides the gyro stab overcharge shot combo. Assuming the build you posted is meant to have durability runes like you say. it has less damage and less damage reduction. with damage reduction being the main thing to make this build tanky and the choice of armour,weapon,trinket setup to get the most out of it.

im sure i outlined it in the guide but the damage reduction carrys the defensive side (43% min avg) and the gear food set up (one wanders chest,one commanders weapon, food,trait,sigil) max your boon duration.turning recovery matrix pot from 5 seconds to 10 seconds of prot. and only needing two gear with boon duration u can play around with the rest(i go all zerk trinkets and valk for left over armour)

Not hating on your variation though, just pointing out some variations in both

Holesale.2640:

you got a gameplay video of you using the build in different situations?

Until i get a better computer i dont think i could handle recording as well as running the game. When i do ill try recording some footage

Build Breakdown. The ofensive side

Now for the fun part. Before i break down the traits and skills ill summarise the offensive play style. As i said before this is a cc/combo heavy build. your win condition is to time your lockdown combo for u to unload your damage and/or for your team to capitalise on damaging the CCed enemy. The combo varies but normally goes like this.

Blast gyro in melee range or blast gyro+net shot at close range. you want this to hit.
As the opponent gets launched you want to use throw wrench as you close the distance. once u get in melee range you want to use overcharge shot(with no knockback with stab from blast gyro+final salvo).on the 2nd knockback you want to use blunderbuss. try not 2 be greedy with trying to get super close.once you get close to melee range you finish off with a jumpshot on there still down body.
If you have landed all that with them not using stunbreak or stab they will normaly roll out of being cc, you can then magnet+pry bar.

This is just a base combo like to use and like most non hammer engi builds u get a bit of freedom as to how you want to combo. Procing passive stun brakes with magnet is a good strategy. And using blast gyro at a longer range then pulling enemy into gyro can be pretty satisfying. And remember you can knockback down people being revived, a blast gyro or overcharge shot on a down player is a amazing stall as your party cleaves

A quick breakdown of the offensive skills and traits if you cant tell. Final salvo+blast gyro will give you stab you can use to overcharge shot with no knockback. If u take mass momentum it will also proc might as long as you have stabilty. And i feel like i should mention blast gyro and overcharge shot both have 15 second cooldowns, making managing cooldowns easy

The strengths and weakness

Overall this build has decent staying power with the damage reduction and decent damage potential with high damage combo. 1v1 there are classes you should be able to dominate while there are a few that are are hard match, with 1 class+trait that will counter you pretty much 100%(no one will win)
As you can guess, your prime targets are classes with low stun breaks and stability. revs and necros are going to be your main strong matchups. Thief, mesmer, elementalist, engeneer and guards are a semi balanced matchup depending on build used and player skill. a good thief can be a hard fight(even though you have a semi advantage vs thief) and a acro evade thief is normally hard as they have a super high evade uptime.
A good power mesmer is also a hardish match. condi mesmer is annoying but you should have enough condi clear for there bomb(amusing there the 10% of condi mesmers that dont roll there face over the keyboard) guards can have a semi decent stability and block uptime as can elementalist and engineer.
Your bad matchups are going to be druids, wars and anything with higher then average sustain(cele ele, bunker scrapper ect). These are not bad matchups you are going to lose. they are bad as they can out sustain your spike with healing and avoiding damage.

The hard counter is a war with rousing resilience. you cant reliably cc them as you feed there rousing resilience that heals them for breaking out of cc. Even without rousing resilience adrenal regeneration can make it a draw if you dont avoid the burst( or they have a longbow to proc adrenal on themself)

With that being said please keep in mind that most time player skill overcomes build disadvantage

Closing

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoy this build if you use it. It reminds me of playing engi before hot and hammer. Using skills and combos on the fly depending on your situation. Instead of hammer, that is ok in medium number fights but has a huge weakness of losing nearly all DPS if your enemy decides to flank around you.
And if you use this for duels please swap out sneak gyro for something like supply crate. dont be that guy that duels with sneak gyro, its like dueling with a mesmer that uses moa

And a special thanks to bob who helped me min/max this build. and without his permission ill shamelessly plug his youtube channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrgi7iO_2RIWPnXSjnozosg

Hello fellow Engineer friends. This is my 1st guide i have written in along time so i will try and space it so you can skip to the important parts.
With that out the way lets get to the important part. talking about myself

My wvw experience

I have been playing Guild wars two for almost 4 years. I have spent most that time in wvw and not long after starting, played as a roamer. I started as a ranger, then mesmer, then guard and then engineer. once i started playing engi i have spent 95% of my time playing the class. Before hot i played a glass SD rifle engi and post hot have played around with a few builds but mained a semi meta hammer build untill 4 months ago or so when i started using the bases of this build

The Build and Variations

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUnUUBlchtoCGYBEqilKjScZCgyj+tr78ecDigGA-TFCBQBA4BAwv9Huk6OYR53ZUC+QVCo4FAAf6ACAgAczbGAczbezbezbWKgMHZB-w

This is the build i use most of the time. To summarise i would call it a cc/combo build with high boon duration and damage reduction. The main variation i will make is swapping mass momentum for rapped regeneration depending on if im solo, in a party or getting focused alot and need more sustain. This is really a personal choice of sustain vs offence and i use both 50/50.
You could also swap Self regulating defence for Backpack regeneration. this is another personal preference as i know alot of people do not like the traited invul as it can interrupt important skills. I personally normally take Self-regulating defence.
The last change is more for duels. If your opponent doesn’t have any condi pressure that need to be clensed you can swap Elixir C for something like nades, rocket boots, Personal battering ram, Elixir U, slick shoes,Throw mine. Really there are alot of good choices if you are able to drop your condi clear

Build Breakdown. The defensive side

In this part i will break down the defensive traits and skills and how they work together.
Lets start with boon duration.This build boast a base 67.33% boon duration and 7/9 seconds of 99.3% boon duration(that gets rounded up to 100%). This is achieved with 1 commanders rifle, 1 wanderers chest piece Durability runes, mussels gnashblade food and the minor trait Alchemical Tinctures. This gets you 67.33% duration with the other 33% coming from sigil of concentration.
The damage reduction comes from a high protection uptime that is proced by protection injection, Recovery matrix, rune of durability and converting vulnerability via elixir C and the minor trait transmute.
With the high protection uptime(that provides 33% damage reduction) we also have the mussels gnashblade food that gives +10%(making it 43%) and the trait iron blooded that gives +2% per boon. you will have a high uptime of protection, swiftness and regeneration. adding a reliable base of 6%(making it 49%), with the potential to
9 boons giving you +18%. But the uptime and procing of the other boons are not as constant so lets just say 50% damage reduction.
For condition management you have the heal turret and elixir C. not much more to say on this
And as a minor synergy if you take Rapid regeneration you get perma swiftness regen and semi decent superspeed uptime with tool kit swap,Bypass coating and Final salvo.

The launcher will download 33-35mb or so but the download speed will slowly drop to 0 and never pick up again. Iv tryed a few fixs that didnt work, found mixed reports as to if gw is down or not and anet said nothing here, on there twitter or facebook.

Anyone know whats going on or how to fix this?

I take adrenal implants along with the speedy kit+invigorating speed combo for the extra endurance gain. In most cases your going to proc invigorating speed with tool kit swap. the vigor last for 5 1/2 seconds and the cooldown on speedy kit is 10 seconds. Adrenal implants gives a nice base line regen between vigor proc.

Like i said at the start, iv refined it to how i play. Lots of vigor and dodge rolls have worked best for me. Armor mod is nice but too unpredictable when it comes to blocking critical skills vs auto attack. Power wrench is a fine substitute and slots in its place just fine.

I ran elixir gun over elixir S for along time. But iv come to like the safe stomp and the stealth engage,disengage or stealth stomp. For a all round skill in this slot its really elixir S or elixir gun. There both more well rounded and less situational then the the others.

Your build with fortified turret decently seems better then mine. The one i used i tried for a night to see how the trait was(iv seen the trait be effective). i didn’t have much luck with it but ill give your build a go tonight. it looks like a solid,fun and different alternative to how i normally play.

I hope you keep this this thread updated, there’s some real solid stuff in this guide i wish i found when i started engi. Good stuff

Nice guide, even though its a bit outdated most of it is still relevant. In hopes more engis running defensive condi builds change to power(SD or cele) im going to dump all my knowledge here. Iv been playing SD engi for months now and have refined it to how i like but i think iv tryed all the viable variations over that time.

Ill start with the “base” of all my SD builds
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAElUUpkr1Uh1rRoLoRGmpIqF+pAA-TFCFABNpkAgLAwVKBRS5mAPAga2fINdEJq+TAAEgbezAwQH6QH6QHa38m38mD9mlCYJlRA-w

You can swap out equipment stats and runes/sigils to your liking but this has been a solid mix for me. Speedy kits and invigorating speed has always been a staple for me..more vigor=more dodge=less damage taken..The tool kit is another staple, the blocks, the pry bar that hits like a truck, everyone’s favorite the magnet pull and the most under appreciated skill in the set. the box of nails. Also the throw wrench does nice damage and one of the skills that the SD proc will go for who you target

The turret is mainly there for its toolbelt skill surprise shot. with instant cast you can lay it ontop of any of your other attacks for that sweet spike(pry bar+SS..jump shot+SS..throw wrench+SS). It is also a blast finisher when blown up, 3/4 of the time when i heal ill drop rifle turret then heal turret, overcharge and blast em both. The damage it dose is also nice. You can also place down the rifle turret and wait around it and blast thiefs when they go for the back stab.

The last utility slot is blank. this is for what ever you find most successful. Common skills in this spot are elixir gun, rocket boots, elixer S, utility goggles,Personal battering ram and slick shoes. You will see in my other builds i use alot of elixer S. it works as a panic button and enables safe stomps and the stealth can be very helpful for landing spikes(stealth+pry bar+SS) disengaging or just abit of sustain in a fight, buying time while you recover/skill cooldowns

The most all round build i use most the time is
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpkr1Ux+KseRCdBN6wMlnAyFUBRtwPFAA-TFCFABNpkAgHAwVKBRS5mAXAga2fINdEJq+TAAEADdoDdoDdodzbezbO0bWKglUGB-w
Buffing your rifle and also giving a better baseline recovery to your endurance

If running with a party, especially if one is laying down lots of conditions i sometimes run http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpkr1Ux+KseRCdBNywMFQvgK8VRtwPFAA-T1BFABCcBAQS5Xa6AqZ/hEV/BgHAwVKBBA-w
Modified ammunition and target the maimed can give a solid damage increase

A defensive build i ran when i 1st started playing SD(have not played this in awhile)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpkr1UxvLseRCdBN6wMllEqRIyF2wPFAA-TFCFABNpkAgHAwVKBRS5mAXAga2fINdAJq+DpAKSZE-w
passive aegis every 15 seconds and some strong CC defence

I never ran it much but when i tried the fortify turret trait i went
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdAQFAUlUUpkr1UxdLseRCdBNywMlQ3zREaRtwPFAA-TFCFABNpkAgHAwVKBRS5mAXAga2fINdAJq+DA-w
The turret shield was nice against ranged focused people and used defensivly. but the investment of traits vs the reward did not seem worth it when i tryed it

I have a few more builds but there very niche, situational and not really worth posting lol

I prefer to run knights armor and everything else zerker. I do alot of solo roaming and the extra survivability is nice. In a team setup all zerker is more viable then solo. But it can still be used while solo roaming, this mix just works better for me while solo roaming.

There are a few tricks you can use while fighting thiefs. With out knowing your build im gonna assume your running tool kit, rifle turret+whatever. And most SD builds also run Accelerant-Packed Turrets. You can place your Rifle turret down and hang around that and blast it when a thief starts 2 engage. You could even place both your healing and rifle down and get a nice spike right as they engage.

Most times they will pull back and stealth, if you have your toolkit out, you blast turrets and then magnet pull/pry bar. Remember, if you use magnet pull before they go stealth it will still pull them assuming they don’t dodge roll.
In Theory this all sounds nice but thief has alot of slippery skills and i dont normally burn my heal turret that way. So use your healing turret like that offensively at your own risk

Changing out your last utility skill for Utility Goggles is another thing you can do. And using box of nails is never a bad against any melee classes . predicting the back stab and using jump shot is another thing.

In a nutshell, most DPS thief’s need 2 be spiked down quickly. over all timing your CCs and spikes is what it takes to win against a good thief. Because if not they will stealth, reset health/CDs and chip away at you if not spike again

Thanks for the reply, your build seems to change some defence and even situational defence for a nice boost to damage. The other SD builds i dabbled that went into firearms line only went to 4. With at 1st glance i preferred to go 6 in the last line for reduced CD of toolbelt skills and couldnt find anything worthy in last trait line of firearms.

But as i take a closer look,5% dam on bleeding foes+2% per condition is good. and the extra crit % is always welcome..I give this a go shortly

If you used to play SD can i ask what you run now?

story time

So iv been pretty much exclusively running my engi in WvW since i got him to 80, that was a bout 2 months ago. I have tried a few builds now, i started with full cheese perplex condi nade/toolkit. I guess it was a easy build to get used to engi and kit juggling. But like most condition builds, especially ones with perplex runes it just make me feel bad.

So after a little while i tried some new builds. I had the least success with HGH/elixir build, that felt more like a l2p issue though. With similar unsuccessfulness was a..err infused elixir bombs/healing engi. That went alot worse then i thought it would, granted i only tried for a night. I doubt ill try it again.

Then i tried a SD power build. oh boy, instantly this felt better then all the previous builds i tried before. Every now and then i might try new builds but always come back to a SD build.

end story

So here is the build i use most of the time
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fdIQFAUlUUpkrNexmKseRCdBN6wMllEqCKyF2wPFAA-TFCFABBqEsJlEA8AAQS5WN7PkmOCCuAAJq+TAAEgbezAwQH6QH6QHa38m38m38mlCoIlRA-w

Really the only thing im still changing around is the 2nd sigil slot on the weapon. Power stacks or energy sigil would probably be better then my current blood.
I find it has decent damage, spike potential and survivability. Its lacking mobility skills like rocket boots or acid bomb.

It also lacks any stun breaks, but with saffron bread and stabilized armor you take 40% less damage when stunned or knocked down/back. Also Protection Injection gives 3 seconds of protection when disabled (stun, daze, knockdown, knockback, launch)
And like most class/build i might change things on the fly, like food buffs or utility skills

I just want to know what others think of this build and other SD or power builds i could try.

Hello fellow rangers. iv been back for alittle over two weeks after a 4 month or so break. After pew pewing with the new rapid fire for a little i decided to try and mess around with other builds. Here is the melee only build im playing with at the moment

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAsYRjMq0xaJLusw1ag9gaZAEwNHibw9WcEt9JfqSsA-TFCBwAQ3fwoSscq/gV5hElgAeCAp0HkwEXAAEAu5NvZIFQELjA-w

Still getting back into the swing of it so im not sure if this build is good. seems to be ok in 1v1, some 1v2.. feels slightly squishy but i dont know if thats player error on my part. Has awsome mobility if you do the 180 swords 2 jump followed by GS swoop, you can do this combo nearly continuously and is a good exit/ escape from combat.

I also swap out lightning reflexes out of combat for signet of the hunt. And if fighting a thief for sick em. Also have a longbow ready to AoE walls/siege. Pets are personal choice. Tonight im going to try a slight variation of

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAsYRjMq0xaJLWsw1aAChaZA8uNjhSwdSUDb9JfqSsA-TFCBwAQ3fwoSscq/gV5hElgAeCAp0HkwEXAAEAu5NvZIFQELjA-w

Just looking for any tips or advice to refine this build as im a little out of practice and if you try it would like to know how it goes.

Maybe you were immobilized?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Control_effect

Thats a list of all the things you can stun break out of. Mine seems to be working fine as well, maybe you can tell us what the arah mobs are. err. “stopping” you with?

I could really use some help on How/what to dye to make armor glow?. Im STILL not sure if male T3 light armor glows as i can’t make it glow, despite the OP saying it can’t glow it looks like by some of the later SS that it dose.

Or did i just spend 80 gold and scrap my awesome angle of death T2 mix for non glowy armor that now dose not dye properly?

(EDIT)
Dose not glow, despite some misleading pics.Still a cool set of armor but i couldn’t get a good match of dye with the front pants leaves.

i believe this is intended with the last patch, with the “smart targeting” or whatever its called that priorertizes players(and champions it looks like) over other NPCs..but i agree it should be a option to turn it off as iv pulled the champion harpy a few times now by mistake

KedirakEvo.5719:

Actually… I dont understand why would condition dmg be sucky in a dungeon?

And if I’m going for shortbow for bleeds and sun spirit for burns, shouldnt I be wearing condition dmg gear?

Oh, for those traits that say 20% faster weapon skill recharge… does it mean the auto attack is faster too? means my short bow can shoot faster? apply more bleed?

Its only sucky compaired to the DPS of power(and power DPS still on the lowend compaired to others). Judging by you post and interest though you should be ok no matter what you do.

But this is touching on ground im not as used too. I mainly WvW and do casual dungeon/Pve. So as far as dungeon builds/advice goes perhaps someone with more experience can post something. I do casual runs with guildies, not for speed or ease but just for fun.(because most things can be done regardless of build/team setup..it will just take more time)

KedirakEvo.5719:

Oh my… very informative… hmm i need time to digest all da post… Thanks everyone.. and do keep them coming so i can explore my options more…

So signet wise, just keep the regeneration signet? toughness is …. not worth a slot? the rest as spirits?

I would stick with the toughness signet unless you have high healing power(higher healing power means more health per second) I also wouldn’t really take the healing signet into any PvE stuff as the passive regen is not useful as it is in PvP. As combat can be broken to regen or u can sidestep AI attacks. And as PvP fights can be long with no combat broken. This is the same with signet of the hunt, but the toughness signet normally finds its way onto my skill bar when i do dungeons/PvE. It is a good slot filler if you cant find anything else

Also i would suggest power builds over condition for PvE or dungeons..well dungeons anyway(most pve can be done with anything). Im sure you can find a build or two for whatever your after on the forums here. Not necessarily to use the build but to learn new things,what works and why it works(learnt about the usefulness of regeneration signet in PvP threw looking at builds)

Edit: a basic all round power build i use for general PvE(tho not in awhile because i WvW)
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJAVRjEVV2RWGWs2Bgli9CszgTL5MUkxU2UFc6B-jgxAYsAlALiGrqMyqThUvRk9HCpA-e

The short answer to your post is yes. Rangers, like any class can be average/good in majority of the content in GW2. without knowing if your interest lie in pve/dungion,WvW or sPvP its hard to give you a build or advice as what works well in WvW wont work well(or “as” well is the main point) as another build setup.

Where the ranger stands currently is strong in sPvP/roaming-small team fights . Good in average PvE content and leveling(pet makes early game easy as it sounds like you know) and average to bad in Dungeons and zergs/large scale fights.This is my view and i think the general feeling of the community when comparing the ranger to other classes

The ranger dose not get much love for a few reasons. 1st is the pet,pet AI and that our stats are “shared” with our pet. While the pet is not great its not as bad as alot of people might think . For a start if you think of your pet as passive damage and conditions instead of a ferocious beast you will be less dissapointed. But for level 80 content you will find your pet alot less useful then earlier. Mainly because 1.pets die alot easyer or are not noticeable in level 80 content..2 The poor AI makes the pet easy to avoid and not land hits) And because of these downfalls, people feel robed that the pet also takes “x%” of our base stats compared to outher classes that have better working class/f2 class mechanics and compaired to rangers that “x%” more base stats

The 2nd reason ranger gets little love is its lack or no need in dungeons OR GvG/big grp organized fights. While the ranger is fine in dungeons a party of warrior/guardians balling and and mashing melee skills on boss dose the same, if not better.

That being said i have run a ranger successfully roaming
And for that i run this

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjEVN2BWKWoWCiVBB1ewJzjpniY1KXhRlymqgTPA-jUwA59ioxCA-w

A tanky condition/bunker/bm build that solo flips camps easy(start with the scouts) and take 1vx encounters, using sword eveade to buy time for healing spring recharg or escape
Muddy terrain hotkeys is a great skill in pvp(on that note, all 6,7,8,9,10 skills hotkeyed is good all round).
You also asked about signets. For a condition build you generally dont go for signet of the beastmaster(the share signet trait) the reason for signet of the wild is the passive health gain you get, and is popular for any build that has healing power. And signet of the hunt purely for the movespeed(real helpful for WvW). And when a signet is on cooldown you no longer get the passive effect untill it has recharged

Now while this build is fantastic for roaming in WvW. Its somewhere between bad and troll build for dungeons as far as other options/builds available.

All this being said though this is a game while it might lack the reliability and ease and power of other classes its a fun class and can hold its own in any game content

:EDIT: After about… *cough*800 hours*cough* of only having a ranger(other chars under level 20)i finally decided level a mesmer(level 80 last week yay). Like the engi, mesmers can be tough to level,especially early on with few traits/skills. But can bring more to a team/party then a ranger..mesmers can be squishier then ranger but clones and stealth can take agro/pressure off

+1
Iv think the same way 100%. the ranger is generally ok at the moment, pet AI is not the best..but iv said this before. I want to press F2 as a tactical choice and not a lucky press and see..
i think it would give rangers a touch of “blue mage” feel. Being able to work F2 skills into spikes or reliable play..
And the wolf howl? theres not many times in my life iv talked to a game..but there’s been a few times in the past. I pressed F2, evade, wait for it..15 seconds later yell “COME ON”

while the sword 1 attack sucks, it seems to work as intended

While having our stats shared with our pets may not be to everyones liking..it is what it is and mostly works as intended(that is the stats balance shared to pet. this dose not include the usefulness of the pet)

But pressing F2 and watching my pet spaz out? i dont think that was intended…

my wolf should stop in his tracks and howl when i tell him. dispite what my pet thinks I know better IM the master..dont get in melee range to howl, i want you to stop and howl NOW, fearing a guy of a ledge, or making a barrier between me, your master and the enemy

Drake? i want you to stop running at the enemy and start charging your breath attack NOW, the enemy is immobilized and crippeled!..no..dont run there…noooo dont shoot now sigh

Advent.6193:

@Ocelot
Perplexity with a Rampager/Sentinel spread? That’s one I haven’t tried yet. You’re also using different Traits than I would expect from a Condition/Interrupt build, not that that’s necessarily “bad.”
By comparison, I tend to run Rampager weapons/Rabid armor/Celestial trinkets/Perplexity Runes. 10/20/30/0/10 for Halting Strike/Master of Confusion/Bountiful and Chaotic Interruption. Without Halting Strike,
0/20/30/0/20’s also pretty solid, and amps your Condition Damage in general.
(Can’t say I’m a fan of Malicious Sorcery, since Scepter -while workable in a Condition build- is still one of our worst weapons.)
For more overall Reflection ability (if you’re sticking with Inspiration), I’d drop MS for Warden’s Feedback. Projectile Reflect from any Focus skill, and your Temporal Curtain’s an AoE pull/interrupt. Mirror as heal, it’s another Reflector.

As far as some of your other questions:

• (question 1)A lot of that decision depends on which game mode you’re in. Rabid for Toughness-heavy Condition builds, usually. Rampager’s good for more of a hybrid Power and Condition setup, but glassy. Both of those would work much better in WvW than PvE, since Condition builds are rather shafted there.
  Although, supposedlly the guys at ANet’re looking into Conditions in PvE. I’m guardedly optimistic.
• (questions 2 and 3) I’ll admit I’ve done minimal work with RS or Mimic. I would think that in that situation, Mimic might take priority. You’re tempting me to try that combo and find out
• (question 4) The issue there is most likely the ICD on Tormenting’s 6/6 ability. ANet plopped the ICD in, because multi-heal abilities used to proc Torment per each sub-heal. Between Mesmer and -worse- Med Kit Engineers, that was a harsh ability.

I’d also keep an eye out on the Perplexity Runes, as I recently saw a Dev post in an anti-Perplexity thread that they’re “looking into” those Runes. I simply hope they fine-tune, as opposed to obliterate them.

This is helpful, reinforcing what others have said and what i learnt in the last few hours of play..Most impotently i gotta leave the mesmer play style from GW1 in GW1. I know there diffrent games(you can jump in this one) but i still gotta shake the dominance/shutdown play style of the old mesmer.

Had much more success playing like a condition class using blutstein suggestion. Still need to try with focus but i do like the daze/stun and confusion spike

And for the questions i asked.
1 is self explanatory
2 i did not test
3 most times it only reflected projectiles and take melee damage but while taking a keep and on a few gates i “blocked” a few hits(do not know what)
4 The torment AoE seems to trigger on completing a healing cast. so only the normal 2 stacks on charging healing mantra and 2 stacks at location of healing seed. so not per charge with mantra and not per pulse with healseed

And as much as it will suck to replace the Perplexity Runes(it vales over 3 times my current gold). What runes or build are popular with with rampages armor? keeping in mind that the only time im not in WvW is when i log in(aka builds for WvW)and im poor(no traveler runes)

Thanks for the constructive feedback. Despite me writing this late at night and forgetting to ask a few things, the main ones have already been answered.. One being what armor would you recommend?… iv come from playing only a ranger and i played him mostly bunker/cond and didn’t want to waste what little gold i have on zerker type gear. Not wanting to be one of those glass mesmers..
But i do have 2 sets of armor, the other being Rampagers.. and the bling(rings amulet trinkets) are a cheap mix of toughness/vit/healing power, i got them to balance out with my original rampages set (not wanting to be to glass)

Anyway..i dont quite have all the gear for it but after some of your suggestions i have tweeked the build to take the staff out like i and a few others suggested. i was thinking replacing it with S/F as one major weakness is the lack of haste/movespeed

But after reading your comments i decided to go Sep/Sword- Sword/Pistol.
Here is the build, would like your opinions on this one as well especially gear wise

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArc8alwzipnRzgGb9IyJFQn0RShp5alewb52FC-jUBBIMDiO/pIasl1FRjVpjIq2lgIqWKAYmGB-w

The idea now is to lock down your foe offence with your blocks and stun/daze/interrupt(you have 4 stun/daze+ your shatter and two blocks). and punishing them with your sword/pistol

Also in regards to having retaliatory shield and my 1st build.. while retaliation is not the best boon. its something that punishes players for being offensive, changing peoples normal playstyle(same with torment and the blocks) well that was idea..and as much fun as it is to watch some wars just rage and burst themself to death. Condition removal and being less aggressive hurts the build. and the lack or straight damage means you cant punish them.

And if you cast all your blocks(Sword then scepter and finish with Mimic) it looks like your taking up a sweet defensive stance

I will post back here once i try both builds with my rampage’s/perplexity armor, with a random selection of bling and weapons

ALSO..theres a few questions i forgot to ask in the OP ill number them and try and keep em short
1) what are the popular meta game armor for mes?

2)Dose retaliatory shield stack retaliation for each hit on mimic? Eg if 2 rangers shoot me with rapid fire and i block them all(besides the 1st shot that gets absorbed). will i get 57 seconds of retaliation?.

3) Also in regards to mimic.. the wiki says this “After a projectile has been absorbed, the remaining duration will reflect all projectiles and block all other attacks”..It dose reflect projectiles back but block all other attacks?

4)The Torment rune give AoE torment on heal..iv had inconstant results with mantra of recovery and will try healing seed later tonight. Anyone else tested this?

Hey guys!. This week i finally got my 2nd character to 80, a mesmer , after a looooong time maining a ranger. Having alot of fun making builds, the traits and skills can synergize really well.
I called this [build refinement] as iv only been level 80 a week and lack the skill to fully test it. I also dont really do sPvP, despite loving small scale fights/1v1 or 1vx(X being as many as i can kill). So i would like some opinion or test from the more experienced mesmers out there.

So. The Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNArcWlwzipXTznGb9IiJFEHydSB0Jdleob82FC-jECBIMCi0CAUJg5QFRjtuuIasqUAKWLq2rgIqWKAYmGB-w

The Idea of the build is to punish offensive play with illusionary counter and illusionary riposte. Tormenting runes buff the torment inflicted and gaining torment AoE on heal. Mimic gives 4 1/2 seconds of range block , absorbing the 1st hit as a 1200 range attack to use later. Retaliatory Shield trait grants 3 seconds of retaliation on block.
Also im not sure if its because i played ranger so long but i think all the traits synergize awsome.
Should also note Ive played this build and similar variants over the last few days purely in WvW.
I think with the defensive ability of the Sep/Sword is good enough to swap the staff out for something else more offensive. As it is now it seems strong Vs most melee. Would like to know what more experienced players think/ideas

EDIT: To include Build changes and user suggestions

blutstein trait setup: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQNAraWlwzipXTznGb9IiJFEXwdSB0JdlegbXYuB-jkBB0CA5QFRjtuuIasqUAKWLq2rgIqWKAYmGB-w

Punish the Brave V2: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fgAQRArc8alwzipnRzgGb9IyJFQn0RShp5alewb52FC-jUBBIMDiO/pIasl1FRjVpjIq2lgIqWKAYmGB-w

Am i the only one that thinks the idea of “not using your intended class/skill/f2 to have the same damage as people with class/skill/f2” is wrong???

Pets do have there problems but essentially getting rid of them and buffing damage? hell if there doing that i want 30% MORE dam as i wont have access to my class ability like every other class that will be running around with the same dam %

If anet DOSE do this..i think it will show just how little they care for the ranger class.
But then again..look at the point its at now. i know theres a vocal minority but i think alot of rangers, new and old would prefer and use a option to turn there pet(CLASS MECHANIC)off just to have the SAME dam %…

And that’s sad

nice work putting all this together. i mained a ranger for a long time, dispite what people think its a nice class with some neat tricks..Iv done ALOT of low tier WvW and once leveled will be spending most of my time in it again.

For the server, the mesmer can port golems and hide in towers/keep for a steal

In TPvP or small skerms i guess the mesmers job is shutdown, with conditions/boon removal and interrupt/stun/confusion

But what about solo/roaming? ill be using your Confusion Bomber build as a starting point and find my way from there (because thats half the fun). As it is now could that build solo camps?
Any tips/tricks/builds primarily for WvW would be great

Im also getting bad lag from doing nothing but run around. And iv also been kicked and givin the error code 7:11:3:191:101 that says nothing more then i lost connection to the game host.

I have played over 800 hours of guild wars 2… 95% of it has been lag/ issue free.. the other 5% have been network issues on my end.

So thats around 800 hours of play with no serverside issues(not including events-wvw with 30-40+ people on screen) I think that’s pretty good

But at the moment i seem to have 10-30 seconds of lag free then it will hang for 5-30 seconds or lose connection to the server all together. Eveything else i do and my connection seem fine..I assume its serverside issue, so ill go do something else and try again tomorrow. Lets hope it is resolved or at least addressed by then.

Nice, it was kinda like watching myself play. I have tried a few different builds and gear sets but feel i do much better overall running this and have 100s of wvw hours with it. And with slight variations.
But this is what i now run most the time
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjEVN2BWKWoWCiVBB1ewJzjpniYteXhRVymqA-jkxA0iAReCdesIasVzioxq1Jiq9KER1A-w

Pretty much what your running with a few different trait skills and MT.
But after watching your vid i have to say that if you haven’t givin muddy terrain a good go you should. i have it in my 7 skill box and have it hotkeyed to G. casting it as much as i can. TBH once i hotkeyed it, its hard to find a bad time to use it. And with wilderness knowledge the cooldown is only 20 seconds, also reduces entangle from 150 to 120.

One that has surprisingly not said directly in this thread..Pressing F2 should cancel any current action the pet is doing and start casting its skill, the cast time would be fine If pressing F2 allways resulted in the pet trying to cast it skill, whether it misses or get interrupted is fine..
Having a reliable casting F2 would buff the ranger and pet use 10 fold, it would give rangers a “red mage” like mechanic, with a range of F2 skills to use no matter your current gear build..
The one scenario that keeps poping in my head is using my wolf in WvW, as many people do for its knockdown and fear.Can you imagine being in a 1v1 and no matter your build, knowing that press F2 will give you a fear in 2 seconds. you foe starts his burst, you do your evasive maneuvers,press F2 and make sure your near your wolf when it goes of.

Now in its current state F2 cast time is to inconsistent.
If this simple change was made, im sure you will see many more people optimizing there use with pets(use this skill, use that skill, press F2 then finish with that skill)

I dont care how weak the pet is, or how much “power” is deverted to a pet that barely lands a hit to anyone with a keyboard with WASD keys..i want to press F2 as a tactic and not as lets press and see what happens

I could go on about this for awhile, but its all been said at one point or another and i realize the OP is “5 reasonable changes” so

1) Pressing F2 cancels the pets current action/skill/attack and starts casting its skill

2) Two or more pet fight modes, the current one of running behind the target(for PvE)
and one for direct attack,takes quickest path to target and attack

3) Missing back item and Axe/whatever when throwing Axe,

4) The ability to save pet names

5)Pig F2 rework.summon to hand or cant be picked up/used by enemy’s

I should also note that i mostly play WvW and all my suggestion are based of that

Just in regards to the OP..As much as new maps would be awesome(understatment). The biggest problem i have is these “crappy masterys”..

There not “crappy” but pointless to most players who have already invested time into WvW. Its defeating to see a new ability be released knowing that your stats are already tide up in another skill line. im currently on the last bar of guard killer but would swap it for the “new” supply line..and as a roaming ranger the new reinfocement mastery seems well suited for me.

Im hoping Anet will do another stat reset when that update is released..if not its gonna be like 99% of the other wvw ability updates

“Hello WvW player! this update were releasing the new X mastery. we know you have already invested many points into various skills in the past. but im sure you will have a blast watching other use X mastery , it could be a vetren thats saved there points or a fresh player spending it for the 1st time. So please enjoy our new skills with non refundable skill points as im sure you will have as much fun maxing X mastery once you finish maxing your current skill. Or why wait? those 60 points are a waste! just start investing it in X mastery now and soon we will release Y mastery”

KinkyGiraffe.4123:

Noroz.9527:

KinkyGiraffe.4123:

Natar.3671:

It’s reset day. Go kill each other in wvw instead of forum wars

but OMNOMNOMNOMNOM NSP

EDIT: Look at that double team Dark Isle of Janthaven for the win! (dont mind our corner in eb gettin flogged) >.>
And again, we started in your borderlands ninjaring hills off of dh with 6 people, we now have nearly 15 roaming around, and little to no NSP, whats the go!

We have an extreme lack of coverage. That’s what’s keeping us in the lower tiers.

Your siege placement for defense isnt all that good, first an ac that can be aoed, then a balista…then decided to get a catapult up to hit our rams, 1 ac on that cliff would have done it for us! Or balista! Lol

I know pugs will be pugs, but there was a commander there! :P

Oh look, That’s me! (yay)
The ballista and catapult were my doing. ill explane why
If i had time to prepare there positions would of been changed. But there was already a ballista made by you guys, that could shoot a ballista built to cover the door of enemy rams(the one close to where i placed a cata in your SS).*

As i ran straght in to the supply in tower i saw a few of us killing a AC site you were building near your ballista, so from the tower supply i droped the blueprint out of range of your balista but in range of the AC also giving ballista coverage to a far bit of the ground.

THAT done i then go to the spot in the SS, line up your balista and put a cata out of its line of fire using the cliff and being in range to bomb your siege and rams..now there was near max supply when i arrived and not many people, 3-4 in the tower and a couple fighing outside/pushing to siege or just doin there own thing..

And as i grab the scraps of the supply one of your mesmers sucked me off the cliff killing me with the last of the sup, and the catapult unfinished(+1 to you mes)

I run all the way back from spawn, into tower and find the build site still there…
I finish it…
And damm…its the wrong way!
Start spinning it around to nuke the siege
Door fall’s….sad face GG

*ALSO in your SS the catapult is finished. meaning this SS is within 10-30 seconds of the door falling? that’s why im targeted on your screen and your all loling? our chat was quite and i missed the door % and was focused on finishing that cata to couter your siege(after running all the way back from spawn hoping it wasnt AoEed from the tunnle,and wasnt).

In hindsight you can always find things to do different..but besides maybe not being louder about building some counter siege, i think my siege…well..the idea behind it is good, and learnt from following some of our more dedicated commander during assaults and defends (Noroz being one of them)

Also i have to say that before this, when u took garrison…. that guy that came in right as you were capping it..that was me, and that was the 1st time we saw you inside(very much to late)we gathered 8 people being unable 2 start siegecrusher to take dawn were in the garrison, at the wall you were trebbing trying to come up with something..

I finished siege to cover the hole and went to build siege on the inner west garrison gate..but was met with a sea of red names and a green ring in lords as i jump down. Sad face GG

So iv searched these forums and the wiki and cant find much information regarding patch sizes. the old info i found seems that from a clean install the total patch size is around 3-5 gb? what is it now? or please tell me if iv missed this info somewhere
(i also know that the % is based on files remaining, not mb/gb%)