Guild Wars 2

I would suggest overriding any software mouse acceleration anyway, should solve any sensitivity issues. For example my Razer mouse can adjust sensitivity on the fly with their own drivers rather than the in-game sliders.

As for small UI, tough, you’ve got a 4k monitor and a GTX 1080 and I am jealous so you must squint and suffer for your indulgence.

On the subject of UI artwork, I am fairly sure the original art would have been much higher resolution even than 4K and is then scaled way down for icons etc. There must be some ultra hi-res originals somewhere.

anduriell.6280:

i use something like this
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAVWnEqAVsiNsAmsAUtgFOBzJwFqOcNDr+WAAOmeT7pnI9KtA-ThSGQB1TdnookrSqEcvjAQxuEAXS5gHVCeu9HOjuAA8AAIFg5isA-e

in general is ok for roaming in small groups or zerg.

for dueling i have a lot of trouble with medi-trapper Dh and staff dd because simply the Sb is very bad to manage(no utilities soever and not an effective evade\disengage) so you can’t keep a healthy distance.

Other classes it depends on the difference of skill.

This is interesting, it’s almost like the power/SB concept I threw out there.

Do you think 2600 armour and 20k health is too much though, given how survivable the Ranger and especially Druid are with their skills already?

I’ve dropped one, way back in the first Karka invasion when Southsun was introduced. I dropped Leaf of Kudzu, later sold it.

Ancient Seeds is good, I like to use Glyph of Equality to trigger it as well.

It’s not a Shortbow build but this is what I use for WvW at the moment;

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARWnUqAtsgVsCmsActglMBDem2THqP1gFwErJZFAOAnI9ztC-TlSBQBZUZgZUCqPNBW4IAAiLBAR2fAAPAA8oD4KK9El6PAA-w

I use something similar in PvE except I think I have Skirmishing over Wilderness Survival but same gear.

I’m not sure on the GS sigils though, I’d have to login and check because I haven’t actually changed some parts of my gear in a while, hence why I’ve been looking to change. I just picked something that was cheap and useful at the time since I hadn’t really settled on a build only that I wanted mostly berzerker gear as it was the meta before HoT. (And still is to some extent).

Asmodal.6489:

On the premise of not using torch – sigil of bursting for example is not doing a lot for you. also trying to get 100% condi duration is kinda lost in this build. for what? the 5- 10 stacks of poison from whi 2 are not even affected by your duration? the few cripples? you got. they are long enough without it. If you shoot for 100% bleed duration and around 50% for everything else you will be fine imo.

you are already running two survival skills. poison master (which does not affect your pet) is not so great compared to WK. Especially because you can ditch the heal trap for survival heal. In combo with durids live vicariously you get a 1k heal/ps +2 sec condi clear and you do not have to stand in on place to take advantage of it. my guess is you chose this heal simply because you wanted to make mor use of yout trap trait. just ditch the heal and the trap trait and take sharpened edges + WK. you be off much better with a good supply of fury and around 60-70% crit chance you are looking at a better overall dps increase.

also sigils: 6% damage increase on 150 bleed tick is pretty pathetic to waste a sigil slot for. yes it adds up but only if you get 25 might stacks. one has to go imo for sigil of corruption.

Overall I think you would go better with not trying to get as much condi damage and duration as possible (except for bleeds). you will be a bit mor flexible.

this is what i am running.. different concept really but can generate 2300 condi damage on its own and around 40 bleed stacks very fast.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBlODbkSFqZxyVwlFoaxQhQxDQpf6fCEtBQ/Br+LcyMxoL-TlSAQBWTlAsp0AAPBgbqEMQ7PogLAQIVmFR1dowBBIg6GIFQg7qA-w

My only issue with this build is I really like having 100% swiftness up-time or at the very least the flat 25% speed boosts. I know it’s not strictly required, you don’t need it to fight a boss and you don’t need it when zerging because someone in your group will provide it, it’s just a QoL thing for me.

Also, do you have enough cover conditions to prevent someone from just clearing the bleeds without access to torment and/or burning?

Here’s a question to throw out there, what would happen if you tried using a SB on a power build with S/A or GS on swap? I know the actual raw damage is pretty low but if you actually pushed it up with power and still get the bleeding damage albeit very modest bleeding damage.

If you want to pay a subscription there is nothing stopping you from buying 800 gems every month yourself and selling them for gold.

rpfohr.7048:

I just came up with this it has a lot of secret synergy

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARVjEqQNLWuCusAVLWMEsm31JoFwEAGdlO4s6YNteSrTbM-TpRFABAcEAOvMQK7Pk8hAYhHAQCXAAA

electric wyvern for stuns with ancient seeds and if it misses swoop into a daze strike for ancient seeds. Your defensive on swap weapon. you can also use smokescale and swoop for a get away.

SB pew pew is incredible. Bleeds so strong. Concussion shot to ancient seeds is of course a gimme. spike trap works so well. and the burst comes from sharp stone.

Sigils are important torment needed to cover your bleeds. use poison too on SB

Id never thought Id put GS with SB as one is condi and one isn’t but here it is!

That was my first reaction, GS+SB whaaaat? But I suppose you’re using the GS for it’s defensive capabilities so the fact that it’s damage output isn’t so great is a non-issue since you’re going to swap to SB for that.

I have always liked GS on the ranger, it’s just a shame the DPS has always been so low because it’s a very nice weapon to use, every skill has a use and feels really intuitive to use.

Your trait-lines are what I always seem to come up with when going for a condition build on druid, the only difference is you’ve taken shared anguish over ambidexterity because you’re not using A/T or S/T.

I just wish they would change the SB auto-attack to bleed on every hit rather than just a flanking hit.

There is so much condition removal on this build which I like, Wilderness Knowledge is an underrated trait in my opinion, decent fury up-time as well.

How do you think this build will fair in PvE? I know it’s not in the raid meta so even if it is functional there no group will want you but how about Fractals, Dungeons and Open World bosses?

Same for WvW as well, does it have any use there, maybe roaming?

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

Remus Darkblight.1673:

Can you actually see your DPS in the Special Forces Training Area or just the individual attacks from your combat log? I don’t see any options for it in the console?

Keep attacking until you kill the golem. You’ll see several summaries of the DPS. Sensibly, the game acknowledges the likelihood that people want to test rotations and combos and that DPS goes up and down over the course of a fight.

I see, so it takes a while when you’re on your own since even the weak golem has a lot of HP.

Since the last big update I noticed “Dragon’s Stand” has been doubled up on the map, it’s not game breaking and I don’t know if anyone else noticed this or if it’s just me? I don’t think it was like this before.

Can you actually see your DPS in the Special Forces Training Area or just the individual attacks from your combat log? I don’t see any options for it in the console?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNEQNAV8fjEqQLLWuC2sAVLWcEM4k6UNryEAmcVumvVsqDkimzySsA-ThiPABZqOA1qwguSPKfCAErbAg9Hq8iAQuyA9VCOmKDAA-e

Just tried this in PvP today, turned out pretty well, the damage from Spike Trap>Entangle>(meanwhile pet uses AoE Poison)Bonfire>Hornet Sting>Throw Torch>(swap)Quick Shot>Volley is ridiculous if you can pull off the whole chain. It’s pretty easy to cut it short at any point if you’re taking damage and it leaves you with distance between you and the enemy when it’s done too.

Jerus.4350:

Remus Darkblight.1673:

Thanks so much, I was expecting full condition builds but these are certainly interesting.

Any ideas for PvE content? Open world is basically anything goes but is there any place for SB in raids or fractals?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAnfVnMqA1siNrAGsCEtiFDBrpDEsqaMBg1VDAerGWLrlI80A-TxSAQBA4IA8FlXRU9n2oEsDnAgA8AAowhAYdLM4l9BCo+AspEhUALqsC-e

That’s what I use. Trinkets are better with vipers, but those are a pain to get as ascended, especially when you main a condi engi and play a lot of condi necro but don’t like to share gear. So that awaits.

This is my goal:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAnfVnMqA1siNrAGsCEtiFDBDerGWLrMBg1VDopDEsqalMtwA-ThSFQBXbhBf9EAan+AAcIA6n6PNUpXCOBAiUJoS2HgYKDIFwiKrA-e

The idea is simple, start in short bow, 4-2, weapon swap and bonfire to get quickdraw effect, then split blade-torch4- winters bite and then auto until bonfire/splitblade are up again hit those and back to short bow where you hit 4-2, and then keep them down until you hit the 4 skill 3 times then back to torch as bonfire will have refreshed.

Mix in healing as needed, keep the utilities down, glyphs for GoTL buff and their effects (yes elite too).

I use it in fractals mainly, I pug my raids so typically a magi druid is needed though actually a second one in a more dps focused build like this would likely be helpful.

You can increase your damage by going full ranger and grabbing up beastmaster and swapping spotter for hidden barbs, but that’s not something I’d really recommend doing, just some extra fun if you want.

Viper Amulet, Back Piece and Ring are now easy to get with the bloodstone stuff no?

Thanks so much, I was expecting full condition builds but these are certainly interesting.

Any ideas for PvE content? Open world is basically anything goes but is there any place for SB in raids or fractals?

Looking for a build that’s viable in as many game modes as possible (with modifications) or alternatively just a selection of builds using the Shortbow.

I’m looking at making Chuka and Champawat on my Ranger and would like to use it in as many game modes as I can for obvious reasons

Spiny Git – Bristleback
Shady git – Smokeskale
Chawizawd – Fire Drake

“Burn me… it’s a stingray”

Thought I’d bump my own thread rather than make a new one.

Suggestions on this as a bit of a catch all?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNEQNAsYVjMqQLLWuC2sAVLWcEMmAwkryBnUnqZ1mvVsqDciLTzC-TRSoABAoygMnCAEUnJM9B4o0rQlBLt/glKBj5JAAA-e

Fluffball.8307:

Stuff

Wholeheartedly agree, On my builds I actually use I’m a big fan of not being afraid to mix in different stats or use defensive rune sets on offensive armour, especially when the set bonuses can be quite nice.

For WvW I like to get somewhere around 20k health and maybe 2500 toughness? There has to be a sweet spot somewhere.

If someone has a Sword/Dagger & Shortbow condi build that can be feasible in all game modes without having to swap out traits, skills & equipment you would be my best friend forever. That way I can go for Chuka & Champawat knowing I’ll get to use it, rock my S/D fashion parade and also not have to spend a fortune on multiple armour sets and remembering to swap traits around between PvE and PvP.

Sadly I don’t think such a catch all build exists, not even gear-wise but with build swapping.

So, I went and faffed about with the build editor to see how much condition damage I could pile into a build and came up with this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNEQNAsYVnMqAtsglrAWsCUtgFHBr5bFrKawJ1paWlJAM5qcpMLpeGL-TRyXABDr8Ag9BGVfgeKxyWJYjLMM3TAYW1fo7UAQKg7WWB-e

It was just a bit of fun so I have no idea if it’s even useful but my only aim was to see just how much condition damage I could squeeze out of a build.

Why Sword/Dagger instead of Axe/Torch? I like Swords and Daggers more from an aesthetic standpoint, that’s all. I haven’t managed to find a build that uses S/D that even approaches the meta stuff, though I’d like to as I do love the combination.

What would the stats be with A/T instead?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNEQNAnfVnMqAtsglrAWsCUtgFHBjJAM5qcwJ1paWt5bFrKapE7sk6J-TRyXABNuwwo6DAYfghVeMr6P0dKAyWJoeKxm7JAQKg7WWB-e

Absolutely mental amounts of damage that’s what.

Features of this build:
+100% condition duration
Just shy of 2500 condition damage with consumables and hitting 25 stacks of might (can’t do this by itself so would need help to achieve these numbers)
S/D variant – 10k poison/16s on an 8s cooldown and 10k bleed/16s on a 12s cooldown
A/T variant – 27.5k burn/6s on a 20s cooldown and 12k burn/12s on a 12s cooldown

There’s probably better pet choices but I was just mucking about and like to break the mould when it comes to what everyone normally uses in the meta, I am aware this isn’t always a good thing.

Feedback and critique welcome, I’m always interested in ways people play to the strengths of the Ranger class and the fun min/maxing that can be done.

Someone had a really sarcastic response on here earlier about allocating valuable dev resources to something so trivial. Guess they deleted it.

I think it’s a fine idea, you aren’t always removed from the party forcibly (kicked). I think dismissed is a pretty good catch all for any reason to remove someone.

I don’t see why this is a big issue as once you have your bank slots maxed you can just feed them the over-spill.

Having checked out Wiki pages for various other games in my time. Including other generally very good Wikis (UESP wiki was always pretty good) the Guild Wars pages really are up there with some of the best.

[Insert Class Here] sucks/needs a buff

This phrase is one I see on every class forum somewhere on the front page. The post will often complain about XYZ other class being better or overpowered and needing a nerf, and/or will bemoan the class in question, how it’s underpowered and needs a buff. Sometimes the post will even go into what seems like some well thought out reasoning behind it as well.

I can draw from this one of two conclusions;
One answer is that these posts are correct, based on facts and data, resulting in the conclusion that every single class in this game is simultaneously underpowered and needing a buff but also OP and needing a nerf…
Alternatively, everyone believes the class that they main is lacklustre, jaded and boring to them. They feel that the grass is greener on the other side. Every other class has it made but theirs sucks.

I’m not crazy am I? Every forum is full of people moaning about the state of their favourite class, this can’t be right though. Either one of them is categorically the best and one the worst, or they are all much of a muchness and some people just think that they see a bias?

If I go into one of the class forums I would be led to believe that that class is the worst in the game and some other class is the best, but if I go to that class forum, I get the opposite opinion.

I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on this, even if only as an observation of the human condition.

Ashe Lewis.9815:

Rizelstar

Though I’m sure you’re correct but I would like to hear something from an A-Net staff member or engineer, cause I think it’s all about the money, but I can see it being an engine issue.

I rarely post on the forums so I just had my account upgraded to a developer one. So Tidgepot is indeed a dev because I’m Tidgepot! My those my posts earlier in this thread still stand. I’m sorry about the confusion :P

Mo Mo

I know everything takes time and work, but I also agree with you that as players we would both love dyeable back items. If you have any voice in the company, maybe you could suggest that most of the current back items are just fine and wouldn’t need dye channels. Ya’ll don’t need to do more work than necessary just for the sake of old back items.

Like I said before, I’m an just artist so I’ll elaborate on what I understand as best as I can, but I’m no engineer.

This sounds like a it could be good idea, but it doesn’t sidestep the issue of categorization and what certain types of assets can do. The older assets would still be affected. We’d still encounter a ton of programing challenges and bugs from altering a core mechanic of the game and the years of code built on top of it. Every player and many npcs use items, so the wrong bug slipping through can have a major impact on everyone in the game. Not to mention finding that bug could be like searching for a needle in a haystack because of how fundamental this part of our system is. We’d still probably end up having to re-author and retexture all old items (which would take a ton of resources) and even if we did do that, more players may end up upset by the minor texture changes to their current gear than those who can’t dye backpacks.

A workaround could be a new asset type, but our engine is old and finicky— it would certainly take a lot resources to teach it to parse through something so fundamental.

I have to admit it is disappointing to hear that it would be such a difficult task and therefore unlikely to be implemented.

I will be keeping my backpack and just have to use it on a character with a blue+gold theme and then dye the glider on one that is using a different backpack. Obviously this means I won’t have the cool folded glider effect.

In my opinion if a glider has dye channels, making a back pack to go with it should be avoided.

TLDR summary:
Glider+back pack combos, don’t allow any dyes channels.
Glider only, consider having dye channels where appropriate.

I finally got the Unbound Guardian achievement after running the whole event chain again yesterday. Funny thing is, I don’t think I did anything different this time.

OGDeadHead.8326:

finkle.9513:

Ive come to the conclusion that if i want anything nice in the game, ive got to turn my mind to rot, and repeat the same thing over and over and over again… ANET its bloody boring!!

- New ascended back piece – 5000 unbound magic and 500 blood rubies

Just means repeat killing bosses over and over for a few days/ weeks… This is not very diverse, very grindy, and simply boring!

While I personally don’t mind it much (been there done that in many mmo’s), I do agree and am mostly amused by the fact that Anet stated they wouldn’t go down this path of grinding. I did however play Vanguard Saga of Heroes, and the “grind” in this game is nothing compared to that!

Rest in Peace Vanguard..

Glad it’s not just me, I killed all the Jades from the start and then the unbound guardian following the whole chain. Got all event rewards but not the achievement.

I defeated the unbound guardian and did not receive the achievement, also gave the /yes emote to Alari Doubleblade immediately after the event and did not receive achievement credit either.

I received event credit for both but not the achievements.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

I predict that I’ll have barely started LW3 when there will already be people posting that they’re out of content and bored.

~EW

You are the reason I read these forums sometimes XD

My current main Ranger/Druid sporting Order of Whispers themed colours.

Lightbringer’s Pack
Falconer’s Mask
Stalwart Shoulders
Heart of Koda
Falconer’s Gloves
Bladed Leggings
Whisper’s Secret Boots
Wielding the Hall of Monuments Fellblade

I play with everything maxed out on a 5 year old system.
i5 2500k, 8gb RAM and an AMD Radeon 6970. Only places I get poor frames tends to be big crowds and HoT. Exploring the core maps without loads of players is smooth.

Having not played the DD yet I don’t know how much I’ll enjoy staff. What’s the general opinion on S/D + SB or S/P + SB? The sword and off-hand pistol or dagger appeals to me aesthetically but I don’t really know where it’s role sits on the thief.

Quick edit, going to make some gear now, I have the materials and I’m thinking of making Marauder’s exotics for now over Zerker. Thief is super squishy at the best of times and using Marauder’s armour and ascended amulet with zerker weapons and back item yields a good 30-40% more HP. Is a force multipler of naff all still naff all though? The other upshot to this is I still need to do some discoveries on my leather worker to get him to 500 and this will help

Something like this for now:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZEQNAsaVl0MhenYZTw2JQ/EH8El+M/hAoHEJ4N4TisoKA-TBiDQBfQfQXUC6DlY4T9HAYiBiKD2x+DORpBA-e

I’m not too bothered about being completely min-maxed so long as it “works” for now and is fun to play. Unless I am missing something critical that will hamper me significantly?

Thanks for the tips guys, I’m an experienced player so this isn’t my first map completion, also not my first 80 alt but I’m getting bored with my Druid so wanted to try something on the other end of the support/damage spectrum for a change.

Right, expert thief players, I’ve just rolled an alt thief, he’s level 80 out of the box with tomes but has zero gear and no build. (Also haven’t unlocked DD yet) I’m going to craft him exotics and give him a PvE build for mapping and general stuff. Hit me with builds and gear choices, need to cover as many PvE bases as possible with one set so I can work towards getting him 100% map and ascended down the line. =)

Some very good points about conflicts with current functionality of skills. I hadn’t really thought about all of those to be honest.

A crude workaround for some of them at least, could be to have your pet still exist but as a sort of invisible puppet that does not attack or take damage but simply takes on the effects of the pet transferring any boons it gains directly to the ranger and absorbing conditions or CC as per the traits. It wouldn’t be a perfect solution as it could be both underpowered and overpowered in different situations mechanically.

I guess an easier way to make those that don’t like the pet but want to be a ranger happy would be to fix the AI of the existing pets or perhaps create a way to make them “heel” and always stick very close to you, kind of like the scrapper function gyro does while still being a separate entity rather than a visual effect, charging out to use skills. It’d be a good way to utilize pets when you are using melee weapons so they always attack as you do?

Okay, disclaimer first. I don’t totally hate pets and I appreciate that if you don’t want to have them, then perhaps playing a ranger isn’t for you.

That said, here’s an idea (may have been suggested before, I don’t know, haven’t really checked)

Spirit Shaman elite spec.

Instead of choosing a pet to accompany you, you gain a spirit companion based on the root pet type e.g. Canine, Feline, Drake etc.

Your pet no longer accompanies you but instead you gain a large passive buff to your stats leaning towards different stats and/or damage depending on which spirit companion you choose. You also gain a one shot ability on a cool down that manifests the spirit and creates an effect as a class mechanic, a bit like your pets original active ability.

Gain access to either..
Spirit Weapons – In the form of spirit animals with relevantly themed command abilities
-or-
Spectral Skills – Again based around spectral animals (think of the way skills like swoop and maul project an eagle and bear.)

Not sure what I’d personally prefer on this one, I think I’m leaning towards spectral as spirit weapon skills are vastly underappreciated and are too reminiscent of a pet class which won’t sit well with people looking to play a ranger that moves away from this.

Gain access to Scepters as a power based alternative to the condition damage shortbow and hybrid main-hand axe.

The skills and utilities could give the ranger more reliable direct DPS options. Just a bit of fun theory crafting and would be interesting to hear what people think.

ellesee.8297:

Been getting into raiding and everywhere I go I am told Engi is trash in raids. Pretty good in PvP/WvW and lesser PvE though.

Why is it trash in raids? People are very quick to dismiss certain classes as trash or OP in various situations but rarely give a specific reason why this is.

Okay, so no one seems to be posting in these sticky threads much any more.

I’m going to post a build anyway, I’ve only just started really playing my Engineer, as a scrapper. Built for general roaming PvE, world events, dungeons/fractals and whatever else it’s meant to be a bit of a generalist.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vdAQFAUlUUh2tY9VwkLQ+FLsFF4IuBBQ4SdRvmYHNFPBA-TFyHwACVeoX9HmKB7pEbwDAwhOAR7PA4CAQGgitA-w

The main downside is lack of condi-clear and swiftness having to make do with 25% speed boost from mecha-legs and using Hoelbrak runes to keep condition duration down.

I’m open to suggestions for changes/alternatives though I’ve tried to hit a sweet spot on survivability and damage, the gear is mostly theory-crafting at the moment as I don’t have access to all of it yet.

Just started playing my Scrapper recently, seems fun so far.

I see a lot of back and forth regarding the sword auto-attack. One camp insists it is broken and needs to be fixed, the other says it is fine and just needs skill to use. I say, why not give ranger another 1-handed melee weapon?

Half the reason that sword bugs me is that it is the only choice for 1-hand main that is not a ranged weapon. This can be a pain when you want to experiment with different off-hands, but don’t want to micromanage your auto-attack and dodges all the time. I often run great sword (particularly in open world PvE), because it’s just so easy to use, defensive, and quite mobile. I would like to see another 1-handed melee option, that sits somewhere between the sword and the great sword in terms of offense/defense, with a regular non-sticky-jumpy auto-attack.

Does anyone else agree? What weapon would you pick and how could it fit into the overall game balance?

Cheeky bump, we’re still growing our numbers. Get in touch here or in game via PM or mail!

I’m getting somewhat mixed opinions here. Cuzican says PvE farming and no use for PvP or WvW and then Sube Dai says it’s got a place in PvP and WvW but not PvE? I’m always keen to stray from the norm as a player, it’s fun to make something unusual actually work. I mainly use my ranger for both group and solo PvE content, especially open world stuff. Does the axe have a place there or should I stick to GS and LB, a meta that’s getting pretty stale on me now.

I know the offhand axe can see some use alongside a sword main-hand but I have not seen anyone using main-hand axe in a very long time. Has anyone gotten any viable use out of it? What experiences have you had with them?

Horizon of Fate is looking to recruit members into a casual and laid back guild. We would like to grow the guild into a thriving community, driven by like-minded members who enjoy all sides of the content the game has to offer.

Requirements

• We have no age restrictions however we do want to build a mature community.
• We are all currently from the UK – GMT or nearby is preferred.
• We don’t force members to participate – we understand that sometimes you just want to log in and work on your Indiscriminate Slayer title.
• We do encourage team work so only expect to receive what you put in.
• We have a guild website that can be found at http://fateshorizon.shivtr.com/ and with future growth we will look into adding a voice chat server of some kind.

If you want to find out more you can register on the guild site and contact any of the leaders in-game via mail or whisper: Eris Letha, Silas Darkblight and Amber Eagleye.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Jelzouki.4128:

A cooler mechanic than dual longbow would be giving rangers special arrows that serve different purpose i.e fire arrow, etc.

This is actually stolen from World of Warcraft. I don’t think we need it.
We have trait for crippling our ranged targets, we have runes for chilling them or blasting with fire. That idea is not needed in my opinion.

Because World of Warcraft is the font from which all original ideas spring forth? It’s not an original idea but it’s certainly not stolen from World of Warcraft. You can find plenty of examples of ranger-esque characters using different types of arrows in video games long before Blizzard behemoth hit the scene.

That being said, and this is probably the wrong thread for it given that it is clearly not to be taken seriously, different arrow preparations is perhaps not a bad idea as a mechanic. So many people want to get rid of the pet, so why not have preparations as a unique mechanic toggle, like Elementalist attunements, except they provide a passive effect to your attacks rather than changing your primary skills?

They are very much a jack-of-all master of none class. Sure they have a lot of strengths but every other class can do at least one of those things much better. I actually like them for this, it’s very easy to produce a build that performs modestly in almost any situation. This is great for lazy players like me who hate to cart around multiple sets of gear and change traits all the time.

I also hate that rap the class gets in high end PvE content like dungeons. Played properly a Ranger is a great addition to groups, you just need to learn not to constantly sit at range plinking with the bow and realise how solid defensively the greatsword is and how much damage the sword puts out. You can take a water field (healing spring), group precision buff (spotter), group AoE damage buff (frost spirit) which compliments group-wide might stacking from warriors and, to top it off, your pet can continue to draw aggro and deal damage while you actively pick up downed team mates.

Not sure what the point of this post was, Rangers are pretty cool, not the ultimate death machine (Warrior), healbot (Elementalist), boon spammer (Guardian) or super tank (Necromancer) but they have a place and are very flexible, let’s not mention the engineer though.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Bears because I don’t even need to ask for build/gear. I just click kick

Bear because it is the natural extension of the bow!

I normally run Jungle Stalker & Red Moa for group might and fury stacking.

Just on aesthetics I like the Black Moa, Krytan Drakehound, the Lashtail and Carrion Devourers and the Ravens/Eagles.

I guess I just love pets.

I went and made my original idea last night. Actually works pretty well.

I like your idea of using Phalanx strength to capitalize on the insane amount of might you can already stack on yourself and give it to your party. I might try swapping that in and out depending on whether I need more offense or defense from inspiring battle standard.

Sigils was one thing I wasn’t really sure of. I went for the accuracy and condi removal/healing on my original build partly because they seemed to support what I wanted to do and partly because they are cheap. The same can be said for runes of the pack, it was investment enough for me to drop 20g into a set of pack runes while strength/hoelbrak ones are 5x the price.

I stuck with Assassin’s armour since I lost less than 100 power overall and gained about 5% critical hit chance, plus the material available to me saved me some gold since I was already making zerker weapons and trinkets using up all my powerful blood.

I will have to check out the skill changes and trait switches mentioned and see how they feel. I can see how using the strength runes FGJ is going to keep 6 stacks of might on the party most of the time on its own. I do like that dropping deep strike for rending strikes actually nets more precision when using standard of discipline, i’m just sometimes too lazy to drop multiple standards in short encounters (this is more a case of me knowingly playing badly rather than maximizing my build so bit of a moot point)

Thanks for your input Purple Miku, you’ve given me some points to think about.

Hello, I don’t post here often but I do read the forums a lot, usually after build ideas or advice.

As I couldn’t find any decent consensus on what would make a good general PvE content build. Something you can have fun with running open world content, fractals, dungeons and the like. I thought I’d have a bash at making something myself.

Build here

What I wanted this build to do:

1. Move quickly across distances when travelling around for me and my party.

• Warhorn provides a longer swiftness duration than its cooldown.

2. Buff party when in world events or dungeons

• Banners
• Empower Allies trait
• Warhorn skills

3. Deal a reasonable amount of damage

• Assassin/Berzerker equipment
• High critical hit chance – deep strike + runes & sigils gives almost 75%
• Deals extra damage to foes with conditions
• Might stacking on criticals with the Greatsword

4. Not be a total glass cannon

• Traited quite heavily into tactics
• Healing signet + inspiring battle standard for lots of regen
• Stun breaker + condition removal on signets with reduced cooldowns

A couple of notes on my choices of gear. I’m not the richest player in the game, I don’t yet have access to maxed out ascended everything so I went with exotic gear for the most part. Ascended trinkets are easy enough to get hold of though. I picked runes of the pack as they aren’t the most expensive and help with my swiftness duration, power and precision. I chose my sigils the same way, water & purity are cheap as you like and help fill a blind spot in self condition removal.

Unfortunately I’ve not yet taken the plunge to buy all the gear and test it yet. My current warrior is a Sword/Sword condition build so will need a totally new set of equipment. I just thought I’d float the build here first to get some feedback.

tigirius.9014:

I use runes of the traveler because basically I don’t notice that much of a difference. I also use the trait for gaining swiftness while in combat from a crit. Even a dodge explosive can cause it and it’s great for getting out of sticky situations while in combat which does occur sometimes despite our best efforts to get by mobs.

The Rune of Traveler set includes a bonus time to boons, condition duration, and 25% movement speed out of combat which is great because you don’t have to fiddle with kits over and over again to get the speed effect it’s on all the time and since it’s only 8% from the 33% run speed from swiftness you’ll never notice. I’ve actually tried using swiftness while this is on and when swiftness wore off while running I was amazed at how little a difference there was.

I also use sigils of strength and battle to offset the damage loss. Seems to work pretty well.

My gear is P/P, bomb kit, EG. I find that the cooldown for the switching rune is quite low so might stacks pretty frequently from switching kits, and crits aren’t difficult to achieve in any weapon/kit so might stacks frequently combined with the typical use of vuln and you’ve got a good system of improving damage overall.

My build is a hybrid however which some min/maxers might not find so awesome I find I have no issues. precision toughness condi gear with precision power toughness accessories and a 4/6/0/4/0 setup life is pretty good I have condi removal, burns on crit, bigger bombs, 2% dmg per condition on enemy, vuln and swiftness on crit, and protection injection.

here’s the build hope this helps keep in mind I rarely do dungeons and focus mainly on open world, however when I am in dungeons I almost never have any issues with this build. Oh and the website doesn’t reflect the actual crit chance since I can’t add the scores I get from the gear I’m wearing to the linked calculation.

Click the PvE mode button in the top right and you can select gear as well.