Guild Wars 2

Sharpening stone is garbage.

I used to main Ranger before the pet damage nerf, shortbow nerf, quickness nerf, petswap trait nerf, and before the recent buffs to Warrior. I now main Warrior and have been playing the build you describe, mace/shield + GS.

Honestly, you will need to be a much better player to beat this new breed of Warrior. Time your evades well, stay out of melee range when he has his mace out. Be super aggressive with Rampage as One, try to do as much damage as you possibly can while stability is up. Once you lose stability and start eating stuns, you’re screwed.

This is my old Ranger build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdsmOmMwXCo

I became disgruntled after the quickness and pet damage nerfs so I stopped playing for a while. I recently came back to see what had changed in the last few months to find some interesting things. The shortbow nerf is another nail in my Ranger’s coffin but the longbow buff is nice. I messed around with my Ranger a lot to see if I could come up with an effective build but felt like nothing really gelled well enough. I could go into detail about specific traits/weapons/utilities but that’s a TLDR waiting to happen.

So… I leveled up a Warrior and I’ve been roaming in WvW. To my own surprise, holy crap I am a total powerhouse. I’ve got a short guide video for my current build uploading now, it will be available here: http://youtu.be/66zDxuTSsnM

To the point:

I want to try my hand at a little whining about class balance because I feel like Warrior is far away the superior of any Ranger with the exception of perhaps a couple of super specialized situations or builds.

Warrior traits are more powerful than Ranger traits. This isn’t just a feeling I get based on certain trait synergies, this is something demonstrable. This is just one example related to the Greatsword:

1:
Master trait for Warrior: Forceful Greatsword – 20% CD reduction AND might on crits.
Master trait for Ranger: Martial Mastery – 20% CD reduction. Thats it.

2:
Master trait for Warrior: Slashing Power – 10% increase in GS damage.
Master trait for Ranger: Two-Handed Training – 5% increase in GS damage.

Why the disparity? These traits are all majors of the same level. They don’t involve the Ranger’s pet in any way. There are no bow traits that compare in power to these warrior traits. To me it isn’t explicable. Yes, Rangers have access to some builds and traits that work well together. Yes, class balance is a delicate matter that involves far more aspects than this. Yes, -insert obvious detail about GW2 here-. This is still not OKAY.

Those are two very straight forward examples.

Just want to throw it out there that Warriors get 400 hp per second passive from Healing Signet now without ANY healing power gear. That is half of Troll Unguent but with permanent uptime, PASSIVE.

Robert Hrouda, you need to stop being so humble and make a little noise in balance discussions.

Sincerely.

Stealth is a crutch for thieves in the same way shield block and endure pain are for warriors. A warrior running sword/shield + greatsword can troll with mobility in much the same way.

I’m not defending stealth. I think stealth begs for trolling that just frustrates and annoys more than anything else, but thieves have been balanced around it so there really isn’t a solution. WvW roaming is a circus stage, no point being affected by it.

Counters to skull crack:

150+ distance
Blind
Dodge
Stability
Invulnerability
Block
Daze
Stun
Pushback
Knockdown

If you fail at the above, then use one of these:

Guardian:
“Save Yourselves!”
“Stand Your Ground!”
Contemplation of Purity
Judge’s Intervention
Virtue of Courage (with Shielded Mind trait)

Warrior:
“Shake It Off!”
Balanced Stance
Endure Pain
Frenzy
Stomp

Engineer:
Elixir S
Elixir U
Utility Goggles
Healing Mist
Rumble
Super Speed

Ranger:
Lightning Reflexes
“Protect Me”
Quickening Zephyr
Signet of Renewal

Theif:
Haste
Infiltrator’s Signet
Roll for Initiative
Shadow Return
Shadowstep

Elementalist:
Arcane Shield
Armor of Earth
Mist Form
Glyph of Elemental Power
Signet of Air

Mesmer:
Blink
Decoy
Mirror Images
Power Break
Signet of Midnight
Swap

Necro:
Necrotic Traversal
Plague Signet
Spectral Armor
Spectral Walk
Well of Power

I don’t get it. Do you think this thief was supposed to just keel over and die to your hammer? He got smashed and had to run, just barely made it out alive before his buddy arrived. No doubt he talks about your stuns in the same way you talk about his blinds and stealth.

Oh wait, you’re like 10x better at the game than him right? D/P is easy mode, hammer requires epic skills. OOOOKAAAAYYY BROOOO.

Good vid, nice gear, thanks for the entertainment. Your attitude sucks.

Healing signet heals for 8000 every 20 secs with no healing power and without having to even press a button. The other heals don’t compare.

So I did the math on Healing signet and 392 health every 3 seconds amounts to 2613 over 20 seconds. So the active heal of 3275 + 2613 = 5888 over 20 seconds. Mending heals for 5240 on a 20 sec cooldown with faster cast time and 3 conditions removed. I feel like healing signet isn’t worth it. The passive healing is lost once you use your heal, so in a close fight you’re going to get much more mileage out of mending. Am I missing something here?

Looks good, I’m going to try something similar. You might be better off with major trait ‘opportunist’ in Arms instead of ‘blademaster’. Opportunist has good synergy with leg specialist, fury can be kept up constantly with sword #1 chain and LB #5 will also give fury.

You don’t have 15pts in WS for the protection on dodge, or even 5pts for the 50% endurance regen, to me those are must haves for basic survival. You also have no mobility skills for when things go badly. You either win with the group, die with the group, or die without the group, so you better hope you have a good group. This is the kind of build that gives rangers a bad name. If you enjoy it thats fine, but you’re leading newbies astray by posting it here.

Edit: Spirits without any spirit traits, and no defensive utilities or stunbreaker.

“(This build is made for group/guild WvW play, and is not recommended for SPvP or solo play. Please recognize this when posting your critiques and comments)” – duly recognized.

GS is one of our best weapons already, this patch will be great. I don’t know what you guys are talking about hating on GS, seriously.

Yea conditions are an issue, against condition builds I basically stand in Healing Spring for the full duration, and when it’s not up I evade as much as possible. I had a long fight against a confusion mesmer the other day that just became a stalemate. Since I had to stay in HS a lot of the time and couldn’t attack with confusion on, he used his illusions to block line of sight so they tanked a lot of my SB damage. There is a build for almost every opponent but in WvW there are so many different opponents you can face, I think its best to use a versatile build that can handle as many different ones as possible and make the most of it. When you’re in a bad situation, having the mobility to get away is the most important thing.

Runes of Divinity aren’t THAT great, there are plenty of other good defensive and offensive options.

The video link contains a content filtered series of characters which are replaced by ‘kitten’… lol. Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/DFValroth, its the first video.

This is a follow-up video showing how to deal with D/D Thieves.

Your build looks good, I need to start adding in some ascended gear. The key which I said was target lock/unlock is actually “Lock Autotarget” in the keybinds. With Autotargeting turned off and Lock Autotarget bound to left shift it will deselect your target if you have one.

Roeore.6274:

Hey Valroth,
I really like the look of your build.
I just finished getting cleric armor (takes me a while casual player) so dont really want to re grind for new stuff. Any ideas on what runes, trinket jewellery I could use to balance out my stats?

Regards Roeore

Cleric is fine, you’ll get more use out of heals, just have to make up for the difference in precision and toughness. I’d probably go for a mix of knight’s and cavalier trinkets all with Exquisite emerald jewels, that should get you over 35% crit chance. Use some maintenance oil for +precision with that and you’re really not far off from what I’m using, and you have the extra healing power.

kiwituatara.6053:

Do you turn off auto-target? I keep asking people this~
When I’m running melee weapons, I prefer having it off, with SB/LB, I prefer having it on. How do you guys deal with it? SB manual-targeting can be annoying sometimes when you misclick.

Yea I have it turned off. I also have target lock/unlock bound to left shift which I only use to deselect my target for swooping away. I find it much easier than reaching up to the escape key in clutch moments. You can see in the video at one point while using shortbow I lost target somehow on my opponent for a good 5-10 seconds before I noticed. I was still firing, wondering why I wasn’t seeing any damage. Still not sure how it happened but it can be costly, I can understand why some people like to keep it on. I’ll be more aware of it in future.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Hybrid-BeastMaster-GS-SB-build-guide

Try this, or some variation, seems like the best all around build I’ve found so far.

Interesting use of a weekend.

Thieves have a gimmicky mechanic that requires a lot of experience and knowledge of game mechanics in order to fight against. I think educating people is a good idea, but you’re better off making a proper instructional video for people that addresses all the issues rather than expecting people to put in the effort themselves and then be told what they do wrong.

Manekk.6981:

I think you can still finish someone quickly with a condition spec, in fact I find it to have higher burst aslong as you can apply them fast enough wich is easy to do, only exeption would be someone that can cleanse themselves often, I tried just about everything and found that no matter what I do or how I spec or what gear I pick there will be a weakness somewhere that can’t be fully fixed.

Currently I run a 0/0/20/20/30 spec with the majority of gear being “rabid” got mad king/affliction runes, bleed/healthsteal sigils and use healthsteal on crit food and the huntsman oil.

I find it’s the one I liked best so far in terms of working well overall but yeah you’ll have problems with highly mobile classes like mesmers wich your beastly strong pet can barely touch or the thieves that aren’t visible for more than a split second making it impossible to apply lots of bleeds and your pet not only isn’t helping you but even helps him by allowing him to stealth more, but it does work well for most other situations both in pve and pvp pretty high damage with very high survival and somewhat decent as a group buffer too.

I haven’t tried that particular setup, seems like it would work. I’m assuming you’re using sword+torch/shortbow?

Dojo.1867:

Why not 30 skirmishing for momemt of clarity? The increased daze/stun time feels great and it offers a +50% dmg pet strike also for shortbow 5.

It is a question of what to sacrifice in order to get it. I can’t be without at least 15 in WS for protection on dodge, and I’m not comfortable taking points out of BM just yet. Perhaps something like 0/30/20/5/15 could work well, but the difference in pet DPS and survivability seems like it would be too significant.

paleeshi.1924:

Hello! Thanks for sharing this build.

It has some basic ideas I’ve had behind building my Ranger (mixing survivability with damage). I was going to do a 20/15/30/0/5 with similar gear set up (knight mixed with Cavalier and few soldier) for PvE/WvW. Then I started using a BM build in sPvP 0/20/0/20/30, but using cleric instead, which I really grew very fond of and started thinking of transferring to my PvE build. Basically there are few things that leaves me undecided. Since you have made a similar build (BM build with Knight’s/Cavalier gear), maybe you could answer a few things that leaves me undecided.

1. I’ve been debating if BM builds with your sort of gear set up would be viable without any clerics. E.g using cleric trinkets and knight armor, though that would reduce your damage. So I’m debating for more dps or more healing power? Which would you benefit more from in this situation?
2. Kinda don’t want to give up Piercing Arrow trait in Marksmanship, but I guess it would be OK since they only pierce in a strait line anyway.
3. Still debating on weapon set. Since I like sword and horn. I understand the idea of GS for mobility. SB is great control tool and gives extra evades. But I’ve considered Axe/horn just for the extra range instead of SB (I just love horn :P). Ofc weapons can be swapped depending on situation. In dungeons and WvW I’d probably use different weapon set ups.

1. This build could use more healing power, but keep in mind that using cleric’s gear will also reduce your toughness and precision, meaning you get less use out of your crit damage. Toughness and healing power have a similar effect in increasing overall survivability. Against direct damage I think you’re better off with more toughness, but for mitigating condition damage healing power is clearly better. I’m happy with my current setup but there are situations where cleric gear would be superior, against a condition thief, trap ranger, or a condition based bunker.
2. Piercing arrows is great for taking camps and bunched players in a zerg, for general roaming I find it fairly useless.
3. I personally wouldn’t be without GS at this point, swoop and block have saved me too many times.

Beardmonger.4692:

Can you recommend another rune set besides Divinity for those of us who don’t have enough gold for that set?

Runes of the Ranger are good, less overall stats but more crit chance and the 5% damage bonus is nice.

On a budget, Runes of the Pack are decent for extra damage stats.

Best bang for your dollar would be Runes of the Grove (about 8s each atm on TP) would actually work well for more healing, protection duration, and the root effect. I’m tempted to get another set with these runes actually. I think you would need precision food with this though.

Auberon.4653:

That`s very nice video, but 1 remark: Damage is crap? so, in this build you are usless for your team in militrain at any mass PvP battle and usless at siege as range DD. Yes, you can dueling, but you`ll not be able even to cupture a supplay point, it takes too much time. Well, it does mean in this build rangers are absolutely usless for team. And if so, what the reason to be at WvW? Jast to make queue?

It is an attrition dueling build yes, but healing spring with high HP like this does provide plenty of benefit to a group. Also, this build would be great for creating distractions/buying time and possibly scouting. I prefer more of a damage focused roaming build myself, at least to take camps, but there is more to WvW than facerolling with a zerg. The beauty of GW2 is that you can build a character for many different purposes.

Check the video when it’s up, damage is not really an issue with this build.

I have some problems with condition spec, I find they are more attrition based and lack finishing power. When roaming in WvW you have to get the job done quickly. That might be just my experience, but there is a trade-off in mobility and utility. Without a doubt there are better builds for damage, and there are better builds for survival/attrition, this is somewhere in the middle.

Great videos, is it a coincidence I’m working on a Hybrid Beastmaster video with GS/SB right now? I like your style.

The ranger is my favorite class too and I have invested far too much in many sets of exotic armor trying to find a sweet spot somewhere. I think I have found my comfort zone, at least for now, with a GS/SB Hybrid Beastmaster build. I’m uploading a video soon.

Ranger seems simple enough on the surface, but it has a lot of depth and nuance once you explore your options, as I’m sure you’re aware. Perhaps your idea of a classical ranger isn’t quite the same as Anet’s?

I’m hoping for some love.

Made a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTA--lVnQ8M

Narya Firering.9301:

Great build!

I was wondering why you picked the greatsword as weapon. There is an entire thread about this weapon and why some players don’t like it. What about the sword for example? I am just curious.

People seem to be complaining mostly about GS damage. I didn’t play beta so I didn’t get burned by the damage nerf. I use GS because it has great utility. Swoop is the key skill for me, being able to engage and disengage easily is very important, #4 and #5 are very useful as well. I have Shortbow for single target DPS, although its not like GS doesn’t have similar damage in a standing fight, but standing fights are not a ranger’s forte. Sword is fine, but it is also a single target DPS weapon and doesn’t do significantly better than Shortbow, the range of the Shortbow gives it every advantage. If there were an offhand weapon I could use with sword that had a good movement skill I’d be much more interested in using it.

Yea generosity sigils definitely look good on paper, I’m going to do some testing.

Ok so:

Use the highest DPS weapon, stack Marksmanship and Skirmishing, use Berserker gear, and auto-attack unresponsive players standing around in sPvP?

You haven’t given any info about your build, or explained anything about what makes it unique. “If you have any questions contact me in game!” – WHAT?

The main reason to use Greatsword in WvW is for mobility in my opinion. Swoop (#3) is almost on par with the elementalist’s Ride the Lightning ability. It can dish good damage to a cluster of enemies and #4 is great vs theives and for escape, but you will need another weapon for reliable single target dps.

F3 works reliably because it interrupts the pet’s current action and forces it back to you. F2 should work the same way. In cases where the F2 ability is an attack with a particular range, then I understand the pet needs to move into range first, otherwise though, it should be instant.

Cempa.5619:

Content and editing of this guide are excellent, I think many will benefit from it, thank you!

Auto target is off as to swoop away right?

Quick idea:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FV-g;2FFx-r2gDF-0;9V2E;2OT-E;139-53A;15;0P-V5;2NV05NV055BE

Thanks

That build looks good, the traits and purity sigils are nice and it is something I will try. I try to aim for at least 1600 toughness though for bit of staying power. There is always a trade-off, so I guess it comes down to preference.

Lifeson.4352:

Cool vid, will be a nice starting point for me, though I really like traps, even in zerg fights in WvW (I run with a fairly organized group). I was using flame trap, spike trap and muddy terrain tonight and it seemed fairly good. I’m only a low level and I got so many badges. :P
Anyway do you think a hybrid setup could work for something like that, with say Soldiers armor and rampagers and/or rabid jewelry. Using SB/GS. Was thinking a 0/30/30/5/5 build.

Yea actually, I used to run something similar to what you’re talking about, it worked quite well. Video of it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfZ6-pPnd84

I used Knight’s armor and Soldier’s/Rabid jewels though, but essentially the same.

Wanderer.5471:

Wow great answer, you’ve clearly done the math! I’m definitely gonna try this build – i think i’ll try using beastmaster’s bond (vi) in marksmanship instead of steady foucs (i) though, as i tend to dodge a lot, and i’m guessing with only 5 in BM your pet’s health drops below 25% quite often before swapping? and the fury could synergise well with already high crit chance; what d’ya think?

also i was thinking if you have high crit chance and problems with conditions you could try sigils of purity?

Loving the build, cos it’s not bunker or trapper, and those are the only viable ones i’ve managed to pull off so far, this certainly looks interesting.

After looking at the video again, you’re right, I’m not getting any real benefit from steady focus except in cases where I would have easily won anyway. Beastmaster’s bond seems like a much better choice. As a variation I was thinking of putting those 10 points in Marksmanship into Beastmastery bringing BM up to 15 for the faster swap and to get a little more use out of pets. I’m a little conflicted now, but it’s good to have options.

Kinoro.7594:

I’ve been running a very similar build in WvW for a while now, and I can attest to the conditional removal concerns. My solution as been to run both Healing Spring AND Signet of Renewal. I run in a large coordinated group with my guild so these options have certain payoffs:

1. Both provide condition removal for my allies as well as myself. I’m not the only one in my group running removal so I can cope with the cool downs.
2. Water field combos with blast finishers for AoE healing.

The AoE healing mitigates the lesser healing when compared to troll unguent, and signet of the hunt is redundant when I have perma-swiftness from my group.

Beyond that, my skill load out is identical to yours, and my traits are almost all the same as well. Glad to see I’m not the only one running this weapon combo in WvW.

Sounds good, running with a coordinated group changes the situation entirely.

Wanderer.5471:

this is a great video, interesting build, you obviously make it work! Can i ask whether QZ and troll ungent synergize well though? with troll ungent, you’re being healed around 40% of the time, so if you popped QZ when needed, wouldn’t there be a 40% chance that you’re hurting yourself? (QZ 4 second duration = 4 ticks of heal, so 40% chance for up to 40% less healing) Or do you only use it after troll has run it’s course etc?

Thanks for mentioning this, it really didn’t occur to me but I should have explained in the video. I’m in the habit of using QZ near the beginning of an engagement, then using Troll Unguent immediately after the quickness ends. The end of quickness is my semi-conscious queue to use TU.

QZ lasts 4sec and has a 48sec recharge, Troll Unguent lasts 10sec and has 25sec recharge.

If used on cooldown timing goes something like this:
0: QZ on
4:QZ off
5: TU on
15: TU off
30:TU on
40: TU off
48:QZ on
52:QZ off
55:TU on
1:05:TU off
1:20:TU on
1:30:TU off
1:36:QZ on

So it takes a while before it ever overlaps.

Funky.9762:

I think this build is fine, but to pull it off you need to already have some experience because it’s not as tanky, for a starter build i think BM toughness/healing is better.

You might be right, but I feel like beastmaster builds are very situational and pet AI can be frustrating. Builds that rely heavily on the pet require a certain level of experience as well.

Beardmonger.4692:

I really enjoyed the video. I know this is supposed to be a basic starting guide, but how do you deal with condition removal/management? The only thing that I notice you have is Empathic Bond.

Condition removal is one of my pet peeves at the moment. I find Empathic Bond is fine, but it really is pure luck whether or not it saves me from a sticky situation. I wish there was some way to control it, even on a 20s cooldown it would be much more useful.

Other options:
-Signet of Renewal takes up a much needed utility slot and once used it leaves me completely vulnerable to conditions for 60 seconds.
-Prayer to Kormir removes 3 conditions but has a 40 second recharge and no passive benefit otherwise. Also takes up a utility slot.
-The brown bear removes 1 condition on demand in 30 seconds. Not amazing, and since it has no useful CC or damage, it really doesn’t work for this build.
-Healing spring is great, removes a condition every 3.5s, except this build is extremely mobile so standing in the spring isn’t really an option. Troll Unguent gives much more overall healing without any healing power.

So ultimately I find none of those seem really viable for this build. Might have forgotten one or two options, let me know.

I think in terms of weapon viability, the warhorn is already arguably the best and most widely used Ranger offhand weapon. Both Hunter’s Call and Call of the Pack are excellent skills we really can’t complain about. Your suggestion makes sense but its really just a question of flavor. I think offhand Axe needs some attention.

IBountyHunterI.4601:

Well, that’s fairly low Crit Chance, and Crit Damage.

Relative to what?

This build is what I am considering a standard ranger build without any glaring weaknesses, gimmicks, or difficult mechanics. A good starting point for any up and coming ranger in my opinion.

I don’t generally do min/max builds. The build that I am working on next will show a completely different playstyle.

Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jklDsZkJrNg

Build overview:

10 Marksmanship : Major trait I
25 Skirmishing : Major Trait IV and X
30 Wilderness Survival : Major trait VI, X, and XI
5 Beastmastery

Gear: (not essential, customize to taste)
Soldier’s Armor with Superior Runes of the Ranger
Soldier’s Ring and Back Item
Rabid Ring
Knight’s Accessories and Amulet
Rampager’s Shortbow with sigil of Strength
Berserker’s Greatsword with sigil of Bloodlust

Resulting Stats: (approx with shortbow)
2700 Attack – 500 Condition Damage
45% Crit Chance – 33% Crit Damage
2800 Armor – 18000 Health

Pet preference: Krytan Drakehound and Snow Leopard

Utilities: Lightning Reflexes, Quickening Zephyr, Signet of the Hunt, Entangle

Borlis Pass, ranger and thief take a tower from Anvil Rock in off hours, good times.

Entangle + Drake F2 might work for a nice gimmicky kill in pvp.

The majority of my pet complaints could be fixed by giving the pet evasion for 1 second when I hit F3. I need some way to micro manage my pet to dodge AoEs like players can.

Great suggestion!

I find F1, F3, and F4 very reliable actually. I’d like it if F3 caused the pet to dodge roll as well though, that way you could actually micro manage out of AoEs.

I agree, for me it really boils down to pet AI. Pet skills need to be more reliable, mashing F2 is frustrating, pets need to be better at hitting moving targets, and need to have some way of avoiding or mitigating AoE. Just an idea: a trait that causes pets to dodge-roll in sync with the ranger. Definitely need a permanent stow option as well, for those hairy moments in dungeons.

This is a major headache for me, particularly bad with Eagle/Hawk.