Guild Wars 2

33.3k unr/32.3k real are my best tries with this build so far, full infusions/afflicted/entangle. Bm is still a dps increase over nm and mm.

I wish Anet unsplitted Spike Trap cd reduction for pve. That would be a nice option for this build.
Entangle is also very weak for a Elite.

Greatsword Hilt Bash Range is still broken aswell (half of intended range).

HeadCrowned.6834:

Ridiculous that they nerfed Sharpened Edges for PvP. There is put zero though behind it. Why buff spike trap and Sharpening stone, but nerf Sharpened edges?

Because they want to nerf pve condi druid without affecting that much condi ranger.

I have to Throw a torch on these notes and say that saving pets and a whole weapon atleast in one game mode is a good direction. I don’t understand the cd reduction on the spike trap being pvp only tho, it’s not even meta in pve.

MADPIEMAN.8023:

What do people think to the trait “Honed axes” also appealing to offhand axe (possibly with a skill change like axe 3). I feel this could bring power ranger closer to condi in pve and would not affect other game modes as axe 4 is hard to land and axe 5, similarly to torch 5, requires a non-moving target.

What else do people think would improve zerk ranger in pve?

Tbh, if we were to have a power equivalent of condi ranger, we would need much better non-support direct damage utilities. They won’t bring the power build up to par with condi dps by just tweaking weapon numbers, because that will make any druid build overpowered in their view.
So I’d start buffing a lot things not used in support builds, like Ice trap traited direct damage, for example, traited Signet of the wild /of the hunt, cooldowns/effects, and even Sick them.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

apocalypso.4895:

35k or even 36k is possible now, with all buffs. QT ranger did 34.8k prepatch, I still didn’t test post hotfix, but even before (with the crossfire bug) I did 500~ more than prepatch.

Do you have a link possibly? Interested in what build they used for that test

34.9k before patch In my edited first post I described the gear/skills differences.

35k or even 36k is possible now, with all buffs. QT ranger did 34.8k prepatch, I still didn’t test post hotfix, but even before (with the crossfire bug) I did 500~ more than prepatch. Btw your setup is slightly off from the optimal, use poison trap instead of bleeding one, 4 nightmare + 2 trapper and earth/geomancy on both weapons.

Gaile Gray.6029:

One of the most notable changes being made is to the healing values of the Druid as a primary healer. Base values for the Celestial Avatar heals will be reduced, while the healing power contribution will be enhanced significantly. The reasoning for these changes is that while we are excited about the Druid being an incredibly strong healer, we would also like to see that role as one of many choices in your attribute build.

Ok, so this changes absolutely nothing in pvp, the meta uses hp and it’s actually a buff for that. My guess? You’re removing Mender’s amulet, right?
For pve it tries to remove zerker/viper’s druids, which are mainly used in meta comps, but magi’s largely required by pug mentality already.
Where do you see the “one of many choices” part if you’re killing two offensive/support builds (zerker/viper’s) in favor of one already dominant healing/support choice (magi’s)?
I fail to see how this improves anything… not that I am surprised.

I’d like to point out for people using this as a guide, that these tests are flawed.
First, pets are being tested unbuffed, which favors the pets who can buff themselves, like tiger fury.
Second, not applying vulnerability on the target means cats have an advantage, they apply it on the auto attack. Also no cripple (15% direct damage from MM gm).
Third, using pet traits/bm, that are not picked in a druid build, be it condi or power. And again, they favor pets who have conditions/condition damage on their attacks/stats.
Fourth, testing only the first 200k hp means bursty pets will have an advantage over sustain ones, or to those that have a high f2 cooldown. Also the pets crit chance isn’t 100% so the lower the time the higher the variaton due to range on crits.

If inside the hitbox bristleback is the highest dps, else it’s lynx. Both jaguar and tiger are behind. And the difference between them is low enough to not really matter enough over the added utility that the f2 from tiger brings.

This whole patchnote changed nearly nothing for better on anything I use in any game mode (and I play all of them).
Moa aftercasts? pig cds? Just… why?? They don’t change anything.
Wanna improve pets?
Give us a new keybind to control the pet better, that we could bind it to any other skill from the pet but the f2/auto.
We need to be able to control Quickening screech on birds, Tail Swipe on drakes, Brutal Charge on canines, and so on.
Then give them better AI, then give them more aa range, then give then faster aftercasts, then give them scaling on player gear quality, then buff their damage where needed, then, at last reduce their cooldowns.
Only changing the cds or aftercasts doesn’t accomplish anything.

How to save ricochet in one easy step:
Make it a 100% projectile finisher.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

apocalypso.4895:

Dps on zerker.

Mind sharing your set up?

Here http://goo.gl/4BnQ6i

Dps on zerker.

DoogySnowStalker.2069:

“Bad DPS” Kappa

That’s really nice, I’m doing quite similar on power ranger (which makes me happy, since this probably wasn’t the case pre patch).

I’m curious to what numbers other classes are getting, once I patch the game I’m checking my nrs. Can you guys post yours? all boons, criple and 25 vuln on golem.

Hilt bash (gs 5th skill) range is bugged since forever… it’s like 140 when it should be 300.

Iason Evan.3806:

I don’t own HoT. If I wanted to come back to at least try the new season, should I bother? If I should bother, what core professions are competitive? Thanks in advance.

Simply put, you don’t stand a chance, check my post above yours.

WuGzaGenius.5684:

The game at current, is balanced. More than its ever been.

Except not. Try playing without Hot. The huge powercreep wasn’t dealt with at all. Not even bugfixes for core specs.

With all the projectile hate in the game, plus the blocks, etc, I don’t think cast times/aftercasts/projectile speed/gmtrait buffs would save the weapon. Making it have a melee nonprojectile aa chain coupled with the above would be a good bandaid.

What I consider the real solution is that they get rid of it’s hybrid nature and change it’s skill/mechanic to be optimal for either power or condi, instead of suboptimal in both.

He random dodges staff aa. Enough said.

Ranger
In the future, we’ll continue to explore ways to improve on the ranger’s ties to both their pets and nature.

This is what I don’t like. It sounds like completely empty PR, telling me that it’s less likely they’ll actually address what’s broken with the core in the future, let alone in this patch…

I wish they would understand that to fix core ranger they have to address core weapons skills, no amount of search and rescue buffing is going to fix the clunkiness of sword, the lack of place for axe, sb, wh, the low sustain dps of gs/lb, the one dimensional torch and the lackluster dagger.

anduriell.6280:

what do you think it will happen?

A lot of changes that won’t change anything, specially compared to the huge buffs other classes will get like always.
Examples:
Halve the Predator’s Instinct cd
Increase Light on your Feet condi duration to 20%
Increase Most Dangerous Game might duration to 4secs
Add pet stability to search and rescue
Add pet protection to Protect me
Add Extra condi dmg to sick them
Include off hand axe cd to Honed Axes
etc etc..

I think this is closer to the best possible self buffed. Tailswipe could be higher with 25 vuln. Build is the same as before but with sigil of impact (great idea!)
Video of heavy golem 40.4k maul+tailswipe

That’s the kind of pointless thing that I find fun lol. Self buffed I could do near 44k maybe even more.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBhYDbkSFKYxKWwVF4axweQ5B/4OF7tHAJwHHHxTfyOKmD-TZRBwAX3fYxBBoyFAgcZAAPAAA

(I don’t have the expac so I’m not sure if druid or new pets add anything to this)

Tail swipe was near 19k~ and maul 24k~ on light golem. However that’s not possible at once to execute on a light golem because they are one shotted. On a heavy armor golem the damage combined was 32k~ – 18k~ maul and 13k~ tailswipe.

Keep in mind this build is not viable in pvp… at all.

This adds another layer of unreliability to rangers skills, don’t you devs think we have to deal with enough crap? AI positioning vs extremely mobile classes with huge aoe cleave, soft and hard cc everywhere/ slow animations and aftercasts/ terrain/ very limited ways to active controlling pet behaviour/ huge death penaly/ add to that player mistakes and theres a abysmal difference to every other class. I wonder how are these design decisions made, and if they even consider these aspects…

Birds can’t cast their f2 every 4 secs, there’s a huge aftercast and animation delay, but sure it’s less than 12 seconds… This nerfs petswap and was completely uncalled for.

Darkness.9732:

EnderzShadow.2506:

The fact that all the other classes have gotten stronger, better and hit harder leaves the Ranger at an increasing disadvantage.

Rangers in pvp were already not in an ideal position. While every other class takes two steps forward, we remain behind.

You are not wrong.
You got exactly the point. I sadly kinda knew that…that’ s why I haven’ t bought the expansion.

I couldn’t agree more. I have to admit before only complaining that every change consistently addressed most of the problems brought by myself and the ranger community (perhaps not in the best way) except the ones that exist by design (like weapons/vulnerability to cc or useless utility sets). As a class we took many steps foward, however every other class did too, and much further than us. This leaves us in a position where we are always the underdog, and that’s a bit too frustrating to deal with for so long.

Fortifying bond and WHAO should work like this:

Keep copy functionality (i.e. boons with lower duration/intensity are not copied with the cap limits, boon duration affects boons, but they have a hard cap to prevent them from reapplying themselves:

Quickness (10s) up from 2s
Protection (10s) up from 2s
Resistance (3s) up from 2s
Fury (15s) up from 3s
Stability no time or stacks cap up from 3s and one stack
Swiftness (15s) up from 3s
Vigor (5s) up from 3s
Aegis (15s) up from 5s
Regeneration (15s)
Retaliation (5s) (no change)
Might no time or intensity cap up from 10s and 3 stacks cap

15s as a hard cap a general solution, as WHAO traited cd is 16s

Edit to take in consideration boons that do not stack over duration.

Eurantien.4632:

I use 3 shouts out of my 5 skills. Regardless of what they do with HaO. Shouts aren’t that bad.

They are not that bad I agree, they are terrible. And the elite and heal really were shoved into the shout category, the utilities are really bad, not only that, they lack uniqueness and the fun aspect in their designs.

Raven.9603:

otherwise we will be copying 10sec of prot (and possibly stealth?) every other time we use guard.

That would be hilarious, but stealth isn’t considered a boon

Darrio.6098:

I still don’t like MDG. Health threshold not fun mechanic.

I agree, but it’s a strong trait now for wherever that can be useful, just not for every build/game mode/situation. Certainly not for current pve.

Edit: Heal as one means we can now swap pets and instantly have them fully buffed, and it also means we can receive buffs while being at range with longbow. It’s a great change.

Puck.9612:

Pets getting baseline condi damage better be something they bring up in the balance changes they are talking about later.

700 condi baseline, 1000 traited now.

It’s very concerning to me that druid’s are all about healing when the vast majority of the pve content doesnt require a healer. And more so that if I by any chance don’t like that play style and there isn’t a druid in the raid group (which is the only type of content in pve that requires that role), I’m forced to be a healbot.

Mcrocha.3891:

All of the skills are almost exactly the same as ranger gs.

In a direct comparison it’s like they redesigned ranger’s gs, made a better version and gave it to a different class.

Taunt doesnt work through dodges, it goes through evades. And that can surely be fixed, and before anything else, since so many 4 rangers teams are dominating tournaments atm.

Frostfang.5109:

Whatabout taking away the Condi-cleanse on HS as it is annoyingly complicated to activate it when u really need it and instead move the condi cleanse ability to any of the other healing skills (making it possible to trigger when u need it – instantly). THat would solve a lot! I’d swap on an instant!

No. All our healing skills but HS have too high cast time, that wouldn’t help at all and would kill HS.
But if you really want, you can already do that with Wilderness Knowledge/TU.

LB/ GS remorseless
GS/ S/A remorseless
GS/ S/A PO
LB/ S/A PO

All are fine and very close in dps. Tested on 30 sec golem fights.
I personally like GS / S/A remorseless better.

Zenith.7301:

blablabla

I’m talking about spvp only, not wvw, the game is balanced over 5v5 conquest in which there are roles to fill…
Necros are designed to be resilient and have low mobility, and they don’t fill the same role thieves do neither work the same way.
But sure, you can keep thinking more damage and positioning is the answer to everything.

Zenith.7301:

It’s a ranged aoe weapon on a power build since you use it for the bouncing autoattack. Why in hell would you need mobility on it.

Remove 5 and 3 from thieves SB and see how many of them will use it in pvp… that’s the buffed aa axe that you’re asking for.

Zenith.7301:

Axe mainhand is only bad as a power weapon BECAUSE ITS AUTOATTACK HAS MISERABLE DAMAGE.

No… with higher dmg for a power build on aa you would still have 0 mobility, 0 team support, 0 evades, 1 situational soft cc and a useless skill (splitblade). = bad.

Lich is strong but ok, rampage is completely op and unfun to play against. As a condi ranger it’s a death sentence, no matter if the warrior is at 10% hp or 100%… they just push healing signet and kill you.

Huge damage, high mobility, high health pool, invulnerability for conditions, stability and cc. Compare it with other classes elites that can be completely negated with a single dodge…

mistsim.2748:

all weapons should be useful for condi AND power builds. they must change their design philosophy.

This would require redesigning all weapons. Weapons take in consideration in their design what kind of role you’re supposed to fit with them, and restrict you based on that, the design not only considers weapons itself, but class mechanics, traits, and lastly gear. What you’re suggesting is that they make all weapons hybrid, which would break the game in many ways. Now if you change that to “all hybrid weapons…” then I agree.

There are a lot of bad ideas in this thread… Some of them would kill axe mainhand for condi users in spvp, some of them would kill axe off hand for pve and our only reflects/aoe pull. The good ones are changing from ferocity to precision and the reduction of splitblade precast. Axe main is only good as a condi weapon, and it’s not effective either in pve or pvp with power gear.

RevanCorana.8942:

YOU GUYS ARE kittenED

Traps are actually very good.

Lol how
Flame trap does 3 stack of burn
Spike trap does 1sec of knockdown for 45 sec cooldown
The other 2 are outright crap.

Try to play a trap ranger and see how much dmg you’ll actually do before saying such BS

Honestly you’re wrong. Traps (flame/spike) are very strong with the right build for 1v1, 2v2 fights. The weakness of that build isn’t the lack of strength of the traps, but the lack of mobility and survival, because to use traps rangers give up their utilities, so they have limited condi cleanse, no stability, one stunbreak, no mobility. If anything they could use higher trap range and lower spike trap cd (24s traited – 30 untraited).
The build also brings rangers inherently weakness with it, like the lack of team support, being useless in a fight with more than 2 enemies. So yeah, you’re one of the strongest 1v1 duelers, but don’t have any advantage to an ele, that can do that too while being a lot more versatile.

lol so that’s why my condi damage keeps changing in pvp. I guess I shouldn’t die until a fix is released, hopefully they don’t forget to fix pet stats too while they’re at it…

Honed Axes is so bad I wouldn’t take it even when I play dual main hand axe builds. At it’s current state it’s adept worth at best and has nothing for off hand axe or cds. Ferocity is really useless for axe (it would be great for sword), and instead of changing it to a more useful stat (like precision or condi) they could give it a cool mechanic aside from boring stats and include the cooldown reduction for both main and off hand axe. But it seems that with everything Ranger related they run out of creativity.

They did a lot of merging and got rid of a lot of useless traits, but I’m surprised they decided to keep Predator’s Instinct. Imo it should just be merged with Predator’s Onslaught, because it’s not even worth an adept, even if you reduce it’s cooldown.

Try turning off Post Processing!

All ranger Healing skills are bad. All of them need help.
Just look at all of them… and compare cast time vs passive effects/ offensive and defensive utility effectiveness, cooldown, mobility/armor weight, class mechanic… There’s not a single ranger healing skill superior to what other classes are using in a power build.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Healing_skill

New heals were introced and we got the WS… that no one ever uses, go figure.

The reason is because it’s not as simple as that. They would have to redesign most utilities/traits/weapon skills (I hope they already are).

Full zerker
Axe/warhorn – Greatsword
First phase use Gs, and try to keep your pets alive. Second phase switch to axe/wh and stack might with rampage as one and devourer.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBHhFakQlaWLYxlFuWDYIUNbhglZA0uuj3c4qP41LG