Guild Wars 2

Sorry that I’ve not been replying mush, been testing out the various build that you Lovely people have been submitting. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Actually, My plans currently have been usually being in the zerg frontlines so the new idea of running high toughness is really helping out a lot! (I’ve no idea it is harder to find Elementalists than ranger so the healing spring helps a lot in asking peeps to blast on me)

I know it is hard, because to lean into power so the necromancers can do their job (some say the conditions won’t be shared) so I’ve been trying not to lean into condition damage, yet when during the downtimes of not with the zerg still possible to roam and be a havoc on the field. Any ranger commanders here to share the precious knowledge wise? Thanks a lot though, I promise to run as much builds as I can, so so grateful to you all. <3

How to do this logarithm, Log base of 5 y = Log base 5 (x) – Log base 5 (7)
Solve for Y in terms of X:

Log base 5 (x/y) = Log base 5 x – Log base 5 (7)

y = x/7

… Anyway, the counter is the low health and armour pool, the lack of condi clear, enemy AoE.. and Ranger [Sic ’em]. Actually, if the glassy ones initiatie, they will win, or else they have to just use their ohkitten skill first for escape before strategically placing their attacks… Maybe if you share your class, we can help teach you how to counter?

How much toughness does WvW ranger need, and the minimal amount of power to be effective? Been looking at celestial and soldier gear that seems to give balance, here’s a build link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAT8YjEqUyaBLusw1ag9gadAUAnd7fYI2BWDcJjqC-TFDFABop+zZKNY4IAYkyAZ2f4IlYA8AAE4CAohuhIOIAeqEMDNMAA-w

After looking through the builds, I’ve got a weird, beginner’s question to ask:

What kind of choices should we put in the accessories slots? Should it be defensive like toughness, or offensive like condition damage or berserker. What kind of changes does it bring to the build?

Alright, I’ve made the changes in accordance to your suggestion: I’m still sticking to the 2.8k armour so there isn’t any much place to squeeze in ferocity.

For skills wise, due to the lack of wilderness survival the muddy terrain is swapped for Sick’em to bring some damage to the pet, and probably the 40% increase in speed means catching up to enemies (also an anti thief). I’m unsure of this because of the uncertainty of what kind of implications without an additional immob, or perhaps switching Entangle to Rampage as one?

For damage wise, the longbow have a sigil of air, and purity so there is some condi clear. and sigil of rage and energy for the greatsword so AA could become a more reliable chance to dodge while waiting for the 5+2 combo, while giving another dodge.

here comes the problem with toughness, removing rune of melandru won’t give the toughness so damage comes from 2 assassin earrings. so there is enough precision.

What do you think? I’m still thinking on how to raise the crit chance so we’ll hit harder, or just move the crit line to heath to trait for greatsword. Here’s the build link:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnMqQJL2yCuCCVLGYPoWHAFwZzdgHhftxAqA-T1CFwAsU/R2+DAeAA7UeIRJ4JdBDViF5QAkRDzgLAwijAAA-w

What I’ve tend to do in PvP is to have at least 1 sic em’ skill. the procedure for killing thieves is:

Long bow rapid fire, then cast sic ‘em, then quickening zepher. Followed by krytan drakehound F2.
If it doesn’t cast fast, feel free to switch your ulti to entangle but if you want to stick with Rampage as one, by the time your rapid fire is over, perhaps adding 1 knockback from the bow.
Usually the thief would want to stealth away by now, if they drop refuge, Longbow5 into the refuge or just aim in the general direction of where they are running to to prolly finish them off. goal here is to squeeze as much burst into them as possible.

Well, I tend to avoid a group of thieves unless with sufficient amount of people AoEing cause the more people, the more the thief can stealth off other players.. maybe at most I’ll be at the sidelines, perhaps with 2 thieves, and we focus 1 down.

Ah, forgot about the traitline. Sure, I’ll add that in.
Should I move 2 points off the marksman and put into Wilderness survival for the protection boon and ‘reduced offhand cooldown’ so it is easier to might up with a loss in base power? a check revealed a change from ~1800 and ~1900 power.
Here’s the amended build, thank you for the contribution:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBjYDbkRlSWbZxjFqWDsHUrDgC4sbNEu3iiotHQF-T1SEABScEAeR9HdUeAwBBwHlYVoEkm9HUR3AHaYM4CA08DAAA-w

I do not know what’s wrong but i’ve suddenly stopped being good, i’ve always had problems when reacting after being ambushed out of know where which usually wastes the lightning reflexes (from either petrifying poison or stuns/knockbacks)

Strategies wise, is to get the CC train going while rapid fire from the bow deals majority of the damage.
(bow 5, muddy terrain, axe 3, pet wolf)

I was using a full knight set as armour but now replaced with zerker main for more damage. Problems I encounter is:

Not enough condi clear to kill warriors, and kitten goes down really bad once i missed the CC chance with muddy terrain as they will be dishing out immobilizes
This is the same for fighting Engineers, except it is knockbacks.
I can’t seem to outdamage a necro while evading in the healing spring.

Is there anything i should change, perhaps a 1 time investment to have a nice balance between roaming and ranger commanding?
Any practice to hone skill…
Last build i’ve tried is a bunker and i’ve spent more than 5 mins fighting a regen warrior losing slowly as i am slowly being chipped down while not dealing enough damage when evasive movement is applied.

Thank you for the suggestion on sword and armour, will do what i can to change. anything else? Below is the build changed according to suggestions.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBjYDbkRlSWbZxjFqWDsHUrDgC4sbNEsvgKYEGQF-T1SEABScEAeR9HdUeAwBBwHlYVoEkm9HUR3AHaYM4CA08DAAA-w

we are good in PvP, because it is a skirmish instead of a battle. problem is, Anet nerf us across the board so we are weak as kitten in other places and sorta normal in PvP.

I know we all are overpowered
What’s wrong with mine in zerg/solo situations?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBjODbkRlSWbZxjFqWDsHUrDgC4sbNEsvgKYEGQF-T1CEABTcBA0RJGMqr8kyj72fwClgsoShH6A6QzDAHBAnfAAAA-w

I don’t like it at all. Last time it was tight, moving you away and landing on your feet.. now you just slide after landing that affect combos and movesets

ASP.8093:

hunterkiller.5419:

It have been spreading around, and the reason why thieves nowadays aren’t running stealth… is because almost most of the time other players get upset is due to the stealth mechanic and in fear of getting more nerfs, thieves are moving away from what defines them as a class; in my own opinion.. stealth.

To my knowledge, thieves don’t run much stealth in sPvP because you can’t contest points in stealth. They definitely do run it — gobs of it, usually — in WvW.

You don’t really need stealth in PvE except for fight-skipping.

My man, thanks for your input on this question but you should embrace stealth a little. this question is a little biased as I didn’t have enough playtime on thief than ranger. But you should embrace at least the sword main or dagger main. in the low levels of PvE considering how weak thieves are. hitting mobs when stealthed really help speed up the levelling.
I’m guilty of dagger/dagger until another thief who mains it taught me the art of zerker D/D, then sustain with sword main, making it a fun at challenging class to play. So from your reply, perhaps thieves are centered around PvE and WvW?

I find that it should be buffed as a trait, or else currently implemented to pets.

Regarding control wise, it is best to keep pets as passive almost all the time, until you know there is a group of enemies in front of you. It worked for me in PvE and WvW. But still, they are squishy when players are the enemies.

In my own opinion, for gw2 when looked at classes in their most basic form…
Warrior:
pros- high survivability(health+toughness) and offensive skills
cons- long/predictable cast time of weapon skills.
Guardian:
pros- high survivability(toughness+boons) with high damage support skills
cons- boon ripping
Necromancer:
pros- medium survivability (F1 skill, death shroud?) with high damage conditions
cons- cannot fight prolonged battles due to the lack of F1 skill.
Ranger:
pros- medium damage with (currently not) enough utility to counter every class
cons- reactive gameplay, lack of boon ripping
Thief:
pros- medium survivability from stealth and medium~high damage skills
cons- low armour and require initiative management
Engineer:
pros- medium survivability and medium damage with range of unique utilities
cons- predictable utility

well, this what I feel, but should be at least a post up there giving great ideas and advice for gw3. what’s done is done, and currently from what I typed it feels like playing team fortress with unique hard counters. but I’d support gw rather than WoW any day. so.. you know, be unique. Not some[ ‘expensive, online version of rock-paper-scissors with a lot of pretty colors’ -Swagg.9236] which I agree fully

General question:
Why are we getting changes that causes the time for skirmishes/battles to extend, could there be an internal timer of some sort to dictate how long should a fight against a bot or player should last?
It would help in regards to classes wise, are they centred around player versus players, or players versus enemies?
Also, I know this last question seems weird, but how do you play a ranger/thief? what are they build for.. philosophy… et cetera. Thanks!

Ranger:
Recent fixes have been reducing survivability and the amount of vigor, why? Isn’t rangers are meant to be the class that is built for timing and reactive gameplay? I’d like to know please.
Considering that the main niche are pets, why isn’t traits changed or rearranged to better suit the class, and why are some traits seem to be useless, like the one that drops a healing spring when down/death? I’ve noticed that pets cannot catch up to other players even after traited, why not have more weapon skills that give immobilize or buff the speed so the pets could become useful?
(also, I’ve noticed once immobilized, the character cannot dodge roll and there are classes that deal a lot of immob, this is painful for a class that only have ‘lightning reflexes’ as the only reliable form of breaking free)

Thief:
it has always been baffling why are we getting weapon nerfs, when the difference of a good thief to a bad one is usually initiative management. the class is bound to have high damage but it would be offset by initiative so why isn’t there a way to change the class for the better instead of nerfing the damage? Please, tell us how to play the thief because during low levels the class is so underperforming in damage because of the reliance in gear.
It have been spreading around, and the reason why thieves nowadays aren’t running stealth… is because almost most of the time other players get upset is due to the stealth mechanic and in fear of getting more nerfs, thieves are moving away from what defines them as a class; in my own opinion.. stealth.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBjODbkRl6VbZxkFqWD0HUrXgAYsbvD/wZzaCA-T1iFAB+s/ANK/SR9n1OIAdoJQDNCjZ+DgHAoE8CdAJcEAQ+CAAA-w

i was thinking about how could get condition damage and damage at the same time utilizing on crit sigils to make a well rounded class for wvw. What do you think? it seems good with a ~50% crit chance, ~2k damage and 750 condi damage.

We’ve got a preparation. sharpened blade. not very useful. maybe someone can shine some light on it.. xD

been thinking that rangers need a redistribution in power. give rangers CC/condi for all weapon skills and have only 1 of each where all the damages go into (maul for GS, perhaps remove auto attack and make LB a chargeble attack rooting the player down).

increase utility. make rangers a partial guard because reliance on nature to give boons, or giving boons to pets to allow the lil one to make the finishing blow. should be interesting, maybe give rangers more weapon choices, hammer and shield should be okay.

Nerf and delete every skill, only build is everyone does the same damage and can only auto attack. LOL

Nerfing doesn’t really help, it is wise to balance the game so more builds are viable. (can’t believe CS:GO is doing way better in listening to players and actually experimenting to allow all weapons to be used)

axe main hand would require some work. but in order to use that effectively one either needs to be a bunker ranger (if it still works) or have utility packed with survival skills. Not my cup of tea though even though my PvP ranger (healing+condition damage) uses it

close enough. hahah

Thank you for the feedback, everyone!

Thanks for the great match up, BP. And Hello to another awesome match this time with DB. Never had this much fun in wvw. THANK YOU!

what if we ran rampager with a trait like 10/30/30 and focus on crits with longbow and condition damage for shortbow?

Is it possible to be useful in wvw and dungeons, it could be the next thing instead of having 30 in marksman.

Revised:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8fjEVF2JWCWo2Bg2jMlEzXhW9MGtzMO6iVRA-jAzA4sIj0AIBwkoAl3jYSEIPqsW3KiGrGCTnuoa1KgPoIa1A-e

this time its focused on boon duration, toughness and healing power. our friend here’s going to get confirmed 10 might anyway and I’ve left out 5 points in trait so if he ever find the pet dying the ‘pet swapping’ should bring some survivability. if okay, go ahead and max out the spirit trait line so if there is opportunities to run spirit build.

reason to not trait for signet: only 6 seconds of invulnerability to damage, conditions will still kick the person around.
—-
If you find your conditions lacking, you’ll have to drop the toughness armour though.

Chopps.5047:

Double sigil of battle works? I don’t think it works that way…

To be honest, I don’t like sigil of battle without fortifying bond. Only half of the pet/ranger combo gets might from that sigil without it. That’s typically an elementalist sigil. At least you have fortifying bond but I’d check those double sigils because I’m pretty sure there’s a CD such that both will not activate.

sorry, i’ve yet tested it. yea. doesn’t work though. Going to revise it for our friend eventhough he seems to be better off with a healing bunker warrior. no offense.

hunterkiller.5419:

I’ve yet tested this but here you go: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBlYDbkoqwOxSwC1OA0ekpkY+K0qnxodmxLj0aB-jwyA4MAkGMiDiEJInHLiGbZsIasqGMNakVqJVxC4CKiWNA-e

Overall, I was looking at boosting the condition damage and have as much healing as possible so it is possible to be more of a damage sink. You’ll still have to look after your pet and i’m unsure if that is enough healing but as the battle progresses you’ll definitely get stronger.

your role of this build is simple, the more you swap weapon, the more might you get. so swap weapons frequently. When your pet is dying, activate toughness signet and call the pet back.

the entangle and healing spring provides usefulness in the party, stand in the healing spring for as long as possible for the condition removals. With this build it should be possible to melt through enemies since you have poison and might on hand.

i might actually run this build in wvw. the damage after 15 stacks of might are in… is beautiful. ahah

I’ve yet tested this but here you go: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBlYDbkoqwOxSwC1OA0ekpkY+K0qnxodmxLj0aB-jwyA4MAkGMiDiEJInHLiGbZsIasqGMNakVqJVxC4CKiWNA-e

Overall, I was looking at boosting the condition damage and have as much healing as possible so it is possible to be more of a damage sink. You’ll still have to look after your pet and i’m unsure if that is enough healing but as the battle progresses you’ll definitely get stronger.

your role of this build is simple, the more you swap weapon, the more might you get. so swap weapons frequently. When your pet is dying, activate toughness signet and call the pet back.

the entangle and healing spring provides usefulness in the party, stand in the healing spring for as long as possible for the condition removals. With this build it should be possible to melt through enemies since you have poison and might on hand.

Yet tried Norn and sylvari but here’s the good stuff for human and asuras.

Humans have a prayer that removes 3 conditions off you, quite useful sometimes considering the healing spring takes 30s especially when you’re running power ranger.

Asuras have the nifty technobabble which causes stun for 1200 range. Not bad actually. and when running condition ranger with short bow and great sword you’ll have access to 3 stuns, and with rune of perplexity… Muahahha

That’s all, hope you find a good class to use!

7/10
Neat gear!

Imma Samurai~

Fluffybutt (me jag)
kitteh (le lynx)
wuffy (moi Wolf)

Noobie, your build is weird but thanks for the link.

Thinking of switching to this build, was thinking that the ranger deal conditioin damage so the pet can focus on power.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJAVRjAVN2VW+Vs2Bk2DORSwEWBF59IWUPR8ilmSC-j0yAINAcHEFAjWgQVAoPQ5wioxWGLiGrmBTlSEV7DKiWNA-w

got at least a stunbreak, followed by total of 2 condition removal sources. Muddy terrain is to slow down people enough so the greatsword swoop+hilt bash+Maul could work without missing.

The 30% pet speed trait is just so that fluffybutt can be fast enough to chase down others.

Any improvements?

I’m not neccessary the best ranger but willing to shed and help another!

For WvW wise, survivability is important, well; got my kitten handed to me in solo roaming just now so here’s how it goes now, at least. Feel free to comment and improve

People tend to stunlock you, then hit on quickness to burst you down

Entangle is useful for a bit to hold someone down, since it just happens so fast. Or just swap it with RampageAsOne depending on the situation

condition heals and stunbreak is important, we got a signet for that which is awesome.

TrollUngent is useful since your pet becomes fragile so cast it early.

lastly, I’m still figuring out how to stunlock someone but only have GreatSword5 and ShortBow5 in mind.

I am having mixes of accessories but ultimately i tend to suck at micromanaging so i’m running knight gear with melandru to avoid stuns and over condition users from hitting.

Running greatsword and shortbow, i’ve noticed i can’t seem to have balance thus leaning to power and condition damage.

thank you for your replies, I’ve been stacking the poison with shortbow for consistant reduction of healing so i was really out of ideas once another engineer dropped in considering the fight lasted more than 2 minutes.

My current setup:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJAVRjAVx15VWWo2Bg2jMlET2DDZ0RXBUv4oqiA-jUDBYfJDLMQUAJjqAg+AKBqIaslRFRjVNDSlCWDDwoDwuDyHAGA-w

targets:
healing bunker warrier and guardian. It is impossible to chip off their health, or are they cheating?

Look at your build, if it is more on condition might as well use short bow to stack on whatever vulnerability you’ve created via great sword. you get 2 stuns that so you can follow up with traps at close range.

If it it is more towards damage, long bow might be good for you to soften up the targets. But once you reach ranges where you’re using great sword, you might just end up using rapid fire to stack vulnerability to finish off with your maul. but there is a knockback to help push people into barrage range again and maybe a shot or 2 to get the range buff.

condition or power?
stun or knockback?
poison on short bow could potentially replace a trap, or large vulnerability to finish off someone?

*my build is sorta like yours, i tend to use crits to build bleed, and traps (but not trait it to the max) to add variety (well for my case, CC with frost and spike). If i was more on marksman would have went for longbow since i have low condition damage and i get to have piercing arrow.

Engineers now have a range of 1000 for their rifles, seems like i can’t get away from range to ‘skirmish’ and rank up bleeds. Any ideas how we should use it or just dump it for another weapon?

Atherakhia.4086:

I’d just like ANet to come out and define their intended role for the class. It clearly isn’t as a condition class because it is horrendous at that role when compared to Necros and Engis. It has almost a total lack of AE damage which is odd since every other class i nthe game is so AE centric. I think the Thief is really the only other class with so little AE.

The burst mechanic for the class is the worst of them all too as pets still can’t hit moving targets reliably, they still are too clunky to use effectively, and they’re still a huge detriment to the class in PvE. Not to mention they’re nerfed so often because of sPvP.

There’s just so much wrong with the class and the turnaround time for improvement is almost nonexistent.

trick for pets, especially if one’s running BM is to use the traits to make the pet run faster. Then with a signet, no worries of pet being too slow and now the pet gets to reliably hit, i’ve seen a cat chasing down someone using another signet for speed and it just keeps on going even when i’m out of range.

When i started playing the first choice was ranger.. because rangers ‘range the lands’, well; i was reading up about D&D so it seems like an interesting choice.

It started with a damage crit because i was thinking i might as well be a sniper, but was really weak. After the update whiched buffed pets, why not? I’m not just goingt o use stalker to give me might. Which i ran BM until last month i tried a half condition half crit build focused on bleeding with the short bow and spike trap.

Overall after looking at the traits, how rangers are like, I’m guessing rangers are the survival class, not guardian tank but to just use our environment. Its pretty cool. sword and dagger alongside with lightning reflexes give quite the number of evades Maybe its just for us to learn when to use them instead of spending them all at one go.

I’ve yet understand where our damage come from but our traits do tell us where to go. marksman and signets help keeep our pets alive a little longer, skirmishing maybe is for conditions only with traps with the crit to help the shortbow 1 to bleed easier, survival is just to keep ourselves alive as long as possible so maybe our pets can nom on a leg, I’ve yet used nature so i’m unsure of spirits as walking buffs, BM is just for the pets…

regarding aid wise, i only have problems with thieves.. so i tend to throw traps around me to let me get to recharge while the stealthing bugger tries to hit me. unsure how to lock them in place for that few precious seconds to kill them out of stealth though..

anyway, here’s a bit of my ranger, hope it helps. Ultimately i’m aiming for toughness, crit and condition removal.(i didn’t have enough cash to buy the proper gear so it is weird)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJAVRjAVx1VWSWo2Bg2DNlET2DDZ0RXhRLYVD-jUxAItARBASeFRjVDDZ0hAA-w

Current goal:
Exotic gear – 2x (power, precision, toughness), 1x (power, toughness, vitality), rest is zerker
Knight armour with superior rune f meladru
Hopefully a zerker greatsword so i can deal some damage and the upcoming patches won’t change it too much.