Guild Wars 2

Since the last patch you should be able to just hold down the button and it will ram automatically (works on catapults and trebuchet if firing max power). Using the flame blast could be an issue though. This change may possibly be the cause of the skills not activating in the first place.

Also I’m fairly sure that the delay on the flame ram samage is only on superior Rams and is due to the shorter animation rather than the damage being slower.

I don’t think its so much of a ele got nerfed problem, rather staff ele is still mostly the same while every thing else got powerecreeped (same thing happened to D/D ele in pvp before cele amulet got removed). Also Backline staff ele doesn’t really benefit from tempest which means you are running a core build.

You can still lay down some serious damage and control like before. Or you could just run support minstrels auramancer … XD.

Since mercenary amulet got removed I have been thinking of switching my A/D S/T condition ranger to Sage with a toughness based runeset to cover some of the lost stats.

This is what I’m thinking of running:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAnY8fjEqQ3KWuCusAVLWYEMmCwlLA0MuqVhA4m6VtrWyKSD-TJhGABGcSA0vMAAPBAO2fAA

Any feedback or tips on the build would be greatly appreciated – I’m not really a PvPer I mainly play WvW.

cant even queue … crashing every few minutes(

Bristleback is reduced from 20 hits to 10 LOL … also the animation looks lame now

I also run A/D+Sw/T mercenary which is basically a version of my WvW trapper build modified for PvP. This is my current build – http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAsf3YjMqQ3KWuCusAVLWYEsmxVtKEA3UvqdVmCwlLAUyKSD-TJhGABSv/AAnEACeCA4XGAA – I’m still not sure about the runes yet tho. I like trapper runes for the utility they give (stealth+super-speed is great for setting up, re-positioning and breaking focus) but other options might be better in PvP.

Since you have nothing that triggers on crits the lack of precision is fine and the power makes your axe/sword autos hit harder. Condition duration is not really needed either as all your conditions already have decent duration. For me sigil of frailty is one of the most underrated sigils – you do not have any vuln application otherwise so it acts as a nice constantly annoying cover condition as well as increasing your damage, although you may prefer other options.

The skirmishing minor traits are not that great but you get trapper’s expertise, hidden barbs and quick-draw. combined with ambidexterity you get lots of evades or extra damage depending on the situation. You can probably take a different stun-break but LR is just a personal preference for me.

Overall i find its a very fun and mobile semi-melee build with plenty of condition pressure plus the healing/control support of the druid spec and is forgiving enough for me to be able to play PvP with my ping/latency issues.

Gunflame can do some strange things – mainly due to having piercing on an AoE attack. This is most noticeable when firing into tightly packed targets. Did a lot of testing with the target golems in HotM.

For one the 5 target cap only applies to a single explosion, have seen 9 damage instances from a single attack. Also you can, although rarely, hit the same enemy twice with a single shot, this seems to only happen when the projectile pierces multiple targets standing in a line close enough to be hit with multiple explosions.

Like the boon/condition share idea, was thinking of something along those lines, maybe:

• Normal – copy conditions applied to you to tethered enemies
  Not sure exactly how this would work – maybe use the old mallyx elite skill effect or just simply copy conditions as they are applied
• CA form – copy boons applied to yourself to nearby allies
  Same sharing rules as other boon copies to prevent a repeat of the WHaO mess

Would be nice for support druid but may be too strong with shout ranger tho, especially if you run some boon duration (also axe auto would stack might like crazy).

I don’t know if you plan on listing any wvw builds but here are the two main builds i use for wvw (with everything upgraded to ascended because I’m cheap and use mostly exotics). Note that these are the most common variations and I will often switch out stats/utilities/weapons as desired. I don’t really know what the current meta build is for ranger in wvw but these builds have worked for me.

Zerg – Shout Heal Druid
This build focuses on providing strong healing sustain and support to allies as well as Aoe control.

• Can substitute more dps or survivability in stats as needed: Berserkers > Zealots > Cleric/Magi > Nomads/Minstrels.
• GS can be replaced with Sw/Wh for more boon support and another blast.
• Can replace monk runes with soldier for condi cleanse on shouts.
• Alternative utilities: WHaO and Protect me (in this case drop the glyph trait), Lightning reflexes or glyph of equality if you need another stun break.
• Swapping NM for WS is viable as you can maintain 90% hp and regen uptime fairly easily and empathic bond is nice to have.

Roaming/Havoc – Survival Trapper Druid
For smaller scale fights or solo roaming and camp capping i prefer a condition based build.

• Sword and/or dagger can both be used with this build if preferred.
• Replace apothecary trinkets with dire if you need more damage.
• trailblazers armor can be replaced with dire if you do not wish to spend the gold on crafting.
• Some alternative utilities: Flame trap, SnR, healing spring

I usually run something similar for wvw skirmishing/roaming/camp clearing. with a bit of practice you should have no problem soloing maxed camps (just do the old dungeon LoS stacking the npcs in a corner trick). You can also put out decent support in small skirmishes with CA. It is possible to use this build in a zerg battle but not really recommended, in this case you are either supporting your allies or looking for pickoffs and disrupting the enemy backline.

A few suggestions – most of this comes down to personal preference:

• change the rabid gear to dire (or trailblazers if you can afford to craft it) – without sharpened edges you really have no reason to have precision and dire allows you to make up for the lack of defensive utilities. Note that if you do this you will have to swap the sigil of earth for something else not crit based.
• Use an apothecary staff since you usually are swapping to it for to heal yourself (or allies). You can also grab some apothecary trinkets to swap for the dire/rabid ones if you want more healing support and sustain.
• If you are running into problems with stuns or condi burst then taking druidic clarity can help. Another option is to take wilderness survival and TU or empathic bond.
• Wolf is still a viable option for a pet if you really need that extra interrupt.
• swapping axe for sword is definitely viable for extra evades and mobility.

Some other sigil options:

• Hydromancy or geomancy on staff if running primal echoes for the PBAoE immobilize proc.
• Transference on staff – if you are running with allies the 10% outgoing healing gives you a nice support boost
• Bursting or malice on A/T, the extra damage is really nice
• Sigil of frailty – this usually overlooked sigil is kinda nice on a trapper ranger since you have no vuln application normally, so it both amplifies your damage and acts as an annoying persistent cover condition for your other damaging conditions (also it is on hit not on crit).
• Sigil of smouldering – a cheaper alternative to malice since alot of your damage comes from stacking burns.

Sigil choice is really down to playstyle and personal preference. I prefer to sit in A/T most of the time and only switch to staff when i need the utility (hence why I don’t weapon swap sigils).

Now we just need a pocket raptor pet to spread around those burns

But yea, I’ve always liked using the fire spirit, in PvP the fights are mostly limited to points so the static spirits are not really an issue and 1000 range means you can tuck it in a corner out of the way of all the AoEs.

Trapper druid is probably my favorite WvW build of all time. Take Sk+WS+Dr with A/T and Staff – TU+Flame/Viper/Spike traps+entangle. You only really benefit from condi damage so you can load up on defensive stats – dire armor and apothecary trinkets with dire A/T and apothecary staff works well and trapper runes of course. Personally I like sigil of frailty on the A/T set for more damage and an extra annoying constantly re-applied cover condi (you don’t have any vuln otherwise) and bursting or malice for the other sigil.

Going druid means you lose the nice stuff in NM like protective ward or stronger pets from BM but you get staff and CA for heaps of sustain and heal support for allies. Also if you are not worried about enemy condies you can take the staff trait instead of cleanse on CA + a geo/hydro sigil for AoE entangle on swapping to staff (ancient seeds). The basically perma 33% move speed is also really nice just for getting around or you can take the stealth trait for more sneaky fun.

I would play around with the traits or even the weapons (A/D + S/T is also fun if you can get used to the sword weirdness) a bit until you find what you prefer.

Edit: forgot the spike trap not proccing ancient seeds bug got fixed recently which is a nice buff to trapper ranger.

Yes I know how many short bow rework suggestions there have been (lets face it, its a pretty terrible weapon right now ). But I have been thinking about the weapon for a while and interesting ways to bring it back. Id love to see a major rework of short bow; maintaining the theme of skirmishing and kiting using conditions and control but giving it some decent impact. Obviously these are very rough suggestions and would need some tweaking to be balanced. The new skills are roughly based on their previous forms but with some significant changes.

Crossfire
Fire an arrow which bleeds your target (1 stack) – if flanking the arrow fragments causing additional bleeding in an AoE (3 targets, 1 stack). Means you still get bleeds if you are not flanking but are rewarded for positioning.

Poison bolt
Fire a poisonous arrow at your target applying a toxic AoE to them which pulses poison to them and other nearby enemies (3 targets, poison combo field). This works similar to the debuff that enemies in HoT can place on you that damages nearby allies.

Quick shot
Evade backwards and fire a bouncing arrow which grants you swiftness (super speed?) for each enemy struck. also grants your pet one stack of the sharpening stone buff per enemy struck. (3 targets max). Gives you mobility in addition to the pet bleeds from crippling shot (now entangling arrow).

Entangling arrow
Fire a crippling arrow at your target which can bounce to enemies behind. if a second enemy is struck both targets are immobilized (2 targets max). This skill is based on the DH auto attack but with immobilize.

Concussive shot
Fire an explosive shot at your target which dazes them and burns enemies in a small AoE (3 targets max, daze is only on target). flanking applies stun and an additional stack of AoE burn. Also alot of people seem to want confusion on interrupt so replacing the burn with aoe confusion when interrupting the target is also an option

Would also change LoyF to suit these changes – keep the on dodge buff (maybe change it to on evade instead) but the trait now increases the AoE/bounce range of shortbow skills instead of piercing which doesn’t really work with the new skills.

Feel free to leave any comments/improvements

Tested it out some more against some husks in SW and it still removes immobilize even without Warrior’s Sprint traited.

In case you haven’t found this out yourself, the new brutal shot (rifle #4) cleanses immobile, even though it isn’t listed on the skill tool-tip. I hope this is the intended behavior because it is a nice buff to the skill and rifle in general.

Was looking for a thread like this a few days ago when posting a bunch of WvW bugs
(here’s the post if anyone is interested: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Various-WvW-Bugs-since-HoT/first#post5697171 – it has a few more bugs in it).

After some more WvW play:

• The bugged lava damage seems to affect all NPCs (even those friendly to the structure)
• There seems to be all sorts of bugs with NPCs being on the wrong team, spawning or being moved to incorrect places (rezzing a dead player also seems to permanently move them), and aggroing on random neutral creatures for no reason (contesting the structure).
• Fortifying our EB keep reduced some slightly damaged walls to basically 0hp (wall still intact but no hp visible)
• Can see enemies marked on the map in a keep flipped by the 3rd team
• Auto turrets appear randomly above some gates (seem to do nothing tho)
• not sure if this is intentional but the Valley (blue) keep in EBG has a 12 guard patrol at T3 now

Despite being stated as a knockdown I’m fairly sure it is actually a 0 range launch, the skill description says “launches foes” as well. Also explains why the disable is longer than 1s (launch has no duration just range) and why it throws enemies into the air rather than just falling to the floor.

Anyway … it should still work either way since the trait description for ancient seeds includes both launch and knockdown. I don’t see why it should not apply to all hard CCs.

Also, is it still impossible to hit a moving target with the entangle – during the beta the immobilize was delayed so if they were moving and the roots would do nothing.

With a bit of fine tuning this would be great for pet micromanagement, giving more control over your pet. Have always thought the pet movement component of “Guard” should have been a baseline part of the ranger pet mechanic since day one. Having access to the second pet skill would also be great and promote more skillful use of the pet.

A list of bugs that I have encountered playing WvW since HoT:

General

• All loot bags for all players are visible to everyone (the small bags on the floor when you kill an enemy player/NPC)
• EotM waypoints have no text when linked or on mouse over
• Some structures in Eternal Battlegrounds appear to randomly contest all the time for no reason – Lowlands keep and Jerrifiers Tower are two examples (archers on the wall appear to be attempting to attack the marsh drakes nearby)
• some parts of buildings (mainly bridges) in EB do not replace the wooden model – thus resulting in 2 models constantly clipping though each other
• strange oil placement on SM upper floor above the gates which cannon reach the ground below

Desert Borderlands

• Siege cannot be placed outside the west outer gate of Air Keep (Preventing rams from being built in front of the gate
• [needs confirming] possible random out of place guards in desert borderlands maps
• NPCs, pets, minions, etc are damaged by the lava in the Fire Keep when standing on walkways over the lava where the player is unaffected
• EotM supply delivery depot in home citadel is red in all borderlands
• There are two holes in the terrain just south east of the Air Keep Poi
• Have never seen a yak spawn at the south-east BL keep and move to Air Keep
• Barricades appear on the map next to the Air and Fire keeps but are not present in the world

Managed to reproduce the trapper rune bug – dodge rolling during the arming phase of the trap (as soon as the activation bar is finished so you don’t interrupt it but before the stealth and super-speed is granted) prevents you from gaining the stealth and super-speed. Not sure yet if this is the only way for this to occur.

Also remembered another bug – Troll Unguent does not appear to scale down correctly with levels. The lower the level you are scaled down to the larger the heal relative to your total hp. Being scaled down to level 4 by standing in the stating area for new characters after finishing the tutorial it heals for 93 hp per tick (tool-tip states 90 per tick) for a total heal of 930. in mostly dire gear i have 723 max hp in the same zone. Comparing this to WHAO which in the same situation heals about 140 hp.

Taverius.8645:

salogel.1869:

• Placing a trap with a full set of trapper runes will very occasionally not grant the superspeed and stealth (not sure if only a ranger issue or a trapper rune issue)

Are we sure its not ICD-related?

I don’t have much experience with runes of the trapper – given they’re being added to sPvP in HoT, any further research you can do here is greatly appreciated.

As far as I know there is no ICD on trapper runes (you can stack stealth by rotating through all your traps). Going to have to do more testing on this as it is very rare and therefore hard to reproduce.

Taverius.8645:

salogel.1869:

• Lick wounds occasionally does not revive pet and therefore does nothing

It should never revive the pet if its dead, at least in sPvP.

I was just basing this on the tool tip which states: “Revive you pet at your location to revive you.” (quoted from the hero panel skill list). I don’t know what the intended behavior of this is so is the tool tip possibly incorrect – although I was sure it revived my pet in wvw/pve at least.

Wondrouswall.7169:

salogel.1869:

• Crippling talon (dagger #5) only has 900 range – tooltip states 1200 range.

This one is false, as I have tested the range on it in both PVP and PVE modes and was able to land a hit at max range. Screenshot below with shortbow screenshots as references to 900 range.

Did some further testing comparing to ground targeted abilities … seems to be alot of variability in the range of projectile based attacks which made it harder to judge range. Shortbow and axe auto attack projectiles can hit at about 1200 range even though it says 900 range. the range of torch throw is even further … about 1500 range (same as lb#5) when it should be 1200. Crippling talon appears to have exactly 1200 range – same as the axe auto attack which confused me. Therefore I cant actually say for sure if this is the intentional range as some other projectile attacks also have the same range as stated.

Flame trap causing 2 stacks of burn on the first tick appears to have been stealth fixed (nerfed … sadface) – although it still has 2 instances of direct damage on the first tick.

Some other random bugs:

• Enemy spike traps appear as friendly aoe circles when triggered
• Placing a trap with a full set of trapper runes will very occasionally not grant the superspeed and stealth (not sure if only a ranger issue or a trapper rune issue)
• Stalker’s strike (dagger #4) sometimes causes you to get stuck – seems to be a strange interaction with dodge-rolling – also can happen with sword abilities with evades (#2 and #3)
• Crippling talon (dagger #5) only has 900 range – tooltip states 1200 range
• Lick wounds occasionally does not revive pet and therefore does nothing
• Pets sometimes have difficulty attacking structures – seemingly random
• Being interrupted when using a skill while having the quick draw buff puts the skill on the quick draw recharge rather than the usual 5s interrupt recharge

General

• Great looking visuals – staff auto-attack beam could be more obvious though
• Generally poor scaling with healing power stat for all skills
• Could use more conditions/boons (mainly on staff) – this puts more focus on the Celestial Avatar as the main healing source
• Good to have more supportive options on ranger

Staff

1. Could use a slight damage boost – maybe some minor burn application
2. Possibly add a small support condition to this such as vulnerability on the target
3. Nice skill – just needs some slight fixes (feels kinda clunky sometimes)
4. Effect is too small for a skill with such a big activation time and obvious animations – would suggest a 2 sec immobilize and/or some bleed
5. Great idea but the heal feels kinda low

Traits
IMO the best part of the spec currently – would probably use the trait line as it is even if not using the staff
Would be nice if Ancient Seeds worked with spike trap though (guessing this is just a bug)

Avatar

• Charging energy feels kinda clunky and strange right now
• Skills are generally good and look amazing (just need better scaling with healing and some minor tweaks)
• Small aoe and cast delay on Cosmic Ray makes the skill awkward to land on moving allies
• Lunar Impact daze is a bit too strong on such a low recharge
• Natural Convergence feels a bit weak for an ability that roots you

Pets
Love the new pets – Wyvern actives seem a bit slow and hard to hit but otherwise these are great