Guild Wars 2

dovrak.4376:

Kravick.4906:

Stealth.9324:

Kravick.4906:

Stealth.9324:

Remind me again how many evade attack does S/D set ranger has again, pls?

What does that have to do with ranger pets, when traited, doing respectable damage?

The question is to counter the previous post, please read them for more infos.

Now, I don;t mind if Ranger Pets doing Respectable Damage when Traited. That is what I wish for. But at the current state, Ranger can be a BUNKER trait and PET still DEAL DAMS as if he is a DPS trait seems way off to me.

Hm… Call others fool is not nice. But it seems that you are uncapable of comprehend what we are trying to message to you here. RANGER ITSELF IS FINE< IT IS THE PET THAT IS PROBLEMATIC AND HIS MECHANIC. You get it now? If not, well then I give up LOL>..

Do you play a thief? Your grammatical inaccuracies and fervent whining about an easily counter-able build because you can’t 1v1 it is really starting to fit the stereotype here. Might I suggest that you start working with your TEAM, in this TEAM game, where you can work with a TEAM of players against a single target, to solve this over exaggerated problem you have with these boogey rangers? You might be surprised by how easily you can kill them.

Also, stop whining, jeez.

So you’re saying that you should 1v2 a ranger (which arguably count as 2) to actually take him down? Oh and he can self res whit his.. well you know, lovely friend.

it’s a general thing about bunkers – you send 2+ dps to deal with them, this is not a ranger only problem.

edit: bm ranger is actually not the only viable build out there, it’s just the easiest to play. it’s nearly on par with s/d thieves and hgh engineer – they’re just too effective for the amount of skill they require to play.

Stealth.9324:

Kravick.4906:

Stealth.9324:

Remind me again how many evade attack does S/D set ranger has again, pls?

2. What does that have to do with ranger pets, when traited, doing respectable damage?

Eh really? Why I counted 3? Sword 2,3 and Dagger 4? U must have been really tired from all that typing. Oh and we should not forget about the one from Trait too. I think it is called Shared Anquish or something… Come on, I don’t main Ranger, you know.

that’d explain your ignorance.
rangers currently rely on too much passive stuff – passive condition removal and the pet as a passive ( major ) source of damage. make it more active and give the ranger more active control of the pet – or shift the damage to the ranger and make pets support/control with more options to supplement the build you aim for.
thus the fotm guys would finally leave as the ranger is harder to play initially, yet more rewarding if you actually master the class and play it on a decent level.
bunker rangers don’t really need to play well to do their job – they have like literally no pressure at all and just using a quarter of the potential the ranger actually has seems enough.

jcbroe.4329:

Awesome, no rush lol. You guys have your schedule and are doing your thing and it’s great so far, so keep it up.

Having an “Esports” or pvp directed conversation with top players from top teams might not be as popular as it could be around next balance patch, for instance. Shoutcasting is still in it’s infancy and the metagame hasn’t changed in awhile. If the next patch goes well, the pvp in the game could see a popularity spike, and build versatility could increase for every class, making such a conversation much MUCH more relevant.

Just my thoughts, so in order to not derail for others reading, definitely check out the podcasts. They are great and informative.

pretty decent view on the things going on – i’d actually love some more build diversity and conversations solely about the pvp aspect of the game.
quick update on my current view of rangers, bm rangers especially :
- just taking a quick look at the traitlines kinda forces you into wilderness survival / beastmastery, which are both either doing too much if compared to other traitlines or the others do to less respectively, partly caused due to buggy/ineffective traits
- rangers are imo lacking active control – of the pet and of conditions. it might be easier for newer players but it feels limiting and you’ll get a lot of guys hopping onto the fotm bandwagon that is bm rangers. furthermore it’s getting somewhat boring.
changing it to a more active playstyle would do good to both ends – the fotm guys would drop while it would feel/be more rewarding and clutch to pull bm ranger with active control off, as you can seriously outplay someone and don’t have to rely on too much passive stuff going on.
- regarding trap hybrid builds ( i can provide one i’m using to some fairly good extent ) is something that was kinda dropped/never really in the meta game but it’s pretty good at everything it does. it gets outshined in every single aspect of the game though, by a more specialized profession – needless to say people kind of shy away from actually trying some things in spvp and stick to the much safer bm ranger, as a change of playstyle and a different view of the game is needed – it can be played differently on pretty much every map, ranging from a homepoint defender, to far point assaulting over to putting down the hurt in teamfights or peeling for your burst dps.
- if you really want to be great at ranger, try to think outside the box and use the many tools that are provided to the ranger – there’s a lot of situational stuff going on, if you think about it in the right moment it’s going to be clutch and really rewarding to pull off.
oh and don’t forget about the many combo fields the ranger has access to, and the various types of finishers that are given to the ranger and the synergy between them in certain situations.

sidenote – dagger offhand > all atm.

cheers for listening guys – and thanks to all the guests we had so far!

it counts as transformation like plague/lichform f.e. so you can neither stomp nor rez while it’s active.

you did a great job casting

i used double drakes for a stronger teamfight presence, as their pressure on downed targets is amazing. furthermore the blastfinisher and their durability are a great addition, you can also easily line up the f2 ability with muddy terrain. and muddy terrain, bonfire and drake f2 on a point is just so much pressure – it’s not as strong in 1v1s as it is in teamfights though.
i’ll keep experimenting.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjEVJ2NW+Vo2Bi2DNZeM9ek+Y1eXhRlxPjE7B-TwAg2CrIOSdk7IzRyjsHN+Y1w2jpAA

was the build i used for testing in those scrims.

nobody’s using sb in a bm build.
trapper build got slightly better with increased survivability on pets.
and regarding mesmer – they still feel kinda mandatory in a setup because of what they bring for organized play.
to make assumptions balance wise it’s still to early imo.

Thundercleese.4210:

Love all the podcasts your website puts out Bas.

Gotta fix Batosai’s internet connection, then again after he was DCed from skype and raidcall etc it was fine for the rest of the show.

Hopefully you can get a Thief show going at some point.

yeah that’s totally my bad – just relistened and it’s terrible to understand me from time to time. some stuff i said got totally lost as well :/
i’ll improve in the next one!

+1
it’s a good idea actually.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApeyCZvJP4wBE0DsIL4CVB6I9IMGw0A-TsAA0CmISSlkLJTSyksJNQYhwsBA

this build is actually pretty beast and i run it occassionally – heal depends on opposing teams setup, so do some utilities – you could go with a 3rd banner and run the regeneration trait or use another shout ( and use soldier runes with it )
your damage is still pretty decent and you can support your team pretty good.
if you run against heavy condition teams you might want to consider the warhorn – which is a really strong offhand weapon imo, if they’d add regeneration to one of the warhorn skills i’d run it in pretty much every build.

hi – i’m afraid i can’t give you that much input on wvw, better listen to xsorus about it.
running a 0/0/30/20/20 build with SoR, SaR and SotW + spirit elite is rather supportive though – for fighting and kiting a zerg or setting up some spikes against such running entangle, muddy terrain, drakehound and maybe the black bear for area weakness if you don’t have a thief at hand can be great.

daydream.2938:

Dude what is with EU not using rangers more. They are so common in the Na meta.

i guess it’s mostly trap rangers, which get easily shutdown.

axe is actually a really strong defensive weapon, with chill and weakness on #3, combine it with frosttrap and you can skip your hydromancy sigil and use geomancy for more pressure. the pressure coming from bonfire on point while being traited is amazing.
shortbow is a good weapon ( a hybrid with carrion will give huge pressure, with shaman it’s kinda lacking imo ) , but the pressure of axe/torch on point is the highest you can get.
LR is good, but i only run it in a semi-trapper build with vipers nest and flame trap. with utilizing the 3 100% projectile finishers the shortbow provides + sword/dagger ( dagger #5 is 100% projectile finisher as well), you can keep 9-10 seconds of burning on a target with one flame trap, permanent poison, loads of evades and really high pressure, but that’s a different build.
i think the signet is better than LR in that build, drop TU, and use your leap finisher on sword to get 1797 extra healing with 944 healing power ( which you have running the build i suggested) without adding in life sigil.
so doing a basic combo like torch #4, axe#3 into wolf kd, axe#2, petswap to jaguar + f2 + weaponswap(with geomancy) and dagger#5, then #4 ( keep sword #3 for dodging important stuff, not for dps due to high cd) will apply 11 bleeding stacks alone from yourself, burning (8 seconds with forge + smoldering),cripple, chill, weakness, poison and your jaguar can sustain around 5-10 bleedingstacks himself.
it’s just some basic stuff – i can see the use of TU if you solely go for 1v1 and play against teams that don’t have that much access to high burst damage, but healing spring is just the best heal in game – by far. combo it with ele, thief and you will survive forever.
you can run search and rescue with shout cd and mercy runes + SoR + healingspring to have a great teamfight support setup.
i can see the build having pressure – but i think you won’t lose much by trying what i suggested, while adding way more teamfight/skirmish utility and synergy.

@ xsorus – geomancy lasts 7 seconds.

emphatic bond transfers 3 conditions every 10 seconds to your pet, not two.
you lack teamfight utility – or even small skirmish utility, there is just no real reason to not run healing spring in any kind of teamsetup – the IV trait in wilderness survival gives vigor on healing and ticks on every procc of healing spring, thus granting 15 sec water field, aoe condi clearing, aoe vigor ( about 18~ seconds if you stand in it for whole duration) and aoe regeneration that gets applied with your healing power stats to your allies, furthermore healing spring is nearly instant cast, while TU takes 1 second to cast.
oakheart salve is an ok choice – think you still get more from taking offhand training and running axe/torch and sword/dagger as it buffs both offense and defense at the same time –
signet of the hunt seems wasted when you run the pet mobility training, which i don’t like at all. give frosttrap a try – it’s a great combo field that you can utilize among water and firefield.
nature’s bounty is great – sometimes nature’s protection might be a better choice though.
mighty swap is not as good anymore – try rending attacks, it applies way more pressure from the jaguar.
lightning reflexes is ok – but signet of renewal is better, so much more teamfight utility – oh necro just used epidemic mid while you assault far, hit signet, swap pet and win.
the spirit elite is great.
going 10 pts into skirmish can be decent additional pressure if you run the crit dmg trait – it doesn’t work with f2 abilities though.
you can put 10 more pts into bm to buff your pet further and get passive regeneration from natural healing, or go 10 more into nature magic to grap vengeful spirits ( to get 3 rezzes out of the spirit) or natures protection.
dwayna is a great choice, if you want to add more utility go with mercy and if you want to get both decent offense and defense again, go for forge.

Mrbig.8019:

Battosai.5620:

garethh.3518:

The troll ungent heals for roughly 1k every sec for 10s on a 25s CD.
If the ranger takes it, its brutal healing to beat threw.

why would you ever choose to run troll unguent instead of healing spring as a bm ranger in spvp?
healing spring is way stronger and it gives really good support in teamfights as well – aoe condition remove, 15 sec water field, aoe reg and aoe vigor, all in one skill – there is literally no reason to run TU on a bm ranger build. furthermore why are all people running LR instead of signet?
your pet can be in the midfight clearing all conditions on your allies, while you assault far point, defend homepoint or do some other objective – then you swap pet and all conditions are gone.

Personaly, i run both signet and LR, mostly due to not having anything else worth taking, aside maybe muddy terrain ( unless you want to pump up pet damage with sick em or bring a ress with Search and rescue).

With LR you can last for quite long even against double burst ( like mesmer-thief) on far point, and if you call back your pet you can even kill the thief.

What’s your build batto ?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAsY3fjEVJ25V+Vs2Bi2DNZeM9eEL13eXhRdxSVJB;TwAg2CroAzAmAMLYOwkgt+Y4xWgZDA
pet choice now changes a lot for me. f.e. you could run double canine and run 10% pet ability recharge instead of rending attacks or go for the canine trait or compassion training.
runes also vary – sometimes i run mercy or dwayna.

the regen combined with natural healing and signet passive will net you at ~400 hp/sec. there is nothing more potent than a water field.
for instance you get 1797 healing without life sigil stacks by leaping through it once.
and it covers most points completely – this is where you should fight.
furthermore it’s so much support for your team and just overall stronger than TU as the heal is really hard to interrupt due to it’s low casttime. it reapplies reg/vigor on every tick.

Chokolata.1870:

If you use two weapons and use 2 sigils , say Energy and Hydromancy , do you get the iceblast and 50% endurance on swap, or just one or the other ?

you just get one effect on swap.

garethh.3518:

The troll ungent heals for roughly 1k every sec for 10s on a 25s CD.
If the ranger takes it, its brutal healing to beat threw.

why would you ever choose to run troll unguent instead of healing spring as a bm ranger in spvp?
healing spring is way stronger and it gives really good support in teamfights as well – aoe condition remove, 15 sec water field, aoe reg and aoe vigor, all in one skill – there is literally no reason to run TU on a bm ranger build. furthermore why are all people running LR instead of signet?
your pet can be in the midfight clearing all conditions on your allies, while you assault far point, defend homepoint or do some other objective – then you swap pet and all conditions are gone.

you said you duel a lot and i take it you are playing a lot of spvp. so i presume you’re either close point holder or assaulting far point.
why don’t you just run axe/torch instead of greatsword?
the way arenanet is currently handling the greatsword and the way they apply buffs isn’t going to bring it anywhere. axe torch offers more condition pressure and the utility you get out of axe isn’t that bad either – axe #3 is amazing, the first part of the skill helps your pet catch up to the target and the applied weakness for 10 seconds is really great against other rangers, engineers etc. because it reduces offense and defense at the same time.
traiting for offhand training in wilderness survival will not only increase your offensive abilities, but also your defensive one – 8 second cd on a dodge that applies 10 seconds of poison, a ranged cripple with 3 stacks of bleeding being a 100% projectile finisher on 12 sec + bonfire which covers a huge part of a point and can get utilized by both you and your pets to grant fiery shield for pure damage.
run frosttrap to gain both offense and defense again – you take 10% reduced damage, chill foes and your pet can actually catch up to the target.
furthermore almost any power build is not viable in high level spvp.

so i heard people like leaderbords – why not finally put it in guild wars as well guise?

well it was always a problem – why they’re addressing this issue just now might be a little late, but nevertheless the right thing to do.
given this i think it’s going to take at least one more month as they try to avoid major changes – if they would make a full split between pve and tpvp f.e. it would get easier again to balance things out.
them saying that they don’t want to create different feels and to make it easier to jump from pve into tpvp and the other way round might sound good, but it is just a shallow reason imo that makes their lifes just that much harder.
but at least they start to move into the right direction – that’s something!

the quickness nerf was a step into the right direction.
now they can actually start to balance stuff – it has to get worse before it gets better.

Ostricheggs.3742:

D/D Eles are still too strong. They’re insane in 1v1s with only exceptional engis having a shot at beating a really good one (as far as I know). What they bring to a team is ridiculous. Heals, protection, sustained, mobility, CC, cleanses out the kitten front-line presence in a fight as well as 1v1 potential. Of course you aren’t gonna burst people down without a firegrab crit (if it actually lands, start dodging that thing people).

I’m getting tired of it really. Eles are the best class on forest by a LOOOOOONG shot. Teams that don’t bring eles will lose to teams that do 75% of the time.

it depends a lot on your team coordination. the game just plays differently without an ele – but i agree, ele on forest is really strong, while it’s rather easy to play without ele on temple f.e.
furthermore d/d is easily beatable as ranger.

Lordrosicky.5813:

Give me some tips anyone. Do you target the pet or what?

as a necro you can put up decent pressure – fearing heals and dodging jaguar burst / torch #4 will severly cripple the damage applied.
keeping track of emphatic bond, healing spring cd and pet swap cd are also very helpful. if you keep track of EB you can epidemic the condis right back on the ranger or just unload on ranger, epidemic and the pet gets double the conditions, thus it should die rather quickly.
if you play epidemic/terror build you can actually beat the ranger if you play it really well – the bad ones that is and there are a quite a few around. but they’re not putting much thought behind their actions, nor are they using their pets correctly.
it’s possible if you are a really good thief and manage to harras on range with poison and then go in with the haste procc if the dodges already were blown.
engineers work as well.

SAtaarcoeny.8476:

Battosai.5620:

why are you people only considering trap rangers? it’s just not as good, it’s subpar and get’s easily countered.
furthermore a ranger shouldn’t lose a 1v1 against a dps guard – but then again keep playing trap ranger till you figure out how to abuse the only 2 really viable trait lines ranger has.
oh and on a sidenote – nobody is playing any class to it’s full potential (yet), there’s just no reason to, people might have done the theory crafting for it but why bother trying hard, when the current state of the game really doesn’t take much “skill” to be on top.
but keep the arguments coming, they’re at least fun to read.

i am only using the best builds now with my numbers because they are the best builds. there is no point for to take into account a worse build because when you get to high lvl play there is no reason not to give yourself every advantage.

i honestly do feel i am using mesmer to the full potential it has. every new role i want to make it i have different builds but for the optimal play from the mesmer it really falls short. i belieave im the best mesmer in the game but to be humble i will just say top 3. but i go 100% hard every game rather its against pugs or premades it dont matter to me.

but that goes to my saying karl needs to somehow get the top 3 of each class and test numbers in a full potential environment so we can correctly balance this game.

trap ranger is not the best build. do you seriously believe that?

why are you people only considering trap rangers? it’s just not as good, it’s subpar and get’s easily countered.
furthermore a ranger shouldn’t lose a 1v1 against a dps guard – but then again keep playing trap ranger till you figure out how to abuse the only 2 really viable trait lines ranger has.
oh and on a sidenote – nobody is playing any class to it’s full potential (yet), there’s just no reason to, people might have done the theory crafting for it but why bother trying hard, when the current state of the game really doesn’t take much “skill” to be on top.
but keep the arguments coming, they’re at least fun to read.

healing spring removes conditions on every tick on every ally – furthermore it applies regeneration on every tick and vigor ( if traited).
ranger condition removal is actually decent.
op is not really grasping the “problems” with rangers atm.

you can still run bark skin – i do it against pure power teams.
still currently there is no real reason to go power on ranger as the pet practically doesnt scale at all with going power – and pets already deal a huge junk on raw damage.
why not use shamans, get hella tanky and gain way more pressure by applying loads of conditions as well – on aoe if you do it right.
bonfire covers nearly the whole point.
torch #4 axe#3 then wolf kd + axe#2 – weaponswap + petswap and use dagger#5 and #4 along with jaguar f2 – and burst like a fullout dps class. applying burning, weakness,chill, cripple, poison and bleeding in a matter of mere seconds.
11 stacks of bleeding from yourself and around 8-11 form pet as well.
enjoy all the perks of being tanky, evasive and have access to ridicoulous hp reg and condition removal, while maintaining decent teamfight utility with condition clearing, quickness stomps/rezzes, on demand cc and decent pressure on key targets.
furthermore every tick of healing spring applies vigor.
the hard part about the build is dealing dmg – and done right it is really high pressure.
i know GS isn’t that bad – but it just suits a supportive, boonsharing, tanky, beastmaster build ranger more.

my build is for bunkering sidepoint or assaulting far point – furthermore it offers great utility and pressure in small skirmish fights as well in teamfights – the only thing you gain is basically having a little more mobility with GS.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjEVJ25V+Vs2Bi2DNZeM9eke13eXhRdxKlIB;TwAg2CroAzAmAMLYOwkgtaY8x2jpAA

just run this. it’s pretty much superior in every way to the build you use.
i suggest running greatsword only in a roaming boonsharing build with sword and warhorn.
if you want me to go into detail about the build and its perks just ask here or write to me ingame.
cheers!

his supposed changes are actually very decent – people are just way too clueless about this game, also it’s about spvp, not about pve. they need to split pve and spvp skillwise, because what might be broken in spvp is still fine or in some ways not as useful as in pve and the other way round.

good idea – i approve of this!

i dare you to try it against me zoose!

urinfamousr.7631:

Battosai.5620:

i win one on ones against them easily as a ranger not running traps – wether they preset traps or not.
and lol at bm builds being useless in paids…

lets see these 1v1’s videos then , i love when people are like “i beat anyone 1v1” with ZERO vid’s to prove it …

can’t upload or stream anything with my connection – furthermore i said that i beat trap rangers, which is true, because this build is definately not the strongest build around for 1v1ing nor is it the strongest build for rangers in tpvp and the role people want to put the trap ranger in – it is arguably the strongest build at defending treb, that’s it imo.
i’m just tired about people being clueless about the ranger so i didnt really bother to elaborate my point.
anyway if some ranger players have questions about the class in tpvp or need a different view on builds other than the cookie-cutter build just feel free to ask me, i’m always glad to share my knowledge with other players and maybe getting a different point of few out of it, that i might not have considered yet.

cheers

i win one on ones against them easily as a ranger not running traps – wether they preset traps or not.
and lol at bm builds being useless in paids…

Xsorus.2507:

Battosai.5620:

Durzlla.6295:

Yasha.5963:

Traps: Once you step on it the trap triggers and is “gone”

Turrets: A “living” trap that fires off an effect to anyone in range until you go and destroy it.

Back to back turrets sounds OP to me.

Which is why there’s no back to back turrets, spirit weapons, or minions in the game… you know… the 3 things that all have the same sort of mechanic?

@OP I see nothing wrong with ranger traps seeing as how thief traps and necromancer marks work the exact same way…

Shukran.4851:

Battosai.5620:

it seems people don’t even understand what’s too strong on rangers currently, but sure go ahead and nerf traps – so the fotm guys will leave to a different class.

what’s too strong on rangers currently?

I’m going to guess that he’s talking about double Raven burst that you can perform while being super tanky, because every other prof that goes full on glass canon style gives up survivability for damage where double raven burst does not.

its not about double ravens per se – but this is to some extent the core of the balancing problem. you can go for high evasion, high healing and decent condition damage and 3k+ armour while still having decent cc and burst available to you due to the class mechanic. medeas already pointed out that 2 trees highly synergize with eachother currently granting basically both offense and defense at the same time.

beastmaster trait line offers flat out healing and buffs the rangers pet, while wilderness survival offers condition damage and toughness at the same time. so you can just run 1 dps and one control pet.
so you basically have : aoe reg, aoe vigor, aoe conditon cleanse, 15 sec cd on quickness for stomps/rezzes, aoe fear every 15 seconds, single target kd, a 15 sec water combo field, a fire combo field, strong condition pressure and access to rather reliable burst so you can pressure key targets in a teamfight, access to a third/forth combo field and on top of that you are still really tanky and a great duelist.
furthermore the ranger himself currently gets nothing out of going power/precision as it will not increase your pets damage, nor will it increase your survivability – which is another thing that is kinda hard to balance as they would propably need to rework the rangers class mechanic as a whole.
thus the gain on going defensive is currently way higher than choosing an offensive kind of trait setup.
but keep on playing trap rangers – its cookiecutter and easy to play, basically what they said they want in the game. and i think it is actually kinda fine, even though i tend to get annoyed once people run trap ranger or try to convince other people that trap ranger is idd the best way to go.
bm ranger requires a lot of timing and micromanagement though to make it borderline op imo.
and for the guys slowly catching up on this now – this build has been around since octobre and i wonder why it took you so long to realize the strength of this build, the only thing that was kinda mandatory back then was to run frosttrap, because your pets couldn’t keep up yet.

I never bothered with Frosttrap, I always found that against most people being directly in their face with melee meant they were paying attention to the pet or moving around to avoid the pet.

A lot easier to notice the pet if the person is back 20 feet firing a bow at you.

Plus i had Pain Inverter…. so yea..

well i started out playing point defender – so i forced people to get on point and frosttrap offers both offense and defense again, like it slows down warriors/thieves w.e. so they cant really reach you and lets your pet catch up, furthermore you can get double frost armour so they stack even more chills on themselves.
started this build running hydromancy as well because i loved chill so much at that time. swapped it out a long time ago again though.

Durzlla.6295:

Yasha.5963:

Traps: Once you step on it the trap triggers and is “gone”

Turrets: A “living” trap that fires off an effect to anyone in range until you go and destroy it.

Back to back turrets sounds OP to me.

Which is why there’s no back to back turrets, spirit weapons, or minions in the game… you know… the 3 things that all have the same sort of mechanic?

@OP I see nothing wrong with ranger traps seeing as how thief traps and necromancer marks work the exact same way…

Shukran.4851:

Battosai.5620:

it seems people don’t even understand what’s too strong on rangers currently, but sure go ahead and nerf traps – so the fotm guys will leave to a different class.

what’s too strong on rangers currently?

I’m going to guess that he’s talking about double Raven burst that you can perform while being super tanky, because every other prof that goes full on glass canon style gives up survivability for damage where double raven burst does not.

its not about double ravens per se – but this is to some extent the core of the balancing problem. you can go for high evasion, high healing and decent condition damage and 3k+ armour while still having decent cc and burst available to you due to the class mechanic. medeas already pointed out that 2 trees highly synergize with eachother currently granting basically both offense and defense at the same time.

beastmaster trait line offers flat out healing and buffs the rangers pet, while wilderness survival offers condition damage and toughness at the same time. so you can just run 1 dps and one control pet.
so you basically have : aoe reg, aoe vigor, aoe conditon cleanse, 15 sec cd on quickness for stomps/rezzes, aoe fear every 15 seconds, single target kd, a 15 sec water combo field, a fire combo field, strong condition pressure and access to rather reliable burst so you can pressure key targets in a teamfight, access to a third/forth combo field and on top of that you are still really tanky and a great duelist.
furthermore the ranger himself currently gets nothing out of going power/precision as it will not increase your pets damage, nor will it increase your survivability – which is another thing that is kinda hard to balance as they would propably need to rework the rangers class mechanic as a whole.
thus the gain on going defensive is currently way higher than choosing an offensive kind of trait setup.
but keep on playing trap rangers – its cookiecutter and easy to play, basically what they said they want in the game. and i think it is actually kinda fine, even though i tend to get annoyed once people run trap ranger or try to convince other people that trap ranger is idd the best way to go.
bm ranger requires a lot of timing and micromanagement though to make it borderline op imo.
and for the guys slowly catching up on this now – this build has been around since octobre and i wonder why it took you so long to realize the strength of this build, the only thing that was kinda mandatory back then was to run frosttrap, because your pets couldn’t keep up yet.

Breakin.2409:

ilJumperMT.4871:

http://www.intothemists.com/calc/index.php?build=-FF3FkBFxE-v-d2JEV-0;9V83;3T9T;436A2;059BUVk6aZk6jwmAjwmA9cG

just sayin, this build is superior to pretty much every other build for rangers

still not bestest build around!

it seems people don’t even understand what’s too strong on rangers currently, but sure go ahead and nerf traps – so the fotm guys will leave to a different class.

Mrbig.8019:

rangers are not only trappers.

You play ranger in paids, you should know it better than me / us.

The tanky hybrid pet build is a beast.

well that is, to some extent, what i was stating in my post.

trap rangers aren’t that strong tbh – they are good for defending treb, thats about it, other builds and classes around that are just better at the role people want to push the ranger in.

it’s actually the build i’m currently playing most of the time. it is more offensive though than some other builds i used to run – currently i’m experimenting around a little and tbh the build i posted works great. i’m running axe/torch due to personal preferrence i guess.

i’m not running lightning reflexes as my vigor uptime is pretty high, it doesn’t break immobilize and frost trap offers another combo field both my pets and i can use. so if people aren’t careful with aoe they stack a lot of chill on them, slowing down leaps and charges and their skill recharge as well. furthermore it helps the pets to catch up to their target and frostrap keeps people assaulting my point snared in bonfire.
i swap the trap according to the enemy setup though – if it’s double guardian i just run vipers nest f.e. as traps are unblockable and i can poison their block heal.

with the build above i’m able to stack 11 stacks of bleeds, burning and poison in a rather short timeframe and long uptime as well as chill and cripple, while having decent burst capabilities with raven and decent cc with wolf.
i’m changing around 1-2 traits though to adapt to the enemy setup or swap runes sometimes as well.

think purie mentioned a little trick i’ve been using since a few months already if i got the time – use siamoth in between fights to get plasma and just swap the pet again.

i have a pretty cheesy bunker build that sustain wise at least outshines even bunker eles currently, but i won’t share it as i regard it as broken and it’s not fun to play imo.
i can share some other builds for roaming purposes or different bunker builds as well if you guys want me to.
and yes double energy sigil is better for bunkering purposes – hydromancy is doing good as well.

just gonna leave this here …
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQRAsY3fjEVJ25V+Vs2Bi2DNZeM9eke23eXhRlyKSQVrA;TwAg2CroAzAmAMLYOwkgt+Y0wWgpHA

hi.
you can add me to 1v1, paid and free tournaments in overall strategy and the ranger bracket. europe that is.

good idea.
+1 naito.

Jay.3284:

Healing Spring + Greatsword when you already have the evasive weapons of Sword/Dagger? And you think you’re a top level ranger?

I always figured you as a troll

kittens actually broken as swoop sometimes counts as a double leap finisher – so yeah 15 sec duration, 2 leap finishers both affected by the sword trait. one on 6 one on 9 second cd. go figure.
still this build isn’t the strongest 1v1 build around nor ist it the best hybrid nor is it the best bunker build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQRAnf8YjEVJ25V+Vs2Bi2DNZeM9eke23eXhRVwkK;TwAg2CroAzAmAMLYOwkgtaYIw2j5HA

just leaving this here …
(runes and trap changes though depending on what you play against)

i’m doing pretty good on ranger. you can ask me questions about it.

thing is there is currently no real measurement for skill in the game – neither rank nor qp suffice for that, as they just show your dedication to the game.
and the level of teams and players in the game is ok – but there is not a huge gap in between teams and pugs currently.
there’s nothing except grinding qps/gear/rank in the game for spvp atm.
if you want to talk about skill and actual developement custom arenas, ladder system and a spectator mode have to make their way into the game.

things that need to be looked at imo are burst, healing and quickness well besides all the bugs currently reciding in the game.