Guild Wars 2

Jurica.1742:

Do you mean if mes can take on DPS guardian? I’d say yes. DPS guardian is a tough matchup but a billion times easier than thief.
You just have to dodge their burst and they’re free to attack. Boon strip that we have really kittens them.

I wouldn’t say a billion times easier. I win more match ups vs good thieves atm compared to good offguards.

I agree with some points, you do occasionally meet really toxic people, but then again you get that in every game. I don’t think there is anything wrong with smack talk and if that bothers someone then they need to get a thicker skin. You should only really get offended if someone is purposely being spiteful. Obviously if you begin to play well you get less spiteful comments and more smack talk and vice versa in my opinion.

I think you’re referring to Hotjoin.

DrDivine.5378:

sendmark.4731:

Right now it does look that way, some have tried sword+torch in place of staff, usually if without a thief, but staff is such a great kite weapon and has chaos storm. Greatsword is very strong for the ranged damage, even just pressing 1 does good damage with air+fire sigils, let alone everything else.

This is without even getting into the shatter side of it, massive aoe damage on mindwrack (and with mirroblade/beserker putting them right on top of the enemy), boon stripping and the interrupt from diversion.

Would you say it’s still viable if I use the 20% more mindwrack damage trait over the trait that inflicts 600 damage upon interrupting a foe?

Over time Halting Strike does more damage if you get good at interrupting. The key reason that double ranged is considered meta is that it isn’t good for mesmer to get in melee range on a point any more, sword isn’t particularly good and staff offers a lot of sustain pressure. Also staff gives us a lot of mobility, forward phase retreat allows us to cover a lot of ground and when you’re competent with it you can seamlessly teleport onto ledges and behind pillars to los with it.

EDIT : Also remember that Mesmer doesn’t really have rotations. You adapt to the opponent more than cycling through your own skills (other than gs 2 + mind wrack). If you want to improve your 1v1 abilities head over to some duelling servers; we have some pretty good Mesmers in EU who frequent them such as: Helseth, Misha, Azani, Sensotix, Phantom V, Monns etc. Keep an eye out for em and watch em.

uboot.8715:

There were info in game laucher, forums, PoIs – everywhere except in-game.

Even in game leading up to the event and during it in the mists there is a little yellow box in top right corner of screen.

uberkingkong.8041:

Came back to play a lil bit GW2 yesterday… Rank 650 after winning 6 games losing 2.
Also, playing a profession I’ve never played before and spamming all the skills.
Shows how good I am compared to the PvP community. When I left my record was 49% losses, I’m now 50.29%. All good players leave or what? I shouldn’t be winning like the way I’m playing right now, especially being that its against people on the leaderboard.

The fact that after 6 wins you went to 650 shows how broken the ladder is.

EU: Mes Thief Guard +2
NA: Ele Engie Warr +2

My Sweet Lily.1952:

Cufufalating.8479:

What’s even more interesting is this is very nearly the build our current EU KotH Ranger is using.

One or two small changes in weapon and sigils and a few other things, but it is essentially the same build.

I have used my build for about 4 months now and I’m glad a bunker bleeder build gets some visibility now that a ‘’known player’’ has used it. Never used it in tPvP though and I think Rom made a good decision on using axe instead of sword as it is much more aggressive. Sword is much better for 1v1 arenas where I can kite and not worry about losing cap. For tPvP I guess I’d swap for something similar to Eurantiens build.

Btw Sizer tried my build so he might have tipped Rom to try something similar. Dunno.

I think you will find it is around 6 months, going by the time when the survival patch went live and from when you went from zerk to rabbid, I know at least I was playing the zerk one for a good 6 months. I’m happy to see more people playing it at a high level too, especially after countless complaints that it isn’t meta, or only works in 1v1s.

To be honest if you find that when you swap back to air and the skills are on cd then you are not counting their cd’s in your head, you have to think of it like any other ele build, you can’t just pop into it when it comes up.

This is amazing.

Medi guards can be kited really easily. I main S/F and I don’t know anything about D/D so I can’t help you there, but as long as you chill them frequently and use your blinds they aren’t too hard to beat. With Valk gear they can very easily be beaten and in berserker you just need to be more careful. Water 4,5 Air 3 and 5 are your best friends when fighting Med guards. If you play well you should be able to mitigate their damage, you’re only likely to have a hard time if they try really hard to win and LOS you while they heal up.

Gabelstabler.6905:

i guess the pic says everything…
gg anet 100/100 points for this update…

We have had a 24k maul pre patch. Come back later with a better number plz.

Have you played a thief and mesmer? EG: the hardest two classes in the game right now?

scirocco.9805:

This bandaid fix that will really only help glasscannon specs its not nearly enough, everyone I atack can take my damage np at all, and as soon as they atack me back I cant like they just absorb the damage I die instantly. Everyone seem to be doing the same damage as me and has atleast 10 times my defense. And no its not a l2p issue I have been playing for 2 years. The lack of defens on the class just have me stomped how can they even allow it.

If you want defense ranger has some of the best in the game.

You still take retaliation damage, tested vs a guard.

lordhelmos.7623:

To those that know how to use them, birds are very very terrifying.

TBH, with all the rangers using RF. The reality to me is that BM is still one of, if not our strongest specs.

I’ve had games where I’ve terrorized entire teams with my BM and demoralized them to the point of rage quits in tournaments.

The birds are brutal and the ammount of QQ you get for using them is, amazing.

+1
/15charssss

LughLongArm.5460:

Strange thought, do you think it will be worth it to use the new trapper rune set in a power build? You can take the fire rune with ground targeting and just place it wherever to get the 3 sec stealth and speed. That build can be even more annoying.

It would seem like a waste of a utility skill and rune set in a power build like the one Floppy used. The rune set can work well in trap builds but in their current state they are still mediocre, so it’s basically a good trolling set. The rune works very well on condition thief builds though…unfortunately.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEq0yaHL+rQ1aADhqdLEsDLrAwd8+CX9FTcUF-TZRFwALOIAAeAAJuCARLDka/BA

After the last patch before summer I created this build as I expected it to work extremely well, granted I used a berserkers amulet but after much discussion with another ranger we both stuck to using this rabid variation. This build is viable at home/far point play. People who disagree don’t understand how the meta works, even in a coordinated team this could work well, but spirits would play off better. The main feature of this build is that you can and will win 90% of every 1v1 fight you have. It struggles against sustained condition damage and phantasm mesmers but other than that it is really simple to play, and when you get good you will recieve daily qq

For the last 6 months at least in EU PvP there has been about 4 to 5 active rangers, so don’t scare the old and new ones away please. By the way 02660 is still the best Ranger build for 1v1 fights.

scirocco.9805:

I still die faster then any other class in pvp, insta death all the time, dont even have time to press one button most of the time. Why did we get a damage boost when we need a major survability buff? In wvw we where fine and now almost op, in pve sure we needed the buff, but still survability is crap there too.

We cant hide around like theifs, atacking the disseapearing, if we could we would be fine now with theif like damage. But with the total lack of defense we are just screwed most of the time.

Before the patch I would win 95% of my 1v1 fights and easily escape 2v1s in a match. Are you doing something wrong?

Kako.1930:

before I turned off map chat

People who turn off map chat shouldn’t play PvP. The sheer amount of games where I try to used tested tactics, or advice people where to go, or tell people where I’m going and they don’t say a single word all game, or at the beginning say something in /s like ’I’ve turn chat off’ is unreal. What is the point in turning chat off? Do people honestly get upset or offended or annoyed by the complaining trolls? If they do they need to get a thicker skin. I honestly see no point in turning it off especially when it can lower your chances of winning, especially if people who turn it off are bad.

scirocco.9805:

Actually its the only thing making bunker ranger specs work, well almost work anyway. Its key to my spec only spec that can survive a theif atack, which happens all the time in pvp.

You need this trait to survive thieves? Most ranger builds have an easy time against them…

Serraphin Storm.2369:

I think this trait is great. Don’t know about spvp it has limited stats combo’s. We don’t need a random boon.

We need things we can count on. Pigs have some great boon but because they are random many people don’t use them. I need to know exactly what im getting and not some random boon. That would be terrible for pvp. In pve any boon is a plus.

This trait can work all game modes. Making a random buff would total ruin it for pvp. While skill don’t have to be pvp focused, we shouldn’t have them do thing that would just make the obsolete for pvp.

The idea is that it isn’t a random boon but each shout provides different boons. Each shout always provides the same two boons, but different boons are associated with each shout.

Hi, first of all I’d just like to introduce myself as an experienced PvP and WvW Ranger who goes by the name of Benailim. I am all for creating more diversity for the class and in particular helping us become more favourable in group fights and team situations in general. As it stands at the moment we are excellent duellers however our ‘team support’ is rather poor, even spirits at the moment fall short. Anyway enough of the gravy, it’s time to get down to the beef.

Nature’s Voice

The trait ’Nature’s Voice’ is provided for us in the Nature Magic line which is our support line including traits such as ‘Spirits Unbound’.

• Nature’s Voice
  • Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to allies.
  • Regen 10s
  • Swiftness 10s
  • Radius 360

The problem with this trait is that it isn’t really worthy of a Grandmaster title. Why do people use this trait? They are either playing a regen ranger in which case the regeneration provides a high HPS uptime, or they want permanent swiftness to get about. Other than this niche use for it, why should we use 6 trait points to get something that is only really useful on one shout (if you spend another 2 trait points to reduce it’s cooldown).

My first suggestion is to change this trait so that it acts similar to other grandmaster traits such as evasive arcana, where it produces a different effect per shout. I suggested this in the CDI but I believe it got buried somewhere so I’ll write it up here also. If the trait provided different boons per shout then a shout support ranger could become viable in small teams and it could open up doors for build possibilities.

New Nature’s Voice

• Guard
  • Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to allies.
  • Regen 10s
  • Swiftness 10s
  • Radius 360

• Protect Me
  • Shouts apply protection and aegis to allies.
  • Protection 6s
  • Aegis 10s
  • Radius 360

• Sic ’Em
  • Shouts apply might and fury to allies.
  • 5 might 15s
  • Fury 15s
  • Radius 360

New Search and Rescue
We already have a revive on a 180 cooldown and this skill never works anyway so I suggest we reform it. Instead of attacking, your pet will seek out and support a weakened ally. Reduce the skill cooldown to 60s and have your pet run to the ally and heal them for 2,352 (+ 0.5 of pet healing power).

• Search and Rescue
  • Shouts apply retaliation and stability to allies.
  • Retaliation 10s
  • Stability 10s
  • Radius 360

The above suggestions would cover all of our shouts and make them viable to use in a support build. It would also open up new possibilities such as using Rune of the Soldier to remove conditions during team fights. However you may of noticed that I included the radius of the trait to each of the new skill facts above, this is because as they currently stand ranger shouts have a 360 radius whereas warrior and guardian shouts have a 600 radius. I believe we should increase the radius of all ranger shouts to 600 to unify shouts across all three classes and to increase the reliability of each shout.

If you have any other suggestions or ideas please just throw them below to see if we can get a discussion going about this, or if we’re lucky a dev response. I know it’s a bit late in regards to the next patch but maybe this, or any change, could be implemented sometime.

Cam Ron.4170:

Jackums.3496:

Because WvW allows you to attain ridiculously high stats to potentially compensate for a lack of skill, whereas PvP has much lower cap on the offense/defense you can attain.

But the people you’re fighting have inflated stats too, so I dont see this as a good argument

Thats the thing though…not everyone has inflated stats.

It’s not just their ‘1v1 skill’. Most of them aren’t even good at that, they don’t read their opponents animations. The last time I went to WvW I had full exotic gear. I met an opponent warrior who had 4 legendaries, was full ascended, infused, had the best food, buffs, guard stacks and all this other kitten that kept adding up. It was like a level 70 vs 80 and I had to significantly outplay them to win…the stats are so huge, you can get carried by them.

That is why they get hate…it’s nothing to do with their own ability but they come to PvP expecting it to be the same as when they roam, whereas WvW is completely unbalanced and uneven…not to mention all the runes (perplexity).

baerly.7204:

ele has currently about 3 meta builds in spvp

1st: d/d celestial: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Dagger/Dagger

2nd staff celestial: http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Staff_Support

3rd s/f or s/d berzerker (relatively hard to play well and not recommended for beginners): http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Elementalist_-_Scepter/Dagger

D/D Celestial is the only current meta build that anyone can pick up at the moment in PvP. Staff Needs a good coordinated team to work well which you wont find in a pug too often and S/F has a pretty high skill cap and falls short to people who pressure melee on you. I haven’t seen people playing S/D for a while either, but I believe S/F still contributes well if you know what you’re doing.

I can’t comment about Staff but I have been using S/F to great success, albeit in PvP. However it does work pretty effectively in small groups but it depends on who you’re fighting alongside, I find warriors make great partners. You will want to go Fresh Air and the general trait set-up would be 06044. In PvP I play it full berserker however in WvW I recommend you add in some Valkyrie gear, I’ve met some eles who also mix in some cavalier with celestial but generally you want big burst damage and a small amount of healing power for sustain.

I use runes of the traveller because S/F is a very slow set however in a group with swiftness you should be fine. Rune of the Pack is a very viable alternative providing (I believe but don’t quote me) the second or third highest damage behind Runes of Strength. A small amount of boon duration is all you need really as unless if you stack might solo realistically you are only likely to get 2-3 blasts on a field with S/F. Potential for 5 if you land comet and dragons tooth…I leave the might stacking to my team mates and occasionally contribute here and there.

I’m sure some more experienced eles will help you more than I can too, I’ve seen Phantaram comment on here a bit and he is good with S/F.

Love the first picture…looks so evil and powerful! 10/10

Hey, I feel I can chime in now. I’ve fought Mike In the 1v1 servers several times on my ranger and I have a few things to add.

Firstly your use of bear still baffles me, switch it to a more useful pet please. The second thing is that you rely on your bow too much, and you seem to treat each weapon as something to cycle through between bow auto attacks…you’re not bad with the bow so don’t take it the wrong way, however when someone gets in your face you tend to struggle a bit, often missing PBS or your stealth. You also start with PBS and RF a lot, and like someone said above RF is best used up close, and PBS should be saved for those moments when you need to think outside of your own situation.

You’re still pretty new to Ranger PvP though so thanks for sharing the video and keep practising! There aren’t many decent Rangers in PvP so hopefully you can join the ranks.

Kahrgan.7401:

I like how a guy posted a video of some gameplay and everyone is a kittening critic all of a sudden.

I enjoyed it op.

He said let me know what you think, so comments about his playstyle and editing are both fine. Plus who doesn’t want to know how to improve?

I’m still not sure how it works. People talk about there being no decay and jumping up the leaderboards but when I stopped for a while I went from 400ish to 90% and it wont go any higher than 900 again.

This wouldn’t be effective in competitive play because both teams could shut down their opponent completely, forcing a boring or unbalanced game and this would further encourage bunker/celestial builds that are good at doing everything.

runeblade.7514:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeR3fP2fhgg

Shots fired

My god I must of been under the influence at my previous post with those trait selections…

vashio.6297:

Ranger is in a pretty bad spot at the momment every other class has been reworked or buffed and the ranger still just has gotten nerfs or stayed the same.

I beg to differ, Ranger has had it’s ups and downs but now that Warrior is in a more balanced position Ranger can pretty much 1v1 anyone pretty successfully. I struggle with two things on my Ranger at the moment. Condition Mesmers are a struggle for me, despite my condition cleanse they still keep up good pressure. I’d say at the moment it’s a 50/50 win rate but I’m sure as I improve that will too.

The second thing is a good S/D thief. The fight will go on literally for ever until one of us makes a mistake or I successfully get an entangle on them. This depends on the thief and their play style however, I win a good 80% of these fights but particular thieves I cannot bring myself to beat yet (Sizer gokitten).

Personally I wouldn’t take resolve and I’d switch to a standard 44600 lockdown set-up, I also would switch melandru for traveller or pack runes. My reasoning? Traveller runes and staff 2 provide amazing mobility, for example at forest I can stealth blink and forward phase retreat out the side gate and with traveller runes I can get to their point or boss quicker than any other class (excluding a thief with a target).

Generally I find with Mesmer you should kite and position yourself so that you don’t get hit by conditions, or block, daze or blind their skills. Until you feel comfortable doing that I’d still recommend null field as it boon strips and cleanses, but also because it is Aoe and you can help your team mates out with it. Mantra of distraction is fine to stop heals so I’d keep that.

You don’t really need to 10% damage boost, I would personally put 4 in beastmaster. You use survival of the fittest which is fine but generally more suited to a build that kills things quickly. Maybe try 2-0-6-0-6 or 4-0-6-04 in a more tanky setup for conditions.

EDIT: The rest of your traits seem fine tbh, but maybe switch nature magic 4 to evasive purity.

Except the rank farms don’t give any more rank and are just an excuse to get incompetent players to join and donate to their servers.

SooperDooper.3659:

A Ranger with a staff would be incredible! The idea of this makes me happy. Lol

Support ranger is very much needed. We just need an update to Natures Voice so that shouts apply different boons per shout .

Longbow / Greatsword requires better positioning and more skill, but it works well in 1v1s if you get good. Compared to Sword/Dagger + Shortbow you don’t have as much free survivability. Try 6-2-0-6-0 or 6-2-6-0-0 to start off with, air + fire on bow and energy + intelligence on greatsword. See how it suits you to start with, I would make a video but I’ve been away from my pc for 5 weeks and I need to remember how to use my keyboard heh.

Also check out the NA PvP ranger Eurantien, he often lurks here but he is the only ranger with actual proof of his ability in that build rather than the rest of the people who spew kitten at you on the forums.

PvE builds along the line of 6-5-0-5-0 or 6-6-0-4-0 or around those traits are generally considered meta for pve. I use Sword/ Axe + Warhorn, you don’t need a second sword for your weapon swap so don’t spend time to get one.

For WvW a regen ranger always works well, or you could zerg surf in a 6-6-2-0-0 longbow build, and if you’re interested after the ranger patch 6-6-2-0-0 will be very effective if you position well. Axe/Dagger and Sword/Torch works well in celestial builds too, but since that gear is expensive I suggest you try carrion to start with, and remember Parrot runes go well with most ranger builds.

Avitori.6093:

I just have one issue with the players chosen.
Lets look at the stats:
Team que win/loss (ie games played)
Marvin:
4643/2255

Kensuda:
2245/802

AK
3315/1706

Phantaram:
132/54

Now… i’ve been playing NA team q for a little over a year now (I didn’t start at release, which I believe phantaram did) and I have over 2k games played in team q and 2500+ including solo arena on my NA account. I think i’ve come across Phantaram here on NA maybe 3-4 times that I can remember here. Correct me if i’m wrong, but I don’t remember ever seeing him on any team in the Mistpedia weekly or ToL for NA either. So… I just don’t understand why he is on the NA side when imo he should have been on the EU voting list. I would have liked someone I see actually playing in NA get the spot. I want someone to actually represent NA, and someone who shows dedication to playing on our side of the fence. I guess that’s what happens when EU is allowed to vote for NA as well.

Phantaram was quite big at launch. He has mostly played on EU however as he lives in the states he is on the NA roster. It doesn’t knock the fact that he is still a great ele…but two on one team.

The thing that is interesting is with the new read the wind trait buff, quickness and the rapid fire buff, we can get an entire rapid fire off in 1s exactly. Add in air + fire sigils and on classes, such as a thief, if you get them first you can literally 1 shot them.

Anton.1769:

Benjamin.8237:

2) Staff 2 should only work when you have a target available, because otherwise we can teleport forward with about face and that is basically hacking.

you forgot it can be used if you are stunned, so fix it too )

Another example of Mesmer hacking.

These aren’t real bugs guys, they’re all working as intended. Here are some real bugs;

1) Mesmer being able to create clones with dodge roll, when they already have 3 illusions up.

2) Staff 2 should only work when you have a target available, because otherwise we can teleport forward with about face and that is basically hacking.

3) Cancel casting the greatsword auto attack increases it’s dps and gives us a ranged advantage and is a form of glitching the game, which is hacking.

Otaking.4675:

At PVP rank 78 I feel I’ve hit a real plateau with builds but this looks like just what I need to break into the upper competitive echelons. Thanks for posting this.

I feel he should note that this is not a PvP build and you will be a dead weight playing it like this. Standard spirits provide better PvP support, Regen ranger provides better home point defence and berserker ranger provides more sustain.

Longbow is viable, Greatsword is not.

Basically GS is a waste and you’d be better off with Sword / Axe + Warhorn. I’m sure someone else will mention traits but I think your crit chance is too high. 55% means with spotter, fury and banner you will have I think over 100%?

Personally for this to fit into the high skill cap Mesmer PvP meta I would swap staff for an offhand torch.