Guild Wars 2

Mace is guardian’s signature weapon, you come with it when your guardian was born. As mentioned above, shield might not be that functional in an organized fight due to mobility issue, but mace definitely shines!
I have tried many weapon combo+builds, and at last I found the best suit for WvW Zerg battle is mace+focus/x. Trait goes to 0/0/30/20/20. If you play aggressively x=GS, defensively(easiest) then x=hammer, if you want more support plus best survival then x goes to Staff. It combines Tank+DPS+Support+Healing+survival together. During battle, when all my teammates went down/die, my HP still remained full in most of time. I normally hold at least 2-3 longer than other ppl (deadman = no DPS). We used to hold lord room with only 10 ppl (4 guardians running this build) against 30+ zerg for 10+ mins until our back-up came and wiped them all.
Mace+focus/X 0/0/30/20/20 is by far the best build which I have ever found for guardian in WvW zerg fight. And most importantly, it makes me feel like a guardian in such play style —-- always in the front, like a real tank, unstoppable.

For ZvZ:

God: Good Ele. Good ele=the real god of WvW, even bad ele can do something which other classes can not reach. Sometimes a few skilled ele will totally change the result of ZvZ combat, other classes’ role are not even close 1/10 of what a good ele can contribute.

S: Guardian / Warrior. The core of the blob, they contribute a lot when as a whole group. But they are still human, number does matter, a few more guardian/warrior won’t change the result significantly.

A: Mesmer/Necro. Both play important/irreplaceable role in big fight. But highly rely on other classes performance.

B: Thief. Best roamer, but so so in ZvZ. However they are the only God-terminator. If thief can lock the god ele of opponent , it can also change the result.

C: Engi/Ranger. No need to explain.

I play both ele and ranger, that’s why I think these 2 skills are similar.
Meteor Shower is RANDOM—- yes, but in a large scale fight you can literally LAND EVERY SINGLE METEOR as long as you cast it in right time/position.
I partly agree that “You stop moving you die”, it should be “You stop moving you down”. A full channeled MS need 3.75 sec, but in most of time, 2s is enough, it’s just drop fewer meteors , but that’s enough to kill. I only cast full MS in certain location (e.g the head/end of bridge to create an absolute deadzone). My ele downed a lot during the fight (mostly by retaliation but not opponent’s damage)but seldom die coz I rally up very quick. Same thing happened to my ranger too except the rally part.
The cripple might be the only thing that barrage beats MS but in large scale fight it can be ignored. Is the cripple worth the 20x damage?

Durzlla.6295:

CRrabbit.1284:

As I mentioned in 1st topic why I compared these 2 skills, they are all #5 skill on 2-hand weapon, with same CD, both need channel and do AOE damage per trick. So in my opinion they are very similar type of skills and very comparable.

The point is NOT to complain how pathetic barrage does VS meteor shower (although someone already showed that 1 meteor damage> whole barrage) .

The point is WHY Anet use totally different logic to describe the damage of these 2 skills? It makes Barrage look much better than meteor shower but in fact it’s a HUGE MISLEADING in numbers.

Isn’t this a perfect sample of double-standards?

Durzlla.6295:

You can’t compare these too, not to mention the radius on Meteor shower is sure as hell not 360 (that’s the meteor explosion radius), the skill is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than barrage, and under no realistic circumstance will you hit someone with all 24.

The skill does do more AoE damage than barrage yes, but it does not provide any form of CC (cripple) like barrage, and it’s absolutely 100% useless in a 1v1 fight because all that’ll happen is you get your teeth kicked in as you try to use it where barrage you tend to be able to get off at least a few waves for the cripple and can break out of it and move on…

Did i mention that Meteor Shower takes a full second longer to channel than Barrage?

It’s hardly double standards, you have to look at it in an overall balance aspect, Meteor Shower is RANDOM, you can literally miss EVERY SINGLE METEOR even while they’re in the area the whole time, on the other hand you have the ranger over there using barrage who is dealing damage AND crippling up to 5 targets in the area and there’s nothing they can do about it other than get out, or pop a defensive CD.

Also, an ele has the lowest armor and health in the game and the general play style for an ele is “You stop moving you die” using meteor shower requires you to stand still for almost 4s, if the enemy team is paying any attention to this you’re going to be butchered in a matter of seconds. Not to mention if you swap out of your fire attunement you’ve effectively denied yourself access to the skill for 13s compared to the rangers 10s. Also, the rangers skill allows them a location to kite and stay alive in, the eles is pure damage, in a weapon (attunement) that is ONLY damage.

Have you even played ele? Or have you just been kitten on by an eles aoe damage and thought they were too strong compared to ranger?

Ele is THE AoE prof, especially with a staff where they literally become a walking artillery canon where every single one of their attacks can hit +5 people (with the exception of Chain lightning which is 3).

So you believe that Anet will put the real damage description(one is 20x times more than the other similar one) to meteor shower in order to show the game balance???

nagymbear.5280:

CRrabbit.1284:

Isn’t this a perfect sample of double-standards?

No it isn’kittens the perfect example of…. typos in skill description.

As I mentioned in 1st topic why I compared these 2 skills, they are all #5 skill on 2-hand weapon, with same CD, both need channel and do AOE damage per trick. So in my opinion they are very similar type of skills and very comparable.

The point is NOT to complain how pathetic barrage does VS meteor shower (although someone already showed that 1 meteor damage> whole barrage) .

The point is WHY Anet use totally different logic to describe the damage of these 2 skills? It makes Barrage look much better than meteor shower but in fact it’s a HUGE MISLEADING in numbers.

Isn’t this a perfect sample of double-standards?

Durzlla.6295:

You can’t compare these too, not to mention the radius on Meteor shower is sure as hell not 360 (that’s the meteor explosion radius), the skill is SIGNIFICANTLY larger than barrage, and under no realistic circumstance will you hit someone with all 24.

The skill does do more AoE damage than barrage yes, but it does not provide any form of CC (cripple) like barrage, and it’s absolutely 100% useless in a 1v1 fight because all that’ll happen is you get your teeth kicked in as you try to use it where barrage you tend to be able to get off at least a few waves for the cripple and can break out of it and move on…

Did i mention that Meteor Shower takes a full second longer to channel than Barrage?

13-15k that’s SINGLE meteor does, and that’s already much more than a whole barrage can do. Don’t forget , a meteor shower drops 24x meteors……

Belzebu.3912:

Atherakhia.4086:

Don’t forget an ele can pop tornado and effectively double the damage as well.

Wiki is down, but I believe Lava Font is better damage as well if you want to compare it to a less random AE.

Yeah, I saw a topic in the ele forum showing 13k~15k MS damage in WvW using the tornado trick.

I also think that MS should be more powerful than Barrage, but not by this much.

I agree that staff-MS ele is taking higher risk than LB-barrage ranger. I am comfortable if they can do 2-3x damage due to the the risk-return, but isn’t 20x damage too much ??
Disregarding the truth, doesn’t Anet ought to put the right tooltip description by using same logic on both skills but not the current misleading ones? — a 481(1.3) skill hit 20x harder than 1692(4.8) skill, are you kidding ????

Lyndis.4653:

It’s not really a good idea to try and compare like this IMO.

Elem has less health, less toughness, no pet. Playing MS as Elem means you use a staff which is determining your 20 weapon skills while Ranger only sets 5 of his 10 to be able to use barrage. Besides, as has been said, Elem doesn’t have control over the hits.

So as I said, comparing is probably a bad idea but if you want to compare there’s a lot more to take into account (I’m far from being exhaustive, I just wanted to show why I think the comparison shouldn’t be made).

Meteor shower’s damage radius is 180 after staff trait. Within a 360 radius circle, basically 4x 180 will cover the whole area. So even it’s random, and the chance of hitting a single target is 1/4, even though meteor shower still do 5x damage than barrage. and if you are in WvW fighting a big group, almost all meteors will land on some targets, then all of those meteors will be counted (then at least 20x damage more than Barrage). That’s how OP this skill is.

SpellOfIniquity.1780:

I’ve never been an Ele so my opinion on this could be completely invalid but; I believe that Meteor Shower is totally random when cast, isn’t t? You can target the area you want it to be cast on, but the meteor’s land very far apart from each other and will often miss their target. I think it’s a risk versus reward with Meteor Shower. You can risk casting it and missing your target completely or hitting them with a little luck and killing them pretty fast.

However, I would definitely like to say that Meteor Shower does some absolutely NASTY damage. Ele has been nerfed to hell so I wouldn’t ask ANet to nerf them any further. But if you’re going to balance the professions buff some of Ele’s other abilities and nerf the damage of Meteor Shower a bit. Meteor Shower and Thief Heartseeker must be two of the hardest hitting attacks (or attacks I’ve noticed to hit particularly hard) in the game.

Let’s compare the most powerful AOE skill of ranger-barrange VS ele-meteor shower.

Barrange: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Barrage

Meteor Shower: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Meteor_Shower

Both are channeled skills, same cool down, ele need channel 35% longer than ranger, but they have 50% bigger radius to compensate which is fare enough. Theoretically these 2 skills sound (and should be in my opinion) identical.
However, let’s look at the damage where Anet plays word-game to fool us ranger:

On paper:
Barrage: Damage (12x): 1,692 (coefficient=4.8)
Meteor shower: Damage: 481 (coefficient=1.30)
Barrage looks much better by all means.

But truth is:
Barrabge shoot 12x hits, each hit can hit 5x targets max (so totally 60 targets at most) and damage is only 141, ALSO The damage coefficient of 4.8 is for the 12 hits. Each hit has a coefficient of 0.4.

Meteor Shower hit 24x meteors, each meteor can hit 5x targets max (totally 120 targets at most) and each hit damage is 481, and most importantly, the damage coefficient of 1.3 is for every hit, so if using the same logic which barrage uses, the coefficient of this skill should be 1.3×24=31.2 but not 1.3 !!!

In reality, assuming that both Barrage and Meteor shower hit same number of target, the real damage these 2 skills will do : Barrage 141×12×0.4=676.8, Meteor shower 481×24×1.3=15007.2. Meteor shower = 20x Barrage. If luckily both Barrage and meteor shower hit max targets then meteor shower will do 40x damage. Then anyway meteor shower will do 20-40 x damage than Barrage with same cool down and comparable casting time/range.

Is this working as intended ??
Even if this is how it should be, but can you Anet use the same logic on both skills to show the truth on tooltip?

The right tooltip should be :

Barrage: Damage (12x): 1,692 (coefficient=4.8)
Meteor shower: Damage (24x): 11,544 (coefficient=31.2)

ReesesPBC.4603:

I’ve disabled the melee assist and done as many have suggested by staying inside the target but still not all or most of the hits still miss for whirling wrath. Is there a specific technique, especially for moving mobs, that is most effective? I’ve noticed its of course easier for bigger, stationary bosses so any help for anything beyond those would be appreciated.

Not sure if you have done the right way to stay INSIDE the target.
The right way is not the animation but the red circle under your and target’s foot. Make sure yours inside his, you will maximize the GS2 damage.

Aurum.8793:

pop your damage signets and hit them with Path of Scars. Switch to greatsword and hit them with Maul, follow up with a Hilt Bash.

This burst combo works on mobs, but can hardly land on players, that’s the issue. Players know to dodge and stun break even if they get pulled, they won’t lay on the ground let you maul them. If you missed these 2 big hits, you basically have lost and you have to GS3 leap away ASAP, but VS classes who are good at chasing, GS escape is not enough.

As a roamer, you need prepare for not only 1v1 but also 1vx situation. Basically you are guaranteed to be killed if you meet 2+ skilled players. Even in 1v1 situation, your burst is far from taking any condition bunker down quickly enough but you will be melt soon since you have 0 condition cleansing. If you insist on play power ranger, LB seems a necessary weapon combined with GS, at least you can have 3 sec stealth to disengage/engage the battle.

1v1 Dhummfire Necro are super strong, maybe the strongest by far, even mesmer don’t have a good chance to win them, but you can hardly meet a roaming necro since they are lack of mobility/escape ability. If you don’t want to die , just run away, they won’t catch you. And if a few buddies just pass by at right time, he doomed. So over all it’s pretty fair — They stand the highest chance to win 1v1 but only if you choose stay and die, also they are still weak when 1vx, yuo will never know how many you gonna face when roaming.

Key is not being focused. Any class being focused by 3+ ppl will die fast (for certain OP class maybe 5, that’s the limit), even a PU mesmer or a perma stealth thief don’t want to fight 5+ ppl alone. If you fight outnumbered a lot, you need to equip weapon like sword or GS and utility like JI, once you found yourself being focused you need to get out combat ASAP, learn to hit and run then come back(most likely a troll style). Those meat-shield style guardian can only last a bit longer but won’t change the result of being killed at last especially when outnumbered.

Arlette.9684:

My problem being that I fight outnumbered all the time, getting a 1v1 is like getting a Xmas present in May. So even with all the blinds, Dodges (I use double sigil of energy) I have to avoid twice as many attacks and it feel like I run out of tools to survive before I can make some serious impact.

There are a lot of flaws in this build, but it works, at least now. The main reason is ppl don’t think you can do anything as a pathetic ranger. It’s all about surprise. When opponents stacks and you run into them alone, they think you as a troller, they will just ignore you or maybe try to kill you. But when they found 4-5 of them down to ground in few seconds it’s already too late, they are doomed by your following team.
In fact there is a lot of counters VS this burst. I myself can at least tell 3 ways.
Now I am thinking about flame axe, and replace the QZ to SOH, I am expecting at least 8-10k instant AOE damage for the 1st E-lava axe then the rest 4-5k+ every 5 seconds, and most importantly it’s ranged and instant so it’s very reliable ranged DPS. Also flame axe’s other skills give ranger much better survivalbility, all these make ranger a super back-line DPS. But that really make the ele Sacrifice a utility slot coz I have never seen any ele run FA in WvW. (there is a few running LH build, so that’s not a waste)

Shinoobi.1259:

Looks pretty fun, actually. An ele giving up a utility slot to increase overall DPS of his group is worth it.

I don’t agree with giving your pet more crit damage though. Just get bleeding on crits for a little dps boost and make them waste their cleanses on weak DoTs.

Depending on how big your GvG fight is, spirit rangers are pretty strong due to the elite preventing stomps and removing conditions. River Drake + Spirit of Storm does very good AoE damage. Anything above 10v10 though, it starts to become more poopy, because the spirits take buffs like stability away from other party members. So this build looks very fun for 15v15 kamikaze glass cannon. If you had a mesmer/necro backing you up with boon stripping aoe, it would be very strong since dodge rolling/protection/ aegis will stop a lot of your burst since you seem to bet the farm on 6 seconds.

That’s basically right. Toughness/more HP can only keep you last a little bit longer but won’t save you. It’s the skills like Blocks, Blinds, Vigor, Dodging, Invuln etc. (especially mobility) which make you get out of combat saving your kitten .
However, you still need a little bit toughness+HP to buy some reaction time. For me, I found no difference in WvW survival by having 2600 armor+15k HP vs 3400 armor and 20k HP. I am running full zerk gears in most of time and some time even when I was commanding, I can still be the last one standing on the ground but I can deal much more damage than wearing PVT+H gears.
It’s about right-timing your skills and know where/when to go.

Blasino.3128:

Blocks, Blinds, Vigor, Dodging, Invuln…

And for those videos people normally put their best stuff and edit out the bad stuff. Not saying those players are bad at guardian, it just doesn’t capture the whole picture.

not sure how well it may work in sPVP/tPVP since the damage modifier is much lower than WvW but definitely worth a try.
In WvW ranger might be the best class to use LH due to the utility benefits. In WvW ranger can quickly build 4k power with bloodlust and might stacks, and with 100% crit + 125% crit damage plus signet/rune bonus, ranger can do about ~20k damage per second (with QZ) for near 4 seconds. No one w/o Invulnerability can survive this. When I tried last night, most of opponent’s train head died instantly (under the cross fire of other teammates) even before they realized the situation and pop up skill.

KeyLimPi.9031:

CRrabbit.1284:

I am uncertain about this, wiki said environmental weapons won’t benefit from traits but with exceptions, they only give warrior’s trait as example. That’s why I still put MoC there by hoping it may work, but in fact 2 sec vs 4 sec is not much different. (of coz 4 sec will be sexier)

I’m not denying the opportunity =P as I said, it’s worth testing at least in PVP. I have a ranger as well but I rarely play it, Too situation and I feel too few builds, especially in this condition meta.

I am uncertain about this, wiki said environmental weapons won’t benefit from traits but with exceptions, they only give warrior’s trait as example. That’s why I still put MoC there by hoping it may work, but in fact 2 sec vs 4 sec is not much different. (of coz 4 sec will be sexier)

KeyLimPi.9031:

CRrabbit.1284:

LH may not benefit from Moment of Clarity since LH is considered as environmental weapons

Ele main here: It should still be effective as they can still be cross traited! That’s the reason Fire Axe with Pyromancer Puissance stacks might and Bursting Staff makes the size of Lightning Hammer’s Static the same size as traited staff static.

At the very least it’s worth testing mates

1, Stabilty counter the AOE stun, but static field will separate those ppl w/o stability from the train head (that’s usually what you want when fighting hammer train).
2, Your DPS is mobile, you want to focus on their train head. Train head die= train over.

Doesn’t stability kind of wreck this though?

I was expecting to come in here and see immobilize spam which is also amazingly effective since most trains don’t have adrenaline to use their hammer burst and most warriors are too brain dead to swap weapons to use a different leap skill.

Really wish the Ranger was the king of immobilize. Imagine if we had a weapon that could do what warriors can with hammer, only with immobilize. We’d be wanted then.

actrually that’s a flaw. LH may not benefit from Moment of Clarity since LH is considered as environmental weapons (I am uncertain about this). But to maximize the damage I have no choice to put 30 into Skirmishing trait. You can repalce Moment of Clarity with what ever you want if MOC doesn’t work.
The key is the damage, stun is just bonus. SOW+LH Leap in + AOE stun ,then SOS+QZ+LH1, you will see some fantastic numbers and then dead bodies on the ground after you burst done.

Sevans.4619:

This is neat. Static Field + Moment of Clarity might be the best use of that Grandmaster trait that I’ve seen thus far. Kudos.

It has been a long time I have been searching for best use of ranger in WvW especially in ZvZ/GvG situation but I can never find an ideal usage of ranger when compared with other classes.
Special thanks Erro for his norn bearform post, it gives me some inspiration.

Heavy Hammer train is so popular in WvW nowadays, pugs have been crashed by such trains badly, and even for organized teams, if you don’t have enough hammers (Guard/warriors), you have to play extremely smart and careful to against them. Hammer train is still widely used in GvG as well.
When a heavy armor hammer train rush towards you, what you can do? Being killed or dodge away/through, that’s most ppl will react in the 1st place, but have you ever think about to just simply stop them, BY YOUSELF, ALONE? It has been always my dream especially when I play my so-called most-useless WvW class — ranger.

However, the dream becomes true. Tried last night with guild team, face-rolled opponent’s heavy hammer train 4 times in a roll, I bet even now they may have not figured out how they were melt so quickly.

Build is here:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBMhFakoKxuwSyi1OQseQo9PI2jDx/F5KgqMO6jXRA-jkBBYfCiZmFRjtoqIas6aYKXER1WzFRrWKgIGDA-w

Can you see the power of the build? (Someone may say wow you are so squishy! Yes I am, but it won’t stop me becoming the secret weapon and the turning-point of the battle)

If you didn’t get it yet, let me tell you the trick — find an ele friend and grant you a Lightening hammer.

Hammer train coming? Go get them! You will see some 5 digital numbers for single hits if you are lucky and the tighter they stick, the faster they will be melt. Actually your real weapon is not important , you can use green or even blue weapon coz you only need the utility skill from the weapon to get out after your crazy burst (so I choose Sword + GS).

Enjoy!

It’s highly possible that a nerf will happen soon. Any effective discovery which makes ranger more playable will be nerfed soon, but wellknown bugs remain forever.
If we want to blame, we should just blame that 1st ranger player in OB, if he didn’t faceroll JonPeter’s beloved warrior so badly, Jon may have shown some mercy and just let ranger as is.

Belzebu.3912:

Gorwald.6170:

Watch out Jon peters see this video and argue how powerful ranger is and then nerf your signet + bear form !

I hope that they don’t change things like they did with Norn mesmers.
With the trait where you make a clone on dodge + bear form … well you can get the picture of what used to happen, right?

The worst point is:

1, For Anet, they won’t admit that ranger is a design failure so they won’t redesign it although they already knew it’s true.

2, For players, we are still dreaming about any changes although we already knew 1 and knew that we are just day-sreaming.

it’s not %, power wise, it’s +916 power to your status at lv80. (see wiki description)
Bear hit hardest coz the bear #5 skill base damage is the highest among all norn elite skills.

Erro.2784:

Thanks for the replies. Sincerely wish I could post some vids of the ranger in my guild’s evening raids, but that would require the ranger to be useful for such events… so I’m always on my guardian.

@Prysin
From what I can gather, bear hits the hardest. Stat scaling is as follows (100% is index):
Bear: 140% power, 100% precision, 150% toughness, 340% vitality;
Leopard: 140% power, 250% precision, 90% toughness, 180% vitality;
Wolf: 160% power, 150% precision, 150% toughness, 180% vitality;
Raven: 140% power, 150% precision, 150% toughness, 260% vitality.

Most likely the signet of hunt, change it to 10% ea for next 5 atks. (as what they did to thief’s signet)
But that will make rapid fire more viable. but in fact the damage bonus will be nerfed hard.

nagymbear.5280:

Gorwald.6170:

Watch out Jon peters see this video and argue how powerful ranger is and then nerf your signet + bear form !

And what part of that combo will get nerfed? Just take a wild guess.

Since you are only lv40+, your trait/gears are still behind being useful, and also considering the low damage you can output, the best use for WvW and fastest way to lv up is to use axe/axe+horn and run traps, at least these will do some AOE damage to grant you exp/wxp and bags.

fyrew.9183:

I have been playing around with ranger a bit (level 40~), and was wondering what build would be the best for WvW

That’s really a good try.
Good part is it will bring some fun.
But the sad part is —- as rangers we finally get some burst every 4 mins by choosing right race+ using 2 utility skills and 1 elite+ push 4 buttons, which Warriors can easily get by just click F1 every 10 seconds.

DaedSaint.6190:

I have run with this same thief with far less tanky guard builds against 5-10 enemies many times. Can’t win every time but we have a high success rate.

Well I can hardly imagine 2 VS 5-10 you still have a high success rate. This is basically highly broken in balance if this is true no matter what class you played or against. Skill wise, good player/team can handle 2x number of players (extremely good VS bad), this is the limit, If you can win 5x number — it means the game is broken.

If same skill level, ranger has absolutely 0 chance to kill thief no matter what build you are using. In fact a good thief is just immortal in 1v1 against any class. He may not kill you instantly, but there is ABSOLUTELY no way he can die.

No offense, your so called “unkillable” build only works on fair fights(let’s say with your thief friend, a 2v2). However, there is never fair fight in WvW when roaming. Your guardian will still be melt quickly when you face 5+ ppl which is very popular situation in WvW, and most importantly you have no ability to escape as your thief friend does.
If you want to play 2 men duo style with your thief friend, you better reroll a troll warrior (e.g. GS/S+X build), you guys can still have a great chance to take some fools down even if you are facing a 20+ zerg and the worst case is that both of you just run away.

DaedSaint.6190:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS5elYgqCnFyvDf4ESmCRCBxegReUHdpwheIA-jUCB4hCyIjJjaIQ0HwJoFRjtyqIasqZER16kYGxFRrWGAztA-w

This is a build I have been working on to roam with a Thief that is more or less a “two man zerg” style of play. That being one tanks a substantial amount of players while the other kills them off one by one. The primary purpose of this build is to stay alive and mobile. This is achieved by sacrificing all offensive options to gain maximum survivability.

I don’t know of anyone that has run this variant of a bunker but if you do, or have ways of making it more tanky/have more sustain I’d love to hear it.

EDIT: same build. just a couple polishes.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQNAS5elYgqCnFyvDf4ESmiVCBxegReUHdpwheIA-jECB4hERzUDDRj+AOBtIasVWFRjVNjIqWnEzIuIa1yAYuFA-w

This is a PVE build, in WvW it will not work especially for roaming. Basically you will lose to any roamer 1v1.

if no healing power, then heal as one >TU.
put 30 on WS tree to get E bond, that’s your only condition remover of the build.
Should be good in small team fight + camp wiping, 1v1 hard to say (depending on what build opponent use).

You know the most useful and fun part for my power ranger is suicide rush.
In GvG it’s very often to see opponent team regather/stacking might or healing. That’s the right time to pop SOH+SOS+SOW, Swoop into them, Maul, then GS111111 till you down. 90% of time I will go down with another at least 3 opponents , then my team rushed in and I rally up.
It’s very aggressive play style but a lot of fun.
Imagine 2-3 rangers doing the same thing.
The biggest advantage ranger has now is all other ppl think — What the hell this crazy ranger gonna do here ?

In my opinion, LB is a totally waste to your build, SB+S/D will be much better.
It’s a hybrid tank build but you can’t call it a bunker build with 0 healing power coz it’s not bunker at all.

Bredin.5368:

I run a LB and S/D Evasion Tank setup that works extremely well for roaming and actually does very nicely for dueling as well. It is a shout-based type of bunker with high power (2200 power/3300 attack unbuffed), 3000+ armor, 19k health, 48%/37% crit chance/damage. You will have perma regen, perma swiftness and a constant stack of 6 might.

Build: Updated Evasion Tank

I’ve posted this on the forum before and no one really paid much mind to it (which is fine by me!). However, it performs extremely well. There is great synergy between LB and the S/D weapon set and if you run a shout build, you can have good sustain with 0 healing power.

And most importantly, it is extremely fun to play!

DeathPanel.8362:

Been a long time since I’ve played my ranger, thinking of coming back to it and even making a second one for a different ranger build. From what I’ve seen so far there seems to be the following choices for specs in wvw.

Spirit Roaming condition/regen.
Shout based bunker.
Trap Conditions
Zerk longbow Glass.

What are the currently community opinions of these specs and what would be the optimal traits/gear setup for each of these?

Spirit Roaming condition/regen. —-- good for roaming, ideally for point defense such as ruins, but it only works when opponent want to fight you. (if they run away you have nothing to do since this build has no burst to take anyone down)

Shout based bunker. —-- least useful build, only for fun and troll, not recommended.

Trap Conditions —-- maybe the fastest camp-wiping build for ranger. Also good for roaming.

Zerk longbow Glass. —-- has its place in chaotic situation during zerg fight, but well, maybe the glassiest of all classes.

Over all, I still think the Trap build is the most useful build for ranger since day1.

You will have no chance to cast your trap or elite according your play style.
Basically signet build (30 in Marksman) is must-have for your purpose.

Paz Shadow.9715:

Hi all, for those of you who run with zergs, what build do you run? The wvw group I am trying to figure out a build for is going to be a group of 25-30 people, probably one to three rangers in the zerg. Anyone have any idea of a solid build?

What I was thinking was a ranger melee cc build:

Armor could be a knights armor with soldier trinkets.

Main hand is greatsword, second is axe/warhorn.

Skills would be healing spring, muddy terrain, LR/QZ, and frost trap, with elite being entangle.

traits could be some sort of 0/20/30/20/0 build?

Any sort of advice/direction would be welcomed. I know ranger and zerg don’t go hand in hand, but I wasn’t sure if anybody here has a solid build that gives good damage, good survivability, and gives something to the zerg.

Demus.4218:

That looks like an excellent signet build. The only thing I can think of that you would want to try is main hand axe instead of sword. I don’t think its necessary to have that level of mobility if you’re going to be zerging. The ricochet is a consistent ranged “cleave” and projectile finisher which pairs well with the range of the war horn. Its some added flexibility in play style.

I did try axe instead of 1-H sword, but I think sword is better in front line situation.
1, leap finisher>project finisher considering regen is the easiest buff to get when we are at front line, but the extra 1500 heal combined with HS is really on-demand , also it’s an evade.
2, control is relatively easyer with sword. Axe requires a target, but both GS and SW don’t. Using axe / swap GS, I have to target / de-target /re-target very often, but with sword it’s worry free. Also another trick is – if you use sword targetless, the 2nd and 3rd chain can keep you moving fast regardless if you have any soft CC which make the ranger hardly being focused.
The damage is from the drake, ranger just need to carry it to right position and burst it out, ranger’s role is basically keep alive + heal , meanwhile add some more damage when possible.
Yes axe may increase dps a little bit, but sword will increase survivalbility a lot.

Aim: try to be most useful in WvW, ideally for zerg fight – Mighty front line build
with signet, mighty swap, sigil of battle plus horn, = perma 10+ stack of might.
SOW+SOS+drake F2 and tail swipe = guaranteed insane AOE.
Plus GS+Sword give the best survivalbility and mobility.
Little bit more useful group utility besides HS : group vigor for 6sec every 16 sec.

Any suggestion?
here is the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBMhFakoKxuwyvi1OQseQI/Moni0zeniRFqU+VHc6F-jUCB4hCiUDgkIBK7pIasVQFRjVNjIqWvAzimIq2lATKAmUGB-w

When did EB become a EU server? EB’s 355 vs BP’s 325 during BP’s EU prime time?—- I remember BP used to dominate this period of time.

Please change your title to —- Plz don’t nerf us more in WvW.
The original ranger might be the strongest ranger of all time.
Every patch we are going down or just remaining the same while other classes get buffed here or there.
Just leave ranger as is, at least we can have 1 last build viable for 1v1 roaming.

I chose ranger as my 1st char for just one reason —-- it’s a NCsoft game.
Anet belongs to NCsoft;
NCsoft is a Korean company;
And Archery is Korean’s most proud national sport;
In almost every NCsoft game a class with a bow rocks;

However…………..
How dare Anet design such a class in GW2? I bet NCsoft’s CEO never played this game….

Tumult.2578:

Now that the longbow has been buffed to the point of being equally as poor a weapon as the other Ranger weapons,

ISN’T IT TIME TO PUT THE RANGE BACK TO 1200 ON THE SHORTBOW?

Since there was never any claim of the shortbow being overpowered and the only reason was to make the longbow somehow more appealing. That is the only reason offered by a-net.

I miss the original ranger with original SB+QZ, at least at that time ranger basically has a guaranteed burst with SB.

A Warrior or a Thief can troll 20+ ppl around but can’t hold a spot; a guardian can hold 1v3 but once vs 5+ he has no way to escape or survive.
However since the new patch, I have seen multiple times a mesmer troll+hold a camp/keep VS 10+ ppl for 3-5 mins and eventually wait till his friends came and face roll enemies (or send a portal too retake keep).

Forget to mention, none of the troll warrior/thief has ability to really take someone down, a bunker guardian’s damage is also a joke, but bunker mesmer can still have a great chance to take down anyone 1v1.

I vote mesmer for best Bunker in WvW now.

Dezarys.1372:

We only ask that this server has decent OCX or SEA coverage.

Then there is only 2 choices: SoS or DB

We need to send something GW2 specific , and ranger specific.
hmm… I vote for a pet, but well, of coz malfunctional ones. what about a deaf cat?

Soilder.3607:

Mass effect players sent cupcakes to EA made of green red and white frosting to symbolize the lack of variety in the games endings.

We could do something similar.

Tyler Chapman.1832:

It was an example to prove not everyone is upset with Ranger.

Well can I say — not everyone is upset with Obamacare?

Based on GW2 history, every time we complain we got nerf, the more complains we shout the harder the nerf is. It could be on paper, a bug hot fix or even a ninja fix.
I bet if everyone just simply shut up, let’s say no new post in this forum for 1-2 weeks, ANET might realize something and begin to take it seriously.

Can I add pet F2 issue to the list as well?

Sina.9208:

Tyler Chapman.1832:

This issue has been on our hotfix list. Enjoy the fury while you have it. x.x

I wish sword 1 dodge problems were on the hot fix list too, its more important in my opinion….

Unfortunately that is just why and how ranger was designed and being changed in wrong direction.
You simply can’t judge the balance of a profession only by looking at 1v1 or 2v2 since GW2 is a MMO game……

Tyler Chapman.1832:

We understand you obviously are in favor of this bug…I mean I would be too on my Ranger. The point is that it was an unintended change and we are obligated to fix it. We were just talking and one thing we do want to do with Ranger is find more places to place Fury. A lot of these posts are just erratic emotional responses filled with tons of hyperbole. The Ranger isn’t going to “go back into being useless” because of this fix, because it’s already strong. Sure it has it’s flaws like all classes but it is one of the top classes in PvP and in PvE it is competitive with top burst damage. It’s got better support than many classes and it has probably the best elite in the game. I mean it’s got an 87% participation rate in the 2v2 tournaments that have been happening every weekend. What that means is that one was on every single team in the tournament except one.

Sorry I don’t have more time to chat but things will be getting better for the Ranger in the future. You can count on it.

This is more like a anti-thief build to me. You still gonna melt fast against condition masters.
I would rather go for either LR or QZ rather than MT while roaming coz MT can hardly land on skilled players in 1v1 situation but QZ or LR on right time can be more helpful.

law.9410:

hello, can someone help me tweak this solo roaming build?
The premise is basically to utilize companions might, two-handed training, fortifying might, and sigil of battle to boost the kitten out your pets. i thought birds would be nice with their high crit chance plus pets prowess (30% increased crit dmg). Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJARVnAV0YZfFWBxahgopgTWip4QJ6VYWOF+3TF8IB-jkBBYgBiEJQJQFRjtCqIasqlY6XER1SBMqwI-w