In my opinion, this is pretty bad. Basically mediocre for everything.
And lack the most important ability when you solo in wvw — mobility. You will never win any class/build with good mobility and more than half of them will kill you 1v1.
lol to be honest, did you ever land 10k rapid fire on any competent player? (even with QZ) BTW, a single thief sticking on you basically will make you busy enough to use out of your “get out of jail” cards and contribute almost no dps.
Believe or not, LB ranger is not good for 5 men roaming. Power-LB can be good as zerg snipers, but in 5-men roaming, everyone has to be count all the time.
Using LB = tell OP you are not bunker build(most likely DPS), thus 90% time you will be the 1st targeted. Then you either have to stealth or L-reflex + swap to GS and get out of of the fight temporarily, which leads a bad situation to your teammates.
If you insist on using LB (if it fits your play style well), get either protect me or traited SoS. You gonna make sure you can survive the 1st initial burst towards you and stay in the fight while hoping your teammates burst some of them down quickly.
Also I can’t imagine a power-LB ranger w/o QZ. w/o QZ you are not even considered as a DPS. Then you are neither a bunker nor a DPS or CC/healing master, what you bring to your team?
Drop Moment of Clarity, and pickup 10 more points in Wilderness for Empathetic Bond
Get rid of Muddy Terrain, you’ll find its annoying to use usually.
Drop Signet Mastery, Pickup Malicious Training and use Spiders
1: I can see how that would be beneficial. But you also have to take into consideration the team mates you are running with. If I end up playing with a shout warrior or shout guardian the additional condition cleanse may be unnecessary.
2: To be honest I find Muddy Terrain extremely easy to use and by far one of our best utilities in group fights.
3: Now this is something I haven’t looked into. I have been running atleast 1 spider lately. Would this be picked up for the increased Immob. duration or simply flat out more poison?
For starters it seems you didn’t look at my build very well.
Secondly it sounds like you’ve never played nor-encountered a balanced build.
Thirdly if the enemy team targets you then that is going to be their downfall. This build has more than enough “get out of Jail” cards for any competent player. If the team wastes their entire rotation on you only to have you evade backward and stealth. That gives your team a free gib on a player. Also to note 10k+ Rapid Fires are definitely considered burst, 2-3k Auto attacks aren’t a joke either.
Believe or not, LB ranger is not good for 5 men roaming. Power-LB can be good as zerg snipers, but in 5-men roaming, everyone has to be count all the time.
Using LB = tell OP you are not bunker build(most likely DPS), thus 90% time you will be the 1st targeted. Then you either have to stealth or L-reflex + swap to GS and get out of of the fight temporarily, which leads a bad situation to your teammates.
If you insist on using LB (if it fits your play style well), get either protect me or traited SoS. You gonna make sure you can survive the 1st initial burst towards you and stay in the fight while hoping your teammates burst some of them down quickly.
Also I can’t imagine a power-LB ranger w/o QZ. w/o QZ you are not even considered as a DPS. Then you are neither a bunker nor a DPS or CC/healing master, what you bring to your team?
Drop Moment of Clarity, and pickup 10 more points in Wilderness for Empathetic Bond
Get rid of Muddy Terrain, you’ll find its annoying to use usually.
Drop Signet Mastery, Pickup Malicious Training and use Spiders
1: I can see how that would be beneficial. But you also have to take into consideration the team mates you are running with. If I end up playing with a shout warrior or shout guardian the additional condition cleanse may be unnecessary.
2: To be honest I find Muddy Terrain extremely easy to use and by far one of our best utilities in group fights.
3: Now this is something I haven’t looked into. I have been running atleast 1 spider lately. Would this be picked up for the increased Immob. duration or simply flat out more poison?
Also for trait, I suggest Malicious training instead of beastmaster might since you are not the damage dealer, you want to maximize your CC but not increase DPS. 3x mights make no difference, but +50% immobilization duration could be deadly.
I didn’t test, but if I were you, I will use GS+sword/axe. Then doing little bit more:
Activated SotW, Swoop in, drop MT + Entangle, swap pet to Krytan Hound + use F2, drop Healing Spring while popping SoS, switch to sword (with sigil of hydromancy=more control) and axe#5 (coz most likely you will be immobilized at this moment), when it ends, it’s just time of your SoS and SoW ends, so time to sword2 (you want to get out of zerg 1st) then use GS #4 to block then your Swoop should be no CD again.
It’s all about right timing, need some practice, but if you do have some DPS friends cooperate together, it should give some good results.
Activated SotW, Swoop in, drop MT + Entangle, swap pet to Krytan Hound + use F2, drop Healing Spring while popping SoS, use GS #4 to block while starting to run, and used Swoop again to make distance once it was of CD,
You are doing a CC bomb, I would suggest Sword/Axe as the off set since it give you better chance to escape after the CC burst. Use axe as main hand= totally useless for what you were doing.
If you can get 1 more thief/engi + 3x zerk staff eles and cooperate very well together, maybe you can really do something.
Hey Chopps,
you are right, with stealth thats a different matter entirely ofc. then you will only have to worry about getting out.
I tried again this afternoon for a few hours, using inspirations of the Sentinel Build mistsim posted on the forums and on which he based most of the critique he put forward (If you read through his guide here: https://tinyurl.com/sentinel-mistsim you will find that almost everything he posted in this thread is just what he claims his build actually does).
I still went with GS- Axe/WH and used the same gear you proposed in your Hydralist 2.0 build, except for changing the Magi trinkets for Soldier for more Toughness.
Btw: if the precision +Viatily combination is your only reason to use Magi jewlery: I would go with knights insteat since your toughness is pretty low.
But I changed from Taps to Signets, changing traits into 30/0/30/10/0. Going for the signet traits and bark skin.
I picked up mistsims idea here to stick with only 2 sources of annoyance: Muddy Terrain and Entagle in favour of SoS and SoW.
I know this kind of drops your concept of the ‘utility’ traps, but:
It worked!
Without stealth I was able to jump into the Vizunah zerg as followed:
Activated SotW, Swoop in, drop MT + Entangle, swap pet to Krytan Hound + use F2, drop Healing Spring while popping SoS, use GS #4 to block while starting to run, and used Swoop again to make distance once it was of CD, did this quite a few times under the eyes of my amazed guildies asking me on TS wether I was feeling suicidal today
What this meant for me: staying in a zerg for a bit is fine if your have the right tools for it. And in my opining you need an Invulnerability to pull this off.
Conditions are another big issue which the HS does not fully solve. Runes of Melandru might help together with the Lemon Grass soup (-65 % Condi Duration) but that won’t fully protect me against immobilises.
Btw, runes: Why use runes of lyssa when RaO has to be used before combat as your only stability source?
I tried to build the synergy of your two concepts and found that it worked quite well, if you only want to apply CC. What it does not is damage…
I will pick up your idea of surfing with he melee’s and see how that works for me!
I agree that ranger is a good roamer, but not the best, you win only if your OP is willing to fight you. If they choose to run , basically you have nothing to really stop+kill them. And if really bad situation happened, ranger is yet not the best at escaping(we are good at it, but definitely not the best). As a roamer, warrior, mesmer, thief over-shine ranger in my opinion.
I was confused for his build either. He is using Apoth gears but build is not typical Apoth build. It use traps but no survival skills and no regenation. Then why go for Apoth?
just to address a few things regarding the “Hydralisk” build:
- when RaO is down, you have no stability available meaning you cant do any zerg diving without getting perma stunned or knocked around
- throwing traps from 600 (and not having survivability) is suicide against a committed, organized zerg; maybe works against pugs who are kinda just standing around twiddling their thumbs
- the build has no hard CC. no axe 4, no LB 4, no wolf fear.
- you’re not utilizing the main ranger strength: multiple aoe immobilizes. dog f2, MT, entangle (in addition to wolf fear) can actually trap a significant number of targets for your team to nuke
- in short, you have next to zero survivability. there are no utilities dedicated to surviving burst. there are no stun breakers. you only have 1500 toughness. there is no sustain. have you ever gotten bursted on with only 1500 toughness and no invuln? one good thief could drop u very quickly.
- you cant give healing spring to your frontliners (where it’s needed) if RaO is on cooldown (most of the time)
- healing power is low, so even your regen is not really useful as it probably ticks for about 220
- poison trap ticks last a very short time; it’s not an actual poison field. condis are cleansed very quickly. have you considered using the murellow? it’s an actual poison field, much more useful than the drake who misses his f2 most of the time.
So you are just gambling during the fight. If there is 1-2 OP see you and cast 1-2 hard CC, you pretty much become a badge. I agree that you may succeed sometime when you are lucky but that’s not the way a ranger should be in my opinion. If I do gambling of not being seen, I would rather go for zerk LB build then I can at least guarantee some real damage.
I literally threw that build together in 2 minutes, so I didn’t think of everything. But throwing traps down without being “noticed” isn’t very hard in the chaos of everything that goes on in a fight. Large groups of players tend to stick together closely, and therefor have a hard time doing sharp turns, meaning something as simple as dodge rolling and running to the side, means you can avoid most of a group completely. Large groups of players are also very predicable when moving, so it’s easy to see where to place you traps, as long as you see them coming of curse.
My shout build is very close to your Sent build, and yes I already replace GS with sword+horn (sword is actually better than GS for escaping and same for mobility) and mainly use axe/axe. LB is still not my tea since I found axe-main can actually do more easier damage and easier to control. I would rather to pay more attention to get survive and ensure my pet to land their limited CC on exactly right time than spending too much attention counting on the time of weapon skills.
Have to say – Axe as off is really really good practically, 4 damage is decent and perfect combination with axe 1+2. Axe5 is just what you want while you are immobilized (which is very common in zerg front line fight) pared with protect me. When my axe5 end usually is the same time my protect me and and my immobilization end, perfect time to swap to sword 2 + l-reflex I am 1800+ range away. Greatly increased my survivalbility VS those well-organized zerg train. But still old problem, I don’t feel I contribute much compared with other classes which I played.
Rabbit, u should try the damage variant of my sent build sword/axe/lb. It’s actually a decent alternative to the staff ele. It gives les s b oons but has more immobilizes and does more aoe damage.
I don’t have that much whole sets.
I have 0 piece of giver/cele/travelers (has explores when I use to PVE)
Some pieces of settler/shaman combined with others. And the rest of all exotic sets. I think that’s enough to test in WvW.
Just a suggestion: no need to waste your gold/badages on that.
I tested almost every single build ever appears on this board (even some not appears here) before I made that post —- I am done with my ranger in WvW.
If you don’t beleive that or only play for fun, go ahead.
Great post and great information from Chopps as well as everyone else!!!
Made me pick up my beloved Ranger again, whom I dropped in favour of a Mesmer for GvG play.
Keep it up!!!
If you have some gold and leftover badges, try something like Hydralisk—let us know what you think (there’s a thread on that). Personally I would prefer sentinels but it’s too much gold right now so I went soldiers. Hydralisk was partly inspired by the sentinel’s front liner thread.
on it. i’ll let you know
How many full sets of exotics do you have for ranger? I have 15 full sets of exotics and can actually do really well in every single one except probably givers. (Givers armor lol)
Just a suggestion: no need to waste your gold/badages on that.
I tested almost every single build ever appears on this board (even some not appears here) before I made that post —- I am done with my ranger in WvW.
If you don’t beleive that or only play for fun, go ahead.
Great post and great information from Chopps as well as everyone else!!!
Made me pick up my beloved Ranger again, whom I dropped in favour of a Mesmer for GvG play.
Keep it up!!!
If you have some gold and leftover badges, try something like Hydralisk—let us know what you think (there’s a thread on that). Personally I would prefer sentinels but it’s too much gold right now so I went soldiers. Hydralisk was partly inspired by the sentinel’s front liner thread.
You have neither LB stealth nor GS3 gap closer. How can you reach opponents into melee range w/o being noticed?
Your shared anguish is the reason why I said you can cast 1 skill before you die.
Yes you can use sword2 to get closer but then you just used the only last hope of escaping after cast that 1 skill when you are lucky enough to be not seen when you try to approach.
if youre casting from 600 range, by the time youre done, the melee train is upon you. so youre still at melee range.
How the hell do you guys play? Stand still and take all the incoming damage to your face? The Ranger has more then enough evasion to move out of the way. You’re talking like the only reasonable scenario is a hundred foes, with +100% movement speed, vs. one imbecile Ranger. Let’s get back to reality shall we..
If you want more stun removal, then changing Muddy Terrain to Signet of Renewal, or Lightning Reflexes, wouldn’t make the build that much worse. And the build also has Shared Anguish.
I have to say zerk LB ranger might be the best use of current ranger situation. At least we can do some damage at a relatively safer place. That’s all.
However, a staff ele can do much better than us in this point. That’s the key of the topic.
I would have to disagree, it all comes down to how you play and how you can help your zerg, I go high crit, high crit damage with CC’s with fear and freeze or will switch out pet for aoe might. With muddy you can slow a zerg down, with extra range you can stay at a safe distance as you barrage down on your pin to lay waste to what they are fighting or take down siege other classes can’t hit. Add in AOE fire sigil and bleeds and you are doing a boat load of damage. Finish off with piercing. You also have healing well for condition removal. GW for blocking and quick escapes. List goes on it’s fun class to play, tuff to master. I’m on JQ so have lots of experience with T1 Zergs.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.
How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.
Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.
All of these skills are in melee range. To successfully cast them and retreat you need both protect me with either traited SoS or L-reflex(protect me alone not enough, I tried many times even with brown bear+protect me in front of zerg ball, and it last no more than 3 seconds), and to max the trap, you have to at least invent 20 to Skirm trait. Then you are already at 30/20 in trait and already used 2 utilities which leaves you only 1 slot for trap.
Same idea, your canine won’t survive till they cast immo or fear unless 1-you use SoS or 2-you use shout to stealth+protect them then go. And after casting , they are pretty much instant dead then you have to swap another quickly for your own protection.
Well you can use 5 rangers to do the suicide rush to cast some of these, but what’s the point next?
Um, I have 21k health in full Apoth gear and I have a full set of Dwayna… I don’t last 2 second if I’m anywhere near the front of a zerg on zerg encounter.. Who’s dropping into or out of anything?
What you’re asking is for an entire zerg to focus fire you and you’re going to live? Not on the servers JQ play against.
In fact, I have tried all of these mentioned so-called soft CC skills in almost all kinds of combinations, and finally I found the best soft CC for ranger is coming from axe (with good Crit chance)+sigil of ice, it’s relatively safe (at 900 range) and spammable (just axe1 and hit multi targets) although it also has 10 sec cool down.
this is all soft CC brother. it does nothing to an organized zerg with -65% condi duration. spamming soft CC only deludes little rangers into believing theyre actually making a difference, when the real difference is made by static fields, rings of warding, Earth Shakers, and the sort.
GvG meta has permeated WvW in most of the higher tier server. this basically means perma stable frontliners, unlimited condi clears, staff eles, power wellmancers and the sort.
Youre kind of contradicting yourself here… perma stable frontliners are not affected at all by the hard cc you mention, soft cc is where its at until they tone down the stability in the game. There is very little immunity out there to it, unlike hard cc which is countered by one ability. Conditions are more spammable than the cures, advantage conditions.
All of these skills are in melee range. To successfully cast them and retreat you need both protect me with either traited SoS or L-reflex(protect me alone not enough, I tried many times even with brown bear+protect me in front of zerg ball, and it last no more than 3 seconds), and to max the trap, you have to at least invent 20 to Skirm trait. Then you are already at 30/20 in trait and already used 2 utilities which leaves you only 1 slot for trap.
Same idea, your canine won’t survive till they cast immo or fear unless 1-you use SoS or 2-you use shout to stealth+protect them then go. And after casting , they are pretty much instant dead then you have to swap another quickly for your own protection.
Well you can use 5 rangers to do the suicide rush to cast some of these, but what’s the point next?
It’s also worth mentioning that the Ranger’s traps have shorter recharge times, then most condition removal has.
How many trap rangers does it take to counter lets say a group with 5 guardians and 5 warriors running with soldier runes?
For example guardian running 3 shouts has cooldowns of 24,28 and 48 seconds on them.
Traited Spike Trap, Frost Trap, Muddy Terrain, and Entangle, will have recharge times of 20, 24, 20, and 120 seconds. Then you have pets like the canines that can also deal up to 3 seconds of either immobilize, chill, or fear, with recharge times of 20, 30, or 45 seconds. You could also go with the black bear and polar bear, to deal AoE weakness and chill. And then there’s Barrage. Now imagine five Rangers running this.
You 2 are talking different topics. You play ranger as a pug but killimandros is talking about teamwork which becomes more and more popular in high Tier WvWs.
Rhaps, 2 points. Ill take your last point first; Its crap because it makes it very hard for me to follow my guild group. Thats why its crap. If I try to pull it off in anything besides a zerg, I get burnt down before duration time ends. So, in other words, its useless. Second point, you said there are other classes which are as useless as hunter. Well, the two best classes are Guardian and warrior for a good organized guild zerg bust team. But, ALL other classes has its uses, EXCEPT Ranger. As yourself pointed out, there will occationally be even engineers. But no rangers. I have myself Guardian, thief, ranger and warrior. No sane team leader will ever ask me to log on my ranger. Has never happened, will never happen. ANd rightfully so.
It doesnt mean I dont enjoy my ranger. Its a totally different game. Ranger is not built to be an asset to a team. Maybe if you are running two or three friends, relaxing trying to pick out one or two, running the risk etc. its good fun. Its good fun to try one vs one as well, testing different builds. I like my ranger, but its still useless for anything else than my personal fun. Might be decent in sPvP, I dont know, because I dont like sPvP.
Huh? I was just correcting you on the viability of 2 skills and otherwise agreeing.
First point, I use both skills to great effect in WvW in and out of zergs. If you die all the time when using them you’re either using them wrong or just getting straight outplayed. I think the fact that you barely mentioned the full functionality of GS 4/5 or how to utilise it leads me to believe you have very little experience using it. You don’t mention the moving ranged block, the ranged cripple, the 50% dmg boost to pet, how they are interrupts and will allow you to proc AoO off MoC and also that they get their stun durations boosted by MoC to be very useful. You need to practice your GS Ranger more before lecturing people on their effectiveness.
Secondly. This, “you said there are other classes which are as useless as hunter” I absolutely 100% in no way said this. I have noooo idea where you are pulling it from. I said Ranger is a harder class to play in WvW than my other toons. Thats it. Don’t put words in my mouth.
Sword is good. Sword 1 = ranger’s best single target DPS (but also pain in the kitten sometime). Sword 2>GS3 when you get use to it. Sword 3 =an extra EV.
I will vote sword the #1 weapon (in current sate) of ranger.
some of you guys didn’t get what I mean. (Some go it)
I never say ranger is totally useless in WvW, no class is useless.
My point is —- no matter what role I am gonna focus in WvW, I can always find other classes doing much better than ranger. So ……. why play ranger in WvW except fun?
Played since day1. Ranger is my 1st char, have had a happy time when I explored the world, feel excited when I played sPVP, but then after I move to WvW in majority of my time. I tried every single build/gear possibile combination and at last I found the ranger the worst class for WvW. Any other class beat ranger in any way. Every other classes can has very specific role(roles) in WvW but rangers.
My main is a ranger, running a bunker build in WvW with 3.1k armor+27k HP. I have good experience 1 v x coz I can hardly be killed. Sometime I can even survive from 3x BS thieves or 20+ ppl zerg bomb.
However, today I met a engi who almost instantly killed me twice. He can drop my HP (27k with 3.1k armor) to bottom in <3 seconds. If I don’t have protect me or SoS I will die for sure.
Both times I ran away and came back with full health coz I have never ever been hit that hard by any single players in WvW. but both times I have to run away in about 3 seconds otherwise I am down for sure.
I checked combat log and basically all his skill damage was 1k+ and surprise shot damage 4k+ for every time. I checked wiki that skill damage is only 122. I can’t imagine how can a engi hurt me that hard with that skill, 4k+ damage is a number that a GC thief can hardly reach on my ranger. and that Engi is definitely not GC build (I hit him for only 200-300 each so I am assuming he have at least 3k+ armor)
Can any1 here explian to me how to build an engi like this? I am thinking to roll an engi coz this is too strong……
Ya thanks a lot for Mistsim’s Immobilize/Fear bomb idea. I changed my pet to dog/wolf last night with my shout build and found it works perfectly.
Guard—range 1200, pet stealth+protection, cast F2 it’s still in stealth, plus trait NM 15 you get fortifying bond, pet will share your ROA (stability), you can use long bow 3 pre-stealth yourself if you want to be more surprising. Will try reef drake confusion bomb tonight.
I found my ranger pretty nasty now , haha.
added the frontliner immobilize bomber build above have a look.
I see a lot of hidden potential in that build. I tried coming up with a BM immobilize trap version but I haven’t fully tested it yet.
I personally prefer the BM immobilize fire + fear bomb, as my BM is strong on condition damage. Not only that but fire field opens the chance to buff all front liners with might boons. Besides I find that fire works really well if its follow through with another immobilize bomb as fire fields come easy for a ranger, so you can repeat on the go.
Ya thanks a lot for Mistsim’s Immobilize/Fear bomb idea. I changed my pet to dog/wolf last night with my shout build and found it works perfectly.
Guard—range 1200, pet stealth+protection, cast F2 it’s still in stealth, plus trait NM 15 you get fortifying bond, pet will share your ROA (stability), you can use long bow 3 pre-stealth yourself if you want to be more surprising. Will try reef drake confusion bomb tonight.
I found my ranger pretty nasty now , haha.
It’s not the condition damage that hurts, it’s the perma chilled/cripple/poison and sometime almost perma-immobilized which hurts. I have both protect-me and SoS on my tool bar for near 12 seconds invincibility, but w/o enough condition removal (it’s never enough) , I know I am gonna die after that 10 seconds. But I do like your axe-off hand option, which allow me to do some damage before I am over.
In your movie I would say your play style is semi front-line solder in most of time. I never seen your opponent run any well organized heavy warrior/guardian hammer train which is so popular in T1/T2. I doubt your build can survive that.
let me clarify a few things about WvW and condis. i didnt discuss condis in-depth simply because theyre not really a problem with this build.
condi tanks work through condi duration reduction (lemongrass + melandru), a high vitality buffer (sentinel), and clearance (passive vs. active). therefore, i wouldnt easily dismiss sentinel in favour of PVT (unless it’s all you can afford).
condi clearance is just gravy. focusing on active condi clearance is generally a mistake, unless youre a guardian with traited VoR, renewed focus, and 3 shouts. stacking passive condi clearance (i.e. X removes condi every 10 seconds) is the best way to go, as long as u have Lemongrass and Melandru runes
condis are only a problem in tiny engagements like 2v2, 3v3, and duels. condi/regen builds are in fact best dueling builds. very few people use condis effectively in larger engagements, and if they do, you just push through it. this is possible due to aoe cap and stacking condi duration reduction. i actually main a rabid necro with almost 2k condi damage. he’s beastly in small engagements, and quite mediocre in GvG’s and zerg fights.
if youre really worried about condis, pick up empathic bond instead of bark skin. i started off with SoR and Empathic Bond a few months ago, and found them completely unnecessary for most frontline work. with melandru + lemongrass, you’re basically tanking it. if you added SoR, along with HS, you’d literally be immune to condis. the build does not have to be changed drastically.
Maybe you never feel the pain of condition since you go with your buddies in most of time. In your video, I saw you have barely condition stack on you for even 2-3 sec coz your BUDDIES clean them for you.
In fact, if I can have good buddies all the time, I can even run with Zerk gears. But as a freelance solder (I think most of us are on our own), I have to rely on myself only.
SOR is good, E-bond is not enough. I have the opposite feeling about your “very few people use condis effectively in larger engagements”, maybe we are in different server, I have suffered a lot from condition during large fights even if I use lemon grass, the conditions just comes from everywhere NON-STOPLY .
hmm i roamed a lot with my tanky build and never had any issue with condis. im not saying it’s the best roaming build, but it can definitely cover that role as long as u have a few buddies with you to do the dps. if youre worried about condis, pick up empathic bond (instead of bark skin) + SoR. with melandru + lemongrass, you’re basically immune.
thing is, condis are only a problem is small gang engagements. very few people use condis effectively in larger engagements, and if they do, you just push through it.
I agree with that PVT gear is by far the best choice for us ranger to go in WvW. But can’t go with the same trait. OP’s trait/utility works well (as shown in video) ONLY IF you work with a good team. This trait/skills has 0 condition removal except HS, that’s far from enough. I have tried tons of time even if I use my shout builds (with 3x instant condition removal) and sometime I still feel not enough.
w/o condition removal, you will be perma chilled/crippled/burned/poisoned and maybe 20+ bleed all the time, which make you can hardly last even 10 seconds in front line even you have 28k HP and 3k+ Toughness.
And for roaming, any condition build eat you alive easily.
Your calculation is wrong. at 1531 power, your atk is 2531, so 250 more power=2781, it will only increase 10% in direct damage but NOT 16%.
So 250 Precision is a little bit better in this case.
One last question – assuming that the crit chance is worth it, have you considered using the Superior Sigil of Perception instead of Bloodlust, for extra ~ 10% crit chance, or is it again not enough to justify dropping 250 power?
At 1531 power, an extra 250 power is a 16% increase in direct damage.
The build starts with 36% crit chance. At 83% crit damage, that’s a 1+(.5+.83)*.36 = 147.9% base damage.
250 precision would increase crit chance to (1586+250-916)/21 + 4 = 48%. At 83% crit damage, that’s 1+(.5+.83)*.48 = 163.8% base damage.
163.8 / 147.9 = 1.1075, or just shy of a 11% increase in direct damage, or about 2/3rds as effective as +250 power.
Hmm, I just think about it twice, I don’t think cleric gear is necessary. This build is a front line melee build, in zerg fight, a bigger Toughness/HP pool is more important than healing power since you gonna face the zerg burst. And this build already gives enough suvivalbility to escape, I can just run away and come back.
Healing power instead of HP may be useful for roaming (to over-stand other bunker classes), but same idea, I will just run away if things turn bad, since it’s pointless to win a 1v1 in WvW in most of time.
Good advise, luckily I still have one exo set from my BM bunker build, will try it tonight. In fact just found that even if I use cleric , my crit chance still can be as high as 50%, that’s not bad at all.
i would use Clerics for trinkets. It would enhance your survivability by loads.
Forget the precision and the odd crit… add healingpower by the bucket loads, add power, and massive vitality and you got near immortality
Good advise, luckily I still have one exo set from my BM bunker build, will try it tonight. In fact just found that even if I use cleric , my crit chance still can be as high as 50%, that’s not bad at all.
i would use Clerics for trinkets. It would enhance your survivability by loads.
Forget the precision and the odd crit… add healingpower by the bucket loads, add power, and massive vitality and you got near immortality
with 0% crit damage, you only do 50% bonus damage on crits. Not much, but i guess it will give you Maul’s up to 3k on medium/glassy targets
You can always modify the gears (e.g. replace some solder/kight off for zerk) to get better crit dmg by trading off toughness/HP. But in my exp, survival is the king especially in zerg fight, 3k maul is not bad at all.
Ranger is my 1st char and I spent almost 1/2 time on it when I WvW. Have tried almost all kinds of builds including Power/BM/Apoth/Trap/Spirit etc. However, any of those can be only good for certain situation (e.g. Power is not bad for zerg but sucks when roaming, BM/spirit rocks on 1v1 but useless during zerg, Trap/condition seems work on both but other classes doing much better than ranger) Then finally, I found my current Shout-builds the most viable(1 for all) build to play WvW.
With this build,
you will have: superb toughness and HP;
you will have: 12 sec invincibility+26 sec stability;
you will have: pretty high direct damage = high power and super high critical chance (30% base+ 20% from perma fury+20% from trait and sigil)
you will have: superior mobility;
Also you have: good dodge+block from weapon skills,
Also you have: good condition removal (pet+shout+spring)
And you will give team(including yourself): perma swiftness + perma fury + perma regeneration plus ranger’s special healing spring.
It makes you become a rock-hard front line solder together with warriors and guardians during zerg fight, it also make you extremely hard to kill while you roaming.
For current patch, of coz warrior. I have both Warrior & Guardian too. In zerg fight, my warrior is as tough as my bunker guardian but has more damage output and control/anti-control ability. For roaming, guardian has nothing to do but warrior is in an at-least-won’t-lose situation. For team support, guardian maybe a little bit better but warrior not bad either. Also never forget the diversity of warrior playing in WvW, you will see all kinds of warrior playing styles but for guardian there are only a couple viable builds . Overall, warrior is better than guardian now.
Guardian and Warrior are my two main professions, heck, they are the only professions I play at the moment. Can’t seem to tear away from those professions. I’m having a hard time figuring out which one is more viable in wvw. Any vets out there care to give some feedback on these two professions in WvW and which one is better for WvW ? Or do you feel they are basically equal ?
There are always someone in WvW who can never be immobilized. Any1 know any tips?
I use my guardian, use hammer 3, scepter 3 + signet of wrath plus + condition duration food. But no matter what I use, I just can’t immobilize them, I tried tons of times (suicide many times) just to immobilize him, but he is just simply can’t be immobilized, I checked his food, he is not using any – condition duration food. Today I met a whole team , I died like 30+ times, but not a single time I can immobilize single one of them. They neither dodged nor blocked my skill, I can see the animation of immobilization landing on them every time, but they just keep moving free.
I am wondering if there is any tips which I don’t know to avoid being immobilized???
Not a single death after 1000 kills? What server do you play on?
DB.
The most fun for me is carrying the outman buff and going out seeking for a death, but I just simply don’t die…(Yes I lost and flee away sometime , but just don’t die…….)
It has been 2 whole weeks, just a few hours play in WvW everyday, 1000+ kills but not a single death. Feeling the same pain/boringness as I played P/D thief in old days. It’s pretty fun to annoy ppl at the very begining, but after a while it became so boring……
Not saying ranger is OP since there are so many situations where ranger plays fewest role, just hope ANET can make ranger more versatile.
Since last patch, I think ranger is now the best roamer in WvW. In open field, a well played ranger is just simply unkillable in any 1v1 and in most 1v2 and 1v3 situation.
For zerg surfing, maybe ranger can’t contribute much, but who cares since everyone is just follow zerg brainlessly.
There is no 1 for all build for WvW as a ranger. In fact after the quickness nerf, bunker ranger is now extremely strong in 1v1 situation in the open field fight in WvW. My ranger just simply never lose any 1v1 fight (and 99% 1v2, only lost 1 single time against 1 mesmer + 1 thief) since the last patch. For some classes, it will be a never-end fight at worst case, for some classes, they are just free badges no matter what their builds are. You just need some patience.
Did try something like this, I agree Meditation build is a must VS mesmer, but the GS pull is just simply suicide. Sword can never land any good damage w/o imbl.
But you know trap ranger is already the hardest counter among all classes against mesmers (although the chance of win is still pretty low, but compared to other classes’ almost 0 chance we are already the best).
ele is never a problem for ranger, usually it’s just a never-end fight.
But guardian just don’t have any effective DPS weapon against mesmer.
1-h sword is OK for DPS, but the damage spike can never fully land on mesmer. Hammer is a joke, only MB can do some damage, hammer 1 will never land a single strike. GS = suicide VS mesmer. Only viable weapon is staff, but the dps is far from enough.
My mesmer in WvW simply never lose a single 1v1 VS other classes once I get lv80, I won 99% 1v2 and at least 80% 1v3, only trouble maker I feel as mesmer is a good trap ranger or engi. Guardian is simply the easiest free badge. Everytime I meet a guardian, I know this is a easy one, he can never win, he can never run away.
i think the most important thing to defeat a mesmer is DPS, if you have no damage, then you might as well go grab a drink from the refrigerator, come back and wp.
then , you will also need to know which is the real basketball. which you should know since you play a mesmer.
then, you will need the tools to inflict dmg, aka CC, catching skills etc.
then last but not least, you need to hope that guy is not a good mesmer.
If you havn’t played mesmer, you havn’t played GW2.
A entry level mesmer can beat any other class 1v2, a good mesmer won;t fight 1v1 coz it’s just simply non sense. You will see many good mesmers in WvW 1v20+ and they alone can hold 2+ mins. They face roll 5-men team like eating cake.
I have tried basically almost every build but none of all I have tried stand a single chance VS a good mesmer. The best I can do is to use a bunker build and can last about 2 mins. Every single mistake I made = lethal.
I play mesmer too, I know exactly how it works, but I just can’t find a way to beat it as a guardian.
Any1 has any good experience VS mesmer?
I got same problem.
All my skills have 1-2 seconds delay (but my FPS always stay 60+), and I am frozen and d/c like every 5-10 mins. It never happen before yesterday’s patch.
I tried to reset modem and router but it won’t help.
The game is totally unplayable for me now.
Ever since yesterday and the patch I have been getting so many instances of really bad skill lag. I’ve also been getting complete disconnects from the game even though i’m still connected to the internet. I’m still able to visit webpages and I’m still connected to mumble while I’m getting disconnected.
Anyone else experiencing this? Or is it just my internet being wonky this week because everyone is off from school and people have spring break and people probably are on vacation from work?
