Guild Wars 2

I doubt that ranger will have any significant change in the future.
Right now we are:
King of open field PVE;
One of the best in SPVP (if not the best but definitely TOP3);
Doing OK in dungeons (although not preferred classes);
Sucks in WvW and tPVP.

Over all, it’s pretty balanced. If anything improved in WvW ranger will become over-powered then you won’t see other classes anymore.

I remember you are an old ranger, don’t know why you still complain about it.
In wvw there is no balance especially when thief can abuse the culling issue, I played my GC thief for about 1 month , got over 3k kills but died no more than 10 times, then… I got bored and never touched it again.

Xsorus.2507:

Currently i’ve been playing Glass Cannon Ranger for the past 2 days gathering video for kittens and giggles, and the thing i’ve determined playing the class is there is simply no Cannon present…

Now I can do damage…don’t get me wrong, But compared to every other class, i don’t do anywhere close to the same amount.

Here is how bad it is, I’ve got 100% crit damage bonus, and and virtually zero toughness….and a bit of HP from valks…..But my thief wearing my PVT/Knights set for my S/D setup will hit harder then everyone of my abilities on my ranger.

My Thief has almost 2000 toughness running that setup, but does more damage then my Ranger.

It wouldn’t be that bad If i had half the survivability of my Thief…But there is none….You can either use a 2 Minute Signet (and spec 30 into a line for it) or you can kill your pet..That’s it..You have nothing else.

Now i’m sure anet thinks the pet makes up for this, It does not…It doesn’t remotely make up for doing half the damage of every other Glass Cannon with no survivability.

I have talked about this trick months ago, BTW sword 1 can be also used same way (1st hit activate the chain, then 2,3 for leap), just little bit more complicated.
Easiest way is to use autohotkey to bind some macro. hope you can make some video for that.

Never paid attention before, just found out today:
Staff 1 vs scepter 1 —- same damage in tooltip, but staff 1 will do 2x damage to siege weapons than scepter 1.
Interesting design…

Self-challenge. As a ranger, you will feel more proud than other classes while achieving the same goal.

Either wiki or tooltip’s information is misleading.
both said: (9x hits) 1251
In fact the 1251 is the damage of 14x hits (require you to disable melee assist and stand inside target circle).
If you only do 9x hits as wiki or tooltip described, you can only do 804 damage but not 1251.

In fact during play, you can hardly land all 14x hits especially vs moving target. So WW’s real damage is quite lower than listed.

What were your results with it?

Ya, I have same doubt.
sword+torch is very effective strong offensive combo (maybe the the strongest burst combo for single target as guardian).
Better immobilize opponent 1st, then sword2,3 and pop torch 4 while casting ZD (it won’t interrupt ZD but add another lv4 burn), after ZD ends torch 4 to throw fireball that’s another ZD damage for 1200 range.

green plum.7514:

JJBigs.8456:

ex. of bad weapon combos: 1h Sword/Torch

Why is it bad? I find Torch to be a natural complement to Sword, with close-ranged burning AOE and a decent single-target burst ability.

Which class can not ?

Joey.3928:

I solo camps on my ranger so I feel the opposite of useless.

For your play style, I bet you will get much better result by using either guardian, necro, engi or ele with an arrow cart, except for the pet part. ( I don’t think the pet can
distract the zerg, it may distract a player or maybe 2 for a few seconds only).

Daemon.4295:

I disagree, rangers can be very useful at siege and defense. Barrage keeps defenders moving on the walls, and keep attackers away from the gates. I know there’s no excuse for dying in a red circle, but it’s surprising how many attackers a glass cannon ranger will drop with quickened barrage. With Eagle Eye, you can safely fire away at defenses from long range, and you can force attackers further back than they can hit the gates from at max range. With guard, you can send your pet out to attack siege weapons in stealth, or simply distract the zerg as it often takes them a while to realize where the damage is coming from. Muddy terrain and other CCs are fantastic for freezing all those defenders that think they can jump off the wall for a few quick hits. I really enjoy playing my Ranger in WvW.

Dabrixmgp.4758:

Can a Guardian do this?

As a ranger, I feel pretty good in PVE especially in open world;
As a ranger, I feel not bad in sPVP since I can be a tough guy vs any class;
But as a ranger, I feel lost in WvW no matter how hard I try….

I can be a roamer with sPVP build, but non-purpose 1v1 victory bring no glory at all besides other real good roamer classes don’t even choose to fight against you in most of time.
I can deal some damage in large scale battle, and I can give some supports too, but if compared with other classes, both my damage or my support are laughable. (since 1/2 of my dps-pets won’t work well and my strongest support-spirits is just a joke)
Only possible shining part is during small battle (2-3 each side), but it’s also not reliable.
Only time I feel I am still useful is when I use guard to either ninja a siege or rez a teammate at some oh-kitten locations. But I am anticipating this gonna be patched soon.
Basically I feel useless in WvW in most of time, all other classes offer more than a ranger can.

1, go to mist, choose sword and GS;
2, can go either untraited ot traited(but don’t choose any trait skill which increases either sword or GS damage);
3, turn on melee assist (to make sure GS won’t hit inside the target circle so it can only hit 9x);
4, compare ZD and WW damage vs golem or what ever;
5, go to combat log and count how many hits really land.

If everything was done as I said, I bet you will get same result as I had.
So in next patch please either buff WW damage or just simply change the tooltip (its true damage of 9 hits should be 804 but not 1251)

According to my test result, you are wrong about the true damage of WW.
The 1251 damage from WW is with 14 hits (even if all 14 hits lands, it’s damage still about 15% lower than 1251).
If WW only land 9 hits, its damage is LOWER than ZD.
Go to mist and test it if you haven’t yet.

Alarox.4590:

Bakitten291:

snip

I don’t see how you can say ZD is even comparable to Whirling Wrath.

WW:
AoE
Lets you move at a reduced speed
8-10s cooldown
*More than 1251 damage (actual damage is higher than listed, as the listed number is 9 hits, not 14 like it actually does).

ZD:
Single target
Immobilizes you
15s cooldown
888 damage

---

Zealot’s Defense: 888 damage over 3s.
Sword Auto: 269+269+504 damage over 1.5s.
Whirling Wrath: 1251 over .75s.

Zealot’s Defense: 296 DPS
Sword Auto: 505 DPS
Whirling Wrath: 1668 DPS

I use both too, I realized my problem is I seldom WW inside the target circle, so I lose ~40% damage. but it’s not so easy to maintain inside the circle all the time.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

I get higher—but I realized why. I use Empowering Might + sigil of strength which gives me might stacks really quick and bump my avg dps.

Scepcter has been proved to be the worst weapon among all GW2 weapons. I know this, but I still use it for immobilization and sometime smite for AOE. I seldom use scepter 1 coz I know it sucks. But I can’t imagine it’s soooooo broken.
On tool tip it said range = 1200, so same as smite, but it will never hit anything in 1200 range. Today in WvW, I found a catapult in open field then I decide to take it. I use smite and it work well, then I just spam scepter 1, guess what —-- at 1000-1200 range, ALL OF MY ATK were obstructed !!!!!!! Then I decide to get closer, and guess what ? —- Even if I stand right beside the catapult, 50+% of my specter 1 were still obstructed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just can’t imagine how ANet can let such weapon exist for so long……………..
I know the best idea is to put a video but I don;t how to do it, hope someone can make a video, just use specter to hit siege and show the obstructed POWER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, here you go, I just did test at mist. Here is the result:
I choose Zealot’s Defense as comparison VS WW since both skills are same type (damage splitted by multiple hits)

According to Wiki:
Whirling Wrath — Damage (9x): 1,251
Zealot’s Defense -- Damage (8x): 888
Thus, theoretically, ZD should do 71% damage of WW.

Char has 2939 atk, 50% crit chance + 50% cri damage, neither GS or Sword skill traited, empower not selected, melee assist diabled.
For WW, I tried 2 ways:
1-stand inside golem circle to make sure all WW land (14 hits).
2-stand right beside the circle (9 hits as listed in wiki, and yes, it will hit 9x—checked through combat log)
And here is the result VS heavy golem (10x each):
ZD:
3028
2450
2826
2849
2852
3034
2620
3180
2900
3306
Average: 2905

WW (inside circle 14x hits):
3140
3871
3071
3935
3673
3040
4019
3578
3488
3158
Average: 3498

WW (right beside circle 9x hits)
2308
1929
2470
2604
2256
2202
2170
2530
2356
2122
Average: 2295

so ZD vs a full WW(14 hits) = 83%. If ZD vs a typical 9xhits WW = 126% (YES ZD hit harder than WW !)
Conclusion—- If ZD damage is right, then WW damage(even if max 14x hits) is ~15% lower than listed on wiki. If as wiki mentioned WW has 9 hits, then it has only 60% damage of what listed.

I think my test result now make sense to me, if us WW, you have to be inside the circle to reach the highest damage (still not high as wiki described), if you outside the circle (or partly outside which is most possible cases practically in pvp, then you probably can only do ~60% damage). Also the highest damage can only land to 1 target since it’s impossible to get 2+ target at same location all the time. But for Hammer MB, it doesn’t matter since it’s instant area landing, so everyone inside range will take full damage.

Don’t know this trick. Usually speaking I will leave melee assistance on when I play guardian and keep my self as close as possible to my target. Maybe it causes my hits miss a lot? But in other hand, if I turn off melee assist, it will mean I just give up to use GS1 in some point, ( GS swing is too slow, w/o melee assist it will miss all the time vs a good thief. they can always run to my back while I swing my heavy GS)

Have you turned melee assist off in your options menu? If you aren’t inside your target, WW does much less damage.

Will take a few SS tonight, but before that, look at those 2 videos on this page, or just simply search guardian videos in yourtube (GS vs Hammer), you will find the result as I described.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

CRrabbit.1284:

70% crit is after SYS, used it everytime before I try WW or MB to test.

Tarsius.3170:

Well, I suppose 30% of your WW hits won’t crit, so you won’t stack up the same kind of numbers as one good Might Blow proc.

( try testing again with “Save Yourselves!” to get some fury )

Also MB is a blast finisher, so I don’t know if you have some extra might stacked on average.

Yeah, 70% is very high for it not to land a crit. I’m still very doubtful that your stats match up to your output. I need an SS or something to go off of because you should be hitting at least 2-3k higher on crits

Don;t know how to make video, but 6-8k is a never-reached number for me even in PVE. The biggest number I get from Orr is something close to 6k, but never over 6k. But with hammer it’s a totally different story.
Look at that 2 video other ppl post in same page, you should notice the difference.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Not sure about damage difference between GS and Hammer, but given your stats, you should be hitting higher than that with WW. Like around 6-8k on crit hits. Can you post a video of your stats + doing damage in WvW or a level 80 zone?

70% crit is after SYS, used it everytime before I try WW or MB to test.

Tarsius.3170:

Well, I suppose 30% of your WW hits won’t crit, so you won’t stack up the same kind of numbers as one good Might Blow proc.

( try testing again with “Save Yourselves!” to get some fury )

Also MB is a blast finisher, so I don’t know if you have some extra might stacked on average.

Also if you watch Zaphel(GS) and OoZo (hammer)‘s video below, you can see Zephel’s GS only did 1.5-2k in most cases, you can barely see anything over 3k, in OoZo’s video, his hammer basically did 2.5-3k every time and the biggest hit is 3.8k. I know their build status might be quite different, but even though, the damage difference between WW and MB can be that much ??

I don’t know what’s wrong with my guardian’s GS2 (WW), I feel it supposed to be more powerful. Tested a lot in WvW last night. Even with full zerk gears (atk 3300+, crit 70%+ crit D 90%+) , the best number I got from WW is 4.5k (VS downed player to make sure all my hits land), average only 2.5-3k, and it’s pretty wired that I hit harder VS heavy armor than vs medium / light armor. However, by using same gears, when I use Hammer (exactly same status) MB, I can also hit 2-3k on average as well, and the biggest number I got from MB is 3.6K. But MB supposed to have only 1/2 damage of WW, why the practical difference is so much ????

That’s becoz you just start to play ranger. In fact ranger is kinda same as thief, if you want to play cheap then just go BM build and stay back watch your pet to ninja some low lv or HP players (same role as thief). You can be OK for 1v1 situation, but in group fighting especially zerg vs zerg, you basically is just a Thief #2.
If you want versatile, go ele. You will found almost every weapon/build has its place in pvp/WvW.

I love ranger and hate my thief. Now to be honest i suck big time on my thief. Everything comes down to two things invis backstab (back attack regardless of weopan) or sb aoe. I find something new about rangers almost everyweek. And the more i play my other char the more i realize how versatile rangers really are.

I can’t agree with you.
Toughness maybe is the king in sPVP, but definitely not in WvW, I would even say toughness is fairly useless in WvW.

In WvW, Stealth is the king, Mobility is the queen.

Toughness is king in WvW.

Man, those are just CC, but not area DENIAL.

Alarox.4590:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Unsteady_Ground
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frozen_Ground
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Elemental_Surge + arcana skills
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frost_Fan
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Static_Field_%28Lightning_Hammer_skill%29
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ice_Storm from the bow or from the skill: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Glyph_of_Storms
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Tornado

In addition, Elementalists with a Staff can stack so many AoEs that you might as well have just created a wall, because enemies will choose to not run through (and they’re right to not run through in most cases).

There’s also more (mostly melee) CC in the 1hs:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frozen_Burst
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Frost_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Updraft
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shocking_Aura
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Earthquake
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Churning_Earth

Of course, the auras are more for the tank builds, which end up being good CC if you’re tanky enough to take multiple hits (which a good amount of D/D ele builds tend to be).

You gonna get bored soon, maybe even faster than heartseeker spamming thief.
We play game for fun, if a class lack of versatile, it deserves the hate.

jaif.3518:

After levelling an l80 ele & war, I saw those nature’s ninja vids and decided to give it a try. Around lvl 16 I finally got enough skill points to equip guard, and from there I went into WvW.

While I wasn’t as effective as the guy in the vid, I did fine with the pet. I killed people in keeps, I killed siege. I was much more active in a siege than my warrrior, and much safer than an elementalist (who’s great in siege, but can get caught).

I have really no clue why all the pet hate. The pet works, you just have to use the buttons.

I play ele too, only skill close to area denial is static field, what else ?

Alarox.4590:

CRrabbit.1284:

Staffx1, hammerx1, shieldx1, sancx1
Which class else has more area denial skills ??

Alarox.4590:

CRrabbit.1284:

Role Number 2: Hold the line or Push , Guardian is the only class who has many area denial skills.

You need to play more professions, badly.

Elementalist, Necromancer, and even Engineers.

Basically just prepare for large scale fight.
1v1 roaming is not strong point for guardian. Maybe in lower tier there might be 1v1 chance, but in higher tier, you must have 1v N + super escape ability to be a roamer coz more ppl will come in any minute.

Alarox.4590:

Camman.2984:

But do you feel like you are useful? I often feel that sometimes I’m sitting there watching everyone take down the people on the wall while I sit there helpless.

The only way you’ll really be useful is if:

1.) You want to be support/tank in large scale fighting.

2.) You want to use a small group, 1v1 style oriented build and fight over things like supply camps.

Staffx1, hammerx1, shieldx1, sancx1
Which class else has more area denial skills ??

Alarox.4590:

CRrabbit.1284:

Role Number 2: Hold the line or Push , Guardian is the only class who has many area denial skills.

You need to play more professions, badly.

Role Number 1: defend (staff, specter, WoR etc.)
Role Number 2: Hold the line or Push , Guardian is the only class who has many area denial skills.
Role number 3: support , sry I am kidding, there is no number 3

MB>>>>>>>WW in pvp. You can never expect all your WW hits to land but MB = instant damage. In fact in most of case 1MB damage even > 1WW. If you consider CD, MB is farrrrrrrr way better than WW.

If we are talking about WvW. If you ever have been or against a good team in WvW, you will find out every single guardian+warrior use hammer. And at least 1/3 of the team are hammers. For 1v1 maybe it’s still a hard call whether go GS or hammer, but for group play in pvp/wvw, the answer is hammer no doubt.

Yes, I just tested it, pretty sure about it. pet AI is back to before. Canine won’t do knock down anymore right after swip, and even cat can barely hit anything moving now(AGAIN!!!!)
So bad, BM build seems died again.
I hate this kind of ninja nerf. I think Anet has totally lost reputation , at least for rangers.

A ranger passed by and said : now you feel my pain ???

I got i5-3750k OC 4.5G , dual 7950 CF, dual SSD raid 0.
I usually have 60+ fps all the time, but last week during the 3-server super zerg fight inside SM lords room (I think at least 150 ppl there), my fps drop to 3, and all my skills has 20-30 seconds delay. (but I can move smoothly, wired)

To be honest, these spirits design never works since day1, for the 1st month I can still see some spirit ranger (mainly for the curiosity) here and there, but recently I just can’t see any spirit.
Unlike guardians, their spirits weapon at least has some places among all builds until yesterday, but our ranger’s just never ever works.

Zho’s is flock not pack.
Pack is actually not bad if not bugged.

Gza.8490:

kiwituatara.6053:

why are u running rune of pack?

Im a poor ranger that only spends time in WvWvW and that rune was already on the Zho’s gear But the important part is the healing boost

Where did you heard about it to be consider as exploit? (although many times after I use it I will hear some complain in forum about hacking taking castle blah blah blah)
We are just using the legit tools Anet gave to us. I am sure Anet know this for very long time but none of dev ever claimed that this is exploit.
But well, I agree that it might be changed in certain future patch. That’s why I choose to post it right after new patch released to give us some time to enjoy.
I will not use it personally for sure as long as any dev stand out and say this is an exploit.

Ryan.8367:

I heard it’s an exploit to utilize Guard to do this. Please be careful when you do stuff like this.

Since patch already released yesterday and next patch won’s come in a short future, I think it’s time to let something come to the surface (to let more rangers enjoy for a bit before it changes).

Yes as ranger you can have all kinds of builds, wearing all kinds of gears getting all kinds of status killing all kinds of ppl, but none of these make significant change for your server to win a battle. However, there is one skill.

GUARD.

Why this skill?
I give 2 samples here:

1, some of rangers already are using:
“Someone from SM is trebbing our keep, but none of our necro or ele can reach it since its location is hard to get! what we can do?” the Answer —- is GUARD.
“The enemy is build a cata but we don’t have time/supply to build counter and we don’t have enough number to push out! what we can do?” the Answer —- is GUARD.

2, few rangers know and fewer ranger use it:
“We took bay for more than 1 hour, and swiped out all mesmers, but enemy still get in lords room without breaking either wall or gate, how the hell they get in?” the Answer —- is GUARD + rescue (sry, you leave a mesmer’s corpse on the wall un-guarded)

There are more usage of GUARD especially in WvW, use your inspiration and you can make significant change to your server even you are only lv20.

Hope you enjoy to be a ranger in WvW.

You know what make me feel bored by using BM ranger in WvW ? Yes it’s a good duelist, but even if you win tons of 1v1, it didn’t help your server at all. My BM ranger can beat my guardian for sure, but my guardian can solo a camp in 30 seconds which takes my BM ranger 2 mins to finish. But you know in higher tier it will never happen that no one come after camp being atk for 1 min (maybe even shorter). You might meet some roamers in open field but most of time they are just scouting, they won’t even fight you.
However, in group fight, BM healing ranger is kinda powerless, our pet won’t rock anymore under the crossfire and our best offer to team is just a water field.
I am now missing my old-day trap ranger although he has big survival problem, but I can feel I am devoting something to the result but not just some pointless victories VS some random passing by.

Entangle can be dodged, even easier than warrior’s HB. I never being caught by entangle during small fight. Even if entangled, any class with teleport skill can get out instantly.
Guess you haven’t met enough good mesmers and D/D eles yet. (those are very popular roaming classes) ROA is almost a must-have to against them (coz you need to give them pressure uninterruptedly).
Also if you nether use ROA nor war horn, I would say NM 15 is kinda waste. Put that extra 5 to BM maybe will give you better result.

Gza.8490:

Xev: Thats true! Was some other reason but cant come up with it now.

CRabbit: ROA just doesn’t do it for me. Thing is even good players do get stuck in entangle, and all i need is them to be stuck for 2 sec for it to be worth it. But its kind of a 50% chance you get it.
I do agree with you, its easy to get bored with this build. But I guess the same applies to any build you play to long. BTW, I have read your posts and defiantly got some inspiration from there! Thanks!

That’s where I want to give him advice, best friend of NM 15 is ROA. Entangle is not effective VS good players, ROA rocks all the time and works perfectly with fortifying bond.

this is very close to my build which I post month ago. But I am now already get bored about it. Yes it’s a good roamer, but that’s all. OP is still enjoying it, but maybe will feel my pain of boring after a while.

xev.9476:

I’m wondering why you go 15 into Nature Magic instead of 10. You write, “15 at NM to get Fortifying Bond for some QZ action,” but QZ already affects both you and your pet and thus receives no benefit from Fortifying Bond.

Correction: Dragonbrand has 0 que for like at least 3 months, we usually have outmaned buff at least in 2 maps in most of time.

cesmode.4257:

If you want to bandwagon, and have long queues(most likely upward of 1-2 hours during peak times, just like at launch), Jade Quarry, Sanctum of Rall, Kaineng, Blackgate(maybe not so much Blackgate), Maguuma.

Dragonbrand and Fort Aspenwood are also populated, and you get small queues, but they are pretty good at WvW.

If you want no queues, Stormbluff Isle, Ehmery Bay, Crystal Desert, Isle of Janthir, Devona’s Rest (pretty much all of the mid tier servers now). Instead of being awsome and hugely populated maps, the battles are a bit more strategic, I find, on these servers. The servers choose their battles, rather than rush and fight zerg vs zerg.

Its a matter of what you want. top tier server? queues? No queues? Strategic? Zerg?

Then what about —- you cast skills = your red dot pop in the radar for like 3-5 sec, if you just move it won’t show.
Then if zerg vs zerg, you will see enemy since they all casting skills, but for ninja move you only see enemy when they boon(and maybe not reflect the real number since you might need only 1 ppl to keep your team swiftness) but not when they just move.
Is that fair enough?

I think programming all of these will be much easier than re-modify game engine to completely solve culling issue.

ekleenex.1654:

It might be fair, but further encourages the zerg v zerg mentality… Only reason small groups even stand a chance is because the hive mind can’t see them coming.

Yes that’s the negative side, but don’t forget you can also see enemy’s ninja as well so overall it’s fair.

ekleenex.1654:

Yeah, I could see trying to ninja something and someone sees a bunch of red dots outside their keep.

I can see the effort which Anet did in last patch for the culling issue, it gets some improvement but problem still exists. It might be hard to solve this problem completely, so why not use an alternative easy way to help ppl to know enemy is there even if they can see them?

We have the mini map (the radar on the right bottom corner), we can see teammates (green, blue dots), why not just add some red dots for enemy? It should be a very easy step but it will help ppl to know where/how many enemy is coming. Also it’s fair to everyone since you can see me = I can see you.

Only concern is whether it should show stealthed enemy.

According to my experience last night, it’s hard to say whether the culling is fixed or not. But I am sure it’s changed, but maybe not in right direction.
I have a relatively high-end system (windows performence index 7.9 for everything) with 30M (speed test) fiber optic internet. I can noticed the change before VS after patch, but it’s wired:
Before Patch: for example I meet a 30 men zerg, I will see 2-3 of them at the very beginning, then 1 sec later after I run into zerg, I saw 10 more coming out, then I downed, 2 sec later I saw another 10, then I died and saw all of them. It’s a gradual change.
After patch: I met 30 men zerg, I see no one but magic effects or arrows, I know some fights happening there, I run into them, 2 sec later all 30 suddenly appears in front of my face at the same time. But I still survive, coz they didn’t see me either untill I see them.
An example last night: I saw opponents send a portal bomb (~20 ppl), then I cast my symbol of swiftness(guardian staff skill) right on the output portal, then I only saw 3x pulses of ton of white number before I saw the real chars(all of them) appear from the portal.

A easy way to describe: before patch = 1—>5—>10—>30, after patch= 0—————>30.

It’s hard to judge whether this change is better or worse, but the problem does still exist.

To me the culling issue didn’t get any improvement at all.
Just now fighting a 20+ zerg, they suddenly appeared within melee range in front of my face (I didn’t get hit either so I guess none of them can see me before I see them as well).
BTW, I was kicked out from wvw 3x times in last hour.
The new patch is an epic fail (at least for wvw part)???

your build is like just a fatter meat. low damage(both you+your pet), low healing power. Probably good to be a bait, but hard to win 1v1. The popular BM healing based ranger will eat you slowly.

In my opinion Horn > dagger.

Dagger 4 is kinda waste since we already have 2 EV from sword 2+3.
Dagger 5 is the main reason to choose, and mainly for the cripple.

However, horn+sigil of ice will give you same result(hunter call = 16 atk, as long as your critical chance not too bad, it will land chill for sure) with an acceptable cool down.
Horn 5 is just too good not to have.

So overall, horn wins.