Guild Wars 2

WARD uses a similar ranger in their GvG so some people are doing it. I am only world rank 76 with 11,000 kills so I’m probably not the most experienced player, heck, there’s people rank 200+ in strikeforce. Even so, I believe rangers are neglected in the gvg meta for two reasons:

1) traps are not utilized
2) ressurection is not traited for, something that ranger seems to be clearly one of the best at

I think gvg is a corruption of gw2 gameplay though because there are no points to capture. Every class was designed with capturing/defending points in mind. So, to me, even though I’ve commented on it, gvg is irrelevant when you’re talking about bulldogging Lord’s room, utilizing terrain to pre-emptively strike etc.

Anyways, thanks for the pve compliment. rock on

*ps – we give the gvg guilds a run for their money in SF just ask them. Remember, gvg is an offshoot of some of the original hammer train zergs developed by strikeforce and other guilds that have been a mainstay in wvw since launch.

Whenever we beat one (like TW last night) we joke about how “wait wait that wasnt fair according to gvg rules they get 15s to charge up might”. Lol we do! We also LOVE it when we see orange swords south because that means POWER PLAY. Capture time they’re g ging hurry! Lol

Btw I love TW and don’t mean to offend, they’ve wiped us plenty of times. It goes both ways. T1 is very balanced right now and I’m just loving it.

Ya, it works, nargofwov, you just need toughness (approaching 3000 armor rating is ideal but difficult to achieve so you find a balance) and—most importantly, like you said, stability. I like vitality/healing power for passive condition defense. If you try to lead your zerg, make sure you’re coordinated and they’re ready to attack after the pre-emptive strikes. Also, don’t stray too far into their backline. You only get to clear one, maybe two immobilizes so don’t let them use the immob. That’s, I think, our biggest weakness with builds that do not utilize wilderness survival (susceptibility to immobilize).

Great discussion, even a mention of ranger in the damage role of the trinity as opposed to control. One day, we’ll shake the misconceptions and get a feel for what we can do and what our strengths really are. Keep in mind that ranger is by far the least theorycrafted class by the general community so it falls on our shoulders to learn how and why to use rangers. I’m just glad to be here. it’s exciting!

The dreaded inability to place traps in skill lag. Yes, that’s actually—and quite sadly—the biggest drawback. At least everyone has that problem.

I think that’s because there’s a limit to the amount of aoe on the ground and you end up competing with other players to add your own aoe to the mess. I’m just guessing.

And, by the way, regarding your chill build, Gorath, just because it didn’t get recognition doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.

I wrote a guide on that, it probably fell back to page 2 or 3 of the ranger forums. I used a beastcannon build (20/20/0/0/30) with zerk and sigil of ice along with snow hound and snow owl along with spike and frost traps and a stun break utility. More info in the thread I mentioned. Definately super saiyan mode with RaO. DbZ ftw

Ka meeeeeh huuuuuh maaaaaae (20 minutes later) HAAAAAAA fireball

Kilger.5490:

mistsim.2748:

condis arent more spammable than cures, this is the problem right now =( no one is gonna run 10 rangers to counter the 10 frontline guards. rangers do paltry damage and have poor sustain. who’s gonna do the hard work of actually killing these guys?

Traps are basically self spamming condi’s though, there is no defense to this except avoiding the area which is a victory in itself (area denial), since conditions reapply as soon as the cleanse is used.

Stability > hard cc,
cleansing > soft cc,
nothing > pulsing cc.

Since rangers have a very short cool down on traps thats either a lot of conditions or a lot of area denial.

Kilger, thanks for using the phrase “area denial”. That’s precisely why traps are so good. I should have had you write the intro!

CRrabbit.1284:

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.

Gorath.5076:

Chopps.5047:

Gorath.5076:

just needed to share this:

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!!!

EDIT: makes me even more enthusiastic together with this post:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Sentinel-Frontliner-Next-Level-WvW-Ranger

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)

Great thoughts, choko. Nice variant. I guess I just like boon duration for a long swiftness and a long stability. I like vitality in zergs too. That was my logic.

In fact, maybe signet of beastmaster is better? Because then you get two stability casts. I like shared anguish for when I don’t have stability up and I like vipers nest for regen negation so, I don’t know, any way to move protect me out of that version? I’m going in 20 directions at once here.

By the way, I don’t want to pick on you too mich because I like some ideas behind this build. It inspired me to finally reveal the Hydralisk variants I’ve been testing. I tried to get the community involved in theorycrafting it further but a lot don’t buy the premise that ranger can Zerg efficiently. I buy it though because I do it nightly.

Gorath.5076:

just needed to share this:

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!!!

EDIT: makes me even more enthusiastic together with this post:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Sentinel-Frontliner-Next-Level-WvW-Ranger

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.

mistsim.2748:

Prysin.8542:

Also, frost trap is OP if you blast finish the field. Gives your zerg Frost Aura, which means whoever hits you get chilled, and you take 10% less damage. Heavily underestimated. Ele with frost field, and a blast train, would lead to epicly OP zergs…. too bad it has a long CD for eles.

yes, but the entire point is you dont need rangers for this. this is done with a few staff eles and hammer guards. bigger frost fields, more blast finishers. this is the problem: what we do others do better.

Frost trap with trap potency is unblockable and pulsing on a 24s recharge with a bonus 200% duration (twice as long). It’s also invisible to the enemy. I don’t buy this notion that others can do what ranger does except better.

Last time someone told me to provide evidence it was about the usefulness of spirits in dungeons and it took another two months before people realized that max gen purpose groups (ie not lupicus) actually benefit from a spirit ranger with spotter.

The proof is in the play. Go try it yourself with your zerg. I refuse to waste valuable time filming for some video you’ll find a reason to pick apart too.

Traps are definately not terrible. Read my “why ranger in wvw” thread for a description of why I believe traps are essential.

I use traps with pvt gear in my hydralisk build too. Even without condition damage I like traps.

By the way, sentinels is great gear but it’s prohibitively expensive.

Castaliea.3156:

I think, at least for me, my biggest problem is the profession mechanic and our weapons. I love using traps in zergs (although I ignore flame trap and Viper’s Nest) but that’s all.

All of our weapons are just not suited for such an environment. Sword competently inhibits your movement, Axe may bounce but that’s not real cleave, Greatsword cleaves but all you do is spam #1/2, Piercing Arrows? Handy, but again, not cleaving and targeting can be a real pain.

Next is the mechanic, I’m sorry but you will never convince me pets are incredibly useful in these situations. Your entire mechanic comes down to one actual active skill that may/may not complete it’s ridiculous casting time while quite possibly exploding into nothingness despite the fact it already inhibits your personal performance.

Until we get real weapons that cleave and some way to either improve the mechanic or replace it all we really rely on is Frost Trap, Spike Trap, Muddy Terrain, and MAYBE Entangle. That’s it. That’s what every single one of these post about how useful we are comes to. It’s so pathetic. Oh did I not mention Whirling Defense? Silly me. I forgot to mention a great Off-Hand weapon that pretty much requires you to bring a Signet, and therefore 30 into Marks. and 20 into Skirm for 5 seconds of self immobilization and reflect. Again, silly me.

Yet we’re all content to sit here and fight among ourselves about how awesome we are in zergs because of 3, maybe 4 skills. Meanwhile we’re still left out, never asked for, and usually just ignored. Yes these “attack” utility skills can be really handy but are they worth giving up useful weapon skills, possibly a profession mechanic that already inhibits you personally, and not allowing you to bring any actual utility? Not a chance. That is why we’re not popular. Want us to be popular? Stop being content with mediocrity because you feel you have to defend your profession against itself. I just wrote up 5,000 words worth of a suggestion overview and I don’t even really feel like posting it now because I should just learn to be content with 3-4 useful skills. Kitty me, Right?

TL;DR: GIVE US STAFF ANET XD

Seriously though, axe/warhorn with torch secondary or greatsword. That’s all you really need. Piercing arrows is ok too if you like shortbow.

A player named Kull solo’d lupicus with ranger. Part of the issue is that during lifedrain, pet is negative DPS, so leave the pet dead in phase 3. Basically, use axe and kite the best you can. Google or search the guildwars2 subreddit for “kull”.

But I like “on crit” with traps which is why I went Magi with trinkets. I like sigil of ice. There’s good “on crit” sigils. Even sigil of nullification is better than people think. Boons are expensive and gettig one ripped every 10s is kind of annoying. Traps go with “on crit” abilities like butter on bread.

NargofWoV.4267:

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.

I’ve been doing it all week. I’m one of about three rangers that play for strikeforce. If you see a yellow, human ranger with [SF] tag you know you’re fighting Chopps. :p

See, when you jump in stealth and start trapping, they usually aren’t ready. By the time they focus fire, our zerg is already on their zerg. They cannot respond to me fast enough.

Cufufalating.8479:

What I like about my ranger and running traps is theres a very natural transition from being with my guild group fighting large battles to wondering off by myself to camp cap and scout.

No need to change build, no worry that I am built for zerging but cant 1v1 or the other way around because I can do both, you can move from one task to the next seamlessly and its a lot of fun, and how I like to play.

Precisey this. Hotswap to DPS pets and viola: you’re a roamer. To address other concerns about particular match ups, replacing warriors or guardians with rangers, or the math of who clears what faster, I will say this: we use a few trap rangers paired with thieves in wvw and we win. Deal with it.

What about spirits, mcwolfe? Easy: you already want boon duration if you’re zerging and spirits are in that line, allng with vitality, another good zerg stat.

• Spirits will buff 5 allies around you as well as your pet theough foritifying bond. So the passive effect of spirits are maximized. That’s more protection, more burning, more damage, or more speed, your choice.

• Activation on death means you can proc it twice in a row. Let’s consider sun spirit: a big aoe blind is much better than what thieves do. It’s a double blind each time and lasts a long time—so two sun spirit solar flares is four large aoe blinds. Stone spirit: immobilize/cripple. Frost chills (7s) and storm does at least 3k damage aoe but probably more since it will have might and fury from the zerg.

• Spirit recharge happens in background so you can literally recast right after it dies, you really need stability or quickness to get the casts off though (zephyrs speed or RaO).

• One spirit ranger is 5 bodies, that will take the brunt if an entire enemy AoE cast if it lands on you. This means however much health the spirits have, that’s how much indirect damage negation your friends are getting.

• spirits body block—if you ever played a spirit ranger in spvp, you know how annoying it is just to select the ranger. Closest target keybind doesn’t ever work because you target the spirit or pet. For the opposition, running spirits in a zerg makes targeting real enemies difficult.

• spirits aren’t paper anymore when you take vigorous spirits trait

There’s a lot of good reasons to use spirits in a zerg, right?

Ok one criticism at a time, Mcwolfe, first, traps.

“Traps are weak” — Not true. First, note that traps are unblockable and pulse. That means if they don’t get out of the trap, a condition clear would be wasted. It forces disruption and scattering. Traps are also invisible and, in a zerg, the ranger is very hard to track and watch to see where traps are being thrown. Now let’s talk about traps one by one.

• Viper’s nest —Even with 0 condition damage, poison trap still means healing is -33%. Poison, by definition (check the wiki for more info), negates healing--negates regen.

• frost trap — chill is basically completely underestimated by most players. No only is it better than cripple (-66% move speed) it also gives your team a faster cast rate (-66% skill recharge rate on chilled foes). Chill gives a tactical advantage, no doubt. Not to mention the capability for frost armor, reducing incoming damage by 10%.

• spike trap — immobilizes when trap potency is taken, very strong with bleed builds

• flame trap — can be used to stack might, very damaging with condition damage

“You can’t be part of zerg”
The ranger will build either apothecary/settlers/soldiers and be tanky. In fact, I was running full boon duration with soldiers, zero condition damage, and running traps, utilizig the skirmishing line to maximize potential with “on crit” type sigils. And the traps were still very strong. In this case, you don’t kill with the traps necessarily. The traps arw control. In a 1v1, the DPS pet and your tankineas and trap advantage leads to win. In zerg, the control leads to win.

Why? Again, because even without condition damage, poison still negates regen and chill still offers superb control.

AnthonyOrdon.3926:

The waves of Scarlet’s minions are depleted by killing creatures that emerge from the portals. Kills count, not necessarily events.

The pirate and molten waves are depleted by completing events.

If I may ask, what was the logic behind making one depletion bar a function of kills while the other is a function of events?

So what they’re saying is they’re adding another Nursery Waypoint? How about Hand Holder’s Waypoint?

That’s why I wish stability training was an adept skill applying to most pets (if not all pets in wvw). One of the biggest complaints of ranger is the inability to get the pet attack off. I can see why a stable wolf might be unfair in spvp or tpvp, but it’s quite necessary in wvw. Even so, I prefer bears and drakes in the zerg, they just don’t suffer the issue of getting instantly nuked.

But I don’t want to focus on pets. The message is that adventurer professions get more individual “selfish” abilities because they’re not meant to stay on pin indefinately. Without ranger’s unique long stability or “self centered” evasion skills, leading the zerg to pre-emptively strike would be impossible.

Medium armor classes are, in my opinion, clearly designed for softening zergs, control, and more “figure 8” type positioning where they keep crossing with the front line but try to essentially get away from front line to lead the enemy zerg and keep them from doing/going what/where they want.

Yesterday, in my Hydralisk build, we cleared BG from Hill’s lords room. They were stacked in there and almost capped it, most of them on the stairs having just killed the champion. I popped RaO and swooped through the mess at the entrance and dropped bonfire, dodge roll half way down stairs, dropped frost trap, rolled again to the floor, dropped viper’s nest, rolled again and started attacking normally with the pet. GG, we won. I have to beleive they weren’t ready for traps and I have to believe I did more than just “get carried”. That’s got to be a fallacy.

Nature’s voice bunker builds are strong with “Guard”. As far as search and rescue goes, with a bear traited for stability training, that’s actually really strong. Ressurection is an undervalued part of the meta right now. I’d say mercy rune ranger with healer’s celerity, compassion training, quickening zephyr, zephyr’s speed, spirit elite, trapper’s defense, and healing power stats is likely the best resurrector in gw2.

Burnfall,

I appreciate every comment you write. I love your style—it always makes me chuckle—never change.

—Chopps

Traps in lords room

/end thread

How many have you heard say “ranger is only good at defending points in spvp but is an awful wvw zerg profession” as if the lord’s room wasn’t a point? Just more evidence that traps are essential. I love bunker/trap ranger in lords room and your commander should too.

Spirits are actually not too bad on front lines. I love watching the enemy eat a blind because they decided to spam aoe on my spirit.

Yeah wells are nice, yes we love staff ele’s, but the ranger brings something different: speed and control.

Ranger prepares and softens the enemy for the zerg

Case in point: In strikeforce, when we assault a zerg, I get ahead of the zerg by teaming with a thief and using SR. I leap into the middle of their pile with greatsword and just unload traps on them. I have stability so they can’t stop me and the traps are unblockable, chilling and poisoning them (movement negation, skill recharge rate negation, regen negation). It’s just GG

To survive the initial attack, use healing power gear or Soldiers or sentinel, although, sentinel is prohibitively expensive right now. Use RaO for stability so you can escape. It’s easy to drop traps and get out when you use these techniques, you might have to blow a condi clear for immobilize but thats about it.

What other professions can jump in and jump out like that? Maybe there’s one, but for ranger, it’s natural. It’s how we do.

I believe traps are essential and I also believe muddy terrain takes too long to cast—particularly without stability or quickness—and I believe entangle is too easily cleared and binds too easily destroyed in a zerg.

It’s to encourage the ranger to use traps with “on crit” type sigils and abilities. Not all professions get both precision and critical damage in one traitline, so you have to consider that too.

Hydralisk 2.0: a huge improvement

Thoughts?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-H;4wEky-x2cEV-0;9k7Q;2TEO;237A3;057;2Q-Z5;2O_pbUudbO0kOVIJ5;3WV_WeXj2qZv489V1V5c0;9;9;6777777;9;9;1sL0;1VTk3T

The idea is to stack boon duration and utilize ranger’s strength: control and aoe in traps.

• Poison negates regen boon

• Chill slows their movement and skill recharge

• rampage as one for a long stability

• precision for “on crit” type sigils

• Strength: pet hot swap (see note below)

How else can we improve it? I think the suggestions so far have led to a fairly—surprisingly—decent build for a ranger in a zerg.

So if you want to go control, you have to go traps. What about support? That would imply spirits.

What else can you guys come up with?

• Note: I’ve been running it and getting a good amount of kills. I feel very tanky and can hold my own in hand to hand combat. The trick is to run DPS pets like bird or cats when roaming or catching up to a zerg. When zerging, switch to drakes or bears.

Question: Signet of renewal or spike trap?

Update: LR gives18.5 seconds of vigor with this build

Pretty much this. Glad we can all agree on this one.

Zephyr’s speed is a grandmaster now pith. Patches! YOu have to read the notes.

So we can put 10 into beastmastery and be able to use bears more effectively in a zerg.

That is all.

Post if you agree or disagree. Thank you.

No need to get hyper critical, it’s a crowd sourced effort. Here’s my thoughts:

• that a large part of ranger damage is in the pet is a fallacy.

• longbow is still a bit too slow, also, projectiles aren’t so great under skill lag which is making me lean towards greatsword on the next version of this build

• the best guilds spam retal. so barrage is “meh”…you’re rooted and it takes forever. I believe longbow is not a good zerg weapon.

• Why a bear? Well, it would be GREAT if stability training was an adept skill because with that trait, the bears can get off their abilities in a zerg without interruption. “But bears suck chopps”. If you think that, check patch notes on the buff to weakness because I really like black bear right now.

• Why not a wolf? Because in zergs, people spam stability so fear won’t do anything. Also, it’s very hard to get the wolf to actually use it’s utility in a zerg without it just being perma stunned or dying. Believe me, I’ve tried it. The only way is signet of the wild + signet of stone if you’re going to try to use any pet besides bears or drakes.

Let’s work on the best ideas together. It seems traps are essential as is boon duration. I expect v1.2 of the build to do something like 30/30/x/x/x with the survivability and boon duration put into the gear and runes.

I completely agree with cufufalating about chill being underestimated. It’s essentially inverse time warp. Rangers have an unblockable pulsing chill in frost trap, making frost trap one of the best traps as opposed to the common notion of it being one of the worst. In fact, unless you are going into bleeds with runes/traits, I think frost trap should always be chosen over spike trap. The only time spike trap comes close is when you have trap potency and spike trap immobilizes on activation.

If you could get quickness into your build…just imagine quickness vs. a chilled foe. GG

No because it’s helping me get precision on this build for zerg v zerg:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHfdG2IRVbdeliFrdgY9gQ7fQ8DGyzYU+PljUF1eA-jkyAIsASCApKA59ioxWFLiGrWHQ1gpVXUtXBwJwoVLCgZOA-w

I call it Hydralisk v1.1. It’s a crowd sourced ranger zerg theorycrafting thread. Please help build it. And please, don’t move spotter UNLESS you’re going to make it adept in marks. Don’t put it in skirmishing.

I have a crowd sourced theorycrafting thread on this very topic. I’m calling it “Hydralisk”. Here’s v1.1, please, help work on it:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHfdG2IRVbdeliFrdgY9gQ7fQ8DGyzYU+PljUF1eA-jkyAIsASCApKA59ioxWFLiGrWHQ1gpVXUtXBwJwoVLCgZOA-w

Nature’s vengeance makes it blow up on the front lines and a blind could negate a good amount of damage. Other than that (letting them blow up and go off with the Nature’s Vengeance trait—spirits activate on death) spirits are tough to zerg with.

Ok, so I’ve addressed some of the weaknesses. Let me know what you think, this is Hydralisk 1.1. Remember, the goal of Hydralisk is a crowd sourced ranger zerg build to counter the popular opinion that rangers have little zerging ability.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBHfdG2IRVbdeliFrdgY9gQ7fQ8DGyzYU+PljUF1eA-jkyAIsASCApKA59ioxWFLiGrWHQ1gpVXUtXBwJwoVLCgZOA-w

• Stability: tons of it (~45s or so, I don’t care to do the math honestly) to negate hammer trains on the front line

• Use SOTW first, then, when conditions accumulate either healing spring or RaO (Lyssa runes clear conditions on the elite)

• Poison trap negates the regen boon on the enemy

Q1: Drop furious grip for spirits unbound and sun spirit with nature’s vengeance?

Q2: I don’t have the right sigils slotted—I think on crit may be within reach though, there’s a decent amount of precision so perhaps a sigil of perception with things like sigil of earth?

Bel: Should we move away from untraited SOTW? Can we have stability training back? Maybe boon duration runes?

It’s tough because one issue I see is that when you spec ito survivability, you lose powerful ranger pressure like bleed on crit or traps. Maybe another option is…hmm. I’m thinking 30 in WS and NM with boon duration and RaO so traps can be delivered at feet but radius is too small.

It would be great to have trapper’s expertise and stability training BOTH moved to adept traits. It would teally simplify the aim of this build if we could do that. any ideas?

This isn’t a guide, more of a theorycrafting thread to figure out how to zerg efficiently with ranger. My starting place may not be optimal. A discussion on spirits might be relevant. I like the discussoon so far, keep it up. Belzebu has some good thoughts (above).

Note: after testing a lot, belzebu is correct about this build not being super tanky. So thats a weakness to shore up, which he had a good post on

Want not, farm not

I don’t know, I’m 3 for 4. Seems to be a matter of people not knowing what to kill or not realizing that a portal has despawned.

Stephen.9852:

Jedsus and his followers used me last night as a human sacrifice for some type of ritual at South Bay.

How long until he leaves to form Jedtown in Guyana with his followers?

Teamspeak: “It’s cue get him! Aw, it was razeth”. Nice job @ our spawn camp btw, we dropped the ball on that and you guys took advantage. Score was neck and neck until I went to sleep.

Ok, so here it is in a tankier setup.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAnfVjEVx15VuVs2BkWhMh9wQckH59IWSFRMljUF1eA-jUyAIMBRSAIVBgOAl3LiGbJuIas6ZA1NmCeR1CBoYOA-w

The runes are really up to you, clearly, sanctuary is a bit tough to get since I believe those are dungeon runes (hotw if I’m not mistaken).

Well, I don’t like making videos. I guess I could stream. Basically, I should change the build in the link to settlers and the actual runes I use.

You caught me! You guys are sharp. I was like “I’ll keep the settler’s/vitality runes version to myself”. Lol you guys are too smart for that. I’ll update a bit later.

Prophet.1584:

I was looking at using something like this for PVE/Champ farming in frostgorge and clockwork event farming. what do you think?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VG;4wEku-h2VDV-0;9-8U;1JO-E907-46;23;01;05ol9;2m9fgm9fgL3GzVIF6;2Vq5rar5sas5t50aW5s-D;17X7X-VC;9;9;9;9;9;1V1k3U

i changed a few points in the traits around and it shows my farming gear but you’ll get the picture

I hate to see how nasty your pet is with companion’s might, sigil of strength, fortifying bond, AND master’s bond. AND sick em. Lol awwww yis. That’s how you do beastmaster!

Ya, himei, I came out with this build like a month before Brazil made the 20/25/0/25/0 build video. I think they’re really close in effectiveness-brazil’s is slight more vitality, slightly less vulnerability. I like to think this post inspired Guang and Brazil’s theory-crafting but I don’t think that’s the case.

All good thoughts, I’ll try to answer some questions here. The idea with this build is to play on ranger strengths in a zerg: fast stomping with stability, traps for zerg busting, and “on crit” sigil/trait procs.

• As far as source of regen: normally I get it from the guild, if not, healing spring.

• Why rampager trinkets? Damage and crits—rabid is a reasonable option I suppose.

• My original build uses settler’s and vitality runes so that is the survivability difference. I literally threw that build link together grabbing the first runes and stuff I could find in the editor. I’m hoping you guys try it and tweak it to your liking

• I like commanding voice to get off an extra pet utility before a typical fight ends

• I take stability training rather than rending because with stability training, my bear is guaranteed to get off his attack—normally, pets are too easily interrupted in a zerg to make them effective. Most pets are too squishy period. That makes stability training with bears the obvious answer. Of course, drakes are good too but they don’t get stability training.

Thank you! I love you! I got slammed for making this post. In fact, the original was posted in early june back when everyone still thought spirits sucked. I got repeatedly slammed for advocating spirits. Now tons of people call for a nerf! It’s almost too funny to believe.