Guild Wars 2

Stealthing yourself will help immensely in this fight as well to set up knockdown/ rf/ pet spikes (I’m assuming you’ll be running beastly warden). But it is an uphill fight for sure.

Well if no smart team deem it necessary to remove from a fight. Then it must not be all that powerful of an ability.

Honestly… I don’t think you play ranger very much. It is very difficult to land, particularly at the exact time you want. Pet pathing is incredibly frustrating, they don’t dodge and blindly walk into aoe cc, get caught up on a “rock” (seriously, this happens way to often) And root themselves upon activating f2 ability so if you are simply walking away from pet, you have a decent shot at passively avoiding the very small range it has.

Any smart team can burst the pet down w/o batting an eyelash, bye bye gm trait.

Or I have to bring it back to me which means that i have to yo-yo my pet making this ability even more difficult to land.

You generally have to combo into it for a decent success rate.

You act as if we can just activate it off CD and lol our way to victory.

This thread is ridiculous ;p You can kill the pet, it’s not difficult to do and completely nullify the ability. No other class in the game can have a gm trait taken away mid-fight.

It’s a new ability, adapt and move on.

This is silly, taunt has actually made our pets something you have to pay attention to. You don’t sit there and face tank minions, turrets, or memser clones do ya? Kite that kitten! (it’s actually really, really easy and takes little to zero skill) If you are letting something sit in your lap, you deserve it. The radius is soooo small.

Speaking of which, if you think taunt is broken, what are your thoughts on mantra of distraction (1200 range)? ;p Or guardians gs #5? Or Moa? Warriors and Revs will have access to taunt with HoT. You posting this in their forums?

I think there is a stigma of when someone (cc ele for example) loses to a ranger, that it couldn’t possibly be because they got out-played. They will cry op or “broken mechanic” (op).

When I pvp with ranger the personal attacks (messages, map-chat, etc.) are far more frequent and far more hostile than when I am on any other class.

D/D ele is still stupid good, I feel that other than that as long as I really focus on my positioning I can handle most classes. Thieves/ burst guards still get chewed up by over-extending into a BW/ LB#4. mud, etangle combos.

Mesmers are what I have found to be a new problem. I can’t deal with the cc/ stupid burst combos other than SoS. Which only saves you for so long. I can’t get my pet on the actual mes fast enough to make it a fair fight, I either run/ reset with odds still not in my favor or die. Didn’t seem like that a week ago, Had a very easy time sticking to mesmer with channel skills/ pet etc.

Thief can be annoying but still feels like a fair fight.

Other than that I really feel like i lose because of skill, not match ups. But d/d ele is just silly atm.

COUGH

COUGH COUGH

Mongoose, tasmanian devil, gorilla, some type of dragonish thingy, snakes (cobra condi, anaconda/ boa constrictor power) spittin’ lizard, llama, rabbit, Lion, would all be welcome in my kennel

What? signet of wild trait is 60 sec icd… and in MM not skirmishing. So you’re running MM and skirmishing?

And NM doesn’t add value to the build??

Allies aid is huge in a team fight, especially if SoS is up. Evasive purity is pancakes good, especially with condi clear from WS tree. (maximizing synergy) And i think you are seriously underestimating a six second aoe weakness on a 15 sec cd on top of the 4 sec protection. Remember how I was talking about synergy? Wilting strike also gives 4 secs of weakness (10 sec of weakness every 15 secs, hello perfect marriage) Furthermore…

You also get an additional 2 secs of prot with companions defense, which you can stack. Between 20% passive end regen and vigor from lightning reflex, protective ward becomes even more appealing as you greatly increase your prot uptime over the course of a fight. All this synergy is lost over you taking all these attractive damage boosts which are null if you are focused… wasting a tree.

Then there is the fortifying bond… lingering magic, and rejuv to boot. All which help our WS traits like bark skin.

MM and skirm minors are all about adding damage, which you still do plenty of w/o these trees between keeping yourself and your pet alive… again, can’t do damage if you are running or dead.

Maybe we are playing different opponents? I am rarely allowed to free-cast for very long against competent opponents. But I will punish the kitten out of anyone who tries to jump me.. and if that goes south I still got enough scrappiness to re-position near teammates/ reset the fight.

I’m not saying it is mandatory… unless you want to max the potential of running WS and BM, which at the moment, seem to be mandatory ;p And I am more than aware that one is for offense and the other utility, cheers

Wha???? please please explain how how skirimishing outshines NM, please convince me

Enlargement is… ok, primal reflex is definitely good but… outside of that, just no. NM trumps this tree at every level. Especially for a glass cannon ranger. We don’t need more dps… we need ways of staying in a fight, with our pet, which NM allows. Protective Ward is so amazing.

If you think quick draw is gonna save you, all that means is you were out of position from the get go and need to kite for your life, not adding anything to a fight at all.

You can’t do damage if you’re dead. Pro ward allows you to take that hit on the chin from teleporting classes like mez, guard, thief, ele, ya’know? the classes you get completely blind-sided by? The classes that if they get on top of you (and they will), skirmishing tree ain’t gonna save you. Only delay your death in your now panicked kite… which is even a larger detriment your team as you will die or be completely flushed away from a point.

Skirmishing has no synergy with WS or BM(which are pretty much mandatory at this point).

NM, however, is a great marriage with these two trees, which maximizes the potential of the class. Skirmishing is a great tree, but falls short because it doesn’t pair as well with NM, same can be said with MM.

With pro ward you have time to properly cc them and re-position/ punish the over-extended glass. WHy? because barkskin coupled with Pro ward, and TU (which you should have active to max bark skin potential) > any skirmishing talent and bark skin + TU. It’s immediately wasted as soon as someone breathes on you.

If i have skirmishing and not NM I am completely abandoning my team so I don’t die.

Sube, Check out this build if you want to run a GS-centric build.

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Shout_Sword

if warden is op then what does that make mesmer’s mantra of distraction?

Also, is anyone else running blood/ air sigils? I’m really liking it.

Is it just me or do these three talents trump every other tree? I run full glass and had to run if someone batted an eyelash at me running mm over any of these. Even if i were to run a condi or bunker set up these three trees still seem to outshine the others.

I feel very shifty when it comes to re-positioning and am able to abuse range all day with these three trees, not a dramatic drop in damage either.

Beastly warden is pancakes good.

Am having a lot of fun

Yes please. I have a build all mapped out; I just, want… my bombs back

rabid p/p with forge runes (goes great with prot inj) and ft, tk, elix s. Having a lot fun.

Over three seconds? Do some testing, you won’t get a full volley before you shield #4 but 3-4 easy coupled with doom sigil. Besides, you’re missing the point of the thread. The skill of the mesmer is not why I bothered to post…

The fact is I had him cce’d the entire time so if it was over three secs (it wasn’t) kudos to me. Yes, he should have used a sb far earlier than he did but again, that’s not the point of this.

there are a lot of glass cannons running around atm, not just one lone mesmer which is why this build is so great. The damage flamethrower brings to the table is nutso. IA gives great on-demand burst. And the utility fantastic.

Having a lot of fun with p/s, ft, tk, elix s, crate. firearms/ tools/ inventions. Dmg is through the roof, great cc and pretty decent survival. Just have to mind your positioning.

I stealthed up on a glass mesmer with incendiary ammo up, magnet pulled him into a prybar then ft #3, poison volley/ confusion shot, shield #4 him back into the ground, he ported but ate a shield#5 as he “landed” and dropped to the floor. Was great

I managed a 10 stack of burning on some poor kitten and was getting 3.6k a tick. I know there will be a condi dmg nerf incoming but really enjoying this set up.

Flame thrower is sooo much fun.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-JV-F3;1FVx-e2JEF-0;9;4Z_b;0057247036;4Kwl6V;1fgm9fgm90F

Been having a lot of fun with this. Beastmaster tree is great (Eagle is a beast). I’ve been having a lot of success as a fringe fighter. Great sustain dmg and soft cc’s to really kitten someone up in a team fight. Whenever I get focused have a lot of tools to gtfo and re-position.

Entangling roots/ eagle f2/ geomancy proc is great burst.

There isn’t really any rotation. You’ll just have to take some licks as you get used to kits. I imagine coming from turrets is a bit of a curve. You can check out metabattle.com as well. They have a fairly solid guide in the double kit condi roaming build. I think Kiroshi has a video guide on that site as well. Bombs away

Oh you can also run EG as your third utility, my bad… just get used to about-facing eg#4 for disengaging.

Bombs are the most fun i have in gw2 and hope you enjoy them as well!

A few ways to go about it. P/S is going to be best weapon set up. Shield has a knock/back and mid-range interrupt with shield 5 which has great synergy with perplex runes. Trait set-up is up to you. Great thing about engi’s is you have some wiggle room to personalize your build.

You can go 6/0/0/6/2, 4/2/0/6/2, 6/0/0/4/4, 6/2/0/4/2… you get the idea. Dire and or Rabid is the gear you want. I use a mix of both. If you go full dire (low crit rate), sigil of intelligence should be strongly considered as it will guarantee incendiary powder procs.

You will want toolkit to go along with bomb kit if you didn’t already know

Third utility for roaming is again personal preference. You will want to use either slick shoes, elix s, or rocket boots. I like rocket boots for the disengage abilities(is amazing with smoke field) plus an additional blast finisher You will have zero stun breakers with boots; however, and will need to stay on your toes. A tendency with bomb builds is to wade too deep into the fight.

Good time for a tangent, you will want to get very good with your blast finishers, the main one’s you’ll want to focus on are stealth with smoke bomb or heals with healing turret’s 2 water fields (1 on toolbelt). If you find yourself against a bunker in a long fight, use your fire field for might stacking before you apply your burst.

As far as combat goes your best combo will be as following (i would wait for the villain to use both dodges before) Drop your big ol’ bomb while standing next to it then magnet pulling them into your BoB, pry bar right as this goes off. If they are in the middle of casting you will interrupt them proccing perplex runes with an additional 5 stacks of confusion From here you can shield 5 into a glue bomb fire bomb, then knock them down again with shield 4 knock back… This will upset some people.

You have so many tools and fields to work with this build, it can handle almost anything if you got your head up.

Last piece of advice… Throw wrench. This is often over-looked in condi builds. It is; however, a 100% projectile. Most of the time (when wrench is available) I will throw this right after i lay down a fire bomb. Even if your opponent kites out of your fire-field you can still land an additional burn with your wrench.

Hope this helped and happy hunting

Actually you can… You can run the exact same trait set ups as far as point allocation goes. Along with what utilities you use. When fighting an engi you will be playing more against what kit’s/ utility (cc with wep thus comparing p/s to rifle) as apposed to how they damage you.

This is why Cele synergizes so well with the class.

I looove my shield. With two abilities i get a reflect, push back, blast finisher, block, and mid-range stun. The mobile reflect is so much fun against warrior/ ranger/ rifle engi. It’s just that…

As already mentioned shield’s main setback is mh pistol. Which really is only bad because the auto attack is very underwhelming. With that being said, it (shield) has amazing synergy with bomb kit.

The other other reason why they are so rare is because rifle is just so kitten good. Like really kitten good. I prefer playing p/s balth bomber but rifle/ cele set up is simply better

Tool kit is pretty much mandatory.

Anyone rage quitting before even evaluating the opponents skill should tell you how good they were to begin with.

If you want fast paced then engi is the way to go. It’s more of the piano playing style than ranger; however, Both excel at conditions. Both can be quite mobile as well.

Dual pistols is a lot fun Rock it.

6/0/0/6/2 is definitely the way to go. This way you can run battle/ doom sigil while having great uptime on swiftness/ vigor. Rifle and bombs is fun.

Your go to cc combo should be drop BoB, magnet pull (into BoB)/ prybar, op shot, net shot, jump shot, blunderbuss. You can keep someone cc’ed for a very very long time with this. Also, It will wreck most classes or force a stun-break.

I run p/s carrion/ balth, with geomancy/ int sigil variant. Bombs away friend

Condi bombs for life

I am having a lot of fun with the run o’ the mill power spec with sent ammy. Dmg is fairly consistent and oh my are you beefy. Anyone else try this for kittens and giggles?

Having great fun with it. Between muddy terrain, entangle, pet’s, cripples, and so forth; you can force people to suffer in your gigantic bonfire

I like to combo entangle, torch, bonfire, wep swap for geomancy proc right into a full split-blade. Really nice condi burst.

Torch 4 is easy to land now as well. Solid buffs to torch.

Let’s give oh axe some love now. And is anyone else checking out their staff skins? ;p

Recently came back to engi and have been rocking a 6/0/0/6/2 balthazar bomber in pvp.

I run same set-up with dire/ perplexity runes in wvw but am wondering if balthazar is a better option? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAT3XjEq0yaDLesQ1aA9gaZAUBtLiDuHYWwlQJjqC-TZRHwALLDM4gAU4JAA4CAQa/BA

This is what I would try and run. Lot’s of cc, steady dmg for a mid-range/ fringe fighter. I feel like it would suffer as necro’s do. Very vulnerable to heavy cc. Positioning would be the hardest part to make something like this successful. If you get blind-sided you’re in a lot of trouble.

Sadly main hand axe just doesn’t have much synergy with LB.

You could easily go s/a, lb, they work very well together for the more standard read the wind builds.

I have recently came back to playing engi and am settling between a 6/0/04/4 or 6/0/0/6/2 balthazar bomb build. Initially was playing rabid with doom/ geomancy but over the last few days have been experimenting with carrion ammy as I am sick of being run over by terrormancers.

The biggest knock against carrion is that it leaves you with a 4% crit rate making our most powerful trait (incendiary powder) unreliable. However, I’ve found sigil of int makes it proc on cd. I have had zero problems with keeping the burning flowing.

Another added benefit is that bombs/ prybar actually hit pretty kitten hard.

A fun combo is drop BoB and magnet pull them right into it with a simultaneous prybar. It has been a great burst combo.

Long story short have been loving it, anyone else tried anything like this?

I run a bleed build featuring sb, very solid in pvp/ wvw. 1.4k (1.8 in wvw) condi dmg with 2k toughness, a lot of cc, and tons of condi removal.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEqUzaDLusQ1aABhaVA0uGShWwd+eDfdJrIK-TpRAwAAeAAUuAAdOCAlLD45gA0b/BA

Once you get used to sword, you can be incredibly tricky.

Actually, there is a zerker build with fire/ air sigils on sb, turns it into a machine gun. Also, the moment of clarity sb/ gs build with kitten near perma cc chains can be quite effective as well.

With all that being said, sb dominates in a bleed build. In my build earth/ agony sigils with lot’s of cc to max flanking bleeds I can get 20 stacks on you in a hurry (with 1400 condi dmg/ 75% bleed duration) . A/a much slower at stacking and has no poison which can be a huge drawback against many specs. It has greater synergy with S/D as well which most bleed builds use.

I run 2/0/6/6/0 rabid/ krait… i prefer agony/ earth on sb and geomancy/ energy on s/d; however, and am in love with sword. Core of the build is great and allows for a bit of flexibility depending on style.

It absolutely wrecks in 1v1 and is terrific team support as well with all the cc, massive bleed stacking. Entangle is nuts with krait runes post patch as it was already very strong before.

I run a bleed stacking build. with empathetic bond and sotf conditions aren’t a problem for me so; after trying all amulets, decided on rabid. With sb, s/d build and Krait runes you can melt people while still having great toughness/ condi clears.

It’s only going to get better with the patch

Shout’s in general need some love

Ai or not the point remains, it’s very passive game-play in my, perhaps not your, opinion. In other words… cheese, which the op was asking about.

Heh, I feel this thread will de-rail over the boundaries of passive/ cheese gameplay.

My two cents… yes it’s cheese. When you run any form of heavy AI based build you are relying on your opponent to make a mistake; while you are playing very passive.

Pu mesmers, for instance, will just stealth and let their ai do the majority of the work. MM necros/ turret engi’s just tank while you get widdled down.. Spirit rangers can literally auto attack and have some degree of success which is why they are generally the first one’s to have the cheese finger pointed at them.

Same goes for s/d thieves who just spam evades, even when it’s not necessary. They have so many at their disposal it’s hard to punish them for their mistakes. I love when this type of thief calls out someone for double dodging. There are other examples for other classes as well.

What makes the “non-cheese” so furious is that many of the people running these builds actually believe they are “out-playing” their opponents.

It is ironic in a game that was so heavily marketed on skill/ reaction has become watered down to the point where some specs you don’t really have to do much at all.

I’m still frustrated that I only have control over one of my pet’t abilities, it makes no sense to me. Having active abilities gives the game more dynamic, when you take away that…

/shrug

Actually, Survival of the fittest, eb/ bs builds can allow to go power, hybrid, or condi.

I run a bleed build, will get even stronger with patch. Can swap malicious training for keen edge but I like my pet’s cc.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEqUzaDLusQ1aAAhaVA0OHahYwd/uDjdJrIK-TpRAwAAeAAUuAAdOCAlLD45gA0b/BA

Celest works well with this build also.

The zerker version is a lot of fun as well, there is a thread on it running around here somewhere. Does great dmg.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEq0xa/KusQ1agDhq9K8rBLrAw9Q8uVdBrOA-TZBFwACuAALOIAVLDA4JAMf/BA

Whoops, you can use RaO over entangle for zerker build.

The trait set up makes for really flexible play styles. I have run celest, grenth chill builds for trolling, etc. The majority of people running similar set-ups go with off hand training instead of martial mastery but i heart sword. If you haven’t already turn auto attack off so you can stop your chain attack.

Get really good with sword 2 and 3 pathing. Kite like a bawss if played well. Particularly turning 180/ sword 2, 180 leap away. I know you said for wvw roaming but here is a vid on how great our leaping is in pvp (i don’t know why he doesn’t 180). Once you get your range down you can do some awesome things in wvw.

Despite shouts, and pet pathing/ not being able to control all abilities; we are in a pretty good spot.

The future is looking very bright as well.

Hope this helps.

axe mh is amazing… mainly because of #3, if you setup your char correctly you can perma chill/ weakness your opponent making them absolutely miserable. Axe 2 is great burst in condi set-ups coupled with geomancy sigil…

Has decent physical damage which has made carrion/ celest builds more popular.

It crushes bunkers in the right hands. Well rounded offensive weapon indeed.

love my ranger, bleeds 4ever.

Build I run and am getting much enjoyment out of.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjEqUzaBLusQ1aABhaVA0uGShWwd+eDfdJjqC-TpRAwAAeAAUuAAdOCAlLD45gA0b/BA

Keep practicing, also, what pets are you running? Dogs are great for aoe cc, will help with your kite. I run spider/ wolf. Spider is a bit trickier but with right camera work you can pull off an immob on someone while leap is on cd.

It sounds like your troubles are in open spaces but I always look for somewhere I can LoS (this isn’t reality sometimes in wvw i know). When I get there, just dart around obstacles making life miserable for anyone who wants to chase me.

Oh yeah, if you slightly turn to the left and sword 3 you can evade and stay in your general line.

I run spider/ wolf for peels/ chain ccing. I am very dependent on them but run 0 in BM. I feel I don’t have to much of a hard time keeping them up (mainly use spider for fringe fighting).

This is from a Pvp viewpoint. I like them a lot because in really close fights you can LoS the enemy while still doing decent dmg. They also help you direct you in which way stealthed enemies ran to, etc.

If the pathing were a bit better I feel the class as a whole would be fairly close to complete. We are in pretty good spot at the moment, despite what the majority of the boards would have you believe.

Sword is an amazing weapon, why would you want something with a low skill cap? High skill cap means flexibility more often than not. In this case, it definitely is.

I can survive forever with martial mastery and dagger.

The only thing I don’t like about it is leaping away over a downed, stealthed player.

While sotf is nice, in the current meta you will be dropped by condi necros/ engi’s/ pu mesmers/ condi thieves/ condi rangers w/o empathetic bond. I don’t know many great pvp specs w/o it