Guild Wars 2

WvW roaming and/or dueling is the one place rangers are unarguably top tier.

jcbroe.4329:

As others have said Canines, but I saw Eura mention it first, because the Taunt is instant, you can F2 then cancel cast it with F3 before the full animation goes off and save your pets actual F2 effect for when you want/need it, but still get off the effects of both Beastly Warden and Go For the Eyes.

I made a thread about doing that minutes after the patch went live. Not that I need the credit for my self esteem or anything… not sure why that would even be brought up…

kiwituatara.6053:

Only if you’re using birds coz they’re more consistent. Other pets are likely to miss their taunt since they will do it instantly when you press F2. Due to the small radius of taunt, they will most likely miss. Birds on the other hand will track down their target before using taunt.

Birds or canines. With a wolf you can chain 3 hard CCs in a row.

It got slightly nerfed to not go through everything (invuln, etc.) recently, but it’s still extremely solid. I take it because I’ve always played ranger as a CC class, whether I’m using condis or power or cele. I use BW to just overload people’s escape plans. Taunt brings people out of stealth which is a really, really big deal.

Quickness isn’t good at all unless you make use of it. If your build is based around just autoattacking and slowly killing things over time, BW is going to beat it. If you have a combo that benefits from quickness, it can probably surpass BW. Dead is better than CCed.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Us making a petition? Yeah, right. Most of us can’t even agree with each other. Remember the CDI? That went swell.

I think most people were pretty much 100% behind jcbroe’s suggestion thread.

The CDI thread was filled hundreds with people who didn’t main or even play ranger and everyone was just ‘suggesting’ to turn ranger into their own personal vision of a ninja/rouge/archer/etc. It had nothing to do with rangers at all.

Edit: It’s not a big list of things I think almost every ranger could get behind. 3 things off the top of my head:

1) Teleports. We’re supposed to be a roaming/side node class but we can’t move around the map well enough.
2) Access to important group buffs. Regen and swiftness are wonderful, but important boons like aegis, stealth, or stability are game changers. This did get noticeably better with our AoE de buffs from the BM line.
3) Damage. We can’t kill things in a timely manner. It works wonderfully for dueling where we can simply outlast, but lack of insta-casts and precasts and any spike skills at all really puts as at a disadvantage against things like mesmers when it comes to picking teams.

Fix those 3 and I think that pretty much covers everything we need. I mean there is the whole “stealth is redonkulously OP” thing, but that’s another topic.

It’s against Anet’s rules to make petitions. They’re aware of all the complaints both against and for rangers.

Well they are tier 1 after all, and it’s one of the more solid ones I think. Clarion Bond and GFtEs are the only 2 better tier 1 traits off the top of my head.

Oakheart doesn’t have to outright save you, you also play differently based on your current health. You might start blowing cooldowns and LoSing if you’re nearly dead, and the ranger with 3k more health from regen and damage reduction is playing more aggressively.

You could say that about any trait though (except some of the grandmasters which are game changing). It’s the cumulative effect of all of them that make your build (weakness, barkskin, protection, signet of stone, etc.) Toughness isn’t overrated afterall, and what’s 150 points of toughness do?

Sube Dai.8496:

Yeh my expectations for druid are zero.

I’m not trying to be dramatic, as I did say I was swapping main professions after three years after the latest balance patch, and in reality all I did was cut my playtime down to about 5 minutes per day.

If druid doesn’t put ranger in the competitive mix I’m done. I’ve not bought HoT and as somone with like 5k hours I should be a lockin. I’m out. Peace. Drop the mic’. etc.

Apparently they’re going to do balance updates every 2 weeks from now on. Dare to dream?

Maybe in 84 weeks time someone will finally use S&R.

Traps are one of the weakest PvP builds, which is not a good start to one of the weakest PvP professions. However Heimskarl has done a good job collecting people’s experiments with the new traits here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-Builds-List-30-builds-All-modes/first

Not all of those builds are fantastic, some might not even be viable, but for the most part it’s a great place to start.

Mia Crazymike.1780:

Melee rangers are more popular in GW2 than short/longbow rangers?

(In WvW) LB is by far the most popular followed by various types of condi builds. Melee rangers are pretty rare.

Oh my, haven’t roamed with a LB in months, but seeing a necro pop lich in the open field just makes me want to do it again so bad.

Kyosji.8961:

why do you have ‘Trappers Expertise’ when you don’t use any traps?

Kyosji.8961:

And I may be kicking myself for asking this, but what is DnT?

DnT is one of the top dungeon speed clear guilds. Their builds are usually accepted as the best possible PvE builds. TE is there for healing spring, but it’s not required. It’s just the other choices in that tier aren’t that exciting.

Rym.1469:

Why do we have some random guy giving balance proposals to Grouch instead of long-promised Profession Specialists for each forum, I have no idea.

He’s an engi player, which certainly explains some things if this is anets idea of balancing professions. “Give engis back perma swiftness and while we’re at it, remove the leaps from swoop. kittening hacking rangers.”

Ow.

Condis got buffed enormously recently, and the old Nature’s Voice trait got combined with the shout CD skill and is a lot easier to make work in any build, even power. So it’s a good time for those types of builds.

LughLongArm.5460:

stuff

You can make a LB ranger with really defensive traits, and that works great for someone who has trouble getting ganked by thieves, or only solo qs unranked and is looking for fights. Or you can go with Eura’s build where he’s looking to completely max team support. It really doesn’t matter which build you use if you’re going to play it the way you naturally play. Eura’s build is going to be complete crap for a lot of people. That’s all I meant. Any of the traits posted in this thread are fantastic, so it literally does not matter. Just pick the one you like.

Rainbowsand.2438:

I had tried to ranger and it looked like this: i am at 1500 range from the brawl arrowing ppl and thinking “so far its looking good”; then the usual GS-toting guard type tp’s to me, swings a three times BOOM instakill. Then i get shanked by thief in 1.5 seconds. Then i get instaroasted by ele. Then… then i say “f it” and swap back to my necro.

PvP with a LB ranger requires a LOT of skill. If you read the QQ forums you would think it doesn’t; in reality it’s basically not usuable.

Use a condi bunker if you want to PvP on a ranger more easily.

I could barely tell the difference between the posted builds. It’s hard to go wrong with the new traits. Everyone has their own offense/defense/team support spectrum, and none of them are any better than the other. Just depends on your team.

Team support is the current meta, but if you’re all about side nodes, then that doesn’t relate to you does it.

mistsim.2748:

why not? you know they have endure pain yeah? on separate cooldowns.

Because it just doesn’t. Have you ever tried it in T1-2 zerg clash in melee range? Pets just EVAPORATE. You may very well get lucky and have your pet survive via target preferences, but I find that hard to justify a full trait line.

No, better to use your traits for things like protective ward.

In a lower tier “zerg” of like 6, ya, BW will be a good choice. 50+, no. Hell no.

Edit: Just for clarity, neither SoS nor EP prevent CC or condis. I assume we’re theory crafting here, so just clearing up WHY they don’t survive.

mistsim.2748:

id love to know the same. definitely 6/0/6/0/6 for BW, and Remorseless would allow us to go very tanky, without any concern for crit chance. bears to survive zergs.

I was thinking valk armor and weapon, and cavalier jewelry. not sure if this is the best way to optimize it though.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J;4sEFu-r2cDV-0;9k5R;1Y_b;0237157246;9;1PedaPedag-FR3-wD12;1ZbZ6_b_6abab27WAV1a;9;9;9;9;9;9;0VRV8A

I don’t think it’s realistic to expect your bear to survive a zerg clash unless you’re on a extremely low tier server. Even then, I think in a 10v10 the bear still dies before it can be of much use. 50v50 and the bear just instantly explodes, even if you pop signet of stone.

I would either drop BM entirely or use the OPs suggestion of the axe trait.

Genoshock.2104:

Could someone explain what a Mist Champion is?

The article or the blog post probably could…

That shatter combo is one of the new times your pet can die. I don’t know enough about mesmers to know if it’s going to get nerfed. Otherwise I guess we just live with pets dying every now and then from shatter mesmers. Not much you can do if you don’t even know the mesmer is there until he bursts. Barrage and burning are definitely getting fixed though.

I play a melee ranger with a similar build to the one you posted. You didn’t list what kind of pets you’re using, are they birds or cats by any chance? Those are quite fragile.

Drakehound and Wolf are most people’s default competitive pets, and you keep them alive by re-positioning them as needed (recall and attack from a different angle out of DoT, pull out of the middle of larger groups, etc.), and definitely swapping regularly. If you’re still having trouble, try spiders or drakes, as those are significantly less likely to die.

Before the patch, it was kitten near impossible to kill a ranger’s pet if he was paying even the slightest bit of attention. Once the barrage and burning and a few other things are adjusted, it will go back to how it was. You’ll get used to it. You can always practice pet control in PvE if it’s that bad. Go solo a champ + some random mobs or something. Vet giants in Orr plus pull everything around it, etc., and make sure your pet never dies.

Edit: One thing to do to get your pet out of a hot melee area is to have it go attack something else. Pets generally will take your target no matter what, but you can tell it to go attack a specific target and it will lose your target. I’m not 100% sure of the mechanics, but I believe you need to already have attacked your own target, or else you’ll have to press the pet target button twice, as it prefers your attacked target. Hope that made any sense at all.

The more I think about this build, the cooler I think it looks. I refuse to play PvP until they fix the bugs though.

Since you’re pretty light on defense, have you tried blind and weakness spam with an eagle? Or are you cancel casting the F2 to get the spam out anyway? I feel like actually using the F2 on an eagle would outperform the owl.

Zetsumei.4975:

Well surely splitting the queue for TDM would mean only people that want to be there will be there.

Touche. I’m pretty tired.

Quick Draw on a condi build is interesting. I can see you getting quite a lot of burning out there.

Hyenas are pretty nice for 1v1s. You can have 3 of them out at the same time unless something has changed with the patch (I don’t use them so I don’t know.) See synergy with sun spirit.

Zmodd.5427:

Planning on separate TDM too? Perfect opportunity to add more maps to each mode.

With the new guild hall thing, I wouldn’t be surprised if they removed TDM entirely. So many people just AFK and waste everyone’s time in the map anyway.

Have you ever tried watching one of those random promoted twitch tournaments? Most games are complete nonsense unless you’re familiar with it. FPSs are probably the only ones anyone can understand.

I’ve never played LoL and I tried watching a game, I was like WTFFFF is going on and turned it off after like 3 minutes. Also there is some apparently extremely popular tank game (I guess it’s European?) that I tried to watch. Everyone just instantly died. It was ridiculous, but it had over 17,000 viewers.

http://www.tentonhammer.com/news/guild-wars-2/guild-wars-2-stronghold-receives-mist-champions

Pets aren’t supposed to die. I have been getting some pet deaths lately due to the sheer number of bugs and questionable balances. Your pet is not going to survive a grenade barrage at the moment.

Before the patch, your pet didn’t really die. Once they fix these game-breaking bugs (taking long enough?) I think things will go back to normal.

You condi clear pets by swapping. It’s crazy strong, which is why they never died before this patch.

So this is what it’s come to.

I just watched a wooden potatoes video where he autoattacked that ‘deadly sniper’ personal story mission to death. No dodging, no skills, no healing, just autoattacked it death.

C’mon Anet, at least pretend players are allowed to die.

I don’t want the NPCs to be more noticeable than they already are. I’m there to fight humans, not guards. As is, the CC and blinds put out by gaurds (especially upgraded camps) is pretty devastating if you’re fighting humans at the same time. That’s as far as I want to go, otherwise I’ll just run dungeons.

Huh, just found this on reddit:

Gotejjeken.1267:

But, War, Mes, Guard, Thief, and Engi? Nope.

Your observations are 100% accurate. Those are the classes with massive, massive bugs for the most part. And the rest are just questionably balanced ATM.

Guardians are hitting for 90,000 in PvE. Not sure if you could pull that off in PvP, but definitely higher in WvW.

So many bonkers bugs to be fixed.

It’s on-demand as in “100% instant”. You can’t miss with taunt (unless you use it stupidly, like with your pet out of position or something.) It’s absolutely fantastic. A++

And then you still have the other CC your pets used to get (I pretty much only use wolf and dog.)

Surprisingly hysterical suggestion. Also leaping off small cliffs in WvW to flatten people with those bear paws.

You probably already did that path today and forgot about it. Only other option was it was a bug, but that seems pretty unlikely. Keep in mind the chest doesn’t drop per “day”, like Monday, but per server day which resets at weird hours around the world.

jcbroe.4329:

Right now I haven’t really seen anybody come up with any wrong builds, the traits kind of all just mesh really well together. I’m pretty positive though that whatever build any of us end up running is going to revolve entirely around where the other classes builds land, and the shaves ANet will be doing over the course of the next few weeks (burning will probably get hit, as well mesmer, either in the burst or the steath category).

I love this quote. And the “wrong” builds that are possible are so bad no one in their right mind would run them.

Ehecatl.9172:

Interesting that with all the complaining about traps being worthless they’ve found their way into the preferred build of the only competitive ranger.

Traps are a pooh. Spike trap is friggen awesome. Subtle but important distinction.

Justine.6351:

They can’t add serious dmg without tells.

Gaurdian, thief and mesmer would like to have a word with you.

Hepatolith.6389:

I guess that golem was so far away that it instantly resetted combat but lb outdamaged the regen? Am I right?

Oh, ya that makes sense. And using refined toxins I guess. Can we be more cryptic next time?

Oh I did, and I still don’t know what’s going on. Is the post sarcasm? Is he using a settler’s amulet? What’s with the poison mention? Just so confused.

I literally have no idea what’s going on here.

I have no idea how you play with sword autoattack on.

Out of curiosity, do you ever notice projectiles being destroyed by strider’s defense? I didn’t realize you had it until after I watched the video.

Ran into a ranger running this tonight, and it won us the fight.

In WvW, I was fighting a warrior when I noticed the ranger’s downed icon, run over and start rezzing him while getting cleaved by the warrior and necro that downed him. I thought we were hosed but I knew if I didn’t get him up I was toast. I’m half dead when out of nowhere I’m full health. Pretty little fernhound standing next to me. I get him up and we win the fight.

LB ranger (and ranger in general) has always been about sustained damage, not burst.