Guild Wars 2

Wondrouswall.7169:

4 warriors spinning around with axe 5 during Time Warp – Best DPS ever! =D

/warcasm

I mean it’s math… Literally best DPS ever.

I don’t really do dungeons anymore, but it’s friday and I figured I’d fire one up. I join a “exp only 5k AP zerker only” group. Get two warriors who say “ew a ranger what traits?” “65030” “That’s not zerk you should be 66” Fluffball has left the group

I don’t even understand where these players came from. New players will know rangers are higher DPS than two warriors, or higher DPS than 1 warrior with slightly less party DPS. Old player will know the meta from LIKE 2 YEARS AGO.

Somethings will never change.

I think the MM line is a preview of what all of them will become. At the moment, the MM has extremely interesting and difficult choices. Almost every trait in the line is good, to the point of it being completely overloaded, but there are basically 3 paths you can take. Signets, LB buffs, or raw damage?

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Fluffball.8307:

…“Rending Attacks: Your pet gains 800 condi power and causes bleeds on crit”.

Yup, that sounds like Expertise Training and Rending Attacks, it would be a nice combo, with a corresponding increase to the expertise side.

Right now, the top several pet skills aren’t even in the BM line. It’s sort of crap at the moment. I am dying for them to make this a relevant trait line and playstyle.

We don’t know yet, but I think every trait that we know today is going to be subject to some sort of editing. Traits will be combined and minors buffed, so I imagine pets will gain at least some stats through those. Maybe more through something like “Rending Attacks: Your pet gains 800 condi power and causes bleeds on crit”.

Sube Dai.8496:

One thing I would just like to say to everyone is after you come up with some crazy A/A power build, go back and try the standard condi survival just as a benchmark.

I did this last night and disappointingly, I was reminded that condi survival is our strongest build by far :|

It makes us a bit delusional in build testing I think. If you’re on a game forum theorycrafting about minutia of PvP builds, you’re probably interested/obsessed with the game enough to be a better player than the mother of 4 who is fighting you at mid in the 5 minutes of break she got for the day, and got her build off metabattle.com.

You may beat her, but her build is still probably better.

Eurantien.4632:

The only way I would run axe off hand is with dagger main hand.

You don’t like sword/axe? Especially in a double melee build that’s really strong.

It’s ok for LB swap, but I prefer the extra dagger defense rather than more offense.

They separate stats from traits, opening up builds by trait choice rather than stat choice.

Woo! My biggest annoyance with rangers right now is that traits you want are arbitrarily dotted around the trait tree with no rhyme or reason to anything.

Hopefully druids (edit: apparently druids are called “elite specializations”, and aren’t entirely related to the trait reformatting. Whatever, you get the idea) will sort some of this out!

Article

Noha.3749:

I know power usually lacks condiclear. So does condi

Condi rangers don’t usually lack condi removal, they usually have enormous amounts of it. Depending on how anti-condi the player with the build is, they can make themselves effectively immune to conditions.

The weakness of a condi ranger isn’t that the ranger is vulnerable to much of anything, it’s that other players might not be vulnerable to the condi ranger (see Ryan’s post.)

Ehecatl.9172:

So… How DO you kill people with your axe? Just the auto attack?

1v1 you’ve got PoS and SB, plus possible bounces from pets or other AI (very plentiful.) Your pet very quickly gets to 25 might with any bounces and fortifying bond.

In group fights, the autoattack is still pretty decent, and you can pull people out for a group spike (i.e. start casting the dog immob as you throw the pull.)

I don’t think I’ve ever run dual axes in my life, but I guess I can see the appeal. As long as you have a defensive weapon on swap and don’t get stuck in the axes. Or worst case scenario, you get stuck in the axes and use LR or SoS or something.

You’d probably be interesting the SotF ranger for PvP. It’s one of (very roughly) two “meta” builds for conquest.

http://metabattle.com/

Re: Sebrent’s warning. You can make the build easier by swapping the GS in instead of s/a. That’s the training wheels, and once you get familiar with dungeons you’d probably want to use the 1h sword. I usually only play dungeons when I’m too drunk to continuing PvPing and have moved to WvW and then am too drunk to WvW and have moved to dungeons. So ya, it’s really not that bad using a sword. Enemies attack like once a year in PvE.

I don’t recommend straying away from berserkers equipment, melee, or the listed traits.

Nope. Full berserkers. Even at level 50 fractals people use full berserkers. Dodging or evading protects you from 100% of damage, so there is no need to sacrifice gear for defense.

I’ve always said I don’t think they can increase the GS autoattack damage much more without the evade starting to make it OP. I’m sure a lot of people would prefer just a plain damage weapon with no evade, but then you might as well just play a warrior or guardian. Right now ranger GS is unique.

I’m a little fuzzy on the numbers since they don’t seem to match the wiki, but I believe if you take compassion training, natural healing, and signet of the wild (SotW I believe is affected by your own healing?), you wind up with something like 180 health per second (??). For comparison, the wiki lists healing signet at 363 per second.

I dueled a berserker guard in WvW tonight and won without using my healing skill. It was a relatively protracted duel since my damage isn’t that spectacular and he had a lot of heals, but we all know the kind of damage medi guards can dish out.

I’m not sure how to translate that into PvP, but the possibility is there. Perhaps a max damage condi build with HS and pets for team support. I dunno.

Adrian Guardian.9480:

Maybe pets can use gliders too? Following you behind your back, so you can’t see them.

I love the image of a 1 ton grizzly bear hang gliding down upon its prey. Behind your back. So you can’t see it.

Most engis run with either 1 or 0 stun breaks and 1 condi removal (plus perhaps traits.) Condi spam, CC spam, and/or immob spam are the ways to kill them.

For LB, don’t blow important skills without looking at what his doing. Shield and gear block are the usual defense; don’t waste stuff on those and don’t be predictable. For example most rangers will KB and then immediately RF, but engi will have used his stun break and probably has a block ready to be used or just dodges most of the RF damage. Waste. Have a little patience, and then throw everything you can at him when he can’t defend.

If you can do enough damage to get him to use his heal turret, entangle can end the fight.

One thing I find interesting is freeing yourself from condi removal. I’ve been on a big kick the past few months doing that in theorycrafting off the wall builds.

Basically every build anyone comes up with has either 6 in WS or 6 in NM. It’s annoying, restricting, even crippling. You can’t completely ignore condi removal, but we do have enough options via equipment and other random things like bear or nature spirit that we can manage. WvW obviously has a lot more options in this regard.

And then there is the old stalwart SoR.

Edit: Based on the above, here’s what I’m playing with in WvW. It probably looks fairly familiar if you know some of the builds I like to screw around with.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YjMqUxaDL+rQ1iAChaVAwqAevFP706MJqhR0F-TZBEwAGuAAAOCAPOIAULDQ4BAAA

Working so far, but WvW is such a mixed bag in terms of player skill. I never know if they’re incompetent or if my build is any good.

Left runes blank since I can’t change them in WvW.

Edit 2: Loving this build a lot. The pet is devastating, my attacks are at least… well they exist (3.7k mauls or something, but you take what you can get) which is all they need to to let the pets hit, and the survivability is godmode. I didn’t run in to any 1 or 2 people that were able to kill me until I lagged out in front of a cannon and a shatter mesmer.

Going to try running supply in stronghold with it perhaps.

The reason I like this over more traditional double melee builds is that both me and the pet are fairly dangerous. The more normal one, 200660, the pet is just used for CC. Here I’m stacking cripple and stacking might, and allowing the pet to just T off on people. Thieves were losing half their health in a single ill-timed shadowstep.

I’ve noticed a MASSIVE uptick in leavers. I think the word is getting out that dishonor is gone and you can game the system?

LB without RtW sort of defeats the purpose of having long range (and the range is shorter without EE anyway.) If you want a tankier LB, I would suggest keeping 6 in marksmanship and putting 6 in WS. You can mix in some valks or cavs as well.

Or do the cele trap thing.

There are 2 problems with GS and celestial I can’t get past. 1) All the condi damage is wasted, unlike with s/x. And 2) the GS hits like a little child unless you’re full berserker and power speced. IIRC, mauls crit for like 4k, which is less DPS than most meta builds autoattacking. Speaking of autoattacks, the GS doesn’t have one.

If you’re going to go for a power slanted celestial survival build, use the immob spam for s/a. For a condi slanted build (which you’re specced for anyway) torch is amazing.

CureForLiving.5360:

The bosses are fine… for small groups. The problem is that with megaserver there’s few world bosses that ever see a small group. What Anet should do is re-balance the mechanics for large group play. Something along the lines of Teq (which does also suffer a bit from being overpopulated) or Tripple-Trouble.

Many of them aren’t. There is no reason not to sit on the rock for the shatterer other than personal satisfaction.

For us vets, it’s an easy rare and then we go have fun in PvP or something. For new people, it’s a terrible introduction to GW. Look at old “let’s plays” of people finding the behemoth before they upgraded the fight. People are initially blown away by the event and then they just stand there and autoattack for 15 seconds. It’s depressing.

You guys remember when the WH didn’t even have a blast finisher? Gravy, what was anet thinking.

Allow different levels of damage done based on risk taken. This is sort of in effect for the golem and to a much lesser extent the giant, where melee is fairly dangerous and range just afks (almost the reverse for the giant, but shh.)

What if the shatterer had a quadruple damage spot directly in front of it? Do you even know what his abilities are?

The catch is you’d need to fail if everyone choose the easy spot.

It’s 100% entirely the warhorn that makes shoutbow too strong. A simple CD increase would bring it in to line with other buillds. It also highlights how impotent our warhorn is.

Warhorn is a gigantic pile of useless crap. It’s the only blast finisher we have aside from a pet, but not worth it I think when you can leave it to eles and warriors and even engis.

Full condi is tough these days and rangers are custom made for celestial. Or celestial-ish, if you’re WvW. We just do too much steady power damage to pass up.

/Colin smile troll JPG with turrets all over the point

Scar.2658:

Fluffball.8307:

I had I think 3 out of 6 games have at least one person leave, but to be fair it was because there were multiple turret engis “playing”.

Just because of the team comp, people should still not leave, if u stay, and fight it out, maybe u can get better at killing that class. There is no excuse to act like a child w/ a temper tantrum because of loosing.

Preachin’ to the choir. I didn’t leave even after a 3v5. But at the same time it’s not hard to realize there is no penalty for leaving and there is no fun to be had in fighting against turrets instead of humans, so everyone has to ask themselves if this is a good use of their time. It may actually be more childish for us to stay in the game and bang on turrets rather than go mow the lawn or something.

Sebrent.3625:

I just finished creating a spreadsheet with all the Ranger Weapon Skills in it … and looking at the DPS I can’t help but notice Path of Scars. Even if it just hits once instead of the twice that is more common (especially when your target is immob’d), its DPS is quite high. Maul is the next closest but much more telegraphed and restricted to melee range. In addition, Path of Scars does have a pull which can interrupt as well as mess with positioning.

When I run double melee in WvW, I often use PoS with muddy terrain and double canines and entangle. You can indeed get it to hit twice reliably. The other time I get it to hit is when people are running away. They don’t have time to react, even if they know what the skill does.

There is the possibility of hitting 3 times if you immob someone at long range. I’ve never personally done it, but it would be absolutely devastating.

And as for immob spam… Even back before the LB buff, I started with sending the drakehound in, KD, immob, MT, wolf fear, KD. Before RF was buffed I won a lot of fights without taking a single attack of damage. I used that combo to win about 6 or so matches on a glass LB build in the ranger king of the hill thread, not to take away from the players that it worked on. I’ve played with them on teams and they are good players, and have even run in to them at the top of the MMR ladder with the abjured folks and what not. It’s just a strong combo of overwhelming people’s escape methods.

MT has rarely left my skillbar in over 2 years. Seriously, take it people. Is good.

I think the greatest strength of running non-meta builds is that people don’t know what you’re doing. I would hazard a very strong guess that most PvPers don’t even know ZQ exists.

If the builds get run a lot, I think their weaknesses will pop up. Even if you’ve never played an engi in your life, everyone knows they usually have a condi removal once every ~20 seconds.

The melee build posted is the typical WvW double melee build. But let’s put this in perspective:

I have 5 guard stacks, full ascended berserker armor, full ascended berserker trinkets including backpiece, ascended berserker weapons, power infusions, food, oil, borderland buffs, and it still doesn’t do enough damage.

You can survive, and contribute some moderate damage in a team fight, or win 1v1s, but….. this is not a good PvP build in my eyes. Thieves just plain do it better if we’re talking decaps or if we’re talking unexpected bursts.

I didn’t notice the guards being very dangerous. A few times I won 1v1s while also killing the guards. I think damage is a lot more important than sustain on this map.

I wonder if a single bow ranger could snipe off doorbreakers with RaO and SotW/SoS and ignore the assaulting players then hide in the base, which would allow for 4 offense (with maybe a highly mobile and sturdy shoutbow playing versatile.)

I had I think 3 out of 6 games have at least one person leave, but to be fair it was because there were multiple turret engis “playing”.

jcbroe.4329:

I still want to try Arrow Slanger’s pure melee build that I never got around to getting from him in game as well.

I don’t have time to dig up the thread, but didn’t he run 00626 in the king of the ranger hill tourney? Or was that Siriso (sp?) They ran the same double melee build I like to use for duels and won a bunch of rounds on the hill if I’m thinking of the right person.

Eggyokeo.9705:

i ended up mostly playing with this build.

Why would you run settlers? I’m racking my brain for anything that would contribute to the build. Or was that a misclick?

Well I got a few games in. It’s an extremely small-fight or 1v1 focused map (at least before someone decides a particular strategy is meta and all PUGs do it.) It’s roughly 2-1-2, with an additional break off for the heros. From what I’ve seen if you neglect any aspect of that split, you’ll lose pretty quickly.

Skirmish focused build, but you need high damage to end it quickly enough to make any sort of difference, or at least kill the NPCs. I think this map heavily favors power LB. It doesn’t hurt we have a ton of CC, either.

I’m getting the WvW dolyak bug on the NPCs… they don’t sync up so you can’t attack them as they run because you have no idea where they actually are. This is annoying in WvW, this is game breaking in stronghold.

Eurantien.4632:

Players can’t damage gates.

I know, but you have to lead the NPCs there and kill whoever is trying to kill the NPCs. The map forces you to split up in to different roles (or at least it appears that way before a meta is established.) Everything I’m seeing says small skirmishes. Fighting over the gate area, fighting over the hero areas. The only team fight might be a lord fight, but even then you can’t really commit your whole team to defense or you’ve admitted defeat since you won’t be making any forward progress.

I just don’t see how it would be possible to zerg the map, or as it seems you’re suggesting, just move to a different objective if someone attacks you. You must defend the gate/lord. Unless it turns in to 5 man offenses to see who finishes first, in which case this will overtake courtyard as the least popular map ever.

How can you run to a different objective when someone is attacking your gate?

Moving to different objectives is why I think running supply isn’t going to be a thing… I’m guessing it will be “if you’re near the supply and things are under control, pick some up and everyone rotate.”

But defending a gate/lord means you must defend the gate/lord or you lose the game. Likewise you can pull off if you’re attacking to go do something less dangerous, but someone has to be attacking or you’ll never get the gate/lord down.

I don’t think I’ll get a chance to play tomorrow to see if any of my guesses are accurate.

IIRC, the NPCs only fight each other for the most part. The archers are there to attack the gate NPCs, which are there to attack the bomb NPCs.

Seems like it’s going to be more skirmish focused than conquest, so I think all the normal ranger build will be good. I’m thinking a “guard!” build for escorting NPCs.

Double melee might be a thing for running supply? I kind of get the feeling running supply won’t be all that important. If double melee gets to be a thing I’m kittening playing it.

Also gonna be really brutal without build templates. I already switch chars for courtyard.

It’s as simple as the AI trying to limit the number of thieves and mesmers on the same team. Any other combo I’m fine with.

Eurantien.4632:

Can you really survive long enough on a node to make it worthwhile?

Sure. You don’t need to survive very long. Evade spam, run around with the sword, and let the 4 mesmers on your team kill everyone (I also tend to run undead runes and energy sigils.) As a ranger you’re going to be the target anyway since everyone hates us.

This is from an almost strictly solo q perspective. Obviously you don’t run rangers as full on bunkers in a tournament. A lot of people don’t run the boring builds like shoutbow in solo q, so you have to rotate who’s standing on point. Rangers can do it a hell of a lot better than an engi can.

If someone else is willing to stand on point my first goal becomes hunting down berserker builds like power rangers on the cliffs.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I’m actually starting to like this guy.

Why you used to hate me?

I already brought this up, but I use the S/T in teamfights (well weapon swapping on CD pretty much, but sword over bow.) I don’t mind being the guy on point. I’m getting passive damage through burning, entangle hits more targets, I’m tankier than most meta builds like DPS guard or whatever, and cele + a little might means the sword does good damage if I get the opportunity.

It’s just what you want to do with it. Be the target or call the target.

Ya I know he said he doesn’t care about speed runs, but he should know that nobody runs dungeons in celestial so asking for advice about it going to get answers like “do whatever the hell you want since you’re just making things up at this point.” It’s like asking what the best wooden clogs for rock climbing are.

He mentioned he’s heard a lot about cele lately, and that’s only for competitive.

I’ve never voted for skyhammer or spirit watch, but I have fun playing when they come up 1 out of every 30 games or so. It’s just capping points like every other map. No one is going to win if they only focus on the hammer or orbs. At worst you have 1 team member occasionally dealing with the special mechanic. On temple you have to dedicate like 4 players to the special mechanics, and that’s the best map out there. Foefire you might have your entire team on the special mechanic.

I honestly believe the skyhammer hate is for no other reason than mob mentality. Can you honestly even remember the last time someone knocked you off the map? I can’t. It doesn’t happen anymore, and the hammer is dodge-able.

Every profession has their “ok this is in my build” minor traits. It really doesn’t bother me at all since everyone has them. Sometimes you can incorporate them into the playstyle; in this case, spiking bosses in PvE.

Honestly there are plenty of times even before the LB buff I’ve manage to kill someone off those vulnerabilities and crit. Catch a ton of different builds off guard and you can make them explode. (Zerker necro with no DS?)

You mentioned speed running so I assume you’re talking about dungeons. In that case, the only armor anyone uses is berserker; everything else is extremely subpar.

Celestial gets used sometimes in competitive. The standard condi survival build, or the LB trapper build. And I’m sure there are tons more people running their own builds with cele.

Wait what? You can toggle whether it’s on guard or passive with a keybind now? I guess that’s good. Not something I would have ever wanted as I’ve never needed it instantly, but keybinds are good.