Guild Wars 2

The old metas are mostly all obsolete because of this crazy condi cleanse all over your face while doing huge AoE damage meta. Many of them never even got nerfed, they just don’t work as well anymore. I.e. spirits are just as strong as they ever were, but now the AoE obliterates the spirits and the condis get cleanse instantly.

I dunno I was just making things up…

Um maybe something like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnY8fjEqUua7KusQ1igDhqD7A4BignNRy67dLZFdB-TZRHwAo2fIwBBIZZAyPBAAnAAA

Isn’t there a sigil of cleansing in PvP? That would be a lot better than generosity I think.

No idea at all if that would work. Probably not.

For traps you don’t have much choice than to go EB. You could try sigils or runes (lyssa, etc.) I think it’s probably quite feasible if you wanted to try something weird like traps + BM or whatever.

But since you want the condi damage anyway, might as well just take EB and a spider.

That’s what is so annoying about ranger condi removal. We have the most in the game, but it’s so locked up.

Yes, weapon swaps. If I’m not mistaken, you get the new trait line, new utilities and the staff.

Izzy confirmed you can use all the old weapons when you specialize. You lose 1 trait line and gain a new one.

zxstanyxz.8769:

that depends on your definition of a good matchup, winning 500 – 0 i would not consider a good matchup, i would far rather lose a closely fought fun match than win every match by a landslide

That’s not necessarily a bad matchup. Lower tier PvP you can get by with making a lot of mistakes and still get the win. At a certain point, all 10 players are doing everything correctly, so the first one to make a mistake could potentially blow the match up. Look at the weekly tournaments or WTS where the best in the entire game get blown out.

It’s like when professional fighters first start their careers, the good ones will go 20-0. Once they get in to title contention, they start losing all the time, even getting KOd in the first round. Not because of bad matchups, but because their opponents are skilled enough to take advantage of the slightest mistake.

Selective memory and too small of a sample size. It’s not physically possible for everyone to be losing more than they win; both teams can’t lose*.

*Unless turrets are involved, then everyone does indeed lose.

I had a couple roaming thieves after I killed them thank me for not running that stealth trap build yesterday. Apparently it’s shutting them down so badly they appreciate being stomped by different ranger builds.

Poor guys, we now have 4 popular builds that completely destroy the average backstab thief.

I suspect they’re waiting for stronghold to make turrets obsolete rather than nerfing a potentially interesting set of skills for open world PvE or WvW or something. Unfortunately, that still leaves conquest forever ruined.

You don’t have to be in range for EB. It’s not a bad trait if you can’t get condi removal anywhere else.

Sarision.6347:

I understand the above reasoning for taking EB; however, my main issue with EB is that it does not deserve its status as a grandmaster.

Dear lord, EB not a grandmaster would completely revolutionize ranger. Talk about opening up some builds. That would be kitten amazing. Take a mediocre to slightly subpar GM, make it master, open up like 5002349234 different kinds of builds that can now have moderate condi removal instead of almost zero.

Eurantien.4632:

Moreover, I really like that it seems to have no ICD (based on the tooltip I haven’t tested it) which means you could literally cripple someone forever even without malicious training just through F2 -> swap -> F2 followed by the F2 every 6s until the swap is available again.

It doesn’t have a CD (at least as of like 4 months ago.) As soon as they buffed rangers with that it went in to my dueling build.

Right, the constant over-condi cleanse is why I like it. Even with every source of poison possible I wouldn’t even be mad if I saw a ranger running with doom.

I think you can sum up most teams as 1) berserker 2) tons of healing 3) way too much condi cleanse. More poison helps a lot with all 3.

That would offer less pressure but more spike if you time it right.

And poison reapplication is awfully difficult to beat IMO, especially with all the healing that goes on in the meta.

There are a few rangers that stream WvW roaming. Professions is sort of unimportant when you’re first learning PvP, are you inexperienced at the game or inexperienced at ranger? If you just haven’t PvPed a lot, check out

http://www.twitch.tv/phantaram
http://www.twitch.tv/romoncoke
http://www.twitch.tv/thelordhelseth
http://www.twitch.tv/sir_koroshi

Koroshi isn’t nearly as good as the others at PvP, but he plays a wide variety of builds including power ranger. And he’s still very good at PvP.

Also this is a good starting PvP website:
http://qqmore.net/

That was hysterical. The constant screams of anguish when a new donation came in…

Nado.8324:

for roaming only
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQNAR8XjMq0yaDLWsw1agJhqdAUtLw7eYW/YXhwB/O9A-T1CHABjpb4PVXA4hA48RAQt9HUSJSUKBNSZ0SKNQUNiAuAABAQAu5NzmtZwP/5P/5P/Z38m38m38mlCwMtWA-w

I used to run a nearly identical spec except I used berserker gear and natural healing. Very effective for 1v1s and if you get outnumbered, not many can catch you.

I think it depends on what you’re doing. SB sits on the outside doing damage. S/T means you’re probably the target, and even want to the be the target (that’s one reason I often take undead over krait.) You’re burning the whole point and you’re hard to catch. It’s great when you have something like 2 engis, a thief and a ele on your solo q team. If you’re on a premade I can definitely see why you want SB, especially since you don’t need to be as mobile.

jcbroe.4329:

My other point, and I want to incorporate this as a response to @Fluffball as well;
Neither of you run Empathic Bond, and outside of dueling, I honestly don’t understand how you are surviving well in teamfights without it. Duels are fine without it, you have more than enough removal with just Survival of the Fittest in a 1v1.
I ask because in teamfights, especially when I am against Abjured premades, I don’t see how you can possibly have enough condition removal with just SotF.

You’re running SoR, EB, SotF and EP. That’s more condi removal than almost anything in the game. I don’t feel like doing the math, but I think that’s more than a shoutbow, and shoutbows are AoE so if you’re near one you can add that to your tally as well.

It’s not really how are Euri and I getting by without EB, it’s how is everyone playing right now getting by without 100% condi cleanses every 3 seconds. :P Many popular berserker builds have almost no condi cleanse. The warrior build ROM destroys soloQ with only uses condi removal on weapon swap if I remember right.

Two other things. Your testing ground for condi cleanses is the Abjured, but you have basically a 100% chance to die there. It’s like testing a bullet proof vest by running back and forth across a shooting range. The vest works just fine, but you’re still going to die (and in this case the shooters are psychotic and don’t stop even though they’re hitting you.)

Finally, evades and CC. Even though condi necros should in theory destory condi rangers, they’re actually pretty easy to 1v1 as I’m sure you’ve noticed.

Eggyokeo.9705:

Why strength of spirit over Natures Protection or Natures bounty?

For SB that’s the only way to deal damage I’m guessing. It’s awfully hard to get behind someone unless it’s like 3v3.

jcbroe.4329:

Also, if you can get just Survival of the Fittest to work for you, then I am jealous.
I’ll be the first to admit I’ve chosen more “carry” options on my build though haha.

I usually try to clean up my point and go +1 something as soon as possible, even if I’m not the best choice to do so. I don’t trust people to leave the point we’ve got under control… like at all haha. I’m sure that helps a lot with my condi removal (as well as my strong preference for sword.)

Hey, that’s me! I’m the top scoring engi on the other team (not turret.) I’m on TV!!!

Agree with everything, with 2 small exceptions. I use s/t over SB. I don’t really care if thieves run away. I don’t really expect to kill them, I get the point, and rangers hard counter thieves if they’re silly enough to stay. In every other case, S/T is stronger IMO. The movement on sword is too important to give up, and burn the whole point and everything on it!

Second thing, I prefer poison master. Condis are not prevalent, but condi removal is, and poison is the strongest condi. Get as much of it out there as possible.

Other than that, we have the same build. Edit: Oh, I take offhand training over the regen, obviously since I’m using torch.

I would skip traveler. It doesn’t apply to your pet, isn’t useful in PvE, and rangers have a ton of different movement options.

Arantheal.7396:

daily reminder that turret engis are easy to kill by focusing them down.

A-net will not balance this, just because you suffer from such big l2p issues.

I think you’re missing the point. It’s a literally zero skill build that is excessively effective. Other bunker type builds may be easy and effective, but you have to know and do something. You can’t just give your grandmother a d/d ele and tell her to go win a match, she’ll get annihilated. Not the case with turrets.

It’s not that the community needs to L2P, it’s that turret engis don’t have to L2P.

That would be so kittening amazing. Anything to make our pets more useful, AND to break up monopoly of less than 5 or so “main” pets… Like taking a “glass cannon” bear could be a viable condi removal choice.

Rangers put out a severely underrated amount of group heals and buffs. Whenever I feel like running a weird build I take some combo of Invigorating Bond, spirits, HS, moa, or guard. Or all of the above even. Back when spirits were meta in PvP I would use guard + spirits + HS + warhorn. It’s not that different from a shout warrior.

Moas heal for an almost shocking amount as well.

Zayin.4632:

some people just trying to get the daily winner done will just play until they get a win before stopping but that could potentially mean the players who drag teams down the most will be playing the longest.

That’s me on ele, I win like 1 out of every ten games. Up to 7 total wins now! Be very afraid if you see me on your team on ele.

Justine.6351:

Is there a good zerker staff ele that makes vids to showcase how to duel with it?

There is/was a staff ele on my FA server that was the most godlike ele I’ve ever seen in my life. He has videos of charging face first into a zerg and living. Can’t think of his name, looking for the videos now. I had no idea you could even play staff like that until I saw him.

It obviously wasn’t zerker, he was probably the typical soliders/zerk mix or something.

Edit: Can’t find the video I was thinking of. These two videos are both fun so I’m posting them so it doesn’t feel like I wasted a bunch of time looking for a video that doesn’t exist.

I think the devs said you’re supposed to report afkers as botting?

Best way to get rid of turret engis is to quadruple the health of spirit weapons and necro minions. Give rangers spirits an autoattack. Boom, no one plays turrets anymore.

Eurantien.4632:

Power ranger > Staff ele

I’ve seen you lose to a staff ele in a tournament.

Sword on DPS guard?

Malhavoc.8976:

Fluffball.8307:

If they ever buff pets/pet controls, I’d love Invigorating Bond builds to become the meta. That trait need a very slight buff to be awesome, but right now it’s in a weak traitline.

I think a slight radius buff and making the ICD apply on a per pet basis (20s per pet), rather than the blanket 20s, would make Invigorating Bond a really nice option. I don’t see it as an especially complicated fix, either.

Very reasonable. If you compare it to vigorous shouts (I know I know, bad to compare between professions) IB is really a terrible grandmaster. I think healing every 10 seconds is extremely reasonable, especially considering many pets like wolf have very long F2 cooldowns.

I’m disregarding any 1v1 results, just talking about range in general. Mesmers have much better burst than ranger LB. Engis and eles bring more AoE. It’s not run very often, but if you let a berserker staff ele sit on a cliff above a cap point, your whole team is gonna die. And of course berserker staff is run a lot in WvW, and eles blow rangers out of the water (pun intended) in zerg fights.

If you do want to talk 1v1, a cele staff ele beats a LB ranger, although that fight wouldn’t be at long range.

Anywho, we digress. Rangers have a good long range option but so does every class. I don’t think it defines rangers.

Ranger is not hands down the most proficient at long range. We have a good long range option, but other classes do it as well or better.

If they ever nerf celestial amulets, I think spirits make a comeback. Right now the 3 main cele classes poop AoE all over the point and kill the spirits too quickly.

And that in turn leads us to the fact that spirit builds are boring…

If they ever buff pets/pet controls, I’d love Invigorating Bond builds to become the meta. That trait need a very slight buff to be awesome, but right now it’s in a weak traitline.

A lot of people are uneducatedly guessing the druid will be a team support build, so there may be some potential there.

Oh hey. I think I saw you playing this on stream a couple weeks ago.

That sun spirit does so little damage when you’re alone I have to wonder if there is a better skill for that slot. I think you’d get more out of QZ or one of the signets, MT, maybe even flame trap.

Thief in soloq is Russian roulette. If anyone playing mesmer or thief winds up on your team, you’ve pretty much lost before the match starts.

It doesn’t help that berserker is the most popular amulet for most classes, so you often wind up on a team where no one is physically able to stand on a point.

My solution has been an extremely liberal use of the block feature.

• Has semi-controllable pet
• Evasive and acrobatic
• Sustained damage instead of burst
• Tons of access to control effects (CC)
• Some conditon, some direct damage

I didn’t describe strengths and weaknesses, the points just are what they are.

Well LB 1v1 is definitely not subpar. It’s the doofuses that are playing it since the buff.

Ironically I think bow rangers are one of the few specs that are able to defeat condi rangers. Weird dynamic. Condi rangers hard counter like 85% of LB rangers, and yet LB obliterates condi at times.

Good balance by anet honestly.

hyjaxxx.1584:

Aren’t daggers held the reverse way though? Should be able to tell, no?

And fluff, it sounds like the guy was probably running a s/t a/d Condi Gen build eh?

Ya that makes a lot more sense. He said s/a so I assumed that was a single weapon set. And ya daggers are held backwards, but clearly OP isn’t good at identifying builds, so I’m reaching. Some dagger skins are made to look like swords as well.

I’m thinking it was a/d rather than s/a and the dude was using one of the big dagger skins that look like a sword.

ITS: How to kitten off eles.

The one that chills on crit… ice? Sometimes I run with 100% crit chance just to take the guesswork out of when it triggers.

Edit: Oh it triggers on hit now. Shows how long it’s been since I played WvW a lot.

There are several people on this forum that use perma chill builds. I believe they use Grenth runes.

I stuck a sigil on my LB when they opened up the 2nd sigil spot and have been pretty happy with it. Not a ton of chill but man do I notice it when it procs.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Splitblade ?

S/A is a weird weapon choice for condi. He may have been celestial with MoC and EB? Or melee trapper with the axe to pull you into trap? Need more info.