Guild Wars 2

The number of beer induced mauls I ate sure did make me miss Nature’s Protection, ha!

Those really were some fun duels. Thought for sure I had you in the 2nd. I would have put it off for a sober time but I think we have opposite schedules and I wanted to duel someone in this tourney!

Edit: And no excuses from the beer, I think in the 2nd duel the adrenaline kicked in enough that I was performing ~100%.

With = by. It was fixed by RtW, which makes arrows hit instantly.

Huuuurrrry stack BG and ruin everything to the point it literally doesn’t work at all. We were so close before, now is our chance!

DeceiverX.8361:

I think SoS just needs a cast time and it’d be totally fine.

Well of course you do, then you wouldn’t have to deal with rangers using it anymore and everything could go back to the good ol’ days of rangers being almost not the worst PvP class.

Edit: Whoops, I meant before the update we were clearly the worst. Right now after the signets and axe buff we’re almost not the complete worst.

No other update has brought out the … slower players… more than the September 9th one.

“Guys, a ranger used a skill, WHAT THE KITTEN DO I DO???!?!?”

Heh, got a chuckle out of the ‘pets ignoring illusions.’ Ya just ignore them, your life will be more sane and peaceful.

Justine.6351:

At extreme ranges the lb will only hit stationary targets. So somewhere between the zone that you cannot strafe and absolute max lb distance you will be able to strafe with some varying degree of success depending on what side of the spectrum the target is.

Nope, that was updated 8 months ago with read the wind. It makes the arrow hit instantly.

The builds already posted are what you’re looking for OP.

One silly yet productive variation thing I like to do is run a tank spec with berserker armor, s/d + gs. Pop RaO, run in with the front of your zerg, but use an untargeted sword auto to fling yourself completely in to the enemy backline squishies. Maul, MT, swap to wolf and fear, whatever it is you brought with you to disrupt them casting. At that point you’re good to go to get back out, as none of your skills are on cooldown. LR, SoS, swoop, etc. back to the safety of your zerg and then just join the normal frontline with greatsword autoattack.

I use a build very similar to the one Eurantien posted as well. SB just doesn’t do enough damage and SoR is one of the best skills in the game.

Huh, just noticed the TCG build doesn’t have any energy sigils either. Not loving that.

Siroso.2769:

Would you ever consider taking natures protection instead of evasive purity if you were against a really bursty comp? Or is evasive purity too good?

Poison is really easy to apply and instantly achieve a high level of danger. That’s why I run evasive purity 100% of the time. But then I also use NP over CoL.

Hmm, I think I might be convinced to use CoL. With lots of dodging I’ve got prot up a lot anyway, and there aren’t a ton of single-hit bursts.

And that, folks, is what we call hyperbole.

Ok esoteric GW rambling time.

I guess to simplify my point, the button pushing on eles is an illusion. You can think of it as having a weapon swap available more often, but with longer recharging skills to compensate.

It’s more about weapon sets than anything else, when comparing professions with extremely active uses of their F1-F4 skills. For example the s/t + a/d ranger set uses all the skills extremely often, and the sword autoattack means you’re constantly frantically mashing weapon skills in a controlled manner. Long bow you don’t press many buttons at all.

The biggest difference after weapon sets is profession mechanics. Warriors and thieves have almost none of that. Eles, engies, mesmers and ranger have a bunch of that. Guardians have a fairly large cooldown on their profession mechanic, and rangers have literally zero cooldown on theirs. Is it necessary to spam the pet controls 14 times a second? No, but generally we do. It’s difficult to get the pet in the exact position you want in a 4v4 at mid.

Another thing to consider illusion-wise is the concurrent button smashing. Eles and rangers can both push all the buttons at once in some builds, and then push very little as we wait for the cooldowns. Utilities and pets and weapons and etc can all be pressed at the same time. For example lightning flashing while casting.

Ehecatl.9172:

Maybe it’s because I main an elementalist, but the idea that rangers are bogged down by too many keystrokes seems a bit absurd.

This is a bit off-topic, but I think this is a myth. Ele button-pushing per minute isn’t actually that complicated. It’s pushing the skills after swapping attunements. Rangers push the skills just as quickly, only with more timing because of the pet. We have to push the pet skills and we have to push the weapon skills and we have 2 weapon swaps, which is pretty equivalent to pushing individual attunement buttons 1 at a time.

I would argue for neither class is buttons-per-minute particularly important.

Edit: And toss the whole sword exact timing in there if you want. Good rangers will not spam 1.

Edit 2: I should clarify I play a fresh-air ele so I’m used to smashing keys.

Just call your region and challenge, zeno, there is nothing to lose!

I saw Siroso online tonight, but it was exactly at WvW reset and he was in a borderland so I figured it wasn’t a good time for a challenge. I’m coming for you though, in whatever order.

I guess just view solo q as random fun instead of for-realsies. Sometimes you wind up with 5 mesmers and sometimes you win with that.

But honestly, the number of glass LB rangers I’m seeing is pretty low. The novelty has already worn off, at least in the hours I’m playing.

The idea that people running a build you don’t find useful needs to be removed is just absurd. There almost literally are an infinite number of builds across all the professions that wouldn’t be up to your contribution standards. It’s not the dev’s fault some people are playing a build with low survivability at a low level, and it’s not the dev’s job to destroy any build someone can come up with that doesn’t contribute to your particular team.

Good news for you though, berserker ranger is very difficult to play well, so if people keep dying, you won’t see it anymore except in the hands of experienced rangers. Afterall, how many backstab thieves do you see now compared to at launch.

I know people like it for duels, but I really wish they would stop allowing enemies to find our name and then whine like little kittenes when you kill them. It’s incredibly annoying to have to keep blocking people because they can find out who I am. Leave me be, whiners!

I’m seeing about 1 power ranger per match. Just because someone is playing ranger doesn’t mean they’re power LB.

I am seeing 3 times as many engies.

It’s been two years and we still can’t jump up this thing. How am I supposed to pass the time waiting for a game?!

Dude is a legit beast with 1vX longbow.

https://www.youtube.com/user/BlueFlopy

Also almost all of the vids are (obviously) from before the RF update.

I was just on a 5 ranger team. I don’t think any of us were running glass LB. Maybe one, I couldn’t keep tabs on everyone.

Prysin.8542:

The pet choice(s) were terrible

While I personally agree with you, some of the better rangers do like siamoth. Flopy the Rabbit might be the best 1v5 or whatever longbow ranger I’ve ever seen, and he swears by the thing.

That being said, Flopy takes his on purpose, and I feel like the guy in the video took it because he didn’t know what the pets do.

What in the…??

Pure melee? It’s a little rough, but probably s/a + GS with moment of clarity.

A much more widely used build is s/t with condis, a/d on swap. That’s basically ‘meta’. Your typical XX66X condi traits.

solrik.6028:

Cufufalating.8479:

-snip-

I certainly learned why axe dagger is better than axe torch!

A/D + S/T is so much fun to just smash buttons with. You almost can’t go wrong with 2 energy sigils, weapon swapping on recharge, and evading everything all the time forever.

Isn’t this called “dungeons”?

GS has more suvivability in zerg battles by a mile, and I think the mobility of s/d really blows GS out of the water in small skirmishes. If you get focused, the only really good solution is to move. For 1v1 it’s probably pretty even.

Ya both of the videos I posted have music in them.

Two of the autoattack skills move you. It’s sort of irrelevant how you count them, since you just go bouncing around by pressing 1 (untargeted.) They move you really far.

Anywho, I’ll take this post as an opportunity to post FrouFrou’s youtube channel. At around 4:00 in this video she gets in to trouble and does a ridiculously good job of staying alive through good use of the s/d. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtW2QcghZ8M&list=UUmjknpoCV0Yk86XVWVcTsvw

7 then!

Somewhere there is a youtube video of a guy running from the SE corner of EBG all the way back to his SW side of the map while being chased by a bunch of people. It’s pretty funny but I can’t seem to find it.

Edit: Here it is. It’s actually a guy who posts here I believe. The epic run start around 3:40. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AkX6q_kV-s

Also FrouFrou has some really funny videos of bouncing all over the kitten place with sword1.

I’ll add on to wauwi’s post that sword/dagger is far and away our most mobile in-combat weapon. You can buy tons of time for CDs or healing to save you by bouncing all over the place with the 6 (!) movement skills.

Prysin literally zero of your post is relevant to the OP or to dungeon running…

You make some good posts, but often time you just post your opinion in places that aren’t relevant. I doubt that did anything other than confuse a new ranger.

Edit: Even your edit is useless. You can rarely pick what type of gear you get when you level, you don’t need to pick it, and you can’t even get celestial gear when leveling!

Cufufalating.8479:

I’ll say I have not often had the pleasure of duelling other decent (/better) Rangers so I learned a lot

This has been the best thing for me in this thread. Before these fights I can’t off the top of my head think of a ranger I lost to in a not-almost-dead-to-camp-NPCs sort of fight. And I’ve gone a very mediocre 4-win 4-loss in this, which I’m loving.

Gotta get whooped a few times. We’ve got some really fantastic rangers using all sorts of different builds.

Well, we’re getting more and more people playing, so I’m going to bump the handicap up to 8 instead of 5. That’s up for debate, but I’ll update the main post for now.

I definitely think it needs to stay at some level. This is only fun if we have a revolving door of builds, not if one guy just outplays everyone on the entire forum.

All classes are strong from range. The reason people “stack” for dungeons is a bunch of things. Melee weapons hit more targets more often, you can share boons, heal each other, revive each other, line-of-sight enemies, clump enemies, and so on for ages.

So basically, in dungeons, no, no class is good from range. In PvP or WvW, yes, many or most classes are good from range.

S/A is stronger for PvE. For WvW and PvP its a lot more complicated.

I don’t feel anything needs to be changed with the score at all. If the population imbalances were fixes, none of this would matter nearly as much.

GS is all about using your CC to set up maul. Like literally that is the purpose of the weapon.

You have a lot of CC in your build. Once you land the wolf KD, entangle, MT, PBS, counterattack, or hiltbash, go for the maul. Honestly I wouldn’t even care if the guy uses a stun breaker or immob cleanse because maul is on a really short cool down. So you don’t need to worry too much about “wasting” it.

The more advanced, and less reliable method is to watch their dodges and try to maul them when they can’t dodge. That can get a bit confusing like if they have things like a sigil of energy, which they probably do.

1) There are different types of groups, some will accept anyone. Most groups will want you to be a melee ranger, and if you join a PUG they will expect that of you unless otherwise stated, because melee is significantly faster. However you can always seek out the former.

2) Yup. You open with barrage and rapid fire, then switch to melee for whatever is left of the fight.

3) Definitely some good choices there. Try out troll unguent as your heal. It’s a lot stronger in a selfish way. Healing spring is very very powerful with more people around, in a selfless way. Also try all the skills if they appeal to you, leveling should be fun.

4) For leveling, anything you can get your hands on. For end-game PvE dungeons, read this: http://dulfy.net/2014/07/05/gw2-ranger-pve-class-guide-by-lorek-and-cell/

ItIsFinished defended 7 times I think it was, which was pretty much everyone who is involved on the NA side.

Edit: Oh, did you just mean it from a vocab perspective? I’ve been involved with and watch a ton of MMA and boxing my whole life. I’m actually not sure how common the term “title defense” is in ‘normal’ lingo.

The most number of defenses so far is roughly the amount of people we’ve had participate for either region. If we start getting 50 people playing per region, we can always up the number of defenses before a handicap.

Ranger.

Edit: Eh, scholar does more technically I believe. But ranger is more consistent.

I doubt the guy is ready to solo Arah after playing the game for 3 days.

Siroso.2769:

I don’t know if there is a rule about this, but it would seem to make most sense to me that I have to stick with the build I first beat the king on, which in this case is the round one build I posted… I look forward to meeting fellow rangers and experiencing new and interesting fights.

Yup there is. You not supposed to change builds for all 3 fights. Presumably no harm no foul, here. Although if you can get Jcbroe to throw a temper tanturm about it, I would pay good money for that.

That build you’re locked in to is almost identical to my normal dueling build. I run mine with celestial, and just a few minor other differences.

2) It stacks on your pet, if you click your pet you can see it. It is removed if you swap pets or if it dies, so it’s not very good for PvP.

3) Uh, that’s a pretty mixed opinion around here. If you’re playing against premade teams, I personally would focus more on your own damage and consider the pet a happy side benefit, used mostly for CC or whatever you get out of it. For 1v1s pets are pretty strong though.

4) That weapon set up is pretty well accepted as one of the best.

5) Might want lightning reflexes over PM, and the shriek from drakes is difficult to land, but those are mostly my own preferences. Wolf is widely considered one of — or the best PvP pet.

For dungeons? Check this out:
http://dulfy.net/2014/07/05/gw2-ranger-pve-class-guide-by-lorek-and-cell/

For open world? Play whatever is most fun for you.

This?

Haha, jcbroe with the ridiculously flattering post.

My build was a bit of a mistake, but not in a way that would have meaningfully affected the duel. I was accidentally using a soldiers amulet and dolyak runes with not enough condi removal. I meant to use SotF, bark skin and berserkers, which is often my normal roaming build, but the accidental build was definitely viable if not what I was expecting!

Edit: Oh, jcbroe, don’t forget to bold your NA KING title and put some blank lines above and below your throne posts, so people can quickly spot it.

Edit2: Welcome to anyone from reddit. I saw ItIsFinished made a post pimping our little tourney.

Ok, but I insist that they salvage into bloodstone dust and thick leather sections. Only.

Pretty standard LB build. I personally prefer using SoR for condi removal instead. You hit a lot harder and it doesn’t force you to use your important utilities for condi removal, i.e using LR to remove bleeding is a travesty.

I updated the original post with ItIsFinished’s handicap suggestions at his request. I think they’re pretty reasonable. Is the no armor thing really still a thing for PvP? I thought the builds had been condensed only in to amulets, and you could no longer take your armor off for PvP?

Dungeons are designed to be played with 4 other people. Solo is possible on a ranger (and every other profession) for most of the dungeons, but don’t worry about it for right now. You won’t be able to do it anytime soon and you’ll be incredibly frustrated if you try.