Nightmare Court and Armor of Koda both have a rangery feel to them IMO. I think the gemstore Krytan armor is just pretty sweet. And I personally love the centurion look of the ascended armor. I am a heavily melee ranger, so it feels like it fits with a sort of special forces type skirmisher.
I was experimenting in WvW with a very similar concept, in preparation for the upcoming BM buffs. The route I took was Natural Healing. The tooltip doesn’t tell you this, but not only your pet but you get the healing/second. I paired it with a few other sources of regen, and that allowed me to wear berserker armor for damage. The one downside was I had basically no condi removal, but you have even less than I did.
Here’s what I might try, and keep in mind I’m no BM expert:
It’s still a little low on condi removal, but it has a decent amount of group support. You have tons of regen/second, almost the max possible in the game.
I was thinking about Read the Wind, and how important it will be to this build. The general idea is to immobilize my foe before unleashing with RF, thus the projectile velocity seems less mandatory. How do you guys feel about this?
I played an immobilize-based roaming LB for a very long time in WvW. The way I view it is you are using all that CC to delay the inevitable. It’s pretty rare to actually snag someone for any length of time. My goal was just to level the playing field; get a few arrows in to the guy so that his presumably tanky build and my glassy build are on more even footing when we start melee. Another factor is that thieves and mesmer effectively can’t be immobilized. You will absolutely destroy necros with that build though!
TL:DR, I’d go with Read the Wind.
Random note, I think you’ll like wolf more than drakehound. It’s “harder” CC.
I guess what I was really asking is does it hit 3 or 5? I think 3.
Was testing this out and I can’t see it fast enough without having a way to record it. There are numbers everywhere in the stationary golem blob in the heart of the mists; it’s definitely hitting more than 3 targets. It feels like it hits an unlimited amount going and coming back or possibly 10 targets combined, but it only pulls 3 targets.
This is very interesting, we need to try and get some confirmation.
This makes the offhand axe a much stronger zerg proposition than previously thought.
Kinda. I use axe 4 in zergs extremely often, and usually it hits like 1 target out and none on the way back. When both the enemies as well as yourself are moving, it gets pretty hard to hit with. However if a zerg restacks on the commander mid fight, that might be a good time to hit the max number of targets.
Another factor is I picked martial mastery over offhand training and the longer axe 4 range.
I found a few ascended rings sitting in my bank so I stuffed them on my mesmer. I have absolutely no idea how to play her and I was slaughtering thieves in WvW. Mesmers are ridiculous.
Sword/GS for roaming is usually something like 2 0 6 6 0 with barkskin and survival of the fittest.
Another option would be to take tankier armor and put your points in the typical power and crit damage lines, like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lej85Rb3fMU That’s mostly a zergy build, but there are some good ideas you can steal.
Rangers don’t really have an sPvP power build that is meta at the moment. But you can still try the above ideas and mod to your liking.
The name is fine, I think we just need to increase people’s vocabulary so they realize the “range” in ranger is not in any way related to bows. It could be this whole education campaign, we’ll have commercials and continuing education workshops, Ryan Seacrest will host a charity event that teaches less fortunate kids about word origins, bumper stickers that say “the word ‘ranger’ isn’t related to using ranged bows in MY reality” and it has a picture of Calvin cutting a bow in half. I think this could really take off.
Ascended armor is a really strange choice if you’re not going to do dungeons, fractals, or WvW with it. But I believe berserker’s is insignificantly more damage.
Necros new meta to give rangers a 6% damage boost. I can see it now!
Who knows? Necros could get the patch preview that they’ve been waiting for just like we did for the Longbow lol.
And now I am terrified. Necros might be the one class in a worse position than rangers right now so what kind of nightmare buffs are they going to get? :-O
Everyone is listing a ton of CC that is not applicable to dungeon runs. Alpine wolves? Entangle? Those have horrific uptime even if they were not MASSIVE damage penalties to begin with.
What is a realistic uptime of soft CC in a meta dungeon run? I’ll have to keep an eye out for it next time I run a dungeon, but I’m guessing it’s pretty low (or even effectively zero). Do any meta builds apply chill at all? Even eles mostly avoid water magic.
I don’t think GS is a good candidate for the new trait.
It doesn’t make sense as I’m seeing it. For dungeons, the GS is getting a (my guesstimate) 3% damage increase via the autoattack, while the sword is getting a 10%, or maybe.. (my guesstimate) 6.5% damage increase via losing bountiful hunter but gaining more power. So the greatsword should fall further behind than it already is.
I guess that’s compounded by the sword doing more damage in the first place, so a bigger % increase of more is bigger than smaller % increase of less.
The new trait will help 1 hand sword but in order to work it in say with a 6 5 0 3 0 build you will lose a 5% damage minor trait Bountiful Hunter. So yes, Great sword will close the gap a bit. It still wont be as good though.
That still puts the sword up an additional 5% from where it is now. Not sure how much the 100 extra power instead of 100 vitality is worth too.
IIR, the only damage increase is the 3rd attack on the autoattack chain by 10%. Or maul hitting 5 targets instead of 3, but that’s not important for dungeon bosses.
On the other hand the 1-hand sword is getting a 10% damage increase via the new trait.
It might actually be worse depending on how much chill and cripple your dungeon group puts out (probably close to zero, but I’m not intimately familiar with the minor traits of non-ranger meta builds.)
The GS buffs are all aimed at competitive formats.
I just meant they weren’t the typical bearbows you see in WvW. They were using things like “Protect me!”, wolves, etc. Obviously they weren’t familiar with offhand axe though, as I find many people aren’t.
It was actually rapidfire that got one of them, I suspect he didn’t know how to cancel it. Teehee.
I don’t think it’s accurate that you can’t 2v1 skilled players. I’m by no means good enough to take on two people that are competitive in PvP and do anything but put up a valiant effort, but I’ve seen plenty of streams and youtube videos of ultra-skilled players taking on multiple high skill opponents. I consider myself pretty middle of the road for competitive stuff, so two of me would probably lose to someone like sizer. Hell, probably three of me.
I don’t know anything about EU WvW, but your server is ranked so low I doubt you get a single person giving you crap for being on a ranger. Even in T1 these days there usually isn’t a queue (so I’m told anyway, I’m on T2.) Just realize if you die, every single downed enemy that landed an ounce of damage on you will be instantly revived. So try not to die!
Once you get your gear and skills sorted out, rangers are one of the best roaming classes. I personally rank them with thieves and mesmers (top 3 in small fight) though I think many would disagree with me.
Edit: One final thing I’ll add. It’s not possible to stay at range against a human. If they want to melee you, they will and there is nothing you can do about it. So I highly recommend you learn how to use sword or GS effectively, probably in sPvP.
One advantage of axe offhand is that it’s relatively rare, so I think a lot of non-rangers aren’t aware of what it does. Not only might they not be aware that thing you just threw at them is coming back to CC them, the reflects… A few weeks ago I wound up 1v2ing two surprisingly good LB rangers. Long story short, they killed themselves. Especially if you pop it while on top of a ranged user, it almost disguises the skill as a melee attack (which it is.)
I see this even in PvE. There is just some sort of disconnect with players and reflects in this game. People know Wall of Reflection, but almost all other projectile reflects are 100% ignored.
I guess what I was really asking is does it hit 3 or 5? I think 3.
Was testing this out and I can’t see it fast enough without having a way to record it. There are numbers everywhere in the stationary golem blob in the heart of the mists; it’s definitely hitting more than 3 targets. It feels like it hits an unlimited amount going and coming back or possibly 10 targets combined, but it only pulls 3 targets.
Just select stop auto attack on target switch, click the floor and you wont auto-attack anymore… (Also diselect auto targeting, it’s not good for most classes in pvp)
Plus I don’t think your original post is talking about pvp anyway…
While that method works for non-1H sword weapons (where you’d be suicidal to keep autoattack on in competitive formats), it’s just not efficient enough. You need to have 100% control of your character instantly in WvW roaming and PvP when you’re fighting against multiple opponents or very skilled opponents. It may seem small, but it makes a world of difference.
In addition to taking too much time, your method can also be complicated by multiple opponents and finding a safe place to click (or even finding your mouse at all! I only use mine to turn the camera and everything else has a keybind.)
Not having any L2P issues on ele or ranger. Anywho, competitive players don’t keep “autoattack” actually on “auto” so you have more control. It’s really important when facing perplexity and other confusion stackers. Triply important when using a 1h sword.
Ya I was thinking the same thing. I am currently in a different state of mind where I use pets almost like elite skills. The pets I like have fight-changing special abilities that need to be used at a specific time. And then there is the weird pet out, the eagle, which is basically a warrior weapon skill that needs to be used on recharge.
It would give us our first true main hand condition weapon. Although to be fair it would take one of the most boring weapons in the entire game and make it even more boring.
The blind on raven I love having control over. You don’t want to spam that, you use it strategically. The eagle however, is high maintenance for something that is totally low reward and low skill. All if does is put bleeding on the target. I guess you would get use to it.
You can’t control click the pet skill, first thing I tried. That really hampers the effectiveness of the eagle F2 since you have to think about it every 8 seconds while you’re trying to dodge an earthshaker and clear condis and what not. Anyway, totally off topic.
Anyone know, there is no round-about way to autocast pet F2s is there? I tried using an eagle the other day and found myself dedicating way too much concentration on keeping that fast recharging bleed on my opponents. So annoying.
Hard hitting axe4 (is it aoe or cleave?, never checked)
It hits in a line straight out then straight back to you, but even with the upcoming speed increase of its projectile it won’t land the second time because you’ll be moving with the zerg at an angle. I use it all the time in zergs now, but it’s mostly for picking off people fleeing where both of you are traveling in a straight line.
Rangers do better than most non-heavies in the middle of a zerg, but… I think it will be on par with what we do now with a greatsword. The signet changes is the biggest thing affecting us in zergs. Hurray mother kittening stability and invulnerability.
My gut feeling is people are really overestimating what an axe is going to do in a zerg. Compare it to warriors or guardians, who are already running around with huge cleave angles, high stacks of might, and tons of CC. Not to mention everything else they bring to the table.
The wolf has a 2 second AoE fear which lands reliably, a 2 second KD, and a 5 second cripple. That’s way better than the moa, which is extremely difficult to do anything with. Your target has to already be CCd or severely not paying attention for the moa to land her stuff.
The boar is a little better, but the charge is massively telegraphed and has a pretty difficult time hitting a moving target. Even in PvE the boar often goes flying off your screen in to the sunset, which is worse than if it didn’t even try the charge. The weapon skill is slow and can be picked up by your enemies(!). I think the reliable CC of spiders (6 seconds untraited) or any of the other more reliable CC pets will get you higher CC uptime, even if on paper it isn’t as good.
I think it’s worth restating the the pink moa and pig family struggle badly to land their skills even in PvE. Anet needs to address that.
I’d ditch the boar and moa for better CC pets. It’s really hard to impossible to land the CC those two have. Take a wolf and a spider/drakehound/alpine wolf/snow leopard/whatevs.
Honestly, pets need to count towards node contest. If a pet is in the node, it acts the same way as a normal player. That would be an amazing buff for the shout.
Mebe. Rangers have sort of kitteny condi options though, and the power weapons seem almost custom made for soloing with.
Edit: After thinking about it, I think condi would be a bad choice. GS and sword/axe/dagger are both almost purely power sets, and you need those evades and block. MH axe is basically a power weapon, since you don’t want to kill Lupi using only 1 skill to cause damage and need to be at point blank range to get the most out of it as a condi weapon. Torch is good, but provides zero utility solo. SB would only be causing poison because Lupi kills your pet almost instantly and you would have difficulty keeping any amount of bleeding on from behind. I think condi would be pretty time consuming.
At work so it’s blocked. I’ll have to take a look when I get home. Does it look like it will work on the move now?
My guess from the footage is that it still roots you, but the counterattack is basically instant, so you’d be rooted for like 1/4 of a second. We shall see though.
I’m not sure about the orbs. I haven’t heard of anyone doing it, but I haven’t looked either. It might be possible with some massive regen build or something? Natural healing, TU, regen, lightning reflexes, spirit of nature. Not sure, maybe check the dungeon forum or just give it a go.
Here is a video Turtle Dragon posted of his guildie doing P2, which is the only path I’ve tried solo.
Yes you can, but lupi is an exercise in frustration. Warriors have it so much easier with all their evades (ironically) and blocks.
There is a really old video on youtube of some ranger soloing lupi with mainhand axe. It looks a lot easier than melee, but it takes him like half an hour or something ridiculous.
The build is basically normal zerk, but for lupi you swap to offhand training on the axe, and there are a few other tweaks for content like that. But basically, yes, frost spirit and melee weapons, cat when you can, drake when you can’t.
You don’t need a sigil of corruption on both sets of terrestrial weapons. You can swap weapons on land and keep your stacks. It’s just swapping between water and land which will destroy your stacks (which you covered.)
