It is a pretty crappy active. But then again, a lot of the signets need work.
Sig of wild shouldn’t have a 1s cast time.
Sig of hunt should last more than 1 attack. But it’s ok as is.
Sig of stone is actually good.
Sig of renewal is silly. And kills the pet.
Lightning reflexes breaking immobilize was one of the most asked and logical buff people kept asking in here back in the days but think most have given up since the most ranger changes are irrational and seem completely random with little to no feedback listened from players. So why bother.
Umm, just like any other control class, bring a stunbreak/condi cleanse. Or dodge. It is not hard to stop these, especially since they need to be close to you for half of the CC abilities to work.
Eventually they will make pvp skins usable in pve. But it is not available ATM. So if you want to use the in the future, I would go ahead and get them.
This is also a cheaper way to get cultural gear, as long as you want the complete set. It’s still cheaper to buy it from pve vendor if you only want a few pieces.
yep yep. Im hoping the gear looks will be cross pvp/pve sooner than later. But they said it was coming, just not when exactly…
I assume it will be a few months before it’s implemented.
Eventually they will make pvp skins usable in pve. But it is not available ATM. So if you want to use the in the future, I would go ahead and get them.
This is also a cheaper way to get cultural gear, as long as you want the complete set. It’s still cheaper to buy it from pve vendor if you only want a few pieces.
waste em all on what ? exactly ? dont say dyes its so boring
Dyes and skins are all there are. If you want to one day put a skin on your pve player from the pvp locker, craft those skins. One day we will be able to move skins freely between pvp and pve, or that’s what I’ve taken from the announcements so far.
Put 20 into the top line and grab Spotter. I think it’s the best group buff available to the ranger. You’ll also need 30 into survival(for emphatic bond or bark skin). So 20/x/30/x/x with 20 points left over to put where you want.
Get tanky gear to start with, so soldier/knights/carrion. As you get more comfortable and notice your health is staying pretty high, switch out pieces for glassier pieces like berserker.
Bring pets with group buffs, like the fury moa, the condi cleanse bear, the might cat, etc.
Also, bring healing spring.
IMO longbow is only effective for zerker play types. I could see the usefulness in a bunker build for spvp, because the knock back would be nice for decapping points. But you would be going power build, and most ranger bunker builds are condi oriented.
As for bleed on auto, its only if you’re behind or to the side, which is difficult in a 1v1 situation.
General tips are relative to builds. But here’s a few that go across all builds.
1. Pet Swap
Wait a few seconds after swapping to use the F2. If you pop it right after swap, it will bug out and go on cooldown.
You can pet swap and use F2 while downed. So if you have a Wolf as your secondary pet, you can switch it out, then activate the F2 for an additional stomp interrupt. (Takes a bit of time though)
2. Pet Pathing
It sucks. I like to take pets that have leaps. So when they stand still to attack, instead of missing, sometimes they will leap at the target and still hit them.
Bring CC to help pets hit. Most weapons will have some sort of CC, unfortunately most of it is soft. And some hard CC isn’t conducive for pets. (like the longbow knockback)
3. Ranger Damage
Direct Damage is a bit kitten, which the pet is supposed to make up for. But at the same time, conditions are a LOT less reliable since people can cleanse them and void all of the potential damage of that 15 stack of bleeds. So, either works….. pretty much.
So, with the introduction of the new heal skills, it seems like ANET is going to add all sorts of new skills. No doubt they have already thought of several skills to give us, but let’s help them along by showing them what we want!
1. Arrow to the Knee
Summon your woodland allies to attack your foes. (Pulsing AoE survival skill, acts like barrage)
2. The Bees Knees
Create a swarm of bees at the target location. (Acts like a necro well, inflicts bleeding or torment)
3. Wetlands
Summon a water field at the target location. (Removes conditions from allies)
4. Brambles (Elite Skill)
Create a field of indestructible thorned vines. Inflicts damage to MOVING foes inside of the field. Could also inflict torment, but I’d prefer larger direct damage than splitting it with conditions.
My goal/hope would be to have skills that made rangers viable in large scale WvW combat. Crowd control and group support skills are key, I feel like we have enough/too many personal skills.
All you need for the hounds is the ability to dodge. But bringing a stun break is useful, lighting reflexes work.
You can also use Greatsword swoop. Or longbow invisibility. Or sword leap.
Personally I use a 30/10/30/0/0 build when I feel like doing dungeons. Including TA. Shortbow/Greatsword. Either signets or survival skills. Berserker gear.
I would like all of them to be fixed. The most glaring one IMO is she their f2 goes on cool down if you activate it too soon after switching pets. Or it’ll activate, but instead of using it on your target, the pet just leaps/shoots/glares/pees itself in the direction it’s facing.
2. AoE Damage Reduction
Mainly for WvW, pets might be useful then, which means rangers might be useful.
Its all the new playes attracted to the gold rewards and the new glory vendor
This. It’s unfortunate/sad. Played a tourney the other day and steamrolled a team. They obviously complained about how we were using meta builds… which I didn’t understand. Tried to offer advice, they refused and said they were only farming for glory.
The lack of condition cleanse on demand is the bad part. Putting on emphatic bond and runes of melandru still won’t save you from condi bursts.
I really hope the next skill they add have something to do with active condi removal, stability, and/or group support that can’t be killed like spirits.
Because DPS pets with +25k hp would be OP. Or bears with +50k hp.
This is probably what they’re thinking. But it’s wrong. (Not that a huge health pool is the way to go to make pets viable in Zerg fights) AoE damage reduction or invulnerability would be best.
So…Just thought I’d refresh this terrible skill trait.
….this still sucks. Either have it give 5 stacks per kill ESPECIALLY in spvp, or only have it vanish when the player gets downed. (I guess when the pet goes down would also make sense, but still nobody would use it.)
Was there really a need for yet another one of these threads?
We already have loads of these threads, why not write it in there?
You got a title that could only be obtained by completing the meta, why do everyone seem to ignore that?
Agreed with your first comment.
As for that title… I’m much more likely to wear my spvp titles. Also, titles suck, nobody cares about them, and nobody looks at them unless they’re super bored.
I don’t mind spirits (in spvp) they give decent buffs and yadda yadda yadda.
But I do wish there were more builds available to rangers in spvp. BM bunker is kitten poor damage compared to engi bunker. Longbow power/crit is laughable compared to thief s/d or d/p. And traps are like a well necros kittened brother.
Only reason spirits are acceptable is the team bonus.
If you thought the rewards would be good, I sincerely feel sorry for you and your naïveté. (<—woah fancy iPhone correction)
Second
If ANET would like a decent idea. Create an exclusive WvW armor and weapon set. Give a token or two each season for a piece of this armor and weapon for completing the meta. SHAZAM! Progression.
Third
#magswag, the only reward you need.
I am with you on #1 and #2. RvR has never ever been lucrative in any game. The reward is the pride and experience. I could get behind making a series of achievements that would allow you to get a set of armor and weapon skins. You cap SMC 5 times=helmet skin. Kill 10 keep lords=chest armor skin. Every 20 tower lords=shoulder armor skin. Take 30 camps=leg armor skin. Kill 40 dolyaks=hand armor skin. Flip 30 ruins=boot armor skin. Kill 500 players=weapon skin. Something like this would be amazing for the W3er, and still allow for PvXers to come in for a bit, get some rewards, and then go do their thing. This would really help to spell it out for people that thought they were going to get a full suit of ascended armor out of their gold league #1 chest. That wasn’t ever going to happen, and will never happen.
I like your idea as well, I would think the numbers would need to be tweaked, since some of those you can get in a day to a week. But the premise is good!
If ANET would like a decent idea. Create an exclusive WvW armor and weapon set. Give a token or two each season for a piece of this armor and weapon for completing the meta. SHAZAM! Progression.
I actually like this idea. Perhaps there could be a full set of exclusive WvW skins. Completing your Season One reward chest gives you 1 token to redeem for a single piece of the set. Additional pieces of the set can be earned by trading in badges of honor. This would give players a rewarding feeling and also provide incentive to continue adventuring in WvW.
Sure, but in order to make purchasing with badges work, ANET would need to implement a new armor set each season. Because badges are pretty easy to come by for WvWers, so they would get the armor in no time.
My initial thought was that ANET isn’t capable of producing armor that quickly. So if they just make one set for each light, medium, and heavy armor sets, they can spread out the rate at which players get it over the course of a year.
(I would much prefer an exclusive armor per season, but I don’t see that happening.)
If you thought the rewards would be good, I sincerely feel sorry for you and your naïveté. (<—woah fancy iPhone correction)
Second
If ANET would like a decent idea. Create an exclusive WvW armor and weapon set. Give a token or two each season for a piece of this armor and weapon for completing the meta. SHAZAM! Progression.
So, when people say “rangers are a good option for roaming” I think they are misguided. What they mean is, rangers are better at roaming than zerging, but any other class can still do it better.
My ranger is the only char that can easily solo a camp, btw.. I’m sure that every profession should be able to do so, but my main does it without breaking a sweat..
Agreed, builds such as trapper or beastmaster have enough AoE or tankiness to take down a camp (however, BM is a terrible roaming build after leash range, SB range, and pet damage nerf). But you’re right, all other classes can do it, most can do it faster. For example, a well necro destroys camps.
I’m playing a bit of a devils advocate here, I enjoy my ranger play style, have champion hunter and all that jazz.
Related to a different post about rangers abusing the terrain. I would have to say staff ele’s and well necros can take the cake there.
I think I’ve found my problem with this mentality. People use this to show how rangers aren’t useless in WvW. But even in small roaming groups, I would pick any other class before ranger. They can all bring something better to the table, and what’s great is if y’all need to join a Zerg for some reason, you can and you’ll still be effective (if not playing a ranger.)
So, when people say “rangers are a good option for roaming” I think they are misguided. What they mean is, rangers are better at roaming than zerging, but any other class can still do it better.
I disagree, there is alot of truth to the rangers-are-for-roaming mentality. When people say roaming, I always think of running solo. As soon as you add party mates it becomes a havoc squad. I have played pretty extensively every class except warrior at 80. In zergs, obviously rangers are not wanted, but really, most classes arent so who cares? this game blows for encouraging zerging and for discouraging class diversity in large groups. its a huge, f-ed up epic flaw, somewhere on the mistake level of failing to have enemy names in wvw, stealth without long cooldown, commander tags or being able to banner rez keep lords.
Ranger roams better than than ele, guardian, necro, and warrior. Not “as well as”; flat out better than all the zerg-wanted classes. It is the only “extremely mobile” class besides warrior, and far outperforms a warriors ability to 1vX. 1vX, i would really only put a perplexity mesmer above them; with good rangers being on the same level as p/d thieves, engies and necros (certainly less pressure than the latter 2, but more than the first and better sustain and mobility than all 3).
Throw small-man roaming into the mix, and other classes begin to outpace us simply because of buff sharing. This could easily be fixed by turning spirits into passive auras (with the on-demands being centered on the ranger) rather than horrible 3hp mini-pet implementation they have now; it would single handedly make rangers zerg viable to provide those buffs reliably; but that wont happen until long after weve all left this game for ESO, EQN or Camelot Unchained.
I was indeed talking about group roaming, flipping camps, and such, (gets boring playing by yourself) but I will stick with what I said for solo roaming as well.
Ranks and Finishers are being removed? So that rank 39 which takes a significant amount of time to achieve, unless you farmed glory before the “fix,” will be wiped away and I won’t have anything to show for it?
Unless there is some new awesome system being implemented that rewards me for that time played before the deletion of ranks, I’m going to be upset.
Also, I was looking forward to getting the Lion Finisher, which I’ll probably be able to do before deletion, but maybe not. And what about the finishers after that?
Established finishers shouldn’t be part of leaderboard rankings. If you want to create new ones to reward top players, fine. But the established finishers are a testament to how much time you have put into spvp.
I believe this is such an important thing, that it should go without saying, but here it is anyways.
PvP exclusive armor and weapons!
If those dirty pve’rs get to bring in their cultural armor, or Twilight Arbor armor into pvp, then we pvpers deserve exclusive armor to show that we in fact ARE pvpers. It would be nice if this armor was also able to transfer to WvW/pve. But only obtainable through significant pvping. (Perhaps rank 40)
Pvp legendaries!
I have long since come to terms that I will never get a legendary through pve. I just don’t play it enough, and when I do, all the money goes to WvW. I don’t even care if these are only usable in pvp. Having them transfer would be nice, but unecessary.
It would be nice if they looked different from pve legendaries, so if they do transfer to pve, people will see the skin and know that you’re a pvper.
No it doesn’t Zergs are only part of the game. Ask about forming a 2-man havoc group and you’ll get many different answers, with Rangers being part of them.
As for Zergs, backline Rangers can certainly be effective. They may make easy pickings if their not careful, but otherwise they can put out damage and are relatively safe.
I think I’ve found my problem with this mentality. People use this to show how rangers aren’t useless in WvW. But even in small roaming groups, I would pick any other class before ranger. They can all bring something better to the table, and what’s great is if y’all need to join a Zerg for some reason, you can and you’ll still be effective (if not playing a ranger.)
So, when people say “rangers are a good option for roaming” I think they are misguided. What they mean is, rangers are better at roaming than zerging, but any other class can still do it better.
It’s just that a full glass barrage can’t produce more damage than an ele’s meteor shower. Especially if combined with tornado. Ele’s also bring 2 water fields where they don’t have to waste their heal. Along with other things like uneven ground, fire fields, and blast finishers.
Umm, my guild runs through Zergs to get the backline all the time, and we rarely die like you say. Also, any ranger trying to barrage us will get half of their health taken away due to retaliation.
But maybe it works against pug zergs. So ya got that going for you.
Man I would love to see downed state completely removed. Or if anet refuses to remove it completely atleast get rid of all the interrupts, mists and teleports basically every #2 skill.
Downed state is fine, how else are you going to get stomps? It’s the combat and instarez that hurts more imo.
Because if a 5 man teams hit the back of a 30 man zerg and manages to down a few players, the zerg can just turn around and AoE everyone downed to prevent them from being stomped. The downed state completely throws small scale groups out the window.
I don’t mind the downed state. It’s just part of the game, and in some ways it makes sense. Strategy must be formed around the downed state (good or bad I’m not sure.) for instance, if we got rid of downed, warrior banner elite would be almost worthless. Rezzing a downed clump with a banner is very important and is a strategy(even if you don’t like the strategy).
I don’t think removing downed state would be that terrible, but at the same time, it would remove a few tactics from the game, which would suck.
It’s an interesting build and I tried something similar to it before. But I was unimpressed when compared to heavy class frontliners and decided to stick with max range backline on my ranger.
What was disappointing, the damage or the survivability, or both?
Little bit of both. But more so the survivability. I ran signets with sig of beastmaster, so solely for the activated stability and damage on sig of the wild. If you ran sword axe, you could get a solid bomb in on a trapped group with axe 5. But it required muddy terrain to trap them, so you only have 1 more utility open, which I took sig of stone for invulnerability ish.
The build had little ability to cope with damage after it was applied. You could avoid most of it, but retail was a pain and you can’t dodge everything.
In terms of damage, longbow piercing arrows does more damage with less risk. And your pet gets to survive since you’re backline. (Taking ranged pets)
You say you use it in zerging. What kind? Organized guild or pug groups? I ask, because I don’t see the ability to keep up in an organized group. You have zero access to stability but you are melee on both weapon swaps, and you have the vit/tough to take a hit.
Also, if you run front line, how often are the pets dying?
It’s an interesting build and I tried something similar to it before. But I was unimpressed when compared to heavy class frontliners and decided to stick with max range backline on my ranger.
Ele’s can be a real powerhouse in a dungeon, the damage is great. Mesmer is better at spvp. But you could just make a level 2 alt and take him into pvp where everybody is the same level.
You can probably find enjoyment out of either class.
I’ve had zero problems running 30/30/10/0/0 with Greatsword and sword/x for stacking speed runs. Bringing spotter is great. Throw a frost spirit out if the group wants it.
Agreed, I used to run sig of beast with 3 sigs. It’s just not worth it when compared to picking up spotter, eagle eye, and another trait of your choice.
If anything, merge signet of the beastmaster with the signet reduced cool down minor trait.
Besides the people that actively post it on LFG, I’ve never had anybody complain when I play my ranger. I am a pretty zerkery build and gear. So I have the damage, have spotter, and healing spring.
I imagine those people have just encountered a lot I “bad” rangers and bthink the whole ranger player aee is the same way.
