Guild Wars 2

TheDevice.2751:

All wrong my friend.. all wrong.

A power ranger has a wide range of skills to kite nearly any class but especially a necro. Knockbacks will affect a necro the most and not only do you have your own source of fears / immobilizes / steath you also have plenty of backward leaps.

If anything I could see projectile reflect on spectral wall. But thats my opinion.

Depends if we are talking spvp or wvw…

In spvp its a lot easier to corner a ranger due to the generally smaller confines and LOS elements but in wvw you probably wont get too close unless they want to.

But yea no stealth for necros please, already too many things that do. The skill is too powerful to be so prevelant

Pack is pricey these days, I think everyones caught on. Spent almost 3g each for a full set last night.

NeXeD.3042:

If you want condi 0/6/4/0/4 carrion scepter dagger frailty energy sigils staff geomancy energy sigils. Utils are corrupt boon, flesh wurm, spectral walk. CC is your heal, plague form is elite. Nightmare runes.

If you want power 4/4/0/0/6 is my favorite for power d/w air fire sigils, staff energy generosity sigils zerk utilities well of power spectral armor spectral walk. CC is your heal lich is your elite. Runes of the pack

Been trying out necro again after a year of maining ranger. I’ve been trying something like your second spec (except 0/3/5/0/6 for more defense) but I keep finding that I get swarmed and barely time to get any momentum often. Very different from melee ranger with lots of evade options.

What are some tricks you use to keep everyone off your back? I just feel like I get swarmed constantly, although its getting better with more familiarity. Also I recall some necros that seem to be able to stand there and just take a beating, cant seem to come up with a spec like that, even with 2100 toughness.

Also, does dark armor do anything?? I try channelling but tough never seems to go up!

Flumek.9043:

• i know it wasnt you but DONT. GO. FOR. SVANIR. AT. START……..EVER…. im not joking but you shouldve called the engie an idiot for that and tell him to never do it again. I cant sugar coat it – its a huge beginner mistake, meganoob move

uh oh, I’m afraid to ask, but why shouldnt you go for svanir?

signed, meganoob.

Ive tried full chill builds out lots and still frequently slot a frost trap (traited to 3.5s per pulse), but the part I like least is the lack of feedback. With other conditions that do some damage you can see it working but really with chill you just have to “believe” its doing something. Talking more large scale here, on an individual you can quite clearly see the effect >:)

On jade quarry EB is usually pretty full and at least one roaming full queue zerg which you’ll want to be on teamspeak to find. Same seems true for Blackgate and tarnished coast.

Prysin.8542:

just wanna note that trapper, using generosity sigils or purity sigils will draw against condi necro. However the strongest condi build for ranger is 02660 condition survival using SB or ST/AD, and a condimancer cannot apply conditions as fast, or as many stacks as fast, as the ranger can. In addition to this, said condi build is focused on surviving, so it is evasion heavy with 3-4 sources of active cleansing and often (not always) – empathic bond ontop of the active cleanses…. There is not many builds that can actually kill a survival ranger with conditions.

Thats what I run in spvp except hybrid with SotF and LR/Muddy Terrain/Entang for even more condition removal and still have had scarey moments where a necro reverse dumped everything in the book on me lol. Dont think they’ve won that way strictly 1-1 since also generally pressured by adds but I wouldnt be surprised.

1 second of stability (traited) seems like it wouldnt be OP. They did say they wanted to share around stun breaks to all lines way back when they where doing that. It would mitigate the trapper rangers glaring weakness slightly.

Jim Hunter.6821:

Guess what, conversations evolve. I was referring to (and I believe Kilger was referring to) the regen condi build that has been discussed multiple times in this thread.

I wasn’t saying a build should run all of those traits at once, I was pointing out there are several ways of building for regen, most of which can not be stripped.

I would like to point out a few things though.

Natural healing ticks for 177 when paired with compassion training. Add signet of the wild to that and you have a solid regen.

Going 6 points in beastmastery does not leave you without burst. A birds F2 alone will deliver a mean burst when traited fully into beastmastery and depending on the gear and runes you run you could lay out a ton of condi damage at the same time.

You’re right in what you say however a regen ranger still depends on regen buff to make him what he is. Troll ungent is powerful but not above a necros heal, especially loaded with conditions. Natural healing takes a lot of commitment to make it a factor, 177 seems high but maybe its obtainable with maxing the healing attribute.

Like said, poison and stripping/corrupting will ruin a regen rangers day like nothing else. Only thing hurt worse is a guardian.

Also complaining about rapid fire is like saying you dont know how to dodge. Its about the only thing you need to dodge from a LB ranger so save it for that, it will shave off nearly the entire burst. Exception is maul if they pack a great sword.

edit: Or hit them with instant fear, whatever, many options. I have been playing ranger for past year so not completely up on the necro changes but the previous year I mained necro and rangers were nothing but trash to be steamrolled and barely noticed…

I used to main a power necro and ranger was one of the easiest targets. Fight aggressively and you will win. I actually main ranger now and a good necro can be the harder fights even knowing what to do.

Necro is uniquely built to destroy a regen ranger by corrupting and removing his buffs so I dont see the issue there either. Rangers can have really good condi removal but still cant keep up with what a necro can dish out.

Dodge is always a great defense against rapid fire.

Fluffball.8307:

Sube Dai.8496:

I don’t want a new trap added (unless it is part of a bundle), as I feel trappers need to take spike, flame and poison in order to be remotely viable.

I always felt poison trap was sort of garbage. Trappers are almost certainly using SB, sword, dagger, spiders, or all 4 at the same time.

Dont knock poison trap. You might be thinking too much of spvp or 1-1. I like poison trap because it poisons a zerg (though youre right I use sword and marsh drake). Its also direct damage and pulses unlike spike trap, so good chance to trigger flame burst and it really spreads it around. I really like poison. It definately shows you who is packing the condi removal in a crowd. Its also on a low cooldown so works well with trapper runes.

Stability is a great idea, I third/fourth that.

Stun removal would be the best improvement. When they re-distributed the stun breaks last year they said every class build would have access to them but they left out the trap ranger.

If a stun break was added, I dont think it should be limited to one trap unless that trap is severely underpowered; they are all good however. Also the cooldowns are too short so it would be OP.

However a new trap would fit, like a trap that stuns while removing stun, or one that teleports, etc.

Alternately… make every trap laid refresh shared anguish (when traited). Low cooldown countered by the fact it pooches your pooch. And shared anguish isnt as powerful as a stun break so if you have a chance to refresh it not as big a deal.

Ive been using trapper runes in wvw exclusively since they came out.

I find stealth and speed are not granted while in the air, only once the trap lands. For this reason I didnt use trappers expertise for some time because of the delay while throwing, the point blank activated the stealth significantly faster, enough to notice easily. I didnt really focus on the icons however, just the character stealth graphic and the actual speed increase.

So your experience doesnt equal mine, but I’d really prefer if the stealth did activate immediately regardless of traits…

I believe the reason youre not stealthing is as you say, the trap triggering removes your stealth. Try using a frost trap which does no damage for comparison. I have read also that spike trap can activate before you are granted stealth (so you stay stealthed) but this doesnt work in wvw in my experience. Slight wvw lag may be the culprit.

With a good team it probably works great. In PUG you’d better be prepared to defend yourself constantly. Sword/dagger has a lot more survivablity over GS when the pressure hits. Love longbow for pressing advantage but unfortunately find it not too great in pugs unless your team is dominating (at least slightly) already… which makes me question its value.

Atherakhia.4086:

If you’ve managed to win an argument with your guild leader to bring a Ranger over a meta class for either a guild run or GvG let me know how you did it! Better Rangers than I have tried. No ranger policy still in place 2.5 years and counting.

I wouldnt bother arguing… my thought is if you play ranger you have to accept youre seen as the red headed stepchild. But I roam solo with guild groups all the time and I’ve gotten complements in ts on well placed traps, so I know they see the value. And I survive quite well by bouncing away from the pin when there is too much heat (poor pets).

Atherakhia.4086:

Porknails.3415:

Ah, i wasnt paying much attention to conditions, so much cleanse they are pretty much useless.

There is a lot of cleanse, sure. But the condis the Necro provides are on pulsing fields so they just reapply in many cases. Dropping Darkness on a melee train push that pulses chill and blind is quite powerful.

If you think thats good try frost trap… much higher chill uptime (up to 4 sec a pulse) and much less cooldown. Dont forget pulsing traps are something rangers are good at too. Pulsing viper trap keeps the damage on and the heals minimalized while flame trap with the ridiculous low cool down keeps the fires burnin’…

Trapper rangers have a great place in wvw too. Maybe not as essential as boon stripping/corrupting but once you have that covered they add lots. Diversity!

Everything works in pve, but if you group you will have to prove yourself a bit, rangers have a bad rap for not being team players.

In pvp/wvw its got the disadvantage of having a big bullseye if you run around with a bow out, since a lot of new people play ranger and assumed easy kill. But with enough skill you can kill anything, it will take a while learning the game to get there however. If you go without a bow it is probably the most annoying class to fight against with all the evades we have.

Probably the longbow of death. Few things end a fight faster than zerk spec rapid fire against someone already under pressure. Ranger is a hard add to compensate for.

I dont think they are blaming the good rangers, they are blaming the bad ones. All it takes is one troll to (m)uck up a system. Take collision detection. Cant be in the game because you just know “one guy” is going to stand in the wrong place and keep everyone from passing.

Its not just rangers either, thats why any fix should apply to all kb or pulls.

To simplify my solution even more.. just apply the “leap” mechanics to kb. ie. if immob, no movement, if cripple/chill partial.

Maul is very easily evaded but there-in lies the skill in using it, things like stealth and cc have to be added into the mix. My favorite is stealth, you wont dodge what you dont see coming. But I’m a hypocrite since I use sword … need the horn speed presently

GS main strength is the maul. Going from half health to “o *! I’m dead” cant be understated. No amount of regen can help with that.

Here’s my solution, I’ve brought it up before:

If someone has the mob immobolized (fairly common in a large group) all knock back effects instead do a knockdown only.

-This benefits everyone. Even rangers will no longer have people knocked out of entangle.. or even by themselves seen it… I may have even done it myself
-It is also intuitive “if someone is tied down why can you push them?”
-Results are most of the positive (enemy stunned) without the negative (removing from aoe) of a push back. If an enemy is immob. already the range increase is not as critical.
- Not just anti-ranger profiling, all push backs (and pulls for that matter) are affected

Now you can blame the person complaining for not putting down an immobilize!

Pretty sure he was using MoC, hence why the first crit maul was 50% higher than the second.

Burning is a valid condition underwater. I think of napalm which provides its own oxygen to burn.

I’m pretty sure they are just referring to pve. Theres no way to control a live opponent to the same degree. Youre taking this as anti-ranger instead of pro-teamwork, where I believe the nature of the comments are coming from (though they could have skipped the sarcasm as it sets people off).

Its rarely the best but there are situations where it would be considered good imo, such as if you run empathic bond and other pets are dying too quickly, and you really need to keep cleansing. There are situations where even drakes die quickly, even on passive.

Depends a bit what we are talking about here. Drakes are great for wvw. Wolfs earned their spot, hard cc on demand… yes please.

I do well with a hybrid build axe/dagger sword/axe with entangle and krait runes. Offhand torch is great too, but I find the offhand axe indespensable.

I play trapper ranger with runes and youre right its fun as heck. Ive had to go back to using a longbow (which is a downside to me but its been long enough it feels fresh) but I can almost maintain perma invis.

A lot of defensiveness on this thread… needs to go before serious discussion can be had.

My suggestion was to have the mob knocked down instead on LB4 if it was immobolized first. Its intuitive, does most of the useful function of knockback, can be applied to pve only, and gives others some say over the movement of the mob (imob means imob).

There are solutions possible if we work together. Cant we just get along?

You folks read his edit 10 hrs ago?

It was a thief.

Nurf averted!

I think this is all the evidence we need! Immediate nurf stat! :P

The problem with maul, at least in wvw, when you hit a group of enemies it always counts those that dodge or have some avoidance first toward the total hit, so it never (rarely anyway) hits near the max number of enemies having such a wide throw. Counter-intuitively, the more in your attack zone the better chance you’ll actually hit none. Tested this quite a bit, but not very scientifically, if someone wants to try and prove or disprove…

Other than that its an awesome skill, a buff would make it overpowered. Instead buff something like hilt bash, the range is still a bit too close.

Sword is more focused and has a better chance to land its damage. That aspect helps it too.

All channel skills track into stealth. Its a necessary game mechanic or channels would be underpowered as they would rarely get part way through ever (fighting stealth classes).

This game isn’t about hard counters. Soft counters are about all you can say. There are too many interations and play styles to be conclusive.

Sigil of fire and sigil of air, no question.

Add an evade and I’m in.

Interesting, maybe a stealth nerf at some point!

Axe/axe > shortbow in almost any situation imo. 1v1 it may have a slight edge.

Rangers using rapid fire will have bullseyes that show up on the world map and be crippled for 30 seconds.

Honestly it is pretty annoying when you have fields down and the mob gets knocked out for no apparent reason other than an itchy #4 finger. But I dont pve much so I almost forget. Most longbow rangers dont understand the consequences it has because it doesnt affect their play.

As a suggestion, it might help if it didnt push back if the mob was immobilized, just knocked down, would save a lot of grief. Think everyone wins then.

Wanderer.3248:

Seems like most of the responses here want to play Druids and other tree hugging archetypes.

A Ranger has never been a Druid. Not in LoTR, not in any other RPG, paper based or MMO. Sure, a Ranger might be familiar with nature; they have to be able to survive in the wilderness, to be able to track, to trap and to kill their prey. They have to know nature so they can eat it.

The mother of all rpgs, d&d, had rangers as mini-druids all along, they got the druid spell progression. Hence, the easy cross over to a more druid like ranger if a player wanted. There is a lot of cross overs in GW2, with classes potentially playing many roles.

More examples: Rangers have a pet, hence they dont just eat their piggies, they are best buds with them too. Many spells are druidic, ie spirit, nature and plant based (spirits, entanglement, etc). The connections are so obvious you have to be deliberately ignoring them really.

I’d prefer staff, ala druid. Rifles are just so crass and tech-ey. They dont go with fantasy ranger theme at all imo, being the nature spirit lovers and all.

Awesome thanx, was not aware! Fits the build way better

Haematic.4913:

Kilger.5490:

Your “current” version is very similar to what Ive been running in pvp lately, nice to read your interpretations. Very strong in that setting. If you want a little healing on the side Ive found a fern hound quite nice as an addition to wolf, makes those evades really pay off.

Yes, I play with Fern Hound when I’m in an organized team – this way I can help support my team on point with an AOE heal.

Are you also using the Rune Of The Mad King? If you aren’t definitely give it a go, it’s disgusting on point, especially during a team fight – I find players typically panic when they see the birds attacking their screens – lol !

The mad king rune isnt an option in spvp unfortunately. Rune of the krait works simliarly though which is what I use, lots of aoe mayhem on elite. Just means my power is a bit on the low side, use battle runes on both sets to try and up it and switch asap.

The range game takes some thinking, you cant use your usual formula. Point blank shot has a tell coming so you can use that to dodge. Dodge or reflect the rapid fire.

Its mostly just the high prevalence of longbow rangers that are causing the qq, because for the most part they could do all this before. Dont be caught out with a zerk build!

Dogs are my preference for small scale right now, dps nearly equal cats because they cripple and knockdown so their attacks land very often, but the cc is just great in itself. And the f2 are some of the best. With all that they can totally deny stomps with a little luck. Ive beaten full health people while downed using dogs (ragequit!)

Lizards are best all-round wvw pet for reasons mentioned, marsh or river more-so because of the ranged F2. I still keep a wolf on swap. Just wish I could get a shark to swim on land.

Cool to see the wide range of favorite pets, means they are doing something right. Underrepresented right now are the porcines and devourers…

I keep thinking, if one leap in that chain was also an evade it wouldnt be so bad. This way the attack chain would at least grant some kind of defense while you are locked in.

Sometimes it works beautifully, and its perfect for keeping someone in range as they attempt to skew your attacks, but these times are too rare to consider the leaps a net asset.

My main annoyance is hitting a stealther, or someone that just appeared in front of me untargetted, which leaps me way out of bounds unintentionally so I cant even follow up with a second attack.

Your “current” version is very similar to what Ive been running in pvp lately, nice to read your interpretations. Very strong in that setting. If you want a little healing on the side Ive found a fern hound quite nice as an addition to wolf, makes those evades really pay off.

Necro, it was my main for a year before they got over buffed and all challenge was gone . They’ve been buffed more since…