Guild Wars 2

Furajir.3815:

100’s is a big deal bud, I run corruption stacks over my healing stacks with 1420-1520 base hp depending on what I decide to run, and I can tell a huge difference just missing that few hundred healing power, I mean it’s literally affecting every sngle thing thats healing you, that all adds up to tremendous amounts of hp over time.

Every little bit counts no doubt, I was refering to 100h/s in regen every other heal we have gains very little from healing power but of course it all adds up, I would generally use berry pies for healing aswell wich on a crit spec heals more than mango aside from against stealthers possibly, but the second someone gets a few conditions on you then you start melting unless you can cleanse it, no passive healing makes up for it in my experience.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

If the wiki says that, then it’s definitely wrong. Would you mind linking that exact page please so we can fix it? I’m still not seeing it.

Also, are you sure you aren’t interpretting it incorrectly? If you were saying…

• “If you have <50% more critchance than critdamage then you gain more from adding 5% critchance than 5% critdamage”…
• “If you have 50% more critchance than critdamage then you gain the same from adding 5% critchance or 5% critdamage”…
• “If you have >50% more critchance than critdamage then you gain less from adding 5% critchance than 5% critdamage”…

…then it’d be correct. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m saying as well. The effectiveness of CC is dependent on CD is all I’m trying to explain.

I’m saying the same thing as you I’m just using diffrent terminology, it’s the same wiki that’s been posted in this thread several times, I’m using plain language aka once you go above 50% critchance is when you want to add crit damage since before that it’s never better point for point.

Prysin.8542:

MB should be like Signet of Perception or Luck. It stacks when you use the correct weapon, until death or change of maps.

Totally agree at the very least it shouldn’t be canceled from accidentally stepping in a slightly too deep puddle of water.

Puandro.3245:

Bredin.5368:

Hi Paundro,
Thanks for the build and analysis. I think your build is one of the most advanced (in the sense of being synergistic among the traits, weapons, etc) that I’ve seen. Your first build was fun, but this second build is far superior.

I’ve played this all day yesterday and it took a bit to get used to, but I am now1vXing really effectively! I note no real difference in effectiveness in 1v1 against a power/prec/tough build I was running, but your build is amazing in 1vX situations!

Here are three questions:
1. What is your tactic when fighting someone who stacks conditions (necro, thief)? Have you tried HS vs. TU and decided TU is notably superior? Or is this something you’d suggested experimenting with?

2. How central is mango pie to the healing effectiveness of the build? I’m thinking of running the -condition duration food, but I know it takes a lot of fights to determine what is best overall (one or to fights against exceptionally bad or skilled opponents can skew impressions).

3. How angry do you get when you accidentally step in deep water and your pet swaps and you lose 25 stacks of Master’s Bond?

1) Well if im fighting 1 condi player its no issue for me. If its a set up “duel” i can always switch to HS or run Lemongrass. Really HGH Engi is the only condi class that you should fear.

2) Its 85 HP a sec, its nice to have but if you need something else then go for it.

3) My reaction when it happens (rarely) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s

I still can’t understand how conditions aren’t a problem for you, everytime I play around with my setup and drop empathic bond I run into some condition monster from hell, I have a diffrent setup than you with much lower healing power but it’s only 100h/s below you.

Chopps.5047:

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Wiki is wrong ;( Mind sending the link to it so I can edit the page? I looked, and I didn’t see where it said that.

Wiki is correct, manekk misread the axis on the table.

Did I? where did I do this? I’m thinking you’re misunderstading me more than I do you.

Here’s what I mean:

If you have 45% critchance you gain more by adding 5% more critchance than adding 5% critdamage.

If you have 50% critchance you gain the same from adding 5% critchance or 5% critdamage.

If you have 55% critchance you gain less by adding 5% critchance than adding 5% critdamage.

That’s what I meant and that’s what the wiki says, I can’t see where I misread that table.

Faux Sheaux.6179:

I’ll make another post on it though… Let’s say that CD = 0.2, CC = 0.8, then

F = 1+0.8(0.5+0.2)=1.56

Adding one point to either side will give:

CC = 0.81, CD = 0.2;
F = 1+0.81(0.5+0.2) = 1.567
CC = 0.8, CD = 0.21;
F = 1+0.8(0.5+0.21) = 1.568

So adding 1% to CD is more worthwhile than adding 1% to CC in this case.

It basically comes back to:

dF/dCD = CC
dF/dCC = CD+0.5

Assume CC > CD+0.5:
dF/dCD > dF/dCC by substitution.

Basically, this means you only get a larger marginal benefit by adding a point into CC if CC > CD+0.5… You need a full 50% more in critical chance than you have in critical damage % for a point to be more worthwhile in damage than chance.

If those who don’t know what dF/dCC and dF/dCD mean, they are measures of marginality in this respect (derivatives if you’re a math person).

I have no kittening idea what you just said but according to wiki chritchance is better until 50% point for point

Faux Sheaux.6179:

Yeah it’s true. The gain from 1% crit chance will always be greater than the gain from 1% crit dmg (unless you somehow get over 100% crit chance… then it’s better to spec all the extras to crit dmg).

Only until 50% critchance once you’re at 50% critchance or higher they are equal.

That doesn’t take into account any on crit sigils though I should also say.

Interesting and definetly needed so so many completely useless traits across classes not the least among rangers.

jcbroe.4329:

Manekk.6981:

jcbroe.4329:

I’ll just be rolling a trap ranger build, that has a higher DPS than the current BM build with still good sustained healing.

Alongside that, I will running a cheese build thief that has high DPS and survival without going glass cannon, just cuz I want a break from a class that gets so little attention, and receives only detrimental updates to this point (Damage nerf from beta, Shortbow attack speed nerf, Empathic Bond Nerf, and now Pet Damage nerf).

Don’t forget the Jaguar (wich really is the only pet with very high dps) has already been nerfed atleast once or was it twice? I can’t remember they took a big burstdamage hit on bite anyway.

That too.

I’m really to the point where I feel like, from a balance standpoint where balance is centered primarily around tpvp, that with teams only being 5 man teams, there should have only been 5 different classes.

It’s a pigeonhole principle, and if there are 5 slots and 8 professions, that means that at any given time, up to three classes are going to be left out of team comps. It would have been easier just to design 5 classes, each with an obvious primary function and the ability to perform decently at secondary functions, and call a 5 man team made of each of those professions built around their primary function a balanced team. Then, based on taking more than one of a profession or the changing of a build, the team could be made offense or defense heavy.

Right now, looking at all of the professions and traits, the game is just a poor mix of a bunch of different ideas with very singular core concepts that have been stretched too thinly between too many different professions, and to make everything seem different, they added 1 almost unique quality to every class; the class mechanic. Which in reality, every class mechanic is just a mixture of other classes mechanics.

So now it’s this big clusterkitten, and the cleanup of which is not being handled well at all.

Good idea, now to convince anet to delete thieves and mesmers hmmm you pick the last one

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

Fortifying Bond is a nice trait, too bad your pet only gets a small portion of your boon directly from this trait or it could be used much more efficently from range aswell, but a boon is a boon and that’s never bad

Fortifying bond is effected by your boon duration. As are the stacks of might from mighty swap. As is the might granted by the sword auto attack chain.

This build has 30% increased boon duration thanks to traits and runes. That’s a significant amount of boon uptime for your pet and for you.

I know but it’s still only a small portion compared to longer direct boons for example you could use warhorn from very far away obviously double stacking boons would have to be handled diffrently then though but yeah that was all I meant.

Ah true. Like puandro said the Fortifying Bond mechanics require boon duration. I think also playing melee/melee helps as you and your pet spend more time within range of eachother to get the super buff from warhorn 5 stacking with Fortifying Bond.

Yep, the trait’s got fantastic synergy with RaO too the might will stack bloody fast, I used to run it before but I did it mostly cause I wanted my pet to get the regen from healing spring from range then and saw the rest as bonus, but one reason I dropped it was when I realized they didn’t get the full bonus of the boons though cause I prefer to play ranged in general and the setup I had then didn’t really benefit the most from it.

25 Stacks of might for the pet in about 3 secs with Warhorn #4.

Yeah I’m abusing that as much as I can although I don’t have this trait though but it’s still a ridiculously strong opener for fast nuking, there are other nice attacks for this too like the drakes F2s idk if they are all equally as good and bouncy but the green one with poison will do the same for you (25might in 3s) if you have a few targets anyway.

Problem i found with drakes is that people run through it or strafe and F2 misses. Its good in group fights but solo not so much.

Sure enough players will always be harder and I wouldn’t recommend a drake in any case if you only have 1 target, however some drakes are better than others for instance the stupid ice drake will miss his F2 everytime but the (riverdrake?) burping poison locust will do his sideways on his target heck I even think he shoots it backwards he hits nearly everytime even if they are actively avoiding him depends on who you fight naturally, point is: to simply strafe isn’t enough.

Like with any pet it’s up to us to make sure the good abilities land when we want them to, some pets are easier to help than others.

But i need a dps pet so River Drake is the only drake i would use. When it lands though….. ooof.

That’s the lightning one? that one is pretty good too he’ll also aim his lightning somewhat and has big coolpoint bonus on looking like a giant frog

Ive Killed rangers with just the F2 due to the bounce.

Thor Frog of Thunder!

jcbroe.4329:

I’ll just be rolling a trap ranger build, that has a higher DPS than the current BM build with still good sustained healing.

Alongside that, I will running a cheese build thief that has high DPS and survival without going glass cannon, just cuz I want a break from a class that gets so little attention, and receives only detrimental updates to this point (Damage nerf from beta, Shortbow attack speed nerf, Empathic Bond Nerf, and now Pet Damage nerf).

Don’t forget the Jaguar (wich really is the only pet with very high dps) has already been nerfed atleast once or was it twice? I can’t remember they took a big burstdamage hit on bite anyway.

Zenith.7301:

The three classes I can’t kill if they don’t want to die are ele, guardian, and especially D/P thief. The guardian can’t really duel you, but he’s perfectly able to kite you away with swiftness and dodging your only 2 snares if not outright cleansing them.

I hear a lot about P/D thief but P/D thieves can’t kill you. A D/P thief can pretty much chain BP>HS to cleanse conditions and reset the fight. Bad thieves use Basilisk — good ones pop guild at opportune times.

I can die to a good, patient D/P thief if I don’t quickly react to their guild summon and kite away and regen back up.

The fact is, he will never die to me because any time he gets close to 50% hp he wipes himself clear of conditions with stealth condi removal trait with BP>HS (they can blast on it multiple times).

Yeah, he can’t kill me if I don’t want to die, and if he presses too much and gets careless he dies.

The difference is that he’s got actual burst unlike me, and he can kill anyone else and there’s nothing I can do about it due to stealth stomping while putting a BP on top of the victim.

This D/P and I had a duel, pretty stalemate. If anyone came in, I would stop and let him kill them. I then also tried interfering out of curiosity, and it did nothing. Even if I got a terget back up he could repeatedly spam stealth into a backstab and get them back down until I was out of tools to prevent a stomp.

The only way to survive against D/P is to be a good bunker or be another class that can burst him down just as quickly.

I would add Warriors to that list, there seems to be alot of them around these days that are unstoppable, by that I don’t mean they are particularly dangreous cause when they stay to fight you win unless you are sloppy but kitten they can’t be slowed down if they choose to kite around.

Linguistically Inept.6583:

you should try rapid fire against a thief in wvw; its super fun.

I would if the longbow was worth using outside of that and barrage, it doesn’t work at all for how I play.

Durzlla.6295:

Manekk.6981:

Durzlla.6295:

Manekk.6981:

Stice.5204:

Warhorn 4 is one thing I’ve wondered about. I know it stops dealing damage if you lose line of sight to the target during the effect (which is mechanically unintuitive and probably unnecessary from a balance standpoint), but I’m not sure if it damages stealthed targets. Anyone know for sure?

Pretty sure they still hit but do no damage, just as if he ran around a corner from you.

They do full damage so long as the thief remains in LoS of you while stealthed. IE if the damage would hit them while they were visible it’ll still hit them.

Again stealth prevents NOTHING but sight.

Are you certain? I’m fully aware that stealth isn’t some kind of immunity by the way it’s just I’m sure someone told me it worked this way for this particular skill even though it really shouldn’t, I’ll see if I can test this just to be sure, I guess it’s also possible it was previously bugged and worked that way but is now fixed.

edit: Tested they continue to do damage through stealth

I miss the Beta version of Hunters Call where it also gave away their position because the birds didn’t turn invisible xD

I do too, they can be really helpful against Mesmers though I like them for that aswell, I think they should do damage if you lose LoS though obviously you should have LoS of your target when using the skill but if he later runs a corner he should be hit imo because it’s a pretty slow cast for a skill that isn’t really superimpressive in it’s own damage.

No no I know the ultimate irony pet! a sloth and it would hit moving targets hahahahaha

Durzlla.6295:

Manekk.6981:

Stice.5204:

Warhorn 4 is one thing I’ve wondered about. I know it stops dealing damage if you lose line of sight to the target during the effect (which is mechanically unintuitive and probably unnecessary from a balance standpoint), but I’m not sure if it damages stealthed targets. Anyone know for sure?

Pretty sure they still hit but do no damage, just as if he ran around a corner from you.

They do full damage so long as the thief remains in LoS of you while stealthed. IE if the damage would hit them while they were visible it’ll still hit them.

Again stealth prevents NOTHING but sight.

Are you certain? I’m fully aware that stealth isn’t some kind of immunity by the way it’s just I’m sure someone told me it worked this way for this particular skill even though it really shouldn’t, I’ll see if I can test this just to be sure, I guess it’s also possible it was previously bugged and worked that way but is now fixed.

edit: Tested they continue to do damage through stealth

Stice.5204:

Warhorn 4 is one thing I’ve wondered about. I know it stops dealing damage if you lose line of sight to the target during the effect (which is mechanically unintuitive and probably unnecessary from a balance standpoint), but I’m not sure if it damages stealthed targets. Anyone know for sure?

Pretty sure they still hit but do no damage, just as if he ran around a corner from you.

StardustNova.2458:

don’t have a screen shot but i have to ask, how do you get actual quivers? I see my guy reaching back to pull an arrow out of the air on his back and its bugging me like crazy. Is it a cape or something? If I can find one then I could post a proper shot…also what is the lowest level you have to be to attain such a quiver?

I’m using Rox’s quiver in the post above yours, that one you can buy from the gemstore at any level the only other ones are the 80 acended quivers crafted with drops from the fractal dungeons.

Zenith.7301:

Don’t run longbow for duels. A s/d thief cannot be successfully kited if he’s any good. He’ll be in your face pretty often, and thus the value of your longbow is greatly diminished.

2 things about this thief:

- His main damage comes from the autoattack and the 2nd chain of his Flanking Strike (the stab attack after he evades).
- He can stunlock pretty well if you don’t bring stability and don’t position well to not give him your sides or back for his long kitten daze sneak attack.

Never wait to heal when you’re low against a s/d thief. They’ll stunlock your heal attempts and finish you off with the auto.

Basically, take the evade attack, and save the dodges for the stab and the final chain of his autoattack (also a stab). In other words, save your dodges for his stabbing animations, not his slashing ones (the stab part of his auto chain inflics weakness, which will cripple your endurance regen).

Having stability will just feed it to him no? sounds like you don’t want to have any boons at all to me, also I hate good thieves.

Tricare.2946:

Also, with sword 2 target a mob that is behind you, doesn’t mater the distance, and just press 2 then deselect the target (assuming you have auto-targeting off) start running after the guy and press 2 again.

I just started playing ranger again so this is only video I have. However, in the 2nd fight you’ll see what i’m talking about, i use this method to gain some distance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXeGYemkKcI

The person who made that “song” deserves to be shot for it

No way this is the dumbest kitten I ever heard so now I’m supposed to have a pet that can’t hit his target (if he knows how to move) wich was only justified since you could have such burst in the pet to now having a pet that can’t burst or hit his target? really?

I don’t think I’m the only one feeling this but I never asked to have a pet that bursts twice as good as myself I would love to tone their damage down somewhat IF you allow me to do more of it and give me the ability to control damage output better instead of have it hijacked by an NPC I am forced to have, they already nerfed Jaguar burst several times too.

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

Fortifying Bond is a nice trait, too bad your pet only gets a small portion of your boon directly from this trait or it could be used much more efficently from range aswell, but a boon is a boon and that’s never bad

Fortifying bond is effected by your boon duration. As are the stacks of might from mighty swap. As is the might granted by the sword auto attack chain.

This build has 30% increased boon duration thanks to traits and runes. That’s a significant amount of boon uptime for your pet and for you.

I know but it’s still only a small portion compared to longer direct boons for example you could use warhorn from very far away obviously double stacking boons would have to be handled diffrently then though but yeah that was all I meant.

Ah true. Like puandro said the Fortifying Bond mechanics require boon duration. I think also playing melee/melee helps as you and your pet spend more time within range of eachother to get the super buff from warhorn 5 stacking with Fortifying Bond.

Yep, the trait’s got fantastic synergy with RaO too the might will stack bloody fast, I used to run it before but I did it mostly cause I wanted my pet to get the regen from healing spring from range then and saw the rest as bonus, but one reason I dropped it was when I realized they didn’t get the full bonus of the boons though cause I prefer to play ranged in general and the setup I had then didn’t really benefit the most from it.

25 Stacks of might for the pet in about 3 secs with Warhorn #4.

Yeah I’m abusing that as much as I can although I don’t have this trait though but it’s still a ridiculously strong opener for fast nuking, there are other nice attacks for this too like the drakes F2s idk if they are all equally as good and bouncy but the green one with poison will do the same for you (25might in 3s) if you have a few targets anyway.

Problem i found with drakes is that people run through it or strafe and F2 misses. Its good in group fights but solo not so much.

Sure enough players will always be harder and I wouldn’t recommend a drake in any case if you only have 1 target, however some drakes are better than others for instance the stupid ice drake will miss his F2 everytime but the (riverdrake?) burping poison locust will do his sideways on his target heck I even think he shoots it backwards he hits nearly everytime even if they are actively avoiding him depends on who you fight naturally, point is: to simply strafe isn’t enough.

Like with any pet it’s up to us to make sure the good abilities land when we want them to, some pets are easier to help than others.

But i need a dps pet so River Drake is the only drake i would use. When it lands though….. ooof.

That’s the lightning one? that one is pretty good too he’ll also aim his lightning somewhat and has big coolpoint bonus on looking like a giant frog

I do commit crime number 3 frequently, if your opponents are any good they will roflstomp you through the ground most people aren’t good though and I’ve come out the winner against 4-5 people plus the NPCs at the camp I was stealing from them numerous times it’s alot of fun and definetly worth the risk of getting yourself pounded through the ground every now and then when you run into better players and it can be abit of a sport to be able to run away from the better ones too for me.

Fjandi.2516:

Undertaker.7451:

Fjandi.2516:

Warhorn. You can trust me on that.

How come, mind explaining ?

Sure mate why not. It’s quite simple actually. There are 2 good weapons you can take as offhand: wh and torch, the second is the best choice for cond specs, the first is better for power specs. Someone might say: “wtf and the dagger?”…well i don’t really like dagger that much mostly cos as secondary set i use sb or gs so basically i have to make a choice, so warhorn. Hunter’s Call is quite good, decent damage, nothing spectacular but still good. Call of the Wild is a must, combine it with rao and you will have fury every time you need it, also it grants might and swiftness. The last one is really important for mobility (here again combined with rao and birds you can have perma swiftness while in combat). Another important thing to keep in mind is warhorn grants those buffs to your teammates as well.
Again i see lots of rangers with soth. Imo that signet is only worth taking for the active ability. My raven crits like a baws with f2 and soth. You can literally burst a glass cannon down so fast he won’t even notice you coming (and this with def gear).

You can use signet of the hunt’s (I’ll admit I personally have for it’s for speed to me first) active ability with pretty much any pet, petswap can work almost like F2 abilities cause most if not all pets try to use their cd stuff first and they tend to be big hitters, another nice thing about it is you can also preload it when out of combat to have the initial burst and still keep the speed.

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

Fortifying Bond is a nice trait, too bad your pet only gets a small portion of your boon directly from this trait or it could be used much more efficently from range aswell, but a boon is a boon and that’s never bad

Fortifying bond is effected by your boon duration. As are the stacks of might from mighty swap. As is the might granted by the sword auto attack chain.

This build has 30% increased boon duration thanks to traits and runes. That’s a significant amount of boon uptime for your pet and for you.

I know but it’s still only a small portion compared to longer direct boons for example you could use warhorn from very far away obviously double stacking boons would have to be handled diffrently then though but yeah that was all I meant.

Ah true. Like puandro said the Fortifying Bond mechanics require boon duration. I think also playing melee/melee helps as you and your pet spend more time within range of eachother to get the super buff from warhorn 5 stacking with Fortifying Bond.

Yep, the trait’s got fantastic synergy with RaO too the might will stack bloody fast, I used to run it before but I did it mostly cause I wanted my pet to get the regen from healing spring from range then and saw the rest as bonus, but one reason I dropped it was when I realized they didn’t get the full bonus of the boons though cause I prefer to play ranged in general and the setup I had then didn’t really benefit the most from it.

25 Stacks of might for the pet in about 3 secs with Warhorn #4.

Yeah I’m abusing that as much as I can although I don’t have this trait though but it’s still a ridiculously strong opener for fast nuking, there are other nice attacks for this too like the drakes F2s idk if they are all equally as good and bouncy but the green one with poison will do the same for you (25might in 3s) if you have a few targets anyway.

Problem i found with drakes is that people run through it or strafe and F2 misses. Its good in group fights but solo not so much.

Sure enough players will always be harder and I wouldn’t recommend a drake in any case if you only have 1 target, however some drakes are better than others for instance the stupid ice drake will miss his F2 everytime but the (riverdrake?) burping poison locust will do his sideways on his target heck I even think he shoots it backwards he hits nearly everytime even if they are actively avoiding him depends on who you fight naturally, point is: to simply strafe isn’t enough.

Like with any pet it’s up to us to make sure the good abilities land when we want them to, some pets are easier to help than others.

Tricare.2946:

Blankverse.4927:

You’re blinding the ranger, not the pet. A BM build would most likely kill the thief you’re talking about. Any P/P thief I’ve ran into was a joke. That’s probably the reason you don’t see many in wvw. (On my server at least)

Black powder does both I’m pretty sure, in melee you’re blinded by the field but his projectiles will blind too cause he’s standing in it, if that’s what you were responding to.

F I R S T.3976:

Kootje.9271:

I had lots of fun with sword torch, since they go so wel together. The 5 skill is great for melee combat, does good damage, gives fire shield. With the cripples on 1 and 2 they can stay a little longer in the fire, keeps m warm and cozy. Approaching with 4, dump 5 and hack away… Torch = average cd.

Sword wh wasn’t my favourite. The 4 skill is nicely animated, but i didn’t use it alot, i used the wh mostly for the 5 skill. Does give the fury, which imo synergizes better with the axe. Wh = longest cd.

Sword dagger is more of use in an evasive build. With sword dagger it gives u 4 evades. But i rarely use sword dagger outside of pvp/wvw. Dagger = shortest cd.

Axe imo is cool for offhand, though very situational. The 5 skill is an über skill. But rarely used. The 4 is a nice skill that does nice damage. Axe = average cd (same cd as torch)

Axe 4,5 give combo finisher for heals with healing spring.
Dagger 5 gives finisher with healing spring
torch 5 gives combo field

Just look what fits ur playstyle the best and fits ur build.

no love for the warhorn and just looking at the cd? =(

warhorn has a strong attack which is skill 4 not relying on condition and very nice for those serker builds

skill 5 indeed has a 35sec cooldown but i can be enhanced with a trait and boon duration. it is also good for a solo or a team players =)

Best thing about warhorn 4 is it will get your pet to 25might stacks in a split second with RaO it’s fantastic burst for a BM ranger.

I vote for the warhorn.

Blankverse.4927:

Manekk.6981:

How would you stealth after 2unloads and 1black powder? I’ll admit freely I don’t know thieves well enough to have any kind of certainty but wouldn’t you have to regain initiative also for that and swap to bow? I’m far from certain but it sounds like you’d be out in the open longer than most thieves with this setup that is usually a dead thief to me.

2x unload = 10 initiative cost.
Now i use the Blinding powder utility skill (4 sec stealth, 0 initiative cost, 30 sec cooldown)
With my traits every stealth skill gives me +2 initiative, +2 intiative every 10 sec, +faster initiative regeneration while in stealth)
So after i leave stealth and use sneak attack (which costs only 1 ini) my initiative bar is usually 80-100%.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t try to brag how good i am because i kill rangers. I die a lot from other classes, especially other thieves.

I made a thief with the thought: when i pvp lots of rangers and they kill me i will know what to do and how to improve my own tactics on my ranger.
It didn’t work. Maybe i didn’t met the REAL GOOD ONES. Sure. But so far every 1vs1 only confirmed, that even good rangers without aoe’s don’t have the tools to counter a thief who has tons of stealth AND blinding.

Oh sorry you said blinding powder, I thought it said black powder and figured it seemed to be alot of init used for first those three and then clusterbomb ontop cause I couldn’t think how else it would stealth you, dyslexia or something…

Caution!

I was brutally assaulted by an evil leprechaun in the eternal jumping puzzle, he was short with sharp little teeth and I have reasons to believe he likes ponies, managed to take a picture so you know who to look out for :o

tan.9240:

Here is my baby LOL been playing him since game started!!!

Please tell me your character name is Zuccini :P

Also here’s my new set I call it the Witchhunter, scary!

Blankverse.4927:

Zenith.7301:

Any ranger knows against a pistol variant thief to eat the autos and save the dodges for either unload, cnd or the sneak attack.

Not any ranger it seems. I’m afraid most of them don’t.

Zenith.7301:

So after his little attempt at unload spam I can guarantee you after dodging the 2 unloads with prot on dodge to top it off, the thief’s offense will drop to zero for a good while.

You don’t know much about thieves and their abilities to regen intiative fast with skills, signets and traits, do you?

Yes, after i use 2x unload i have only 2 intiative left. But … after i use stealth for 3 sec and sneak attack (only 1 intiative cost) my intiative bar is almost FULL again. So i can repeat this combo again and even add black powder when needed (i play 0/30/20/20/0, so i’m almost never run out of initiative when using p/p)

How would you stealth after 2unloads and 1black powder? I’ll admit freely I don’t know thieves well enough to have any kind of certainty but wouldn’t you have to regain initiative also for that and swap to bow? I’m far from certain but it sounds like you’d be out in the open longer than most thieves with this setup that is usually a dead thief to me.

Soldier rune berserker jewel and a standard 0/10/30/0/30 BM shortbow/sword/warhorn is solid as hell in spvp that’s what I use with great success, hardest would be supernuke mesmers and regen ranger bunkers, you can often burst them fast though before the ranger wears you down with superior regen or the mesmer nukes you instead.

This is just an idea, what would you say to celestial trinkets on a trapper build? seems like you would be able to up the damage quite alot and do respectable physical dmage due to decent crit chance and high +crit damage while practically not losing any of the condition, armor or healing.

Loxsus.3841:

Spirits to have no HP and just be like banners. Can’t be killed … they just exist for the time they say.

That really makes so much more sense to be honest banners are the ones that should be able to be destroyed while spirits should be like ghosts right, ok we can kill ghosts too in gw2 but it seems backwards to me.

8-9k backstabs again and again with 2.3k toughness? sounds a little exaggerated to me but maybe you run into superthieves I still doubt those numbers though 5-6k sounds more likely with that amount of armor atleast judging from the ones I’ve run into.

Bad thieves are extremely easy to kill, good thieves are impossible to kill unless you get lucky, basically that’s how it is for me, I don’t use traps though.

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

Fortifying Bond is a nice trait, too bad your pet only gets a small portion of your boon directly from this trait or it could be used much more efficently from range aswell, but a boon is a boon and that’s never bad

Fortifying bond is effected by your boon duration. As are the stacks of might from mighty swap. As is the might granted by the sword auto attack chain.

This build has 30% increased boon duration thanks to traits and runes. That’s a significant amount of boon uptime for your pet and for you.

I know but it’s still only a small portion compared to longer direct boons for example you could use warhorn from very far away obviously double stacking boons would have to be handled diffrently then though but yeah that was all I meant.

Ah true. Like puandro said the Fortifying Bond mechanics require boon duration. I think also playing melee/melee helps as you and your pet spend more time within range of eachother to get the super buff from warhorn 5 stacking with Fortifying Bond.

Yep, the trait’s got fantastic synergy with RaO too the might will stack bloody fast, I used to run it before but I did it mostly cause I wanted my pet to get the regen from healing spring from range then and saw the rest as bonus, but one reason I dropped it was when I realized they didn’t get the full bonus of the boons though cause I prefer to play ranged in general and the setup I had then didn’t really benefit the most from it.

25 Stacks of might for the pet in about 3 secs with Warhorn #4.

Yeah I’m abusing that as much as I can although I don’t have this trait though but it’s still a ridiculously strong opener for fast nuking, there are other nice attacks for this too like the drakes F2s idk if they are all equally as good and bouncy but the green one with poison will do the same for you (25might in 3s) if you have a few targets anyway.

Obsidian.1328:

Optional pets. Period. The pet should be a build preference, not a class mechanic. And no, it’s not “ANet’s version of the ranger.” The Guild Wars ranger was hand over fist better than this…thing. In no game anywhere, even the original GW, are ranger’s specifically pet classes. Those are called Beastmasters.

Since they got rid of the trinity, ANet needed something to make Ranger’s unique and they went with the pet. It’s impossible to make it optional now, since it’s the class-specific ranger mechanic. And even if it was possible they won’t change it because that would mean ANet would have to admit they were wrong with this. Fat chance.

This is nitpicking and doesn’t serve a point but the Rift Ranger is a petclass :P

Indoles.1467:

By pvp do you mean spvp or wvw? I don’t think an 8k maul is possible in spvp so I assume you are saying wvw. My dps signet build hakitten an 8.8k maul on another lv 80 but I’m pretty far from glass cannon. I would assume if you build full glass that you could hit 12k against the right glass as well.

When I used to run near full glass I got hit for a 16k killshot that one hit me.

The one I got hit with was in spvp that’s what made me so surprised cause you don’t often see a ranger hitting like that in there it’s usually the cats and ravens doing it and not even they reach those big numbers atleast not very often

Also doesn’t really matter where it is if you have some unusually big crit you can recall or perhaps even managed to screenshot with some luck just state where and who etc.

Lars Andersen plays a ranger :P try to ignore the stupid computer voice if you can, it’s a cool video he’s pretty kitten fast this guy

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

Fortifying Bond is a nice trait, too bad your pet only gets a small portion of your boon directly from this trait or it could be used much more efficently from range aswell, but a boon is a boon and that’s never bad

Fortifying bond is effected by your boon duration. As are the stacks of might from mighty swap. As is the might granted by the sword auto attack chain.

This build has 30% increased boon duration thanks to traits and runes. That’s a significant amount of boon uptime for your pet and for you.

I know but it’s still only a small portion compared to longer direct boons for example you could use warhorn from very far away obviously double stacking boons would have to be handled diffrently then though but yeah that was all I meant.

Ah true. Like puandro said the Fortifying Bond mechanics require boon duration. I think also playing melee/melee helps as you and your pet spend more time within range of eachother to get the super buff from warhorn 5 stacking with Fortifying Bond.

Yep, the trait’s got fantastic synergy with RaO too the might will stack bloody fast, I used to run it before but I did it mostly cause I wanted my pet to get the regen from healing spring from range then and saw the rest as bonus, but one reason I dropped it was when I realized they didn’t get the full bonus of the boons though cause I prefer to play ranged in general and the setup I had then didn’t really benefit the most from it.

What’s the biggest one hit crit you’ve taken or delievered in pvp? name class and ability used.

My own contribution to the thread is going to be one I got hit with a day or two ago by a ranger who got an 8k maul off, I know many of you done the 10k+ crits after the buff on maul and posted about it too but I was still pretty darn impressed I have to say cause I am playing a bunker spec with a truckload of armor and I’m pretty sure I’ve never been hit that hard in one single hit before.

So please share, what’s yours?

Depends entirely on your spec and also what combination of sigils and weapons you use, to start what type of damage are you gearing for and what content do you have in mind?

I’d like a black wolf also, just for the look I don’t even care what his skill would do

Could just be abit of lag or if he rallys during the stomp your character will always finish the entire animation unless you cancel it manually

jewishjoyride.4693:

Manekk.6981:

Fortifying Bond is a nice trait, too bad your pet only gets a small portion of your boon directly from this trait or it could be used much more efficently from range aswell, but a boon is a boon and that’s never bad

Fortifying bond is effected by your boon duration. As are the stacks of might from mighty swap. As is the might granted by the sword auto attack chain.

This build has 30% increased boon duration thanks to traits and runes. That’s a significant amount of boon uptime for your pet and for you.

I know but it’s still only a small portion compared to longer direct boons for example you could use warhorn from very far away obviously double stacking boons would have to be handled diffrently then though but yeah that was all I meant.

Fortifying Bond is a nice trait, too bad your pet only gets a small portion of your boon directly from this trait or it could be used much more efficently from range aswell, but a boon is a boon and that’s never bad

Fade.7658:

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m finding that the chance for regen to proc (5%) from the Dwayna runes is abysmally small. I put together a basic gear setup based on your first build, and it just seems like regen isn’t up all that much.

It seems much much higher to me, I find it procs constantly it could be me getting hit alot wich I am, cause I’m very good at picking fights with multiple people (certainly not always for the win but it’s fun, lol) so no matter how well I dodge I still get hit plenty but even considering that I felt it seemed like a high proc rate, I’m wondering if minor condition ticks can proc it if so that would be a reasonable explanation I must go test this now.

I never knew all them shots fired backwards in water I only knew the pirahna school did, now I’m angry I didn’t take advantage of this before, pretty dumb of me I didn’t test this really since I knew the piranhas did >.<

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Puandro.3245:

Manekk.6981:

Xsorus.2507:

With no condition removal the only thing that’d really give Paundro trouble would probably be HGH Engineers like he said, and P/D thieves (which you honestly don’t see a lot of those anymore, they’re mostly S/D and D/P)

Condition Mesmer’s might be tough though, it’d really depend on running Melandru and Lemongrass or Saphron Bread..If he ran those, he honestly shouldn’t have much trouble.

He’d lose all the regen with melandru+food though wich would kinda take away the whole point of using clerics in the first place

4 Dwayna + 2 melandru + food.

That’s a way I guess although I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to simply stick with 6 dwayna and use the lemongrass then to get the bigger healing bonus and an extra regen source, of course it depends entirely what setup your opponent has and if he’s in turn eating pizzas or not.

4 Dwayna is still pretty much almost perma regen.

The 4th bonus is a long boon but even though it does give a good uptime it’s still have to be pretty far from perma uptime and if the trgen gets stripped it could take a long time for it to come back, I would say 6 dwayna and access to one more source of regen is atleast much better than using water since you get fury and might much easier from every weaponswap plus extra from warhorn and elite, just my opinion.