Guild Wars 2

Has any math been done with remorseless + quickdraw?

you have the same impression a lot of players seem to have. looking at the numbers on screen tells you a lot less than math does. warrior is a spike damage class, same as ele and thief. Ranger is a sustain damage class. depending on the length of a fight in pve is how damage calculations get done and the longer the fight goes the more a ranger can out dps a warrior.

in wvw it’s different, like in pvp, and spike helps down opponents quickly but that’s where defensive utilities come in like SoS, Protect me and such, they help you mitigate the spike so you can out dps your opponent.

hasn’t sword always been our best DPS?

I went back and looked at my numbers as well and we didn’t loose much of anything, it’s probably going to be a PVE buff with new builds instead of hanging on to old power build setups.

We most definitely got a PVP buff, with a bit of work i could see rangers being one of the go to PVP professions. Some of these builds will work for WvW roaming as well.

@Natfrog
Ranger out DPS warrior pre patch. flat out. Math doesn’t lie
ranger has access to the best invuln in the game, it’s called dodging. we have very high vigor uptime too
if LB is supposed to be for range why would you want the fight to get close and still use it? that statement makes no sense
Fact: this isn’t GW1.

i’ll most likely run it as full melee ranger and take advantage of the sword aa but also have the evades and fury on gs as needed. I pug dungeons and fractals most of the time so the more often I can provide my own boons, other than might sometimes, the better.

the rotation I envision for that pve build would be
1.call of the wild
2.swap
3.swoop
4.hilt bash
5.maul
6.swap
7.sword aa until maul is off cooldown

as I look at the traits I have a feeling the Quickdraw effect is going to get eaten by aa’s more often than not so i may go with LoYF for the damage buffs. It also synergizes very well with the gs and sword evades.

sword will still most likely be superior in terms of dps. I tend to use gs because it’s easier to manage and i like the evades. It’s a bonus for me that there’s so much synergy with gs + two handed training + remorseless.

I use predator’s onslaught now for the modifier but the refresh on remorseless seems too good to pass up. it refreshes on call of the wild from traits, from wh, from furious grip, from gs and from party members buffing with fury. that’s going to add up to a lot of crits and a lot of vulnerability.

edit: crit + a 25% dmg buff

feel free to post your build ideas!

Thanks to Dulfy and that_shaman for getting the skill calc updated so quickly, i got to play around with a few ideas and i have a good idea what i’ll run when the patch hits.

pve build s/wh + gs melee ranger

pvp build bird/bird + a/t + s/d – , i’ll probably wait till i can test it to decide between Wilting Strikes and Natural Regeneration

Wuselknusel.4082:

Prophet.1584:

@jcbroe: what do you think about where the ranger will fall in the dungeon meta? I definitely agree with you on the idea that ranger is going to be in a good place in pvp. I can see a few builds already that’ll have strong synergy and team support however a lot of that is gained by sacrificing power damage. I’m not sure if those builds or anything like it will transfer to pve.

Dungeoneers will want to run 6/6/x/x/x, but it will be weaker than before.
The Marksmanship Adept choices are not very convincing and a slightly buffed Predator’s Onslaught is competing with Remorseless.
The Skirmishing Adept is simply useless for a zerker Ranger and the only really good thing is the Quick Draw trait.
We lose atleast one 10% damage modifier, which means that the Ranger will drop even further on the scorebord.

i’m kind of looking at running a 0/6/0/6/6 or 6/6/0/0/6 build…it looks like the pets going to be outputting a lot more damage after the patch and it just seems to make sense to roll with the changes. i’ll also most likely go full melee which means shelving my kudzu(sigh) time to make bolt!

@jcbroe: what do you think about where the ranger will fall in the dungeon meta? I definitely agree with you on the idea that ranger is going to be in a good place in pvp. I can see a few builds already that’ll have strong synergy and team support however a lot of that is gained by sacrificing power damage. I’m not sure if those builds or anything like it will transfer to pve.

.5s after the skill is activated, they’re no longer “thrown”

mistsim.2748:

Prophet.1584:

it’s going to get tough to run a zerk ranger in any game mode

there are no glassbows any more. now we’ll have quickdraw/WK LB rangers and there’s nothing glassy about em.

but they won’t do nearly as much damage. ranger stopped being completely sub-optimal in dungeons when our lb+s/a damage became competitive AND we brought group buffs with spotter and frost spirit. Frost spirits nerfed to almost uselessness and our overall damage is going to go down considerably.

the added survivability might be great for the new content, we’ll have to wait and see, but the majority of the content that exists and isn’t likely to change is still all about how much damage you can dish out.

edit: basically we’re back to being a selfish profession

agreed. pvp-wise we’ll probably be in a good place with BM bunker builds and trap builds becoming really strong.
wvw won’t be bad either if your running one of these types of builds as well.
it’s going to get tough to run a zerk ranger in any game mode

I split my time fairly evenly between pvp and pve and I agree with almost all the things that have been said on this thread. The part I personally have a problem with is this(not with you but with Anets design choices):

Sol.4310:

Damage modifiers – This didn’t effect PvP side of the game, maybe PvE side but that’s about it, they gave us more damage with better trait synergy in terms of PvP.

Going back to Damage modifiers, seen as almost every ranger is required to take Wilderness Survival now, you might want to take look at, Refined Toxins: While you are above 90% health your strikes inflict 6s of poison. While your pet’s health is above 90% its strikes inflict 6s of poison. This trait has a 10 second internal cool down. Can’t say if it will be super effective in some fight vs things like Retaliation, but we will see.

We were just starting to get over the constant ranger hate in dungeons/fractals and now it’s going to come roaring back. we lost 35% in damage modifiers…25% of that we can get back with remorseless but only on one strike and it can only be refreshed on fury activation. we’re left with a whopping 10 modifier from steady focus.

Rangers been my main since Launch day and I’ve gone through all the changes with it and always said we had a place. This is the first time in all that time I’m seriously thinking of switching to an alt. we’re most likely going to get even better in pvp with the condi synergy and pet buffs so there’s something.

Hopefully Druid brings some damage but I seriously doubt it.

edit: predator’s onslaught is unchanged so you can choose between 10% on movement impeding conditions which bosses wipe of quickly or 25% on fury.

I have an asura ranger and wish i’d made a human, one you get to a certain point in the game it’s all about looks and the human models look way better than the asurans.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

It does lose some diversity, but the builds will be better, imo.

probably better yes, but definately much more focused. It doesn’t look like it so far but I’m really hoping there are no hidden nerfs. I don’t want to lose any of the ground we’ve made up in terms of DPS

lol it was in the last ready up, they haven’t come up with a name for the new currency yet so one of the devs called it djinngots, cuz whatever a djinn wants it gots.

I might have to nab that scythe skin for my necro o.O

So…i’ve got 8 80’s, one of each class, and i’m trying to figure out what to do to prepare for HoT…here’s what I have so far:

1. stack mats: with the new precursor collections making precursors more available mats to make the old legendaries should rise quite a bit
2. speculation on maps for new legendaries: stacking components for Xunlai and such just in case that comes out now as well
3. Map complete on all toons: since hero points will be made account wide and I’ve only map completed with 1 toon it may be a good time to do it
4. stack tomes: I’ve got about 150 to get a revenant to max level immediately

anyone have any other plans or anything I’m missing?

I may have to do that with a few alts..

What happens to skill scrolls that we currently have? do they give the new currency if used after the expansion? is there any information on the conversion from skill points to new currency? I just don’t want to lose out on anything that i’ve gathered.

To get the same effect you could probably Swoop→Maul→Bash→weapon swap and go AA with sword till Mauls off CD. you might apply slightly less vulnerability but with a 6s cool down as opposed to 10 you can spike dps more often with Maul.

L2P sword well, it’s our best dps weapon but you can’t just autoattack with it, it requires some learning. I would definately get a LB and GS early on as well. as Heimskarl said, learn to manage your pet well, the dps pets are still pretty much paper in dungeons and the tanky pets survive well but don’t do much damage. Drakes are a good mix of tankiness and dps.

stacking power early is good, especially if your not using a paper pet. for most of the early game they’ll get aggro. once you get to the 50’s-60’s that seems to not happen as often, then you might want to invest in some defensive stats on gear.

even with the LB buffs it looks to me like full melee ranger is still better than the current meta build of lb+sw/a. especially if you factor in the extra evades on both sw and gs.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

• Viable (part in meta), in all 3 modes of the game

• Higher skill required to master the class in comparison to others

• Pugs will hate you

• N00bs can’t play the class

• N00bs that can’t play the class will always find something to complain on the forums (aka Sword AA, pet management etc..)

^This for the most part. Also expect most of the ranger hate to come from the ranger community, just read through the boards and you can see all the venom.

Pets take some time to learn and master, learn what to use and when. yes, there are problems but they can be worked around mostly.

Like many other classes you should have almost every weapon in your bag, swap depending on the situation. know how to play them all, their strengths and weaknesses.

Know how to gear and trait your toon for the situation, the meta is zerk but that may not always be appropriate for your playstyle and experience level.

Those are just general guidelines for the game in general for your friend, there are people who want “optimal” characters and those who like to play what they like and make it work in different situations. ranger is one of the latter, it can fit in every game mode but some meta classes/builds can do it slightly better.

Edit: one correction, noobs can play the class and that’s another reason for a lot of the hate

agreed, those of us who’ve been playing ranger for a while know better. ranger finally gets a buff and now every noob is running one. never saw so many in eotm before.

With these changes and the nerf to FS who thinks zerker LB ranger is dungeon viable? The damage increase to LB seems amazing so far.

-Specific Game Mode
PvX

-Proposal Overview

Trait Line changes, addressing “aspects” and ranger utilities

Goal of Proposal
Ranger Trait lines are a bit of a mess and need some reworking and trait changes in each line.

I really like the idea of aspects but not at the loss of the pet, pets and ranged combat was why i chose a ranger!

as mentioned before the ranger was meant to be a sustained damage class and not a burst dps class. in order for us to be able to sustain dps rangers need more access to CC weapon skills and utilities.

-Proposal Functionality

-Traits-

so for the first part of this we need to look at the trait lines. trap traits should be moved from skirimishing as mentioned and brought into wilderness survival. traits should be added to skirmishing that will cc our target on crit/hit to allow us to hit with our attacks.

A long look needs to be taken at the Nature Magic and Beastmastery lines. Most of these traits are pretty useless and don’t get used at all. build diversity is a real problem for the ranger.

-Aspects/Pets-

While i like the idea of aspects i dont want this to happen at the expense of the pet. even with a somewhat broken AI the pet is the reason i have a ranger. pet stats need to be increased by at least 15-20%. they gain nothing from out stats and with the introduction of ascended gear and more difficult content to match it they are getting outpaced.

Aspects should recquire a pretty heavy investment in beast mastery, an “Aspect Ranger” should be all about the relationship between ranger and pet whereas a Marksman or Trapper would focus on those utilites. This should come with a good improvement to pet damage and survivability. the primary reason players don’t invest in beastmastery in any game mode is because the pet dies far too easily.

-Utilities/Weapon skills-

in order for the ranger to be the sustained damage and skirmishing class you want them to be they need access to more CC’s. a trait that gives bonus condition duration would be a big help to the class and more access to immobilizes, fears and other CC types as a part of the weapon attack chain or tied to a utility. allowing rangers to be the CC heavy class would also make them useful in dungeons if Defiance was nerfed/changed. this would also open up new playstyles for dungeons where CC could be useful against specific bosses.

weapon damage across the board needs an increase but especially for the class specialty weapon, Bows.

-Associated Risks

There is a possibility of of the ranger putting out more DPS than intended if pet AI is fixed and weapon damage gets increased. other than that adding CC could be an issue in PVP but not one that would break or overpower the class they would just become similar to the stun lock warrior classes.

I’ve played this game for over year, 90% of that time being on my ranger. I have fairly simple solutions to fixing ranger in dungeons, some that have already been mentioned here.

Fortifying bond working both ways is an excellent idea, even if it cost trait points. emphasizing synergy between pet and ranger should be the point of a pet class.

increasing longbow damage modifiers and removing the range penalties would make it far more useful in dungeons.

each class should have a melee and ranged option to choose from since this is supposed to be a “play how you want” type of game.

condition caps should also be removed in general…it prevents any condition type class from being useful in PVE or capping stacks at 25 per character rather than 25 as a group. a change like that could be made in dungeons only if necessary so that conditions didn’t become overwhelmingly powerful in PVE.

also stuck on 23/24. just to be sure i went back through all towers and checked them a second time but wasn’t able to channel again on any

@Valarauka and Agony

Thanks a lot for the suggestions. When i was putting the build together I was looking more at DPS than utility but after doing a lot of reading on the forums and elsewhere it looks like a Mesmers value is more in the reflection and utility than DPS. I’ve got a few other 80’s if I want to DPS so i’’ try out that 10/30/0/20/10 once i get to 80. Only 50 more levels to go! I know the mainhand sword has more DPS than GS but if your going for utility > DPS is there another weapon set that you would suggest?

Hi, i am a 2 day old mesmer and put together a shatter/mantra build that i think could be viable as well.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-N;4ZUF-1F7RWV71;9;5T-OE;138A;127-2;06cm0e;9NBGv-AgY10;0VLVQWVX_2f3l_6Z-870HV8aNX8a;9;9;9;7kkkkkk;9;0V8-6U

no idea if it’s been done before i’m wide open to any suggestions to improve as well, like i said i’m brand new.

I just noticed this today, when using chocolate omnomberry cream to increase my boon duration. the MF stat in the stat window doesn’t change when i do or don’t have a boon. it does seem to update appropriately for other foods. I’m not sure if I’m not getting the buff at all or if it’s just not showing onscreen.

thanks!

didn’t run spirits before the patch and definitely won’t now. what sucks is they took away the only alternative to bunker in PVP and one less option in PVE. let’s all roll trap ranger and see what anet nerfs next

I bought a few of these( 6 ) pre patch and i’m thinking of holding on to them for a while and wanted to get other rangers opinions. these seem really kitten in a ranger condi spec. our trait line converts toughness to condi dmg, we can gain condi dmg from tough./vit with tuning crystals and the bonus from the full set of scavenging is 7% vit becomes condi dmg. am i wrong here and should dump em now?

i’m really liking celestial gear as i play around with builds more and more. rangers and ele’s are probably the only two classes that can benefit from crit chance, crit damage and condition dmg. plus it gives some healing power, toughness and vitality. yes, it doesn’t have as much raw power as zerker or as much defense as knights but you can tailor your traits to fit your playstyle instead of tailoring your gear. i’d probably go full celestial gear with divinity runes and then your trinkets can go with your build.

current stats without full celestial, i’m running a few explorer and knights pieces

Chopps.5047:

Prophet.1584:

I was looking at using something like this for PVE/Champ farming in frostgorge and clockwork event farming. what do you think?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VG;4wEku-h2VDV-0;9-8U;1JO-E907-46;23;01;05ol9;2m9fgm9fgL3GzVIF6;2Vq5rar5sas5t50aW5s-D;17X7X-VC;9;9;9;9;9;1V1k3U

i changed a few points in the traits around and it shows my farming gear but you’ll get the picture

I hate to see how nasty your pet is with companion’s might, sigil of strength, fortifying bond, AND master’s bond. AND sick em. Lol awwww yis. That’s how you do beastmaster!

Thanks Chopps, there are only a few rangers who’s opinions i respect on these forums and your one of em. Thanks for the great build.

Edit: i tested this earlier and the pet is extremely nasty and my dps wasn’t too bad either. i don’t have full celestial gear yet but i’ll post a pic of my stats as they are now.

I was looking at using something like this for PVE/Champ farming in frostgorge and clockwork event farming. what do you think?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VG;4wEku-h2VDV-0;9-8U;1JO-E907-46;23;01;05ol9;2m9fgm9fgL3GzVIF6;2Vq5rar5sas5t50aW5s-D;17X7X-VC;9;9;9;9;9;1V1k3U

i changed a few points in the traits around and it shows my farming gear but you’ll get the picture

for DPS sword, but it takes some getting used to
for defense GS, lots of good defensive skills and the dmg isn’t bad

horn>torch in power crit builds and torch is better in condi builds

i’d like to know this as well and if someone could please post the build. i was thinking of running spirits for queen’s farming and Orr events, probably axe/torch+horn.

Why do people keep complaining about this! the second and third attacks in the sword chain are leaps and that’s why you can’t dodge during the chain. if you don’t want the moves to chain TURN OFF AUTO ATTACK. simple, easy. that way you can pause yourself between moves in the chain. if you can’t handle that and want to play melee use a GS.

I was just wondering what good looking gear/dye combos where out there for ranger. I haven’t really seen a set that i love but some pieces of different sets look cool. Also i’m working on Kudzu, if i can ever get the precursor, and was looking for a tree hugging rangery look.

BTW i’m asura

i’ve been running double bows in WvW since the patch but i’m thinking of dropping it for either S/x or GS. i just don’t find myself using it very often….

Doug.9628:

good players will adapt, bad players will post on the forums in a blind fit of rage without testing anything new. It’s the nature of mmos

EXACTLY! the cream will always rise to the top and the players who love their ranger will play ranger. with or without a nerf. eventually new builds will become viable. the thing with the ranger class since day one is that we’ve been forced to adapt to the crappy hand ANets dealt us, so what’s changed?