Guild Wars 2

if it’s for pve dungeons i’d add frost spirit to that, you most likely won’t need LR much in pve. i’d also probably swap BW for ZS since the taunt could screw things up for the group.

in pvp or wvw you’re lacking condi clear, any condi class is gonna hurt you.

i think it would be more dependant on stats. if your crits high enough i’d go PO for the extra damage. remorseless if your running defensive stats in high fractals.

GS is perfectly viable and the dps loss is negligible at best since the last patch. it would still be a good idea to learn sword andh ow to play within the bounds of how it works. use gs in situations where the leap could kill you like harpy fractal. dagger oh evades break the leap animation so you could use that until you’re used to it. and turn off auto attack.

I do the same with Zephyr’s Speed, it really helps securing stomps if you pet swap. So far I haven’t tried dropping WS in any of my pvp setups but i’ll give it a shot, in your experience is SoR + the shouts going to be enough condi cleans?

I swap between WH, Axe and LB when i’m feeling ranger-y lol

per devs it is working as intended, i seriously doubt it will ever be changed and i’m one of the minority who loves it.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBMhFakSF6XxKWwhF4axwfQtFxCEAd/WDzwnG/wwfxKlIB-TJBBABA8EAqa/h4LDwwhAAA

i’m rank 77 at the moment so i’m no pvp expert for sure but this build has been working really well for me lately. I don’t drop to quick burst easily, the high regen uptime with healing power keeps me up quite often. SoS is there for an “Oh S…” button. GS is going to be your main melee weapon, there’s a lot of mobility defense and offense there. SoTW can be popped when you need to down someone quick.

SoTW helps me get zerk and marauder builds from 40-50% to 0 rather quickly. you’ve got shouts for an extra condi cleanse but that and Rampage could be swapped out for a preferred heal.

I wish they would get to it already. Druid or RIOT!!!

I stopped using it for the most part, Heal as One traited is a stronger heal and the trait reduces the cooldown on rampage

good stream! I was watching for a bit in the earlier part of it.

bugged. and it doesn’t heal your pet, not certain on conditions

@Tragic – i’m not one of the math wizards on the forums but i’d assume that our damage coefficients are higher than warriors since we’ve always been fairly close to their dps without all the bundled modifiers. It would be really nice if more buffs where passed to our pet passively and without a really limiting range but then we’d be “OP” lol.

i’d really like Druid to bring party buffs beyond 1s spirit buffs from a GM(LOL are you serious anet??) frost or spotter. we really need a way to stack might well, if we had that plus the ability we currently have for so much party wide fury I think we’d be in a decent place.

resistance and party quickness would be nice too but i think revenant got that?

Edit: it’s just that the majority of our buffs are situational. we must keep endurance up, we must keep health up, we must keep cc on the enemy, we must keep boons on and SoTW is a one shot boost. i’m not complaining, it works, but with all the power creep anet keeps introducing we’re gonna get left far behind eventually.

the sinister build and the zerk build are the two top dps builds right now. power is still viable in all game modes and can potentially out dps sinister in certain situations. I had gone sinister but switched back to zerk because I didn’t like the playstyle personally. I still alternate between condi and power in pvp.

reapers lack damage modifiers just like ranger does currently. Those modifiers are what makes mesmers, ele and warrior hit so kitten hard. reaper and revenant need a damage buff. If they want to keep ranger in the top middle tier of dps that’s fine by me but i’d love to see some major group buffing added.

I have a feeling Druids going to be a mid range team support type. we already have long range and melee range dps. I really doubt we’re going to see any direct damage increase from Druid. Hopefully they don’t force it into a role where it pairs with NM and we have to choose between BM and Skirm for our power builds.

edit: what I mean is not that we don’t have ANY modifiers but less than the “dps” classes. Warrior can get 55% in dmg modifiers and ele can get 80%!

good stream. where you running marauder amulet? I’ve kind of moved away from marauder and on to either crusader or cavalier with remorseless and int sigils. I crit less often but i survive very well in team fights.

Skullface.7293:

LughLongArm.5460:

WoW man, gratz. Where can I watch it?

You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4twThStfZmE

excellent games! you where pretty tanky and still putting out decent damage.

if you’re really looking for two sources of damage without being too squishy you could go with a rabid/carrion mix that way you would get power/prec/vit/tough/and condi

with the way things are now I wouldn’t go hybrid bows at all, I would use the standard a/d+s/t combo. Axe provides might and you can throw a sigil of strength or battle in there for more. for celestial to work you have to have might stacking. A/wh+s/t would also work, and you could blast your fire field. SB can put on a lot of bleeds but it’s too position dependent and the power dps isn’t that great anymore.

edit: unless you’re dead set on celestial i’d also look at a valk/cav or knight mix. you’d lose the slight condi dmg from cele but game more power and overall more defensive stats.

Thanks! glad you liked it, have fun with you ranger! I’ve been messing around with other classes but I don’t have as much fun on anything else.

take a look at the pve condi ranger thread that was up a bit ago. you can use axe on one weapon set and torch on the other and keep constant burn up in pve. this is it basically, although i have it setup for me.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAnfjUqQ7K2sCuqAXLGMEquDC2qmDg1tB+t4Zz5MOKEYRA-TxxCABAcCAYW9nT2fwZlfH/AAQWPwYKBJFAMLrA-e

Swiftly.2385:

Sorry I don’t buy into the whole power Ranger is the noob spec. Especially if you are using sword /dagger. You have to be on your kitten to be good with that weapon combo.

The problem is, hardly anyone plays a ranger very well, everyone’s so used to running into the high number of horrible rangers that when they finally get one that knows what they’re doing they can’t believe it.

I think i get reported for hacking almost every match -.-

thanks for the responses. there’s been a lot of talk in some of the other profession forums i frequent about sinister gear now being better than zerk for pve. Ele may be one of those classes where sticking with zerk is the better choice.

@Thaddeus: thanks for the trait help, i’ll likely stick with zerk for now unless someone goes through the math or i feel like breaking out the calculator.

in the interest of not hijacking anyone else’s thread, i’m wondering if this build is viable and how it would compare in dps vs zerker? I would play it as d/x in pve but scepter would certainly be a good ranged choice.

I chose water because I feel like I have some trouble surviving as ele in pve. i’m still learning, but if there is a better setup i’d be glad to see it.

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodnMIClNgVPAONA8RgBBAjeCbhjQEAClHAZDcBSBA-ThhMABmpEsU1fAY/hTV+B6DAIU9AkCAmlVA-e

if I went arcane over water i’d probably set it up like this.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodnMICtMgVPAONA8RgBBALCAhyDgsBuApgaT2EPDA-ThhMABmpEsU1fAY/hTV+B6DAIU9AkCAmlVA-e

what would be the long answer? i’m on the fence too between ele and warrior.

The greatest lack is in team support for both PVE and PVP, we are and maybe always will be, a fairly selfish class in that we can buff ourselves/our pet but don’t give much to a party. even our self-buffing capability is weak in comparison to other classes.

don’t get me wrong, i love my ranger and tbh in 2+ years of playing i’ve never been kicked from a dungeon or fractal run. as long as you know the class well you can contribute to any game mode in some way.

i’m mostly on the ranger forums, i’m kind of new to ele pve, but a lot of professions have been putting together sinister builds that top out over zerk builds in pve. I’m wondering if something like this build would be viable, or even better, than zerk. you could run it as d/x or s/x. like i said i’m new to ele and builds so please don’t rip me a new one interwebs.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQJAodnMIClNgVPAONA8RgBBAjeCbhjQEAClHAZDcBSBA-ThhMABmpEsU1fAY/hTV+B6DAIU9AkCAmlVA-e

would prickly pear pie be useful or better in tough encounters or is the 33% chance too low to be of use?
how does prickly pear stuffed nopale compare dps wise to super veggie pizza? the crafting cost of the too is about the same but you get to keep that 4% condi duration plus power.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prickly_Pear_Stuffed_Nopale
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Prickly_Pear_Pie

Thanks Obama!

/15char

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Prophet.1584:

so then would this be the recommended build now for dungeons/fractals for ranger? Condi tends to be more fun anyway than the average power build but I don’t want to stat change all my ascended gear from zerk if it isn’t worth it to switch. According to Nike you’re averaging about the same dps just with an alternative setup.

I guess the question is, is there benefit to running a sinister build over a zerk build? the squish factor will remain the same

Do you only run with a premade speedrun guild group wherein everything goes perfectly, everyone always spends 1g per run on consumables, and you have multiple zerk weapon sets and potions available to switch to so you always get max DPS bonuses?

If so, zerk ranger is passable I guess, you might even sometimes get as much damage as a Sinister.

Thanks for the reply, I tend to pug quite a bit so i’ll likely switch over my ranger gear. If this really is higher potential dps output than a zerk ele you and Nike have just created a new meta and i’m sure the community will thank you both for it.

so then would this be the recommended build now for dungeons/fractals for ranger? Condi tends to be more fun anyway than the average power build but I don’t want to stat change all my ascended gear from zerk if it isn’t worth it to switch. According to Nike you’re averaging about the same dps just with an alternative setup.

I guess the question is, is there benefit to running a sinister build over a zerk build? the squish factor will remain the same

i’m just glad some of these bugs are getting addressed, maybe anet is looking at these forums o.0

for pve wouldn’t rampager be good? especially if you go s/t+a/t. You could bring in some ferocity with trinkets so you still get the benefit of the higher dps on sword AA, splitblade on cooldown and use bonfire on quickdraw.

use birds /15char

if spirits passive effects or boon sharing is improved then they should also buff the on death skills. no other class buff skill dies.

buff pets close to the previous level when everyone cried about how OP they where, some of us still remember that….sigh

the tempest rebound is what quickdraw should have been. period. fix it.

there are too many useless traits and some that are complete must haves in any game mode. build diversity is driven by having competing traits in the same range so that people choose based on preference or playstyle.

the same goes for weapons, not so much a dps change but a weapon mechanics shift. if RF was on shortbow but still stacked vuln as it does now it would be a great hybrid weapon. if LB had a burst skill like maul, sniper shot or w/e, it would be great.

i love the evades on GS and am willing to sacrifice some damage for that.

sword is also a good weapon but i can understand people not wanting to work around the mechanics of it just to get it to work, drop the leap and replace it with the same gs evades. even if that means losing some damage.

we have so much access to poisons but can’t even take the trait to buff them??? it was discussed during the CDI that we could be the “poison master” class. give us traits that allow poisons to have additional CC effects like slows and immobilize. let ranger poisons counter the quickness meta.

i’m sure i’ll think of more lol

I run double drakes as well in PVE, they can tank almost as well as a bear and still put out decent DPS.

If WN could provide Resistance instead of, or in addition to, Regen it would be amazing. 1 stack of fury, might and regeneration and swiftness is pretty bland. i’d personally rather keep the WH as our buffing weapon rather than another source of bad damage.

jcbroe.4329:

I’m not sure if you’re aware (I’m honestly not, I’m using the statement as a literal and not to represent hyperbole) but the ranger has been “dead” in competitive play since pretty much the celestial meta.

Now, that isn’t to say that good builds didn’t exist, and good players didn’t exist, and that sentiment still holds true even right now. But the ranger class isn’t being help back by itself, as a matter of fact, most of the changes are, and will be overwhelmingly positive for the class when the bugs finally get addressed.

The thing is, Ranger doesn’t really bring much to a team right now OUTSIDE of damage, and that will always be the forefront of the problem. Mesmers have insane “slipperiness” with incredible “get out of jail free” cards and can take portal for amazing team plays and moa for shutting down bunker targets and rampage warriors on top of their damage.

There is never a circumstance in this game I could imagine, both then, and now, where you would ever want to take a power based ranger over a mesmer or thief.

Condi ranger on the other hand is strong, but will always have weaker output than other classes, and because of the lack of targeted AoE, the build gets heavily pushed towards sidenodes/1v1s where the other classes can do both small scale fights and larger teamfights with the same build effectively.

Really, our weak utility skill selection is a huge part of the problem, and our biggest competitors, Mesmers and Engineers (don’t really seeing other classes performing within the scope these two do, and while people would also be tempted to cite thief, thief will always have the niche mobility that nothing in the game can match or compete with), overall just have the better tools (although even Engineers are considered pretty bottom barrel tier at the moment, and guess what rangers and engineer share in common? If you guess design dev, you’d be correct).

We are just in desperate need of some cleave/AoE, and the ability to do something other than damage (or damage while bringing suboptimal utilities compared to another class who can bring more optimal options that do more things while doing similar/same/more damage).

+1 This, and maybe someday the devs will take a look at these forums and take some notes on what the class really needs. I’m holding out hope for druid, not really for PVP though, but more for PVE and getting to be more useful in a strong team setting.

at this time, in PVE ranger and necro are the bottom of the barrel, spotter doesn’t bring the usefulness it used to because most classes got massive buffs in terms of crit chance or they received huge power spikes and can focus more on assassins gear. Most good dungeon groups cap out crit chance with Fury fairly easily. Frost is still somewhat useful but why bring a ranger for that when you can bring an engi for utility, a mesmer for utility, a thief for utility etc. etc. etc

I don’t care if my ranger turns into a fluffy bunny, just please make the skills useful, add some much needed support and for the love of all things holy give us some DEEEEPS!!!

There’s a few good rangers, i like to think i’m one of them, but I really want to be of more use in dungeons and stuff. warrior and gaurdian bore me, hitting things with a big stick gets tiring after a while. Engi rotation is insane, i may need a new mouse before I tackle that one full time. thief and ele are super squishy but then you’re choosing between AOE type damage or single target damage for the most part. mesmer has decent dps and utility but i’m expecting a hard nerf on them, the damage is ridiculous.

that’s the kind of info I was really looking for, I just took a look at the DnT video that shows the engi rotation after the patch and it looks incredibly complicated lol. I think i may try out thief for a bit!

sword is our top dps weapon set so LB should only really get used for the RF burst like you mentioned. max dps since the patch would be s/a+gs on swap for maul. maul still drops a decent amount of vuln but no where near what we had.

@Jeru – I assumed most people would say engi and then hopefully give a reason. I’m looking at moving away from Ranger quite possibly unless Druid completely blows my mind. I’ve been working on Ele a bit but its so much squishier than ranger that it’ll take some getting used to. Rangers group support is pretty horrific and Engi seems to be able to do that well while keeping the damage up there. Also LB didn’t get any love so the best dps would be full melee, going full melee you lose 5 stacks of vuln every 9s.

This patch hurt pretty badly.

I have an 80 thief as well but I haven’t run Engi or Thief in real PVE at all, EOTM and PVP leveling with a bit of story thrown in.

sorry to hijack the thread but i’m curious, what would you guys take into dungeons: a ranger, an engi or a thief?

great videos, a longer look at zerker LB/GS would be nice. I haven’t been serious in WvW for a while now but I think I may get back into it regularly. PvP is getting rather stale.

does FA ever meet up with JQ?

GaijinGuy.8476:

Hi there,

Since the new traits came out I have been playing around with different possibilities. I mostly play power builds utilizing remorselessness, but that got me thinking about stacking vulnerability with a condition build using opening strikes and sigil of frailty on a SB.

It also got me thinking about perplexity runes for the stacks of confusion on interrupts as you can get one on SB and one from spike trap (though timing is important). Has anyone ever tried something like this?

I would like try it myself but those runes be expensive (-_-;)

look up xsorus, he made a technobabble build a while back and it fits that design. perplexity runes would be nice for it.

Fluffball.8307:

Kehlian.4380:

Plus, you have the “disadvantage” (note the quote marks) of having trying for years, maybe you’re too attached to some of the old stuff that used to work, but changed, and maybe I’ll find those out, maybe you’ll find those out before me.

I’m not referring to me personally. I’m saying the tens of thousands of ranger players have tried everything. As for me personally, I play… ‘different’ builds shall we say.

please do share lol different can be good!

Kehlian.4380:

Although I understand your lack of optimism, the traits and stats system changed less than a month ago, so I don’t think every combinaison has been tried since then. Plus, you have the “disadvantage” (note the quote marks) of having trying for years, maybe you’re too attached to some of the old stuff that used to work, but changed, and maybe I’ll find those out, maybe you’ll find those out before me.
That actually doesn’t matter who finds it out, I just want the best we can get out of this class in every situation to be found and handed to this forum.
And I’m asking for help, because I know I can’t do it alone without taking a hugekitten amount of time.

The build I’m running atm is decent for sPVP, and can take people down. But I know it can be improved. For instance, I don’t see the rune of rage beeing used that much, but it increases the DPS of the ranger impressively, and allow for a 100% fury uptime, the pet can hit up to 4~5k with his auto-attack, which is part of the ranger’s DPS, and the ranger up to ~1.8k with the auto attack, sigils of force and intelligence. It still has 17k hp and a decent armor to survive, plus the mobility it gets from the sword and GS (even shortbow can get you out of some spiky situations). Don’t forget about the survival backrush, that clears also conditions and breaks stun.
And that is for PVP. I haven’t even tried PVE yet.

i’ve actually tried runes of rage a few times in my builds what’s really nice about them isn’t the fury uptime but the re-application of fury if your running remorseless. the build i’ve been running lately uses no precision, rage rune, gs and still crits pretty often. I thought of using intelligence sigils too but i’ll stick with battle instead of possibly wasting an opening strike on the sigils crit.

with might and bloodlust you can hit pretty hard with this

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Jg-o;1sEFu-r2JEV-0;9V8R;1Yb_;0257246147;4SRF66;1m7YBm7YBT0d

the hard part is surviving long enough to hit that hard lol

+1

I have an 80 of each and since this last patch I find myself running around a lot more on my ele. My ranger is fully geared in ascended, now I have to make another set for my ele.

GS is a defensive weapon on ranger, that’s why you get the built in evades on auto and the block. similar to a mesmer oh sword, warrior oh sword etc. maul just happens to be our highest damaging melee attack. ranger gs and warrior gs were meant for two different things.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

RevanCorana.8942:

1 Slash and Slice cast time reduced from 1/2 to 1/4 and damage increased by 10%
…
3 No more self root on hilt bash, make it like maul basically.

Agree with these. Even though it is a defensive weapon, it could definitely do with some improvement and speed.

+1 this though

the passive regen trait is bugged or broken, it only heals every 3s now instead of every 1s and it no longer heals the ranger. there’s also a second bug that is not giving pets the extra +10 to stats that they should be getting so even traited into bm you’re short 10 stat points to everything.

that being said the massive power/condi creep that has happened is killing our pets way too fast. passive damage reduction or, even better, a total of +560 to all stats would be nice. it would be like equipping the pet with cele.

just played it in spvp and while i like the burn stacks from the spirit it seems to go down rather quickly, i’m not sure how much different that would be when traited. i switched sun spirit for flame trap as test but this basically makes it a celestial trap ranger which i’m not too sure about. I never tested the original config with all spirits but i may do that after this match. i’m curious how a cele trapper would do.