If you decide to stick with marksmanship you should definitely run remorseless instead of lead the wind while dueling. Strength of the pack alone will give you opening strike a number of times, it will also work great with your pack runes, two hand training, and the fury from survival skills. But if you do that you should add in some valk/cav gear so you don’t get 1 shot.
Might consider dropping marksmanship for skirmishing. You would have plenty if swiftness, which would let you swap the movement signet to stone, plus quick draw would up your damage.
Swap bear to a bird, dog, cat or spider. Personally I’d go with a bird and use wilting strikes in BM. You’d be blinding and putting weakness on your opponent every 5 seconds.
Also might want to work a little more toughness/vitality into your build when dueling.
I’ll take another look when I can get on a computer, I’m posting from my phone right now do its hard to take a close look at your build
Imho better to use sword/torch axe/dagger so you can get access to Fire aura(to stack might on you and you’r pet) and you’ll have 1 weapon dodge on every weapon set.
2nd never use 2same sigils on 1 weapon set. they are not stack.
Is this in response to my post? I’m not running 2 of the same sigils on 1 weapon set. I have 2 geo sigils but they are on different sets.
As for your 1st point, that is personal preference. I can easily lay the field and swap weapons for the leap, I do it often. I like having 1 set for kiting when I need to regen in the middle of the fight without breaking combat.
However the smart thing to do would be to replace eotm with it for a week and test it there. Everyone that wants access can get in, broken mechanics won’t affect WvW scores, and you can shut it down as often as you need to without messing up WvW.
I’m pretty sure eotm was supposed to be the testing ground for WvW stuff anyway.
You’d be much better off posting your build and asking how it could be improved instead of us trying to guess what someone else (that we’ve never seen play) was running
I mixed and matched instead if going full apoth. Higher vitality is a lot more handy than another 100hp per sec, especially since TU is on a shorter cooldown and you can keep your opponent Perma weak.
Between bark skin, protection, perma regen, swiftness and weakness spam, it is very hard for any opponent to get you below 90% health in a 1v1 fight. If you do get low you just kite around with sword/dagger while your pet does the damage until you regen back to full health.
You have 3 skills for removing condi’s although it is still better to use your high vigor/evade uptime to avoid the condi application in the first place. You can shrug off a good deal of condi damage just through the combined regen +TU so don’t panic and blow all your cooldowns if you get a few stacks on you.
For small group roaming it is sometimes worthwhile to swap BW for zephyr’s speed. You will be spamming F2 to keep weakness on the target but that makes BW unreliable. Zephyr’s speed is a lot more reliable because you can see the timer and it comes in very handy for securing stomps or rezzing allies.
So I’ve played my thief once since the update. I had no problem killing people or surviving but I got bored pretty quickly and changed characters. I loved playing P/P, it’s not as effective as the majority of the builds available to thieves but it made the class fun for me.
This change was pointless and it completely ruined the class for me. I don’t see my thief making it back into my character rotation anytime soon.
Between bark skin, protection, perma regen, swiftness and weakness spam, it is very hard for any opponent to get you below 90% health in a 1v1 fight. If you do get low you just kite around with sword/dagger while your pet does the damage until you regen back to full health.
You have 3 skills for removing condi’s although it is still better to use your high vigor/evade uptime to avoid the condi application in the first place. You can shrug off a good deal of condi damage just through the combined regen +TU so don’t panic and blow all your cooldowns if you get a few stacks on you.
For small group roaming it is sometimes worthwhile to swap BW for zephyr’s speed. You will be spamming F2 to keep weakness on the target but that makes BW unreliable. Zephyr’s speed is a lot more reliable because you can see the timer and it comes in very handy for securing stomps or rezzing allies.
This is what I’ve been running http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-JF37k;1FFt-g2JEF-0;9V-0;1b_a;0236237237;4Vs07T;1fgm9fgm90S
100% swiftness & regen (about 300hp a sec for the 10 sec TU isn’t up), high uptime of weakness and protection. Haven’t had an issue with any zerk classes. Pretty easy to go 1v2 on point. If they ever get around to fixing the pet stats and the offhand range/radius this will be pretty darn strong.
I like it for PvP or dueling but in WvW I run zephyr’s speed for quickness stomps. For me BW is unreliable because I am spamming F2 off cooldown to keep the weakness from wilting strike up.
People weren’t being negative, they were being honest. If your goal is to do sub optimal damage from the middle of a zerg with zero/crappy condition removal then congrats, you pulled it off.
Make sure you stick real close to the group because if you get separated you are screwed.
its hard to fight right now , too many Bugs.. aim for 2600-2800 toughness , 2-3 Cav gear will fix that.
If you aren’t going full zerk you need to make sure to add some vitality along with the toughness. Condi damage is insane right now, I had an ele stack 12 burning on me in a couple seconds last night.
I really hate watching dev’s discuss rangers. I don’t think I’ve seen an stream yet where they aren’t calling rangers annoying or snickering about bearbows.
I would not call it cheating if it wasn’t for every single ranger I’ve chased anywhere near water getting inside the water and innevitably getting revived over and over until Defeat Penalty catches up and they get instantly defeated when entering drowned.
6 out of ten at most I could think they are just trying to increase their odds. Every single one of them getting into water as soon as their health gets too low, and every single one of them always getting revived even when their pets have been kicked away and defeated? That’s way too much not to call it exploiting bugs.
Soooo now every ranger is a cheater.
This guys is pure gold.
TBH I’m feeling kind of meh right now because I’ll need to probably get new runes/gear and I am not interested in investing in anything until stuff settles a bit.
This is where I’m at. After 3 years I had my builds tweaked exactly where I wanted them and now everything feels off. I’ll probably just go full zerk for now and worry about min/maxing in a few months.
What are these necro changes you’re talking about? They got a decent buff in blood magic but they took quite a few nerfs, like their only viable heal stacking vulnerability on them. Reaper looks like it will be terrible for pvp/WvW. It turns DS1, their main source of damage, into a melee skill. Ranged players are going to be able to kite them even more now.
Maybe it is just me, but I got the feeling Anet was doing so to get condition damagers investing in precision. Conditions are more effective now and made you invest in only one stat (condition damage). To balance it a little, it seems logical to make traits which are rewarding condition damagers take some precision. There are many traits like this.
That only applies to some classes though, others are easily stacking burning, bleeding, even torment with auto attacks and it doesn’t require crit chance or positioning.
I’m all for the ranger not getting nerfs but this is a dumb thing to be upset about.
It listed the skill as using Call of the Wild in it’s legit form, 30s cooldown and all. This was a bug that has now been fixed. This isn’t Anet doing a 180 and backroom nerfing us like they did with the other traits.
And they dont fix the grenade barrage that hit 20k in one skill use? That’s flawed logic.
I got hit for more than 26k by it the other night.
The nerf was a knee jerk reaction to a tonic exploit"
No. No no no. It was always ‘supposed’ to work with a cooldown, they simply forgot to add/code it. The skill is not ‘Grant AoE might, fury, swiftness and a blast finisher’ on pet swap, its ‘Cast ’Call of the Wild’ on pet swap’ and Call of the Wild has a CD.
The tonic exploit is still up by the way. Zephyr’s Strength is absolutely ridiculous (25 might, 30s quickness)
It’s not a nerf its a fix to make it work as intended
I mean if it was working as intended since release would people really cry about it?
That’s bullkitten. Look at how quickly bugs are normally fixed in this game (immoblized in air bug anyone?). They wouldn’t have bothered adding a cooldown to this trait if it didn’t offer infinite blast finishers when paired with a tonic. The quickest way to solve that exploit was to copy paste some code.
I could care less about the might. Rangers have 1 reliable blast finisher on a 30 second cooldown (Note I said reliable, drake blast is slow and unreliable). That is just pathetic.
Clarion bond gave us a second reliable blast on a reasonable cooldown. The nerf was a knee jerk reaction to a tonic exploit, you can argue this if you want but with all the ridiculously overpowered things that have popped up since this update hit do you really think they would have focused on this if it wasn’t for the exploit?
They need to reevaluate the trait along with a ton of other things they forgot about or left half done with the ranger. I swear it feels like they got down to the deadline and said," kitten it, we’ll roll the ranger out like this and fix it eventually."
The trait is not fine. It was a reliable blast finisher when you were in combat, now it’s not. You have to mentally keep track of the timer if you want to use the blast and if you screw up and hit it early you are locked out of it until your pet swap refreshes.
Ask yourself honestly would this skill be over powered with a 15 second cooldown or would it make a lot more sense?
Okay guys there you have it. I’m pretty sure this thread has no covered all the bases for rangers. We’ve constantly been called cheaters/exploiters for running power builds because of range, homing missile pets (lol), we are hacking when running condi survival because of evade spam, condi removal, other random qq, if we run traps we are stealthing too much and moving too fast.
Now if a ranger fights in or anywhere around the water he is a cheater, GG. Is there anything left for people to kitten about?
Maybe if lots of people start running blackbear the enemy will complain about “bs 10sec weakness aoe 600 range pets denying dodgerolls!”
We should all try to get in the same EotM instance and make this a thing.
i have the feeling sometimes the roots doesnt trigger well, i got few times since patch that they should hit and no vines come out
and no, no blind or condi immunity
I’ve had that happen plenty of times, usually in WvW. I chalked it up to my opponent being out of range even though the server showed him as being right next to me.
Basically the same thing that happens with trying to revive or stomp someone that isn’t where they appear to be, or the unkillable ghost yaks.
Okay guys there you have it. I’m pretty sure this thread has no covered all the bases for rangers. We’ve constantly been called cheaters/exploiters for running power builds because of range, homing missile pets (lol), we are hacking when running condi survival because of evade spam, condi removal, other random qq, if we run traps we are stealthing too much and moving too fast.
Now if a ranger fights in or anywhere around the water he is a cheater, GG. Is there anything left for people to kitten about?
^ that’s possible yeah, I was probably swooping. it does seem that the root HP got massively buffed. sometimes it takes 2-3 seconds to get out and often that means death.
Honestly that’s probably better considering it is an elite skill. It was just way too easy to break before. It’s still pretty useless against warriors or anyone with stealth.
I did get caught by it when I was running a melee build and my maul didn’t break me out, but I was just caught off guard. It will be very easy to counter now that I know 1 maul won’t work.
LOL they are busy nerfing ranger while mesmer and engi are the problem atm… Anet and balancing… Meanwhile people getting one shot by ’nade barrage and burn stacking.
yup and I bet to “fix” it they will nerf burn damage into the dirt instead of doing something about the classes that have an insane amount of ways to stack burning including their auto attack.
It is nonsense. It is an exploitable issue provided by the TONIC. Thus instead of punishing rangers with this nerf, why not address the tonic itself. As all of us are aware, being transformed and entering combat makes us LOSE the transformation (save for a few tonics). Thus this exploit is something that needs to be addressed with the tonic, not our trait.
Flat. Plain. And simple.
There are a bunch of tonics that can be used in combat. The trait just needs the internal cooldown set at 15 seconds so it can’t be abused and we can have another reliable blast finisher.
It’s bs that a class like engi, who already has blast finishers coming out of his kitten , gets a trait that lets them blast finish on dodge roll and rangers who have 1 reliable blast finisher on a underpowered weapon end up getting screwed because of a tonic exploit.
With all that happened to this trait with the most recent patch, I can understand why 30 seconds was chosen: to prevent perma fury/swiftness. Bear with me here.
Imagine: You are fighting Tequatl and are a power longbow build. Your ferocity is scaled to 200% but your crit chance is only 80%. All of a sudden! Clarion bond! Now you crit every shot and all you have to do is keep your pet next to you and alive. It is an exploit with that ability and the only way to stop an exploit is to do what Anet did.
NOW. Do I agree with the direction Anet took? Absolutely not. In PvP clarion bond was nice for my condi build as I could keep circling the enemy with the swiftness and keep a nice fury uptime with CB and Wilderness Knowledge. However, my pet dies too fast in PvP and WvW for this new CD to do any good. It removes the spec for rangers to do any good in team fights and limits them to backline pew pew. The 60 second CD for a downed pet to “revive” is a good off set to the skill before this nerf.
TL; DR This nerf was for PvE Pew Pew’ers and nothing more but it affected all of us in such a way this trait is useless!
100% fury and swiftness uptime is already easy to maintain. This was changed because people were using the trait with tonics to have a 0 cooldown blast finisher and perma 25 might.
Answer me honestly, have you EVER tried to use a tonic in combat? There is no tonic that allows to used whilst the person is IN combat. And if there is, that is an oversight by Anet and the tonic should b addressed, not the trait.
So this tonic nonsense, is exactly that: nonsense.
EDIT: because I cannot spell tonic >.>
Used to do it with my mesmer and centaur runes all the time to get perma swiftness, it’s not hard at all. Soooo….. not sure what to tell you except you are flat out wrong.
Also, Iv’e seen plenty of people set up macros for stuff like this. Have you never seen someone drop hundreds of bali prints in the space of a couple seconds or sit spam a hundred times?
With all that happened to this trait with the most recent patch, I can understand why 30 seconds was chosen: to prevent perma fury/swiftness. Bear with me here.
Imagine: You are fighting Tequatl and are a power longbow build. Your ferocity is scaled to 200% but your crit chance is only 80%. All of a sudden! Clarion bond! Now you crit every shot and all you have to do is keep your pet next to you and alive. It is an exploit with that ability and the only way to stop an exploit is to do what Anet did.
NOW. Do I agree with the direction Anet took? Absolutely not. In PvP clarion bond was nice for my condi build as I could keep circling the enemy with the swiftness and keep a nice fury uptime with CB and Wilderness Knowledge. However, my pet dies too fast in PvP and WvW for this new CD to do any good. It removes the spec for rangers to do any good in team fights and limits them to backline pew pew. The 60 second CD for a downed pet to “revive” is a good off set to the skill before this nerf.
TL; DR This nerf was for PvE Pew Pew’ers and nothing more but it affected all of us in such a way this trait is useless!
100% fury and swiftness uptime is already easy to maintain. This was changed because people were using the trait with tonics to have a 0 cooldown blast finisher and perma 25 might.
Interesting, I don’t think I’ve ever tried to finish someone underwater, so didn’t realise it wasn’t an option. IMO, that sounds more like a bug with finishers than with Ranger though.
That’s part of the reason they removed water combat from PvP. They’ve given up on underwater combat for the time being.
Because there are so many Rangers camping in lakes and rivers in WvW to take advantage of it too…
I’ll admit I’ve used the water to my advantage more times than I can count when fighting 1vX. A ton of people don’t have crappy underwater weapons equipped, have no idea how to use them, and don’t bother with an exotic head piece, so they lose their rune bonus.
My favorite way to use the water to my advantage is if I’m playing longbow. I’ll keep cc’ing the player into the water with wolf/PBS and pew pew them down. The term “shooting fish in a barrel” is very accurate in those situations.
@Op- As far as “exploiting” goes….. using our downed state mechanic is not exploiting any more than ele’s are exploiting theirs by mistforming into a keep, or thieves are by teleporting out of AoE, warriors using vengeance, etc.
If you are having problems 3v1’ing underwater I suggest you either
a) set up your underwater build so you are doing damage
b) learn to fight 1v1 so maybe the ranger would stay and fight you on land instead of having to kite
c) get good
d) don’t be bad
he’s using 3 sigils of energy
