As an aside, I am not entirely sure why you use Runes of Exuberance. The extra vitality is nice, but the stat gain from the other bonuses is either useless (healing power on this build,) or minimal (precision, power.) Something like Runes of Speed will give you the vitality and add utility (+25% permanent speed is more useful in fights than some people realize.) Runes of the Warrior will give you the vitality, the power, and a lower weapon swap CD which would be amazing for this style of play. Runes of the Pack would give you the power and the precision with a mini-warhorn #5 to keep your fury and swiftness up at the cost of some health.
This is very similar to what I run and it’s an extremely strong set-up for WvW roaming and 1v1s. (Literally the weapons and utilities are identical.)
I prefer Runes of the Traveler for the movement speed boost and my traits are a bit different; I use Empathic Bond for constant condition removal and Oakheart Salve instead of Hide in Plain Sight because I hate that trait. A jungle spider (with Malicious Training) does wonders for letting you kite properly with longbow.
Big kudos, I completely agree with your philosophy on playing ranger and it’s refreshing seeing a video of someone playing something other than a snoozefest condi-regen bunker.
Now that I think about it, a reduced channel time on Rapid Fire means that less dodges effectively evade more of that damage, so it might push more LB rangers into running dual spiders with Malicious Training and using Rapid Fire on reaction to immobilizes to guarantee that damage.
There’s nothing mandatory about Steady Focus, Spotter or Predator’s Onslaught. Eagle Eye and Read the Wind are not mandatory, but if you choose the former, the latter is nice. Piercing Arrows is fantastic, but the situations where it’s used mean you don’t need Read the Wind.
Making builds is about making decisions and you can make builds that are effective without having to have all these traits. If you could just have everything the game would be boring.
Personally I only find Quick Draw to be ‘mandatory’ for longbow (and after the patch, even more so now that Rapid Fire will be buffed.)
Yeah I think pretty much everything else has been covered here.
It’s a nice breather and has a lot of synergy with Troll Unguent. In competitive situations it is important to be able to maintain composure and keep a clear head, Hunter’s Shot gives us that much needed time.
It also gives us time to type /dance to kitten people off because people can’t stand losing to longbow rangers.
The extra dodge and poison is a huge deal. There is no such thing as too much dodge or too much poison. What if you miss with Serpent’s Strike? What if it that poison gets cleansed?
I agree with Kilger, though, that a traited offhand axe is superior to dagger when in zerg warfare.
Why Arctodus? Why not Black Bear with Malicious Training? Weakness is still useful in PvE and Enfeebling Roar lasts a very long time with Malicious Training (But really, why not Steady Focus?)
And I am not sure I’d bother with Sic’Em with these pet choices. A +40% modifier on awful damage is just slightly less awful damage. Quickening Zephyr could be used as a personal DPS boost (considering this is geared to hit hard, it would be a lot more effective,) or an emergency stunbreak/res utility. Alternatively, Signet of Renewal would offer basic condition removal for those annoying situations where you might get stuck in combat because you’ve got 20 seconds of lingering cripple, etc. Could also be used in combat to help allies with some conditions.
Have you toyed with the idea of using a Remorseless/Quick Draw build with a Sigil of Frailty and using Rapid Fire and Hunter’s Shot as often as possible for a lot of vuln stacking?
The biggest problem with the MM line is that minor traits, i.e. opening strike, is complete garbage.
Couldn’t agree with this more. Opening strike is a colossal waste of three traits. I say wrap them all into Remorseless and give us some useful minor traits.
In the fighting game community there’s a term called ‘p-linking’ or simply ‘plinking’ buttons that means you press the buttons separately, but so close together that the game only registers them one or two frames apart.
EDIT: But yeah I just do about face -> Hornet Sting -> about face -> Monarch Leap. This game doesn’t really register inputs super fast so ‘plinking’ things is a very safe way to do it. The camera will turn and then the character will execute the attack.
So I basically practiced doing that with my about face and sword 2 keys. Just sit around until you can do it consistently out of combat when there is no threat. When you’re comfortable with that, force yourself to use it in goofy situations during combat so you get the clutch execution down.
No ranger has influenced me more than Bredin. The dude is/was (he hasn’t logged in for a couple months) an absolute monster with this class. Sadly he never bothered to make YouTube videos so he’s not a ‘big’ name since YT videos are what seem to matter to most people.
Tanbin and Sol are also up there. These guys are so good.
Overall influential? I think Xsorus has done a lot for the class and for ranger players. He’s also a really cool guy.
As a fellow Maguumite, I can vouch for this builds effectiveness while both roaming and dueling.
Does Tan really use an energy sigil on sword/torch? I know I use Primal Reflexes, Vigorous Renewal and Lightning Reflexes on my roaming/dueling build and have no need at all for an energy sigil.
The answer to your question depends on the build you’re running. It also depends on the situation.
Beastmastery builds and builds that rely on Empathic Bond for condition removal rely on pets more than, say, a power build that uses Survival of the Fittest as its primary condition removal. BM builds get their burst from pets and Empathic Bond only works while your pet is alive. Fortunately, there are ways to help keep your pet alive for these builds, which tend to be PvP or WvW roaming builds, where most opposing players don’t focus your pet anyway.
Pets are most likely to be nuked in dungeons and high level fractals where you’ve got these enemies with highly telegraphed attacks that deal massive damage. Fluffy is gonna stand there and take it in the face if you aren’t paying attention and don’t recall him early and take a few steps back yourself. In these situations, the ranger is going to rely less on pets since we’re generally going to be built for big numbers ourselves and won’t be using Empathic Bond; I find the pet to be more of a boon machine with some damage sprinkled in while I’m running a dungeon.
I’d like to see Strider’s Defense reworked to incorporate something like this. That trait is just silly right now.
I have been saying this the entire thread…
That trait is 110% useless in its current state. Something like what we are suggesting fits well with the traitbas well as the trait line.
The thing is though, this has quite negatively impacted guardians and mesmers… who already lacked in mobility and this only makes that worse. So while that warrior goes charging by the guard/mesmer are trying to get their swiftness applied and in the process actually slowing themselves down sometimes…
I may be mistaken, but aren’t those classes supposed to struggle with mobility, anyway?
I would put rangers in a solid third, if not tied with Mesmer for second.
(does the sword AA help or hinder this i am actually curious.)
It is not effective. You can try in wvw to attack a rabbit and spam autoattack, as the 2nd hit is a leap. Unfortunately the range is not that great, there is an aftercast, and it only lasts for 1 second or so. If you want to use it on mobs you will be in combat. You are bette off running with 25% speed increase.
Yeah, trying to leap off of bunnies and such doesn’t usually end well. It can be used pretty effectively against structures, though. Burn the first two attacks in the string against a wall, turn slightly away from it, then Pounce x2 in whatever direction.
Not really worth a kitten in a “who is running the fastest” contest, but still neat.
To be on topic: Thieves, Warriors, and then probably Rangers with a good grip on Sword#2 and a Greatsword (at least while in combat.)
As for the Warrior-mobility, I’d like the following, game-wide, change:
Non-ground-targeted movement skills (Leap, Ride the Lightning, Bull Rush, etc) can only be used if you have a target selected. They’re for engagement, not escape.
They will also not fire if you are out of reach of the selected target, a bunny 2000m away won’t help you.
Ground-targeted skills function as now, but AFAIK this only affected Whirlwind.
Fiery Greatsword now drags it’s flame-trail all the way to the target, though it still does the jump – it just also drops the trail, and also drops a patch of fire when impacting from the jump.
Please, no. I like being able to use leaps and things to traverse maps just for fun. This would ruin all those epic jumps I try.
@Sevans what guild changes? I’ve been inviting a good number of people lately although it doesn’t seem to affect the guild in any negative way so far.
Trying to promote more guild activity, so I’m not doing the whole “join and never rep” thing anymore. It was part of the guild message for quite some time.
To those still posting, please message me in game.
I remember there was a leaked patch list somewhere that stated Martial Mastery would give us one second of vigor every time we successfully evaded with a sword attack. I got so excited…
Anyway, this would be hard to balance well, since you get those situations where Serpent’s Strike evades about a million things at once. They don’t want one good dodge of a Phantasmal Duelist to be 8+ stacks of might.
I agree that this should be a thing though, it’d be very interesting.
Oh I’m not arguing the effectiveness that is the parrot, I just really like what Traveler runes give to me.
Lightning Reflexes is a must, and I generally always run with Protect Me as well (also great against thieves when they stealth and you know you can’t afford another backstab.) Traveler runes let me go a step further and include another stunbreak/full condition clear, or what-have-you.
I may actually try running my build without Malicious Training and going deeper into the Nature Magic tree like you have, as it gives access to Spirits Unbound for roaming. Plus Fortifying Bond is yummy.
What do you feel about runes of Rage / Pack
or Traveler to free up 1 utility?
I tried pack runes and they were alright with the free warhorn #5 and all but they dont offer the extra damage privateers do with the bird. Travelers are ok but again you lose damage from the Tropical Bird to "Free UP " a utility slot. I actually use the active quite a lot in battle so it works for me.
I suppose hitting the active when you see Buster (that’s the best wolf name, btw) going for his knockdown lunge MAY be worth losing +25% in-combat speed.
Traveler/Speed let’s you take Sic’em and still maintain a speed boost, both of which come in handy versus backstab thieves. Yeah, you lose damage from that kitten parrot, but boon/condi duration is nice too.
As a side note, I often use Mistfire Wolf with this build and that synergizes well with the parrot. Pet + Parrot + Mistfire Wolf = hard for most people to deal with.
Hey guys, I noticed this got bumped from Grenth’s icy depths.
I’m not currently openly recruiting as I’m going through some guild changes. That said, if you’re interested I won’t mind considering it, just message me in-game, please.
Been playing a build like this for about a year, it’s about the best set-up I’ve been able to find for power rangers in WvW.
I run 2 in Marks for Malicious Training instead of 4 in NM for Evasive Purity, just because I like the extra long immob/vuln/weakness that I can get from spiders. Skirmishing is always Primal Reflexes and Quick Draw (Most important LB trait, IMO) and I never leave home without Vigorous Renewal either.
I opted for Traveler runes so I could give up Signet of the Hunt for an open utility slot which tends to rotate between Signet of Renewal, Signet of the Wild, and Sic’em.
Glad to see other people being smart about their builds!
You know, I’ve seen quite a few LB rangers run Sigil of Torment and I just can’t say that I understand the decision. One stack of Torment every few seconds from what is likely a power build just doesn’t seem effective, especially when the LB has no innate way of applying other damaging conditions to put on pressure.
Why not just make all back items dyeable? Some parts could remain locked (like Light of Dwayna wings) but for most I see no reason to have locked colours.
A color change just wouldn’t be enough here, but I do think that dyeable backpieces are a great idea.
Does anyone else think that it looks ridiculous wearing a brown, leather quiver while you’re dressed up in beautiful and colorful planty armor?
I suggest a quiver that is designed to look similar to a pitcher plant so that us leafy folk who use bows can still have a source of arrows that doesn’t completely look out of place.
Honestly if I’m solo roaming and encounter a Thief that’s willing to sit in stealth for 15 seconds to regen health, I’m probably just going to create as much space as possible when I see his Love Shack go down to actually reset the fight and get my own health back.
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