Guild Wars 2

Personally I feel like Rangers are king of tactical sustain. Like any class, they’re facerolly at entry level, but playing a power ranger at a high level is all about staying five steps ahead of your opponent and playing smart; Something we generally have the tools for — Poisons, interrupts, stealths, health regen, and range.

Also, I love bows, pets and how fun the nimble moveset of Sword/Dagger is.

I think some people forget that F1 and F3 are also part of the class mechanic and should be used liberally. You’re right in that it’s a topic that needs to be covered.

Also, I listened to the entirety of the previous podcast. I really enjoyed it! Thanks for the link.

I prefer it broke Immob, Chill, and Cripple then just call it a day. It’s already a fantastic utility.

I use my pet for utility only. Usually in the form of Immobilizes and Fear. I do just fine.

You can spec for birds and cats to be really heavy hitters, though.

Currently listening to the previous podcast. The ambient music is killing me because I know it, but I don’t know what it IS! Is it from GW2? I feel like it’s underwater music or something.

As far as topics go, I’d like to second jcbroe’s suggestion for weapon strategy breakdown. Cover strengths, weaknesses and strategies of each weapon. Maybe the best game modes to use them in or sigils that complement weapons really well. Maybe break up podcasts into “Power Weapons” and “Condi Weapons.”

I dunno. I am not really familiar with the podcasts ankitten ot sure if they designed for beginners or experts or is it just for general ranger talk? Community talk? I can make more suggestions based on your answer to that.

Warriors can GS & Sword/Horn their way out of a lot of crappy situations, for sure, but I’ve seen a Thief shadowstep a few thousand units away in the blink of an eye.

I love this idea and would sell my body for it to become a reality.

I can’t wait to sit down and listen to this tonight. I find myself agreeing with your posts a lot, so it should be fun.

Plan B should be an in-depth discussion on pets and pet usage while impersonating Elmer Fudd.

I’ve always liked the idea of staff for Ranger. They could make it the go-to zerg weapon so that Rangers finally have a role in large scale combat and people will stop crying about “how bad they are at everything.”

Also, rangers have a ton of swiftness.

- Call of the Wild (15 Seconds)
- Tail Wind (On weapon swap, requires combat – 5 seconds)
- Nature’s Voice (On shout – 13 seconds)
- Storm Spirit (Chance on Hit – 8 seconds)
- Rampage as One (20 seconds)
- Quickening Screech (Bird pets – 10 seconds)

oZii.2864:

I like that the op is one of those people that recognizes that his main has weakness, what those weakness are, and knows it is suppose to have those weaknesses.

It’s refreshing to know that people aren’t always disillusioned into thinking that it’s just another classes ‘OPness.’

Point Blank Shot is a 900 (1,200) range knockback (400-600) on a 15 (12) second cooldown. It doesn’t really get much better than that, so lowering the cooldown isn’t likely to happen. I have enough time to squeeze off an auto attack and a Hunter’s Shot before my enemy gets up, which I feel is plenty. Hunter’s Shot is going to let you create more space.

The best thing any dedicated longbow ranger can do for themselves is to take Quick Draw and Malicious Training with a jungle spider and either another spider, a wolf, or a drakehound. I prefer wolf, because it pushes enemies back when they get close and it opens their back for a PBS/Hunter’s Shot combo. Also, you might consider slotting Sigil of Ice for more mobility impairment.

It works wonder, I’ve been kiting pretty much every class other than Thief for a very, very long time and it really shines against Necromancers and Engineers who would otherwise eat you alive with conditions if they got close. Thieves just get in free because of shadowsteps, but thankfully having your own stealth and an ability that tracks stealthed enemies makes the longbow a very capable Thief killer.

So we know this about sigils:

- Two handers will have two sigil slots.
- Internal cooldowns are being separated so that we may now use on swap/on crit combos.

People are also suggesting that we can have two on crit or on swap sigils working in unison. I didn’t see the live stream, but this sounds a bit too powerful to be true. Does anyone have confirmation of this? That said, are there any exciting sigil combinations that you rangers are thinking of trying out?

Personally I use a Sigil of Battle on each weapon set and I don’t see that changing. I’m thinking that Sigil of Battle/Sigil of Ice on Longbow is going to be devastating. If two swap sigils do work together, I’m also gonna try Sigil of Battle/Sigil of Leeching on both weapon sets for extra sustain.

What are your ideas?

Of course the Ranger sub forum is going to cry about this bug fix. It’s always worked like this.

Nothing beats my pet wolf, Buster.

Replace the chance for Regen while in stealth with a chance for Swiftness.

To be fair, I did forget about Black Bear with its AoE weakness, but as far as weakness that the ranger applies, Winter’s Bite is the only option we have and it is attached to a weapon that is awful for power builds.

Torment is actually the second idea that I had for replacing the cripple. It would make the sword a lot more useful for condition builds. As of right now, it’s kind of shoe-horned in because we only have two one-handed main hand options. That said, I think condition rangers are in a good place right now and would really prefer to see work done to improve power rangers. Weakness on Monarch’s Leap would go a long way for that.

I didn’t forget about the leap finisher, but it’s still another issue of using a skill for everything other than attacking. You can leap through fields without a target.

I disagree with reversing the order of Hornet Sting and Monarch’s Leap. Having access to your evade move first is much more important, IMO.

Bambula.3649:

sword #2 and #3 are fine and good how they work, plz never change this -

it would be okay if they work a bit on auto hit, but dont destroy our highest mobility weapon

I am not asking for a functionality change, I am asking for an effectiveness change. Auto attack is fine and working as intended.

Ahh, yes. Ranger Sword #2, an attack that is… never really used to attack? That seems a bit off, doesn’kitten This skill is almost exclusively used as a way to create a gap or retreat from combat and that’s only half okay.

It makes sense for Hornet Sting to be about retreating; There’s a built in evade, you leap backwards, many of us have a bow on switch to keep up the pressure. Good. Nice. This works.

But what do we do for Monarch’s Leap? Well, we ‘about face’ and we leap even further back. This isn’t okay. The utility of removing ourselves even further from combat almost always outweighs the rewards of landing this attack, because landing this attack is hardly rewarding. I think this should be changed.

Currently Monarch’s Leap is a highly telegraphed, medium damage attack that applies a condition that we rack up on the same weapons auto-attack chain.

My suggested fix? Damage boost and the application of a condition that Rangers do not already have a ton of access to. How do we do this without making the skill overpowered yet still retaining the utility available with it? Well, here’s what I think:

Remove half of the damage of Hornet Sting and place it onto Monarch’s Leap, that way we get the utility of the evade with Hornet Sting, and we get more of a reward for actually using Monarch’s Leap as an attack. Change the application of cripple to weakness — a condition rangers have very little access to. Now we have to make a decision between distancing ourselves further, or hopping back into the fray with an attack that will output solid damage and a very useful condition. Sounds fun.

thefantasticg.3984:

I don’t care. I like the sword as is. I don’t feel the need to have it changed. I use #2 and #3 to dodge. I can break animation/bind easily. I even use it with auto-attack and still don’t have problems.

I sincerely believe it is a L2P issue unlike the pets that are an actual and admitted problem.

I agree with everything said here. Ranger class does have some glaring issues (Furiously watches my Wolf F2 cancel itself because he wanted to reposition,) but the sword isn’t really one of them.

I want to see a buff to Monarch Leap, that’s about it.

I wish ANet would quit being lazy and give pet classes actual numbers in stats like condition damage, healing power, and critical damage. They could really open up some nice option by doing this.

Maybe porcine or bear pets have huge healing power and actually make taking Natural Healing worth it at the cost of having otherwise pooptastic pets? Maybe felines have higher critical damage than birds, but birds have higher condition damage? Of course they’d have to make Rending Attacks work for ALL pets, but I feel like that’s a no-brainer anyway.

It kittenes me off that there are no Alpine Stalkers, Rock Drakes, or Coyotes.

thefantasticg.3984:

Sevans.4619:

Some of you guys are really depressing. Rangers shouldn’t be struggling with almost any class in 1v1, PU Mesmers and some other condition builds excluded. About the only thing I glean from most of the posts here on the Ranger sub-forum is that a lot of you guys need to step up your game.

Ranting aside — It’s tough to make an all around build for any class. PvE enthusiasts swear by Zerker stats only and that’s suicide in WvW for any class other than a Thief. The build I use now was designed to be a roaming spec for WvW and a good enough PvE spec for when I want to run dungeons/LS content with guildies.

PM me if you want more details.

This guy… I’ve seen enough bad Rangers in dungeons to know I’m not amongst their ranks so I will assume you were talking to other people and not myself. The OP asked for a best general build siting WvW as a small fraction of the play time. Had it been reversed then I would have suggested something other than Zerker. I think a Celestial armor w/zerker trinkets/weapons ain’t that bad in PVE. Infact, I even have a set for my Ranger. But, most of the time I’m running the Zerker gear… and always traited for most DPS on all my toons.

It wasn’t directed at anyone personally, but it applies to a lot of the posters in this sub forum. Instead of trying to solve problems and better themselves they’d rather scream for nerfs or blame classes (theirs or the ones beating them) for their loss.

It reminds me of playing MvC2 back in the days of arcade yore. There was a particular group of people who would blame their losses on the characters and not the fact that they didn’t spend time practicing the game, like the people beating them. It’s the same situation here, where these players want to see the results of practice and hard work without having to do any of that.

I could post a novella on this topic, but it would only further derail what the OP asked.

I agree with you, G, and your suggestion of going mostly (or all) Zerker stats since OP wants to spend most of his or her time in PvE. I just couldn’t ignore the fact that going full Zerk probably won’t get them great results in WvW.

Some of you guys are really depressing. Rangers shouldn’t be struggling with almost any class in 1v1, PU Mesmers and some other condition builds excluded. About the only thing I glean from most of the posts here on the Ranger sub-forum is that a lot of you guys need to step up your game.

Ranting aside — It’s tough to make an all around build for any class. PvE enthusiasts swear by Zerker stats only and that’s suicide in WvW for any class other than a Thief. The build I use now was designed to be a roaming spec for WvW and a good enough PvE spec for when I want to run dungeons/LS content with guildies.

PM me if you want more details.

Having no condition removal is gonna suck eggs.

A lot of Ranger GS burst builds pour 30 points into Marksmanship for the Signet traits; They then take Signet of the Hunt and Signet of the Wild. Your initial burst is insane with this set-up.

I agree that it feels lackluster for a GM trait, but as Durzlla kind of touched on, Rangers already have access to a fair bit of regen, so buffing this without over buffing it would be difficult.

It never quite made sense to me how Rangers get penalized for having pets when no other class has to deal with that for their class mechanic.

Okay, so we have pets, and so our own damage output took a hit to make up for that? I would rather pets do next to no damage and be there strictly for utility if it means we got to do more damage.

Part of what annoys me about this so much is how much more adversely it effects power rangers than condition rangers.

I really can’t wrap my head around the idea that people are opposed to consensual dueling in the open world. Just click “No.”

Or heck, make it a toggle on the Hero page. “Allow Dueling? Y/N.” That way these folks wouldn’t even be bothered with having to decline duels.

I appreciate and support the goal of this thread.

Pet Wishes
1st Wish = Make the names stick.
2nd Wish = Visible boons and conditions.
3rd Wish = Reduce the cast time on many of the skills, they’re too slow.
4th Wish = Bat pets.
5th Wish = A small across-the-board stat boost to keep up with ascended gear.

Weapon Wishes
1st Wish = Sword skill Monarch Leap given 20% Damage boost, applies weakness instead of cripple.
2nd Wish = Longbow skill Hunter’s Shot damage boosted to max range auto damage.
3rd Wish = Dagger skill Stalker’s Strike physical damage increased.
4th Wish = Longbow skill Barrage has a base cooldown of 24 instead of 30.
5th Wish = Longbow range default is now 1500. (Won’t happen, but I can wish!)

Trait Wishes
1st Wish = Oakheart Salve cures two conditions on heal use.
2nd Wish = Master’s Bond changed to “Pet gains 10% of your stats as their own.”
3rd Wish = Martial Mastery now has a chance to reduce Sword/GS/Spear skill cooldowns by one second on critical hit. Moved to Grandmaster tier.
4th Wish = Empathic Bond moved to Master tier. (For the sake of build diversity.)
5th Wish = Primal Reflexes now also grants 3 seconds of regeneration.

Utility Skill Wishes
1st Wish = ‘Protect Me’ grants your pet 6 seconds of protection on use.
2nd Wish = Lightning Reflexes removes immobilize, chill, and cripple.
3rd Wish = Viper’s Nest now scales well with power and also applies Torment.
4th Wish = Signet of Renewal no longer requires your pet to be near you to remove your conditions.
5th Wish = New elite skill! “Summon Lunar Wolf”

Kilger.5490:

Sevans.4619:

Kilger.5490:

I’m finding quickdraw a bit less important these days with the LB#1 damage more evened out, however I like using my great sword a lot when closer anyway.

I couldn’t disagree with this more. Quick Draw has nothing to do with increasing your damage output and everything to do with surviving via Hunter’s Shot and Point Blank Shot.

Quick draw did have a lot to do with increasing my longbow dps with more instances of rapid fire, but now it matters less, since the autoattack damage is normalized more at short/medium range with the patch. This is the point of what I was saying, and part of the appeal of the trait was lost, “for me”.

Dont worry, I understand your point. I did qualify what I was saying I like using my great sword, so please… come closer. But thats a bit tangental to what the OP needs to know about.

I get you, just saying Quick Draw is there to keep them at max range, where longbow really stings.

Next time I’m in JQ Borderlands, I’ll look you up and we’ll see how that greatsword of yours performs.

Aww, bummer! 4 second AoE stun sounded sexy.

Kilger.5490:

I’m finding quickdraw a bit less important these days with the LB#1 damage more evened out, however I like using my great sword a lot when closer anyway.

I couldn’t disagree with this more. Quick Draw has nothing to do with increasing your damage output and everything to do with surviving via Hunter’s Shot and Point Blank Shot.

This is neat. Static Field + Moment of Clarity might be the best use of that Grandmaster trait that I’ve seen thus far. Kudos.

You’re right that 20 Marks/20 Skirm is a good base for Longbow sniping. Eagle Eye is neat for catching people that are running away and Quick Draw is incredibly important to reduce the cooldown of Hunter’s Shot and Point Blank Shot, which are your key tools in maintaining 1000+ range.

Do yourself a favor and use your first Marksmanship trait for Malicious Training and pick up either Jungle Spider/Canyon Spider or Jungle Spider/Wolf. I know that the 10% damage boost is enticing, but you’ll be losing more damage than that without spiders spitting 5 second immobilizes all over the place, or a wolf casting 3 second aoe fear, keeping enemies away. It’s the best thing a longbow Ranger can do for themselves.

You get a lot of mileage out of Sigil of Air on a Longbow, it’s about like adding an extra shot to Rapid Fire every time you use it. Since you plan on using this bursty Zerker style, I feel like you’ll get more use out of it than Force.

I can’t tell you to not play Zerker Longbow, but it’s much more of a tactical sustain weapon than it is a burst weapon. It pairs really well with Sword/Dagger for this reason.

Technobabble is good for Rangers if you use the grandmaster trait Moment of Clarity. It becomes a 6 second daze, if I’m not mistaken.

This actually amuses me because I madesimilar progression to get where I am now. I felt that the perma regen was a bit too much, so I dropped 20 of my Nature Magic points and put 10 into Marks and Skirm each for more utility and offense.

What you’ve just posted could work, but there are a few problems:

- Dolyak Runes provide very little regen and tend to be best switched for a runeset with a more noticeable effect. I went with Traveler runes so I could drop Signet of the Hunt for another utility slot and got some stats and boon/condi duration in the process.

- You are using Signet of Stone for nothing other than the toughness boost, which I don’t feel is worth it, especially since it’s using valuable space where a stun breaker could be.

- Your only stun breaker is Shared Anguish, so you don’t even get to control which stun you’re breaking. Not good.

- Greatsword is still doodoo.

- I don’t think Moment of Clarity is worth the extra points in Skirmishing unless you’re running some gimmick stun build like Xsorus’ Technobabble build or that whacky Boar Fear build. And even then… I’m not so sure.

I play Sylvari Ranger because the race is just really well designed (aesthetically.)

And in WvW 5x Sylvari + Take Root + Immob Spam = Very funny small scale encounters.

I used to run a a very similar set-up like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNAsYTnEV0FcfFKWwaZAp9ITsEM5VYWcPQF/LELZUVA-j0BBYgCikIBiKAM7sIasFVFRjVXDT5iIqWGAzxA-w

Not exactly what I ran, but I just altered what you had there a little bit. I got the idea from Bredin, who’s an incredible Ranger player on Tarnished Coast. It’s a roaming/dueling spec and it’s disgustingly good in that scenario.

Sword/Dagger > Greatsword in every way possible for small scale fighting.

Thieves are capable of getting out of combat with any class, not just Rangers. I roam with a power build in WvW and most Thieves are a joke. You just have to remember that the victory is yours when they throw up that white flag; I know it’s not how people want to win but in this case it’s all you’ve got. A smart Thief that doesn’t want to die isn’t going to. That’s all there is to it.

Rangers are also capable of handling multiple enemies at once, but obviously we aren’t going to do it as well as some classes. Hell, no more than an hour ago I won a 4v1 (They had two uplevels, to be fair,) and a 3v1 (No uplevels here.) Yeah, probably not the best players but you aren’t going to win a Xv1 against anybody that’s actually at your skill level.

This class really isn’t as bad as people make it out to be, the players playing it are just bad. I target Rangers first in WvW because half the time they don’t even bother moving during combat. I literally fought another Ranger who did not move other than when I hit him with Point Blank Shot. That’s just sorry.

Yeah, pets need a lot of work. Nobody can disagree with that. In the mean time, use spiders. They’re our best pet.

That was enjoyable. Good to see some racial elite usage.

I occasionally use the Sylvari elite Druid spirit for fun!

atheria.2837:

Sevans.4619:

You could look up any of Xsorus’ BM Bunker builds, because they are the most effective and efficient BM builds around.

If you just want a really, really strong pet without worrying about your survivability against… well, anything, try a might stacking build with 15 in NM for Fortifying Bond.

Something like this is silly, but a lot of fun — http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBMhF6koiqg7rQxCWLEEtCUip4QJ6pI9q3pw/e6ifSbC-jECBYgCikIBiIAMBqIasVOFRjVbDT7aR1qYAyAwsAA-w

Your pets are murderous with a spec like that. It is tailored for the upcoming patch, as well.

I melted under the build in less time than my old build.

The search for a decent WvW build solo or zerg continues.

The build I posted isn’t designed to be good, honestly. It’s a Beastmaster spec that focuses heavily on pet damage. It’s pretty awful.

If you melted with Xsorus’ build, then I think you have a problem.

GS is better at zerging and racing from one end of a map to the other. I guess, maybe, a front-loaded signet Ranger with Maul. That’s it, though.

Sword auto is stronger, the “Maul” burst is less damage than the sword auto chain, but is very easy to dodge. Poison is insanely good in roaming situations. The dagger cripple is longer than the GS cripple. Once you get good at using Hornet Sting/Monarch Leap, the sword probably better at running away while in combat.

The poison and the built-in evades are the trump cards, though. Both of these things are very important. Hornet Sting also has a lot of synergy with Longbow, since you can press 2, weapon swap, then hit PBS to put about max range between you and your target.

Well, you mentioned that you never really used anything other than longbow so I figured I’d take advantage of that by having some on-swap sigils between two longbows. I use Sigil of Battle on my build (Longbow, Sword/Dagger) and I definitely notice a difference when I have six or nine stacks of might. You gotta think about what that translates to in stats — The answer is, I think, 315 power and condition damage.

If you aren’t feeling the dual LB idea (It was just a for fun thing,) then give sword/dagger a try! The permanent poison uptime and the built in evades are great for dueling and roaming in WvW.

If you’re feeling less resistant, consider doing what I do and switch food to mango pie and one utility to Signet of the Wild. Even with 30 healing power (Traveler runes,) you’re still getting 150 hp/s, which is kind of a big deal in a prolonged fight.

If you don’t feel like you want or need a bunch of stun breaks then absolutely throw something that you enjoy using in there. Maybe throw in a Spike Trap and switch Primal Reflexes trait with Sharpened Edges. That combined with Sword/Dagger on swap can stack up a few bleeds to keep up a little damage pressure.

Here’s a revised build! Maybe it’ll be more fun for you.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNAT8YlEVirWZRxCg9AwSBg91eMZmYyUYIjlsioA-jECB4fCyEEwkIBK7sIaslhFRjVbDT7aR1qYAyAYOBA-w

It’s because we forget their names after getting knocked around by hammer warriors.

J/K, they are free kills.

I feel ya on wanting to use Ranger LB a lot — It’s by far my favorite weapon in the game. Very tactical, you gotta play smart and use spacing to your advantage more so than any other weapon in the game. I dig that. Unfortunately, using it all the time is gonna get ya bopped, it’s pretty awful up close.

But I’m not here to tell you how to play.

I came up with this build to accommodate what you asked in your little novella up there:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJATTnEVUZZWQ+VAYbgYpAQ9p9YSZCTMF8nRlsioA-j0BB4fBiEJQZnFRjtMsIasabYaXLqWFDQGAmJA-w

- Dual LB set-up with Sigils of Battle. There you go, Longbow forever and always, just swap when your 10 second timer is up and you’re going to sit at 6 or 9 stacks of Might for an entire fight. Nifty. (By the way, I don’t condone dual anything, but I let myself have a little fun with this one.)

- Eagle Eye is in, Quick Draw is in, Soften the Fall is in; As are Healing Spring and Hounds of Balth. Hoorah.

- I agree that once you get used to 25% bonus movement speed, there’s no going back. Traveler runes are here (I use them as well.) It frees up a utility slot for more survivability.

- Speaking of survivability, this build is about as anti-condition as a Ranger can get. Empathic Bond, Healing Spring, Signet of Renewal and condition duration reduction food. We’ve also got three stun breaks, four if you count Shared Anguish (Which I included because you hate your pet, you meanie.) Over 1.7K toughness and 18K health, so you’re rather beefy.

- Malicious Training + Jungle Spider is about the most important thing any longbow Ranger can do for themselves (really any Ranger, but that’s for another conversation.) The Wolf is also great for creating space when somebody gets in. I highly recommend sticking with these pets, but if you have to switch then Snow Leopard or Alpine Wolf can work in place of regular Wolf, because chill is pretty cool.

- Just gonna go ahead and say that there is… no team support in this build beyond healing spring and signet of renewal. Sadly, Rangers just aren’t good at team support unless we spec spirits, which we haven’t done here.

You shouldn’t have too many problems capping camps with this. Barrage first, ask questions later. Focus down Scouts because blind is lame. Should do okay when roaming, but the dual longbow is gonna be a problem. Of course if you’re used to longbow only gameplay then it won’t be a big change.

Hopefully this helps a bit. Feel free to add me in game for more in-depth insights and strats. I love Ranger talk.

Hilt Bash + Maul is nice and you’re right, it’s a nice way to land a Maul on some players. That said, your combo starter is on a 25 second cooldown unless traited. That’s a pretty long time.

Natural Healing is a 30 point investment for a very small heal. It’s really good at keeping your pet alive, because they heal more with it, but I don’t like taking it just for us unless the whole point of your build is regen.

I see very little reason to go past 20 in the BM line, those extra points are better spent getting Fortifying Bond in the Nature Magic tree, because that trait is better for your pet than anything in the Beast Mastery tree. Go figure.

The skill is already pretty great. The damage is negligible and I’d like to see it be replaced with the ability to cleanse immob, cripple, and chill.

I like it, I just wish that they would make dodges override leaps like weapon swaps do.

I’ve had a Jungle Stalker smack a WvW guard for about 6.5K with no points in Beast Mastery.

I use a power Longbow + Sword/Dagger build in WvW and have very little problems beating most folks that aren’t condi PU Mesmers and a lot of Necros.

Longbow isn’t a burst weapon, it’s a tactical one. It’s got a three second stealth and an awesome knockback both on low cooldowns, and that really grants this weapon a ton of survivability. Contrary to what a lot of people say, you need not go full glass to make longbow effective, and honestly, I think you’re not playing to the weapons strengths if you go full glass. It’s a long range harass/survival weapon until you can get in melee range (which all Rangers need to embrace.)

Speaking of melee… I don’t recommend GS, it’s bad for anything other than zerg surfing. Maul is good damage, but easily avoidable. LB/GS is too defensive, and I think Sword/Dagger on swap is going to do a lot more for you. Not only does sword do way more sustained damage, but you get permanent poison uptime with that set and three built in evades.

I got to fight this build tonight — It’s pretty nasty.