Guild Wars 2

C Gunner.9406:

At one point we were contemplating building an AC to reveal him..
If he wanted to he could have taken us all down one by one.. kinda sucks

lol

cc hard counter almost every thief build.

I agree with Sol on pretty much everything. Also, anyone who doubts about the mobility problem with ranger is either not being honest or haven’t played enough other classes like elementalist, warrior, thief, mesmer and enginer, which have extreme mobility without making sacrifices. I could see one class being the king of mobility, but when almost everyone except the ranger is good at it looks like we’re being punished for some noticeable advantage in another field, like for example gurdians and necros being extremely good at survival. We’re not the kings of burst, bunker, dps, sustain and pretty sure we’re not the kings of utility. So what is exactly that thing we have? The pet?

Right now the ranger feels like the low skill class to introduce people who start the game. Low skill cap weapon (longbow), low risk (range) and high reward while playing on the lower tiers (arenas and wvw pug zergs), mixed with some sort of “collection” (most of the pest are just that, something you collect but you won’t use because of the RNG and not being able to control the skills).

Actually, it’s pretty balanced. Knockback, fear, aoe damage, etc, work perfect against SR. In fact I would give SR a bit more radius so the thief can counterplay the SR’s counterplay by dodging (usually you don’t have that many dodges when using SR, so not a big change).

Ranger isn’t good at gvg or zergs. While I agree that retaliation is a passive mechanic, Lb ranger itself isn’t what I would call skillfull or active play. It’s a rewarding and low skill based weapon, for a class not well designed for zergs.

I don’t think retaliation should be removed, maybe tweaked but not too much. What needs change is the ranger, and not the Lb. They need a weapon to FIT in zergs instead of just pewpew from 1500 and get rekt by thieves.

Ok, first, I play both, ranger and thief (tho I main ranger)

That being said, the tracking makes no sense from a realistic point of view. But for that to change how you (OP) want it, you should change how channeled skills mechanic works, otherwise you’re just breaking those skills (RF, unload, sneak attack, etc) and nerfing them to oblivion against thieves, engis, mesmers (I play those 3, so yeah).

And to be honest, those 3 shouldn’t have problems anyway. Mesmers can reflect, engis have so many blocks they don’t even care and thieves… thieves are the only ones that will benefit of this to the point where they completely destroy LB ranger. You would only need stealth on steal or BP, you wait for the ranger to use RF, and then the fight is pretty much over.

Now, going back to the tracking no making sense, I agree. They should make channeled skills able to cancel, and when they do the CD is reduce by a fair amount (for both parties) like 2,3 secs. So yeah, you can counterplay massive range burst with 1 buttom, but they can counterplay yours by cancelling. So both gain from active gameplay.

They need to add more control over pet skills so you can do combos with your own. Like condibomb, cc chains, burst, etc.

For example, the drake, if we could activate the Tail attack as the F2, we could have an on demand blast + weakness, which gives more utility but isn’t game breaking.
The spider could have the poison field that way too, which means you could chain it with f2 so it has some use, birds with on demand swiftness, canines with with knockbacks, and the list go on.

That alone would make all pets useful and the whole class more fun without making it OP.

And yes, I know most of these things could be done just by having the pet on passive and using the attack buttom. But thats exactly the problem, it isn’t precise. We’re forced to make that or rely on RGN and it has several problems. Like we can’t blast combo fields if we’re not in combat or if the fight goes on we can’t know when people will use their combo fields and/or t he drake will use the blast, we have the pet on passive which means it can’t do damage to make it use that one skill on the right time, etc.

So, rewarding skill based gameplay instead of what we have now, a random punishing mechanic.

Edit:

Let’s see other classes:

Thief. Steal deppends on the class targeted so the thief can decide what he needs more. Necro’s fear, warrior’s whirling axe, rangers condi clear + regeneration, mesmer’s plasma, etc. But that’s not all, it also Shadow Step to the foe, wich is really good. And it can be traited to do damage, daze, condi bomb with one of the stronger conditions in the game (confusion), grant stealth, etc.

Mesmer. They have a set of skills that work for raw and condi damage at the same time. It also works for CC and survibability.

Enginer. The mother of utilities. For real: stealth, boons, condi to boons, condi damage, healing, etc. This is like rangers should work, but instead of decide which utilities you want to affect your toolbelt before the fight begins, you have to decide which pets you want to use. So, in total we could have 4 utilities (two on each pet) with their cooldowns and the pet switch mechanic CD, and the punishing dead pet mechanic still in place.

And these are just some examples. But all the classes have good class mechanics (please necros, don’t kill me, I know you have some problems too) that make you play with it, not just decide if you want it on passive and a attack / comeback buttom.

But P/P has nothing to do with P/D. One is power / iniative based, and the other is condi. While I do agree than 1vs1 dire condi thief is just cheesy (you even go one step forward and put perplexity; it can’t be more cheesy than that), if you’re a roamer playing on servers that lack small scale fights, then I can see you playing condi.

You can be really good D/P or D/D, but you won’t be able to handle more than 2 experienced players on those sets. Key word: “experienced”. Of course that you can destroy small groups if they don’t know where the keyboard is

And yes, it isn’t fun to destroy people 1vs1, but let’s be honest, except for 1 or 2 classes, most of the thief builds have the potential to easily destroy everyone on a 1v1 situation.

What we need is more control over pet skills. Like f2, but 1 or 2 more.

Karil.5960:

Someday.3650:

It’s not about “viable” and more about “how fast”. I won’t be stuck on a 40 min long fractal with a healing support ranger, nor with a lb ranger (except some fights). And not to be rude, but your guild a) Are Good friends or b) lack knowledge and/or skill.

In PvE, DPS > Healing

Hence, frost spirit, spotter, sword and wh are a must. Drakes, and the feline with the might f2 are too, and sometimes also a trap fire when your team don’t have a fire field. I’ll go ahead and say that also 5 on NM is a must, otherwise you’re nerfing your pet, which is 30% (or so, I don’t remember the exact number) of your dps, and anyway you don’t need 6 on Skirmishing because you should be using zerks. Also, and axe for some fights won’t do any harm.

I don’t even know the people in my guild outside of the game, but we’re doing really awesome and the guys I run with are very highly skilled, thank you very much. Since my buffs, compounded with theirs increase our damage so much, we run fractals faster than our other groups that do full zergs.

In PvP of all sorts, I always get complimented on how well I can heal people up, cleanse them, and buff them, people around me take a longer time to die meaning we can hold a point better than a full zerg.

I agree with Nature Magic points, and I agree on Skirmishing points. Axe+Warhorn is my secondary set, too.

But I agree, Skill and Knowledge are what is necessary to make a build function, and if someone can’t run a healing and support build then they lack those qualities.

EDIT: If you can’t agree with this, then we shall agree to disagree. I have the facts of experience with my build and guild, and you have some opinion on a broken and one dimensional meta. I won’t be defending an amazing build anymore, if you don’t look into it then it is your loss.

I don’t think that any of the ranger builds could be consider rocket science. That being said, is not about how complex or how much skills it needs but how the game is designed. Healing in pve isn’t the way to go. In WvW or in low mmr PvP it could be great and fun, that’s for sure.

And yeah, I don’t see how you could possibly do better time with your group than a damage speced one. But hey, you can play the way you like, so if it works for you and your guild kudos.

Lazze.9870:

Someday.3650:

Well, I don’t agree. I think those 100 from each are overrated on a zerker build. I’ll try to compare both later to see the numbers on a golem tho.

From what I can see, you’re better off spending your time practicing flanking. You don’t need a 100 % uptime on Hunter’s Tactic for it to be the better choice. The extra points in precision and ferocity are just a bonus.

You’re missing out on companions might too. That may result in a further DPS loss.

Spirit Unbound is redundant. You can simply reset the spirit from your utility bar instead of having it following you. You can stop investing in Nature Magic at Fortifying Bond.

I don’t need to practice flanking, because a) I have a thief and in PVE thief is about flanking, b) I don’t think that always work. It would work that way if the meta wasn’t about stacking and dishing dps. Sometimes when you flank, you force your team to do the same thing or the boss to move from the spot it should be, hence it’s not always a good way to go and you know that.

Btw, I don’t lose companions might because I do run 3 on skirm. Actually I didnt say in this post that running skirmishing was a total lost, I did say that prefer 5 on NM instead of 5 on Skirm because the differences are not that big and boost from NM is more reliable. So what you are saying isn’t exact because I do have some of that critical and ferocity. What I’m saying is that pulling criticals and flanking all the time won’t be as good as having all the boons you will have for more time. Take for example Rampage as One, is a might scalling skill with stability, both things really usefull on hard boss fights. Which of this is better, having a 5-6% boost on damage on 2 hits and then get a knockback that cuts all dps, or a constant influx of dps without that 5-6%. Yeah I know that in the paper seems a bit better, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to the game.

Izaya.2906:

Someday.3650:

Well, I don’t agree. I think those 100 from each are overrated on a zerker build. I’ll try to compare both later to see the numbers on a golem tho.

I’ll give you the numbers now, 100 precision is roughly 4-5% critical chance depending on what precision you have, translating to 4-5% DPS boost, 100 ferocity is 5-6% DPS boost because 99% crit rate is already a given with a ranger and a warrior, that’s 9-11% DPS ranger boost you’re losing.

It’s not “overrated”, it’s objectively better than 1k HP and 10% boon duration, the other damage bonus proc is just a plus.

Oh I also forgot to post earlier, Bountiful Hunger isn’t mathematically a 10% boost in total DPS, your ranger makes up roughly 70-80% and pet makes up 20-30%, haven’t checked the actual number but lets be generous and give the pet 30%.

Rough estimations, no flanking:
Hunter’s Tactics : 70%(x 1.09) + 30%(x1) = 106.3% total DPS
Bountiful Hunter: 70%(x1.05)+ 30%(1.05) = 105% total DPS

So 5 in Skirmishing without flanking already out damages 5 in Nature Magic by 1+%.

With damage modifiers being multiplicative, after you apply 10% to ranger dps you get 8-9% more total DPS with Hunter’s Tactics proccing.

I totally agree with your math but not with your point of view. As I’ve said, I think those 2 traits on NM are more reliable than on Skirm. What I did say about the 5% on each is that most people ignore the existence of BH and because of that they think the difference is really big when it really isn’t.

Without flanking you have a 1%+ and I don’t think flanking is reliable hence I prefer having the boon share and boon duration, which also translate into damage and survivability because of fury, migth, etc.

Also, be honest, let’s say you’re actually procing HT and you have that 10% more dps. That’s what, 100-400 more damage depending on the dungeon.

I know you think is by far better, I just don’t see it. At least not in this game where most of the fights are about stacking tight and sharing boons.

Edit: Sorry for my english, it isn’t my main language :P. And I won’t keep reading comments relatated with this because I know that in the numbers it looks better. You can even call it a win if you want.

Well, I don’t agree. I think those 100 from each are overrated on a zerker build. I’ll try to compare both later to see the numbers on a golem tho.

J Eberle.9312:

Someday.3650:

J Eberle.9312:

warhorn 5. Drake also has a blast although u cant really decide when to use that.

@ Someday. The new meta is here, ideal build is 6/5/0/3/0. It’s a few changes to add more damage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bn_BbxLbDY

Don’t need as many points in Nature magic, and Axe offhand is a better deal than Warhorn while in combat for most cases. Warhorn should mostly be used outside of combat for blasting fire/stealth and providing swiftness.

And agreed, speccing for ‘healing’ is not good idea for PvE on ranger.

Uhm I don’t agree with the traits to be honest just because that 5%+ damage is not something reliable on the stack meta, but you always have boons and that 5% also works for the pet, so you’re obtaining that 10% always instead of depending how the stack is or if the boss is using knockbacks. Some people don’t use 5 on NM because they don’t see value on using Spirit Unbound, and I would agree except for the fact that most fights, if the group is somewhat good, won’t last more than 30-40 seconds and then you’re on the run again.
Axe is good, I agree with that, but I won’t let my horn in my inventory while pugging, because most of the time people won’t use blast finishers. I’ve been on parties where I was the only one using it…

But yeah, that isn’t a bad build either.

A little trick to running with just 3 in NM is that once your fight is over and out are out of combat you can swap out frost spirit for something else, eg signet of the hunt to immediately start the 20 second cooldown, I find in many cases by the time I arrive at next fight I have frost spirit back up again to use. I’ll probably only take a point out of skirm and place into NM for unbound for few select things like the end of AC P2 on detha traps where I’m moving between mobs way too frequently for the skill swapping to work out.

I’m not quite sure what you are trying to say about the stack meta. The 10% to your damage and 5% to your pet’s damage from predator’s onslaught is pretty consistent I have found, the mob doesn’t need to be moving, it just has to have one of those conditions on it which is very, very common even in parties where people are completely unaware.

I was talking about Hunter’s Tactics 10% boost vs the 5% to the ranger and 5% to the pet from running 5 on NM.

J Eberle.9312:

warhorn 5. Drake also has a blast although u cant really decide when to use that.

@ Someday. The new meta is here, ideal build is 6/5/0/3/0. It’s a few changes to add more damage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bn_BbxLbDY

Don’t need as many points in Nature magic, and Axe offhand is a better deal than Warhorn while in combat for most cases. Warhorn should mostly be used outside of combat for blasting fire/stealth and providing swiftness.

And agreed, speccing for ‘healing’ is not good idea for PvE on ranger.

Uhm I don’t agree with the traits to be honest just because that 5%+ damage is not something reliable on the stack meta, but you always have boons and that 5% also works for the pet, so you’re obtaining that 10% always instead of depending how the stack is or if the boss is using knockbacks. Some people don’t use 5 on NM because they don’t see value on using Spirit Unbound, and I would agree except for the fact that most fights, if the group is somewhat good, won’t last more than 30-40 seconds and then you’re on the run again.
Axe is good, I agree with that, but I won’t let my horn in my inventory while pugging, because most of the time people won’t use blast finishers. I’ve been on parties where I was the only one using it…

But yeah, that isn’t a bad build either.

Karil.5960:

Veydar.5017:

Healing is a wasted stat in GW2 PvE. Support heavy builds are equally bad. I know, we can all play how we want and that’s okay. I just want you to know, that if you ever want to take your game to the next level, you should get rid of the support/defense and learn to live without it while still dealing far superior DPS.

My game is at a pretty high level now, and my guild loves taking me to pvp and dungeons because we don’t die and conditions don’t stick to us. I also do a fair bit of damage, not a ton, but it isn’t something to sneeze at. Healing is amazing in this game when you know how to do it. The only time that the build failed me was when we did a Fractal and got Social Awkwardness.
If I ever get some time to make a video about it, I will, but everyone should realize that support builds are far, far from horrible.

It’s not about “viable” and more about “how fast”. I won’t be stuck on a 40 min long fractal with a healing support ranger, nor with a lb ranger (except some fights). And not to be rude, but your guild a) Are Good friends or b) lack knowledge and/or skill.

In PvE, DPS > Healing

Hence, frost spirit, spotter, sword and wh are a must. Drakes, and the feline with the might f2 are too, and sometimes also a trap fire when your team don’t have a fire field. I’ll go ahead and say that also 5 on NM is a must, otherwhise you’re nerfing your pet, which is 30% (or so, I don’t remember the exact number) of your dps, and anyway you don’t need 6 on Skirmishing because you should be using zerks. Also, and axe for some fights won’t do any harm.

While I like your idea, I think it would suffice to let us use at least 1 or 2 more of our pets skills and tweak a little the IA.

-Byebye go-to / comeback-from buttons, welcome 2 new usable pet skills (they’re already there, but now we can actually decide when to use that poison field or that nice stun).
-Passive/agressive button changed to work also as go to or come back.

I prefer yours, but seems a bit too much to ask to be honest.

Dragonfeu.4356:

Would you recommend it?

I would. It’s an amazing tool for damage, stability and hp regen.

Pretty good ideas to be honest, but some of them need some tweaking and balancing. f2 for example, 1 condition and 2 secs of inmunity seems more accurate.

But I don’t see this happening.

kyubi.3620:

please… no. I play ranger for pets

THen you should buy a dog :P

I’ll give you the solution: Roll backwards. Profit.

If you’re getting hit by thieves all the time for 9k, then change your armor and traits. You’re running full glass bruh.

Cynz.9437:

Someday.3650:

Cynz.9437:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Cynz.9437:

ranger dmg isn’t issue really, the risk or rather lack of it is

Dodge once. You’ve negated at least 30% of their burst. Dodge twice, you’ve negated around 60% of it. The faster use means it’s far easier to avoid/block the damage, since most blocks are on at least a 3 second charge. Not to mention you can reflect the move and at that point it’s too late for them to stop it, so they kill themselves. The fast use IS the risk of the move, it’s far too easy to lessen the damage from it or send it back their way before they can stop it.

While it’s true RF is on an 8 second cooldown, for them to have that burst means they’re sacrificing all defense for it. The second you get into their face their attacks with LB will do crap damage and they will fold quite fast. Hell, condi-bombing with a necro’s Signet of Spite wrecks them instantly, because they have no way to get rid of those conditions.

The dangerous Rangers are the ones who actually run S/D as their 2nd set, and know how to use it…but I’ve seen more noobs using LB without switching than I have the good players, sadly.

1. dodge currently is bugged and you still eat full RF in dodge atm
2. reflects ironically actually have certain cast time, by the time you executed them you probably already ate most of the RF burst
2. smart ranger won’t just waste RF, they will knock you back (which you can’t even see due to lack of visible animation), fear, entangle, trap etc…. so you will either have to blow some stun breaker or eat full RF

yes, getting into ranger “face” can get ranger killed, but getting there is not THAT simple for every class, especially on maps like khylo or forest where ranger can sit somewhere high and you need to walk around the map to get there while he can free cast on your “face”

my point is, currently ranger is only class that doesn’t have to risk as much as other classes to pull out such burst
if you think that other zerkers don’t have to run glass and sacrifice a lot of survival and utilities, then i am sorry we must be playing different games

Yes, we’re playing different games. We play gw2 and you… well, not sure.

1) I never saw that happen. Never.
2) You can predict RF just like you can predict backstab.
3) LB rangers are all about burst. If you see one pop stability, dodge rf and then the fight is pretty much over… if you know how to play your class.
4) I don’t think that closing the gap is that hard. I don’t have that problem fighting rangers to be honest.
5)Thief is the only class that can burst without risk.

I play a ranger, yes. I don’t roam like a LB though, so I fight the LB rangers mostly with melee weapons all day long and can assure you they’re pretty easy to kill.

1. just because it didn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen… yes, it is incosistent but it happens sometimes
2. backstab is way easier to mititgate just alone by walking in circles/with back to the wall (not to mention blinds)… and spam aoe forcing thief to back off… can’t do it with ranger pew pewing from 1500
3. that is not true, rangers don’t have 1 weapon set and other do quite dmg as well
4. actually closing the gap is hard given the pvp map terrain
5. oh really? how come, elaborate please

this is not about 1v1 ranger in duels, this is about ranger or rather their burst in pvp = team fights + pvp map combo

1) I’m not the only one here saying it. In fact, right now you’re the only one saying that this happens. We all have guilds with several members and we all play the game daily, so kinda weird you’re the only one experiencing this.
2) You can break sight to avoid damage comming from LB. If you don’t know that, then the problem is not the LB. It’s your lack of experience fighting LB rangers. And don’t get me wrong, this is a common thing because LB rangers were at a pretty bad spot till this patch. All the sudden they’re something more than wxp nodes so it may be a surprise, I’ll give you that.
3) Not sure what you’re saying here. If the ranger isn’t using his LB you have time to use gap closers to get near him while he swaps weapons; no RF and no PB. Rangers don’t have other bursty ranged weapon beside LB.
4) In pvp, you have a team. LB ranger has a counter, like everyone else in this game.
5) They can chose when to fight. Rangers can’t. When the fight starts they’re IN THE FIGHT. They win or the lose.

Same here

15…..

Cynz.9437:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Cynz.9437:

ranger dmg isn’t issue really, the risk or rather lack of it is

Dodge once. You’ve negated at least 30% of their burst. Dodge twice, you’ve negated around 60% of it. The faster use means it’s far easier to avoid/block the damage, since most blocks are on at least a 3 second charge. Not to mention you can reflect the move and at that point it’s too late for them to stop it, so they kill themselves. The fast use IS the risk of the move, it’s far too easy to lessen the damage from it or send it back their way before they can stop it.

While it’s true RF is on an 8 second cooldown, for them to have that burst means they’re sacrificing all defense for it. The second you get into their face their attacks with LB will do crap damage and they will fold quite fast. Hell, condi-bombing with a necro’s Signet of Spite wrecks them instantly, because they have no way to get rid of those conditions.

The dangerous Rangers are the ones who actually run S/D as their 2nd set, and know how to use it…but I’ve seen more noobs using LB without switching than I have the good players, sadly.

1. dodge currently is bugged and you still eat full RF in dodge atm
2. reflects ironically actually have certain cast time, by the time you executed them you probably already ate most of the RF burst
2. smart ranger won’t just waste RF, they will knock you back (which you can’t even see due to lack of visible animation), fear, entangle, trap etc…. so you will either have to blow some stun breaker or eat full RF

yes, getting into ranger “face” can get ranger killed, but getting there is not THAT simple for every class, especially on maps like khylo or forest where ranger can sit somewhere high and you need to walk around the map to get there while he can free cast on your “face”

my point is, currently ranger is only class that doesn’t have to risk as much as other classes to pull out such burst
if you think that other zerkers don’t have to run glass and sacrifice a lot of survival and utilities, then i am sorry we must be playing different games

Yes, we’re playing different games. We play gw2 and you… well, not sure.

1) I never saw that happen. Never.
2) You can predict RF just like you can predict backstab.
3) LB rangers are all about burst. If you see one pop stability, dodge rf and then the fight is pretty much over… if you know how to play your class.
4) I don’t think that closing the gap is that hard. I don’t have that problem fighting rangers to be honest.
5)Thief is the only class that can burst without risk.

I play a ranger, yes. I don’t roam like a LB though, so I fight the LB rangers mostly with melee weapons all day long and can assure you they’re pretty easy to kill.

Paddy.3985:

Well, the last 3 rangers I’ve fought have ran to the water once they started to lose so… just let em go I guess, just not fight rangers at all? I’m relatively new to this, that sounds… pretty dumb.

Some classes can’t fight underwater, and if the enemy is a ranger you’re done. If you’re not fighting 3vs1, don’t fight any ranger underwater because if the ranger isn’t the worst ranger on earth you’ll lose.

Not dying is a victory in itself. So, don’t chase and be happy.

Klonko.8341:

You have zero mobility. Its bad for Wvw… If you dont take sword you cant roam.

mobility != evade

That build has mobility thanks to Signet of the hunt. But I agree with the sword part. Without healing power that toughness isn’t enough to make you survive fights that are not 1vs1 and roaming is all about 1vX fights. You need to evade like crazy to avoid as many attacks as possible while keeping health regenerating.

My advice, drop bow, and run axe/d, s/t. Also, I’m not a fan of crit+condis on ranger since condi can’t crit and your weapons don’t have powerfull attacks to proc nice crits. Beside that, some minor changes to sigils and that’s all.

But thats just me, the build isn’t bad. Good condi removal and nice bleed stacks.

You won’t get more than a burst of 10 confusion stacks and only if you somehow make your drake to hit the target with f2. After that you have 15 seconds cd on perplexity, thats longer than your interrupt’s cds.

5 stacks all time is really low, more so if you take into consideration that some classes can pull away those condis and have their cd back before yours. Asura daze is overkill for the same reason, you won’t use those to apply confusion because your weapon’s cooldowns are shorter than the one for the runes.

So, I don’t see this working. This could work with a drake f2 overhaul and some trait based changes to shortbow that make it apply low duration confusion.

Yeah I had a build like this one some time ago. It only works for pve (not dungeons).

In dungeons it wont work, bow still not the best weapon and the damage spikes are not that great to suffice the dps you lose by traiting 6 on BM. In WvW, to be honest, I don’t see it working but I haven’t tried my old build yet.

So now warriors have to fight for kills, good news.

loged just for this.

/Signed all over the kitten wall

oxtred.7658:

Someday.3650:

I made this build for another thread:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQNBjYDbkRlSWbZxjFqWDkIUNPhNgZAcAu/h1NqL5SVA-T1CBABmqCCU7PYkSPtUG0wBRAH1PA4JEkiuFKUC+gpvAuAABAOAY5ApAqYYE-w

It isn’t for PvE, just WvW.

80% crit with stacks, 100% with fury. This build bring tons of fury once the fight begins, so your only problem is the stack of precision.
It also brings tons of condi removal on demand, 2 breakstuns, cc, endurance, protection on evade and evades with sword.

You can change muddy terrain for Signet of Hunt if you want, but it doesn’t look like a good trade imo. In WvW you won’t be getting away of fights thanks to Signet of the Hunt. And the passive doesn’t stack with the swiftness from the horn, so kinda pointless. Muddy terrain, in the other hand, helps to make your evades a lot better by putting distance between you and melee attackers, also helps to maintain fury and get rid of condis.

You linked the wrong build, there’s no spotter in that.
Spotter being the only reason to take a ranger into dungeons above anything else, and since the op stated he wanted a pve build, I can only assume you linked the wrong build.

a) Read his post. He was talking about 100% critical across game modes, not PVE only.
b) I said that my build is for WvW only.

So now you can see that I actually gave him an answer. You can’t expect a single build to work for everything and since we don’t know if Frost Spirit change was intentional or not I won’t even botter crafting a build for PvE.

I made this build for another thread:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQNBjYDbkRlSWbZxjFqWDkIUNPhNgZAcAu/h1NqL5SVA-T1CBABmqCCU7PYkSPtUG0wBRAH1PA4JEkiuFKUC+gpvAuAABAOAY5ApAqYYE-w

It isn’t for PvE, just WvW.

80% crit with stacks, 100% with fury. This build bring tons of fury once the fight begins, so your only problem is the stack of precision.
It also brings tons of condi removal on demand, 2 breakstuns, cc, endurance, protection on evade and evades with sword.

You can change muddy terrain for Signet of Hunt if you want, but it doesn’t look like a good trade imo. In WvW you won’t be getting away of fights thanks to Signet of the Hunt. And the passive doesn’t stack with the swiftness from the horn, so kinda pointless. Muddy terrain, in the other hand, helps to make your evades a lot better by putting distance between you and melee attackers, also helps to maintain fury and get rid of condis.

Esplen.3940:

A-are we playing the same game?

He’s not playing the same, thats for sure.

“Rangers are death-delivery vehicles.” – Someone talking about other’s game rangers on the GW2 forum.

Sylent.3165:

Each auto attack should get like 7% dmg increase i think. Or they need to make the sword skills a little more useful. Unless you have conditions build which is rare then the sword skills are just pointless.

Condi build with GS? That makes no sense, at all. You have 0 condi damage with GS (not a single skill do some sort of condition damage). And stacking vulnerability with maul is poinless.

Much better to run LB with GS, you rapid fire the enemy, switch GS, 3, 2.

Also, ranger condi builds are not rare. Some of the best current meta builds are condi based builds. For example, FR condi ranger.

The advantages of GS are:
-Strait line gap closer / escape skill with 3
-And Maul if you’re able to crit with it (it will do A LOT of damage).

I like bows, but the shortbow won’t do any good on a power build. Also, that build doesn’t bring any sort of condi removal, burst or sustain (dps / health) to face a long condi fight.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQNBjYDbkRlSWbZxgFqWDkIUNDhTgZAcAu/h1NqL5SVA-T1CBABmqCCU7PYkSPtUG0wBRAH1PA4JEkiuFKUC+gpvAuAABAOAY5ApAqYYE-w

-Evades (Vigor + Sword 3 & 2)
-Kitting (sword 2 + Lighting Reflexes). It can be used with LB 3 and 4 for some serious kiting. Something like LB 4, 3, LR, switch sword, 2, turn, 2 and cya warrior.
-Protection with evades and health below 90%.
-100% crit with constant fury, and 211% crit damage. On numbers, a single rapid fire attack (not taking into account vulnerability stacks) would do a flat damage of 7k, thats 3-4k againsts heavies.
-LB short cooldowns with traits.
-Some armor.
-Combo with healing spring and WH 5 for team utility.
-6 ACTIVE condi removals.
-2 breakstuns.
-Some minor condi pressure and roots.
-Swiftness for roaming.
-Quickness for stomping and burst.
-Pet one spider for the cc and shared anguish (as a ranged pet, it won’t hurt her that much) and some might stacking with crits.
-Pet two wolf for quick pet switch fear combo + knockdowns.
-You can trade Companion’s Might for Agility training and run with a second wolf for chilling + more knockdowns.

Pew pew to the sky! Enjoy

Edit: Also, you can use the lynx wich will work great with Agility training or Companion’s Might, altough with the latest you’ll need to time the Lynx’s F2 with Hunter’s Shot for the amazing condi damage it brings (Like really, test it on pvp if you have doubts).

With this build you should be able to out-duel anyone and maybe win some 2vs1 fights.

Full regen ranger is the best ranger build, on wvw, and regen build across classes, imo. For PVE it lacks the power and crit to make things fast on dungeons, but you can solo karkas like a boss.

You can’t die on 1v1 if you play your cards rights. You can even fight 2 or 3 players at the same time.

Only 1 arrow but you can choose when. I usually wait till the channel bar from RF is almost at the end and pop it, that way I’m doing more damage just from vuln stacks.

All I can see in this post is a mesmer group mad because they’re losing their xp nodes with the next ranger patch. And most of you agree that thief > mesmer.
Well, guess what, rangers CAN’T do a thing against thieves either. The only way we can outplay a thief is if he is the worst thief ever. But, guess again what, we’re outplayed by MESMERS and every other class in the game.

Facts:
1) You have a viable build, more or less, but still you can do good. If you can’t win, you ALWAYS can kite even outnumbered and survive if you play your cards right. Rangers can’t. We have on LB 1 skill for stealth (worthless), on SB skill 3 (a joke for disengage), torch-axe-horn (escape? I don’t think so). We have 2 skills to disengange, 3 on GS which doesn’t work if your enemy is following just you (he’ll get you, sooner or later) and “no target, 2, spin, 2” manouver on sword wich means you have to use sword and you have to be good doing that. And even so, usually you need to do one more spin and play a right LR with another spin more. Yeah, that easy to scape =)

2) Rangers have 0 builds beside sPvP spirit wich is not what most people think of or want from a ranger (a DPS class acting as a low cond dealer and tank home holder… what?)

3) Rangers are a DPS “all in” class. We can’t disengage, we need to kill the enemy or die. Hey if you ask me, I would prefer survivability but at least ArNt is now giving us some dps to at least have a chance.

Lets be clear. If you want to ask for stuff, ask for ArNt to fix the bugs and to balance thieves. The word ranger shouldn’t be on those topics.

Go go power rangers

Pets should have aimbot for sure. If I’m going to lose how to manage 30% of my dps and cc hidden behind some random AI mechannic, then I want it to land 100% of time. Otherwise, they should gives us back our dps and make pets optionals and support.

Hey, I don’t play ranger for the pet but for being an archer but I can dig a pet class if the pets ACTUALLY do something.

I made a build like this myself before knowing how the forage skill works. Oh my… it was a bad mistake.
The skill should work like it works for other classes (like thiefs) and put it on your hand, not in the ground. I don’t see myself picking up stuff in the middle of a wvw fight or battle, and I don’t know why somebody will do this on a pvp fight. Do it and you’re done.

The only use, IMO, is to enter keeps unnoticed and then change the pet for something else.

Also, we don’t have enough stealth mechanics to bring enough dps in builds like this. You could make like what, 3-4 crits (if you’re running superior runes of infiltration and WS)… you could have 75% or more crit chance on each attack with a 6-2-0-0-6 build and free Zephyrs each time you activate the pet or switch it.