Thanks for all the help I do want to focus on DPS more than anything else so I will go with the berserker.
I just wanted to be sure about what I’m going to use and not to pick random stats that will probably get me killed frequently
Berserker will often get you killed. It’s, however, the best set for practice.
The content is made around active damage mitigation in terms of stealth, aegis, Protection boon and most importantly – evade mechanic.
This game doesn’t promote triangle game-style of Tank-Healer-DPS. Everyone is a DPS or support (usually offensive support)
You as a ranger have a hard challenge in front of you since Sword weapon is the one with the highest DPS as well as the most risky mechanic of rooted attack chain (requires practice to stop attacking in order to evade).
But sword also has an in-built evade mechanic that you can use to avoid damage.
PvE world of Guild Wars 2 works around as much DPS as you can get. Because of a very basic logic.
The sooner your target dies – the less damage it deals.
Defensive stats from items are not worth the DPS drop. Let’s say you’ll get 3000 more HP from items. That will help you survive 1 more attack. But for that to happen you need to sacrifice around 20% of your damage that is much more than 1 attack of your enemy.
Plus… By dodging or evading an attack – you take no damage at all which is far more beneficial than tanking the hit.
Yea… I only briefly checked through it. I saw something mentioned but I still think that having a transformation race is good enough in terms of options.
Transformation is a game-play that a lot of people shun and don’t like. Forcing it onto rangers just like a healer role is not a way to go.
Have you tried playing the Norn?
…
The only thing I can think of about every single player asking for shape-shifting is this question. You can already play one.
I don’t see a reason why would ANet make another same concept (that we can already declared as miserable fail).
Also – ANet made Rangers a pet-class. Your suggestion goes strictly against their definition of ranger. The verdict would naturally be “Not happening”.
When it comes to my personal opinion – I don’t like shape-shifting. I like the style of dual target combat (pet) and the spotter running through the jungle by learning the way of nature and beastly tricks that he applies in smart combat.
I do not want to be a magical beast that fights with his body mass.
This bug is just plain weird. Sometimes Quickdraw triggers sometimes it doesn’t when exiting CAF. And when it doesn’t, swapping weapons will not trigger Quickdraw, the cooldown somehow refreshes.
It triggers if your entering CAF also triggered CAF every time.
It never triggers when you didn’t get the QD by entering CAF shortly before Wep Swap was ready.
I formerly though it doesn’t count if you “swap” to the weapon you started at – but that got denied when it didn’t proc even after swapping that weapon.
I haven’t been able to determine where the bug is, so far.
Well, for leveling, Glass cannon (= full offensive = Power-precision-ferocity or condition damage-precision-X) is probably the best choice. Your pet will tank most of the damage regardless.
When you are lvl 80, you should definitely aim for Berserker’s (Power,Prec,Fero).
Viper hybrid set is fine, too (Condi damage, Power, Precision, Condi Duration).
The bug consists of CAF “overwriting” the Quick Draw cooldown from weapon swap.
How can it be observed:
Enter combat
Swap Weapons
Wait till CD on Weapon swap is at 2 seconds
Enter CAF
Leave CAF once you see weapon swap available for use
Wonder why Quick Draw wasn’t activated
Swap Weapons to try proccing it again and hate your life for Quick Draw still not being activated*
I haven’t been able to realize what is the real bug, since CAF procs Quick Draw normally, both on entering and leaving.
From what have I observed – Quick Draw skips the cooldown if you enter the other swap right before it was about to go off cooldown.
Regardless if it’s from CAF to weapons or from Weapons to CAF.
Could we get someone look into this? It ruins the whole rotation, might get you killed and ruins your choice of one of the only viable reasons why Druid exists for Condi Builds – Proccing Quick Draw.
If I want and need an ability reset on the current weapon set – and I enter CAF just to proc Quick Draw by leaving the form – I cannot because of this bug.
It utterly destroys a huge amount of possibilities a Druid should be able to do.
The bug consists of CAF “overwriting” the Quick Draw cooldown from weapon swap.
How can it be observed:
Enter combat
Swap Weapons
Wait till CD on Weapon swap is at 2 seconds
Enter CAF
Leave CAF once you see weapon swap available for use
Wonder why Quick Draw wasn’t activated
Swap Weapons to try proccing it again and hate your life for Quick Draw still not being activated*
I haven’t been able to realize what is the real bug, since CAF procs Quick Draw normally, both on entering and leaving. From what have I observed – Quick Draw skips the cooldown if you enter the other swap right before it was about to go off cooldown.
Regardless if it’s from CAF to weapons or from Weapons to CAF.
Could we get someone look into this? It ruins the whole rotation, might get you killed and ruins your choice of one of the only viable reasons why Druid exists for Condi Builds – Proccing Quick Draw.
If I want and need an ability reset on the current weapon set – and I enter CAF just to proc Quick Draw by leaving the form – I cannot because of this bug.
It utterly destroys a huge amount of possibilities a Druid should be able to do.
I can only agree with Signet of the Wild.
If you think about it…
…
You need to pre-cast 20 stuff before dealing your burst. That’s … Awful.
I don’t need it a stun-breaker. I just want it instant.
In this meta where Conditions rule and you can’t get out of CC chain even with 5 stability and 3 stun-breaks -
Ya mesmers are obnoxious, but I can’t imagine they don’t get toned down next update.
I’ve been toying around with Lyssa runes plus Glyph of Unity, which cures 7 condis and damages the CCers on a good CD. It’s such an awkward skill though…
I just wish Glyph of Unity had any use at all. If it was supposed to be a Tank-oriented glyph – it failed. It doesn’t deal any damage without being berserker and then taking damage is a wrong choice.
Our lack of survivability has less to do with access to escapes or ways to get out of the fray and more has to do with other classes ability to stick to us. Which again, we have plenty of ways to peel as well.
Your way of presentation is unrealistic.
~You don’t really have 6 stun-breaks. Your maximum access you can get is 4. With Protect Me (useless in current meta), LR, and Glyph of Equality. Plus you don’t have easy access to CAF stunbreaker. And I’d really like to see the build using more than 3 anywhere higher than hotjoin.
~Evade skills on dagger and sword don’t let you escape, leave those out. They reduce your realistic roaming potential. Doing the correct sword combo for mobility gives you roughly 60 unit advantage. It will put you behind if you already have swiftness. Also roots you in place for a moment that gives the enemy lots of chances to stun/root you preventing any mobility.
~ 3 different ways to access stealth makes you leave out the most powerful trait in current druid ranger store. And that’s not a nice thing to do.
~ That channeled block usually roots you in place for counter-attack that usually gets you caught and killed
~ Signet of Stone has a nice cooldown. You usually want to get out because you lost despite using Signet of Stone.
- If you try to make a build around escaping… That’s just sad. Being prepared to loose any fight is just like paying for your own funeral.
Our only real escape is LR and GS+Staff. I wouldn’t dare calling sword/dagger/SB/protection abilities an escape.
After thinking about others posts I think the minor traits for MM would be better off as:
Minor 1: Same as it currently is, but pets also gain it.
Minor 2: Opening strike is refreshed on weapon swap.
Minor 3: Opening does additional damage per stack of vulnerability on target. Capped at 5% for 25 stacks.
Remorseless as is. Thoughts?
Nope for me.
One of the things we have is Synergy with Skirmishing which already does Opening Strikes on weapon swap. Which means any PvE build (especially the efficient Remorseless GS) would be indirectly nerfed.
But if we just forget about the Vuln applying and get that damage modifier from vulnerability – I’d be fine with it as well.
I, however, agree that CA mechanic needs a change.
We are good healers.
… At times when we can be. But the access to it is so ridiculously gated that it’s not funny. A druid is fine when he can afford to spray you for 120 heal per second for 10 seconds to be able to press CAF on cooldown.
But there are plenty of times when he can’t.
And that’s a wrong design. Healer is supposed to save people. Not promote people into taking damage like it currently works.
In this meta where Conditions rule and you can’t get out of CC chain even with 5 stability and 3 stun-breaks –
I believe having full-cleanse and stun-break is much and much better than the daze.
Mostly for TeamFights. For small-scale skirmishes the Primal Echoes are definitely better.
One thing that people forget about longbow is it’s amazing Decapping potential.
I can come to a point. PBS someone out and instantly root him (Seeds GM Trait) – that forces usually a cleanse and an evade on a spot, then I Tides him away again – that makes him practically out of Endurance and stunbreakers – and I still have Equality as a stunbreak.
I never really understood people playing Longbow for PvP Damage where nothing but burst matters.
In one of my builds I have an extremely easy time rotating basically anywhere I might like.
Lightning Reflexes > GS + Staff (with potential QuickDraw) creates a huge gap almost instantly. A gap that vast that no one will ever really try to chase you down. It still has no access to higher ground but gives you a way to rotate.
I actually like that Ranger has access to mobility in different form than Mesmers or Thieves. While theirs provides better utility, ours can be used for in-combat situations.
I actually think that it’s fair to not have so much stab uptime for CAF because it needs some counterplay. If SoW would get fixed to not cancel CAF… numbers in CAF would get “tweaked”.
I basically think that whole ANets behavior towards rangers has been unfair.
… I can’t really see why having something we need is a bad idea. A counterplay to that is a necro or anyone who strips you off of that stability.
It’s not like Berserker Dragonhunters are countered by damage. They have immunities to prevent that.
Us being the only class in the game having both stability spells ON A CAST TIME is awful, toxic, unfair and user-unfriendly.
Plus having the only self-triggered (the one you can’t control) bugged is only a cherry on the top of the pie.
I’d make it 500% more powerful.
…
What? They’d nerf it by 400% afterwards anyways.
Having it overpowered only means there will be some store of what to nerf without becoming useless like we usually get.
If I’m in an organized group, I take berserkers everything and trait up Healing Spring for AoE regen. And that alone keeps my Astral Bar full on cooldown.
+1 for this. Tried it out tonight and it worked out much better than I thought it would.
So I tried traited water spirit + longbow camping on Sabetha since I was doing the fire kiting anyways. Didn’t work as well as I thought it would, but I assume that’s because there was nothing for regen to heal lol. I ended up having to use staff to top off Astral Force multiple times.
On Sebetha I had the same difficulties as you did.
However, we eventually decided it’s best if druid is inside the stack. So my former problems disappeared.
But for Sebetha I didn’t use healing spring or spirit at all. You only need healing when you cross 50% and there you need the staff as much as you need drugs for your life (you don’t have to take them but you’ll die eventually if you don’t). At 25% you even need Spirit of Nature I suppose. And I’d suggest Spirit of Stone, as well.
Oh, also, for Sebetha, if you bring in a DragonHunter – the fight will get like 20% easier. A lot of the explosions will go into Aegis. It’s a fair trade-off for the DPS loss.
Druids are pretty common in raids. The only reason I can think of for why druid isn’t listed as a meta build is because people can’t decide which build is best.
Or because you need a different build for every encounter.
… And every composition.
And every skill-level of your sqaud.
Longbow still works fine. Stealth, CC, AF generation by 5 and DMG wise. You just have to play smarter, watch the enemies buff bars and time your attacks together with your pets.
That’s why it is weaker than other classes like DH who do not have to play 10 times smarter than like ranger has to.
Metabattle is 3/4 year behind in efficiency (at least when it comes to the Ranger).
Don’t really take that site seriously. Whoever checked the build posted there even with the alternatives mentioned has to realize the site lacks a lot. It’s amazing when you have no idea of the class but if you do – the site won’t help at all.
The build you are playing right now is what I see 24/7. Thankfully there’s quite a few of our Ranger fellows who had the same amazing idea as you did.
Pretty standard build. If I see a druid – he’s playing this one.
About the Burst – well, any druid has that burst. It’s about Pets. They do the magic even without beast-mastery. I dare to say I had much better burst on a Settler Poison build.
Plus, it’s a spike, not a burst. Burst is a 1 moment thing, spike is a high increase in DPS for a short amount of time. And a burst that needs to be pre-cast and maintained for a period of 5 seconds… That’s no burst. It just looks like one.
And yes, that’s pretty much it. The build is kind of meta. More meta than the one on meta-battle actually. No real feedback required, this is basically one of the most effective builds on Ranger, currently.
@jcbroe
You are actually doing it right. Just like the Quote that no one really knows whole says:
“Dubito, ergo cogito. Cogito, ergo sum.”
I doubt, therefore I think. I think, therefore I am."
Lots of people use beast-mastery for DPS increase or whatever. They even used it for ZerkMeta ranger even though Nature Magic always provided better DPS.
The thing is that NM provides roughly 8% damage increase to both you and your pet (from boons) and it caps your pet at 25 might constantly. Something that Beast Mastery does not.
It all might change if you are reaaaaaaally good at We Heal as One management of Might Stacks for the pet. If you are not – The pet swapping Quickness will always be a damage loss for you. And if I’m to compare whole NM against BM minors – I wouldn’t think twice.
It is an option, yes, but if you break down what does it offer, it’s not much. Beast Mastery is an amazing line for personal DPS, but not when you are druiding. Quickness goes to waste.
I was all for this until you made it the attack of opportunity buff. Right now despite how flawed our minor traits are, those those two buffs; remorseless opening strike and attack of opportunity equate to a 87.5% damage increase when stacked on a single hit reducing that to 25% is a huge loss.
In short we’d lose our ability to burst with greatsword, in some cases longbow, pets and a few other weapons. We would need some kind of compensation across the MM for that large of a loss.
I have to agree. Ranger now has only 1 way how to burst the enemy with GS and this would ruin even this one.
Not zerker ranger. But LB as a weapon does well when paired with druid and staff. You can 1v1 extremely well and both weapons are good for team fights from the margins.
Then it’s an irrelevant matter.
Outside of longbow the only other weapon that feels natural is Greatsword. Should I just switch to DH for a ranged DPS playstyle?
Ya I wouldn’t recommend zerk ranger anymore; I never liked it for PvP even before HoT. But non-glass druid (there are several amulets to try) with LB works.
DH is very lackluster in PvP. Have you tried druid at all? You can definitely make LB work with staff.
Well, he can burst down people with chain-dazing and amazing utility mechanics. DH can jump into melee range of a teamfight, and help them win it. That’s something a Berserker Ranger will never be able to.
… And he is not as squishy as Berserker Ranger.
So let me ask you this:
… When was the last time you noticed you have Opening Strikes?
In Raids, I see them every time I’m out of combat. I’ve never heard of them in combat. Ever. Not once.
Your reply only proves my point. You picked MM for Lead the Wind. You never even took minors into account and that’s a wrong design and needs a change.
Changes like these would be alright, not necessary. I take marks for clarion bond, steady focus, and read the wind
And Clarion Bond is not needed since everybody in PvE is might and Fury capped, and no one uses Lead the Wind.
Because camping Longbow is a bad habbit.
And I don’t think balance should be made around open world or solo content.
Changes like these are necessary, I’m afraid.
For those who care for the profession, at very least.
Glyph of empowerment is useful for pve, that is about it. I like the fact that we have a short cooldown active damage boost for the group. Frankly its a little on the light side considering its duration and cool down. The CAF side of things is meh I’d rather be giving the damage boost.
…
It’s mathematical Berserker damage boost is 3,75% for 5 people when traited (less in practice since you are always one of them and your pet is not affected).
And that is practically what I’m talking about. Almost no Glyph besides Glyph of Tides is worth using. And even Glyph of Tides is not worth using. If you are in CAF – you want to heal people stacked and keep enemies out. Not the other way round.
I get from your experiences CA freedom is less about build and more about who you’re with. Is that right? If you were like me and wanted to force the issue what would you try?
Completely correct.
Even though I always try to use the form as fast and as much as possible for GotL procs – I don’t really find any use or promotion of staying in the form.
These are … or rather … were supposed to be the core mechanic of a Marksmanship Ranger. However, apart from being able to recognize rangers playing this traitline they have no lasting value. Or any at all.
Problems
This trait is one of a bad design. Opening Strikes are a 1 time bonus of vulnerability that is easily capped and there’s no way to refresh it without investing into a grandmaster trait.
It is currently the most useless minor trait setup in the whole game. I’d dare to say for the whole gaming industry, actually. All competitive PvE builds are 100% Crit Capped and 25 vuln Capped – making these traits utterly non-existent.
Proposal
1st minor: You and your pet have Opening Strikes
2nd minor: Opening Strikes now refresh after killing an enemy
3rd minor: Opening Strikes now refresh after receiving Fury
Remorseless: Opening Strikes will now always Critically hit and deal 25% more damage.
Outcome
Former PvE builds would stay without being affected by this change since PvE content is constantly 25 might capped. And there’s no harm in having 2 Vuln-Stacking specializations apart from Engineers.
Furthermore, Marksmanship has no real responsive value to play around. Everyone picks the line because of damage scaling that is passive. It feels boring and unrewarding to be picked. You really don’t see a difference having the spec or not.
It would, however, promote the Marksmanship traitline for PvP since there currently is close to zero diversity and Marksmahsip traitline feels the most useless of all regardless of playing offensive or defensive setup.
I didn’t necessarily mean buffs affecting PvP or PvE.
I meant bugfixes, diversity and alike. We still have way too many traits that will never ever see their use in practice. Predator’s Instinct? Strider’s Defense?
… Ridiculously useless Minors in Marksmanship?
Let’s be real here for a second. Marksmanship traitline has a meaning only because of Predator’s Onslaught. And I, for example, don’t see a reason why this traitline shouldn’t be a Vulnerability Stacking one. PvE is already capped and Rangers lack offense in PvP. Sacrificing a crucial line like Nature Magic or Beast Mastery, or Wilderness Survival for applying vulnerability sounds about right to me.
@ Tragic
That’s interesting.
With that set-up do you feel like you have freedom to do what you want once you get into CA, or you feel that once you’re in CA you’re playing healing catch-up?
Like, hypothetically; would you feel perfectly fine Lunar Impacting Vale Guardian’s Red Circles to freeze them in their tracks, or would you regret not being able to use the Healing portion of it on your allies?
I’m currently playing with 3 groups, so it’s hard to answer directly.
With our dedicated Raiding Group most of people already know the mechanics almost by heart so they constantly try to avoid most of them – naturally reducing the potential healing you are usually forced to do.
So in the berserker healing setup – I basically go #4 > #3 > #4 (From QuickDraw) and back to Zerker Weapons again. I don’t really think about using Lunar Impact for slowing down Seekers. I actually never did. I didn’t need to. If I felt like no one else can handle them (we had 2-3 Viper Engies with Chill granades), I used #5 or Glyph of Tides if outside of CAF.
When I’m in my other 2 groups (one group of friends, one guildies) I usually do nothing but heal people all day long. I don’t really think about anything else but keeping us alive.
Yes, I would regret using #3 on seekers and not on healing in these groups.
Just for the fun of it…
…
Can anyone please explain to me who is going to use the glyphs in this form?
I really gave it the idea.
To be able to overheal Tethered Allies for 25% more healing from Glyph of Empowerment …
…
… But if I have to kill 2 seconds just to be able to start casting anything when I know I’ll be kicked out in 5 more seconds, that’s kinda horrible.
Also putting Glyph of Equality on a full cooldown, Only to Randomly Stunbreak some of my allies without really healing them or giving them any form of boost.
And no, I wasn’t even able to heal us up in time. I didn’t really feel the difference, to be frank. Glyph of Unity lasts way too short, chooses randomly, has very short range…
And I don’t really think I’m the only one who thinks that using glyphs in CAF regardless of situation is a waste.
For the Ranger to get some positive updates at the end of the PvP season (which is not that far away)?
This will probably be my very last time I’ll have hopes for ANet.
A friend of mine was able to code a program that recognizes and learns people’s faces. In 2 months. Anet still isn’t able to fix their problems for 3 and more years now, new bugs are being brought into our class and the only thing they are serious about is nerfing it.
And my patience has a limit, too.
And as far as it goes, I found out I constantly cap my Astral Bar in raids with staff and glyphs only. And that’s it.
If I’m going for dedicated healer, I’m camping staff and I watch my positioning.
(edit: I’m using Glyph for burst heal for critical situations)
If I’m in an organized group, I take berserkers everything and trait up Healing Spring for AoE regen. And that alone keeps my Astral Bar full on cooldown.
How exactly would this change cause them to ignore other things? If this were the case I would agree with you, but I don’t imagine it would be very difficult at all to grant finisher status to these existing skills.
In any case, your opinion is noted.
“Once upon a time, there was this amazing Ranger fellow who really liked the class despite it being generally hated.
… One day, he decided he wanted better and so he to tried his best to reach out for the mighty gods who created his main class. He asked them to give the forgotten and hated class some love.
He did everything he could to explain how essential and core problems everyone had and how we keep being hated because of that… But no one listened.
He became very frustrated. He eventually dedicated himself to create a website for the only purpose of getting attention to the class he cared for. He gathered every single detail of being pushed back by the gods themselves and published it.
And eventually, the gods answered his desperate call. However, it was not what he expected. After all his prayers and cry-outs, all he got was: Too busy with HoT."
This has nothing to do with the many other problems Rangers have, which should definitely be address, nor anything opened up by HoT. As I said, this is just a simple and easy way to add value to legacy pets, and grant a Blast finisher to ANY Ranger irrespective of their weapon loadout or trait setup. I can’t think of any reason not to do this.
I do.
They’ll ignore the important stuff because of this buff.
What? I’m a realist. I’ve seen them do this over and over. They wouldn’t miss this chance. As I know them they’ll nerf the SmokeScale and Bristleback again as a compensation.
No, I don’t want those blast finishers. Sorry, but I don’t. I don’t want stuff that I don’t need.
