Guild Wars 2

My Sweet Lily.1952:

Oh and don’t forget to bring Frost Spirit+Spotter. If you don’t, well, that will more likely be the reason for getting kicked than using a staff or not healing

This.
Even though at higher Fractals you might get into a position where Frost Spirit is changed with Sun spirit. If more people from your group run conditions, naturally.

Ryou.2398:

Man I may have to go this route does anyone know how druid staff is doing for condition dps now? I really love the concept, plus it looks flashy.

It’s a niche play-style.
Staff never was for DPS, neither Power, nor Condi. We always used staff for filling up Astral Bar and it’s mobility.

Long Story Short – your DPS will suck a bit more than in Power Staff setup – but having staff already meant horrible damage to begin with. You won’t die from running the Crit Bleeding version of Staff – it’s a trade of damage for utility.

Some nice good points there.

There’s definitely more to talk about … But everything has been mentioned so many times already that I don’t find worth ever getting back to it.

rabidsmiles.5926:

Tragic Positive.9356:

I usually run around with LB + Staff since I can throw the initial burst from LB with +10 vuln, and then keep building CAF up.

So I’m not going to get the ‘WTF staff??? /kick’ if I bring one to a party then? The community can be so weird about weapon choices and lately the s/a and lb has been the meta. Is it ok to let the sw/a go for fractals then? Not like I am a real damage dealer to a party anyway…

This depends on the party. And it depends a lot.

If you have any means of filling CAF without staff – I’d recommend using a different weapon set or build. S/A is a viable choice. The pull is nice and so is #5.

The only thing that matters is that you fill your CAF fast and you make sure your run ends well. This will sound awful, absurd, arrogant and whatnot – but the only thing in GW that matters is that you get your fractal done in as least time and in the most enjoyable way you can.
If you don’t enjoy being flamed – adjust to ViperMeta or ZerkMeta or whatever.
If making sure you’ll finish the run is enjoyable to you – then get a staff, get stuns and heal up your party that probably can’t dodge the right stuff. I made my way to 100 with Cleric Daze build extremely safely and much faster than probably other Pug individuals who went for MetaZerk logic.

For fractals I focus mostly on disruption and damage mitigation.
Your seeds (glyphs with Verdant Etching) place a blind on enemies in an area, so that mitigates the damage income. I usually go with glyph of Rejuvenation, Equality, Empowerment, Frost/Sun spirit (depending on setup) and Glyph of Unity.

And truth be told, I think I didn’t screw anything up when I used #3 > #4 > #3 > #2 > #5 combination. That way I mitigated the most damage I could while also providing a little heal.
Naturally, this doesn’t work at bosses with Break-Bar so using #4 on quickdraw is a natural choice.

I usually run around with LB + Staff since I can throw the initial burst from LB with +10 vuln, and then keep building CAF up.

Note:
Don’t forget that Glyph of Empowerment in Astral Form increases Healing Done by 25% for everyone. So even if it’s not you who does the heals – your allies can heal themselves for more thanks to you.

P.S. Don’t worry. You won’t get blamed if the party wipes. You come in as a babysitter. Not as a healer. If the party wipes – it’s their own fault for not avoiding damage and using their own heals properly. You are there just to create comfort.

InsaneQR.7412:

Actually the pet nerfs are the only nerfs that are understandable, i mean SS and BB still outdamage vanilla pets.

The reason why new pets outshine vanilla ones is because the original pets are horrifyingly bad. They are so bad that one cannot stand it. It’s that severe of a problem.

Imagine if an elementalist had to stand still for 1,5 seconds immobilized to channel swapping his attunemenets. That would be an absurd and illogical design, just like our pets are. Our core class mechanic doesn’t compensate our lack of personal damage, they can’t hit moving targets, they get shut down by traits that are beneficial to the Ranger (shared anguish, empathic bond… I mean, for the love of god!), they do not scale…

Yes, Bristle and Smoke were the only pets that could have been classified as trustworthy pets. But Anet seems like they won’t stop unless they bring them to useless vanilla state of the rest of our pets.

Depends on the content.

For open world roaming, Power would be more suitable for higher burst – you don’t have to wait for conditions to ramp up.
If we are talking about Hardcore PvE content (premade 90+ fractals speed runs / Raids), then yes, Shortbow has amazing scaling with Quickness.

If we are talking about 25 might, bannered, perma quickness environment with long encounters – A/T + SB is the meta right now.
It still sucks at quick dungeon runs.

Serraphin Storm.2369:

Did people really expect to deal damage and be in stealth for 6 to 8 seconds while doing it? Doesn’t matter if its a utility skill. Being cc by an unseen opponent by an unblockable skill isn’t fun.

I’m specifically talking about Ice Trap that doesn’t deal almost any damage even in full berserker setup.
Fire Trap, Viper nest should be a subject for direct damage to reveal. I cannot decide whether Spike Trap should be, too. The bleeding is easily cleansed, is not reapplied and is on a long cooldown.
Ice Trap either has to become a pure utility trap, or needs damage buffed ten-fold (just an expression).

Justine.6351:

Ranger traps can kill bad players just as guardian traps can kill bad players.

Relevant to balance, as usual.

Please, do a spreadsheet how many players died to Ice Trap (I mean others than the caster because of reveal) and then compare it to DH traps that already force players into a strict and specific counter-play. Come share the results.
This is the problem that has been brought up so many times already. This game has shared PvE, WvW and PvP balance team. Nothing is separated and thus a lot of stuff doesn’t work at one environment while it does at the other.
Same goes for traps. DH traps are nothing like Ranger traps, yet are gated with same mechanics that is not correct and should be addressed.
If you believe this is not relevant, I think you should reconsider what is the problem and what is the purpose of forum idea-sharing.

If developers balance the game without data, facts, logic based around bad players like you suggest – that might be one of the explanations of every single patch notes fiasco.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

The rune is bugged with ranger’s shouts. It only cleanses the ranger and his pet, but no allies. Might be intended for shouts that don’t affect allies (regen + swiftness come from trait, not directly from the shouts) but it should definitely work with Protect Me and Guard. Guess they just forgot about those shouts, when they reworked them.

Those were ignored.
This bug has been announced a long time ago several times. They didn’t miss the bug. They ignored it.

Protect me, Search & Rescue, Guard – Should work with rune of the Trooper/Soldier for allies, ranger and it’s pet.
We Heal as One, Strength of the Pack – these should only cleanse Ranger and it’s pet.

Justine.6351:

Dragon Hunter-traps will kill 5 people if you place them right, tho. Compare it to Ice Trap.

Relevant as usual.

Still better than being toxic.

If a trap is powerful and deadly – it shouldn’t function with stealth.
Pure utility traps those of a ranger have no reason to be gated with pitiful tickling damage that prevents stealth.

How about venting your personal problems elsewhere than in forums?

Justine.6351:

Dragon Hunter deals with same thing though…

Anet is frucking kittened for removing dmg tics from thief though. Which sadly enough is what got the durations of stealth/superspeed nerfed on the runeset. Not that the runeset was balanced in the first place.

Dragon Hunter-traps will kill 5 people if you place them right, tho. Compare it to Ice Trap.

I believe we all understood it.
We just learned to live with it and we never said a word about it. Because why would we. They don’t care anyway.

80% the Me(n)ta-lity.

If people cannot give you the answer for your question – there probably is none in the 1st place. It has always been like that.

We bring less than 40% of Ele’s damage when it comes to raids – but we are the ones who buff that overkill DPS of Ele by 30%. In a unique way. Which by itself is enough to make you a positive asset for the party.
People do not change. They never did. There’s no reason why would they do so now.

Furajir.3815:

Really not sure what you’re all complaining about, I’m still wrecking in pvp/wvw. Yeah the changes hurt a tad, but, everything else is being toned down too, soldier on!

Our main DPS pet’s ability was nerfed by 30%… again.
Our already poor condi clear got nerfed. This patch literally forced us to play survival and nothing else. All the rest of our cleanse is a joke. Empatic Bond + glyphs that cleanse nothing if you are on the move (same with Healing Spring) only evokes a thought that we are slowly being turned into real-time training dummies.

Nothing of what we struggle with has been addressed.
Nope, I think our complains are in place.

Swagger.1459:

Exactly.

But ya know, Ranger/Druid OP please nerf… A pet bit me, it’s too strong… The Druid didn’t run away, survived more than 10 seconds and that’s not right!…

Presicely.
I just don’t understand where does this come from. People always envision Rangers to be these both useless and OP at the same time.
It’s like we evoke Dunning-Kruuger syndrome to it’s extreme or … I don’t get it. Why are people fine with other classes being so kitten powerful? A player killed by Guardian is “WP”, a player kill by Ranger is always “OP class, <insert an offensive curse word>, Nerf it Anet!”…
…
And ANet always listens when it comes to Ranger class from non-Ranger players. If ANet doesn’t start using logic when it comes to classes all in all – they’ll notice a high drop in player community.
I already know of a lot of people who left and I’m considering it myself. And I don’t think I’m the only one.

I was fighting an Engie for 2 minutes defending a point in Ranked PvP.
Then my premade thief came to help me and erased that guy in 3 seconds straight. This has to be a joke.

Well, that’s also one way how to make players of one entire class realize it’s not worth spending any money on this game ever again.

Bast Bow.2958:

I am no fractal-expert, so Hans I would go with Tragic Positive considering fractals.
I recently asked some other people if a healer druid was popular in high tier fractals but told it was not. Learned something new today

I’m no expert, either.
I’m more of an observer or analyst. With the latest update to how daily fractals work – people want to go for the long ones and those are a pure nightmare if all 5 people are glass.

Reason why people always search for nothing but full DPS is because more than 1 support is an overkill (or some haven’t woken up from Tyria content yet). It’s worth mentioning that while full DPS ele can pull out 45K dps, Berserker Ranger’s top is 18K. That’s frankly less than 40%.
You might as well make sure that everyone stays alive and deal 30% more damage.

It also takes much longer to find a party capable of finishing the last-tier fractals composed of 5 glass people.

This is getting old…

I’m disappointed. Again. But I guess I’m not gonna comment more about it. I did a couple of times and it was pointless just like how would it be this time.

xLiFToFF.5938:

I appreciate all the help guys and the advice as well. Lol…I hope we can bring more into the raid eventually.

I’ll be sure yo check out that build Tragic. The PvE content in question is fractals/dungeons/open world. I don’t raid at all…..then again maybe I just haven’t found a dedicated guild for it yet.

If you don’t aim for dedicated content (such as 90+ fractals or Raids) and you are a GS fan – that build is the closest thing to being viable.
Naturally, it isn’t peak efficiency but keeps results while attending to the fun part of the game for Melee / GS fans.

What you find discussed here is true but no one really mentioned S/A + GS.
That build is actually kinda viable and safe to use if you just want to DPS.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAsXRnUqAVsglsAuCCctgh9gabiAY0/O4Iea+CC4RoEnnC-TxRBABPcKAoU9HAeCAmpE8p9HwTfwVK/AA-e
Since you haven’ specified which PvE content is your target, this works as well. If you are in a party – you can swap Zephyr for Frost Spirit.
Bristle’s 25 mighted Sick’Em F2 with proper positioning for Rain of Spikes melts dungeon bosses. The build also has smooth AoE bursts.

In dungeon speed runs my Spirit usually stayed behind even if I killed him right after spawning him, so I decided I’d take Zephyr instead. Worked well.

Bast Bow.2958:

- Fractals: In fractals I believe it’s the other way around. You want to have as much damage as possible, which is berserker (or viper’s, but not going there now). Especially in high tier fractals. I think Zealot’s will be fine for mid and low tier fractals.

Actually, in higher fractals it’s exactly the opposite. People are glad when a healing druid enters. You either play Viper or Healer there (fights take much longer than ZerkMeta can handle – you can’t survive through Aegis and dodges alone). Berserkers rock in lower Fractals where no one needs healing but are meh due to high toughness values of mobs higher, yet people ask for them regardless.

Plus – it’s perfectly fine to have Berserker armor even in Raids if you fill the rest with healing trinkets. You technically just need Rune of the Monk, delicious rice ball food and around 800 healing power from items.

I’d also like to ask who do you play those with.

If you are pugging – take Berserkers and adjust roles with trinkets. If nothing else – this would save you from so much whining and snaptalking in PvE that it’s worth thinking about.

If you are playing PvE with guildies who just want to get difficult content done without wiping and needless hussle – I’d recommend crafting Zealot, too.

Regarding ranger it really just settles down to what you want to do. You are there for supporting anyways. If you are just squeezing everything into that tiny bit of personal DPS, that’s perfectly fine as well as GotL distribution as much as possible – the outcome goes roughly the same with Zealots.

I found that Point Blank shot in combination with Ancient Seeds and good timing is the best stuff you can find.

It takes skill but vast majority of thieves simply pop their heal and rotate away immediately after this successful combo.

Archon.6480:

Bristleback f2 is best used after swap in melee range. I usually hit pet swap, we heal as one, pet F2, then cover it with Glyph of equality, or a fast lunar impact, so opponents can’t use weapon evade.

Fixt for you.

@SgtWantCuddles
It wasn’t a specific thread made about Bristle. It was rather a QQ reaction from a thief that got his but razed and some people (me included) brought this fact about Bristle’s unreliability from range.

The pet is dangerous with proper melee positioning. I don’t believe Anet’s gonna improve it for 1200 range as well. That’s why I suggested you to train a bit by manually recalling him to closer range and then backing away again.

Yes, it works indeed just like a shot-gun.
The closer you are, the more projectiles will hit.

If the target is far away – you’ll hate your life for ever creating a Ranger class.

This has been brought up a lot of times. Don’t expect any improvements or fixes. Just manually pay attention to your pets. We’ve always been the class to fight our own mechanics instead of our enemies.

Chistorm.5196:

Im here today because I honestly think its pretty insane you can go full minstrel or nomad ranger and have a pet be full zerker stats and just auto spam with a pet doing 15x spikes or a pet that can stealth along with a evasion 5x attack on you? I know im not the only one seeing this happen everywhere. I think the pets and players stats should be the same to balance that.

I, on the other hand, honestly think it’s pretty insane that I can go full berserker or Assassin ranger and I will still deal damage of a minstrel player (other classes) without my pet.

If we fix this – I’m fine with your suggestion.
If a full Berserker Ranger with a berserker pet (cat for example) can deal as much damage as a thief or elemantalist – I’m all aboard. That, however, means that Rangers will deal MORE THAN DOUBLE their current damage.
And I’m not joking. Data is already out there.
Can we call it a deal?

Aldrin.7641:

Thank you

Anytime.

Quick Draw is bugged in interaction with CAF.
Has been ever since day 1.

That’s probably why you can’t get it to work sometimes.

Aldrin.7641:

same build also for old tyria maps?

I’m not OP to say this but …
… All builds in forums (including this one) are technically suggestions.

In Tyria and maybe even Maguuma – Berserker should be dominant because it has it’s spike at the beginning of rotation unlike Conditions that have slow beginning and ramp up with time.
If we really wanted to peak efficiency we’d have to calculate every single mob’s toughness, every single buff or aura you get from people around, duration of the encounter… you’d technically want to kill yourself.
But this bleeder druid has fine damage and is viable for casual content. For Tyria, Maguuma, WvW… And with slight changes even Dungeons and Fractals.

tl;dr
This build is fine.

I started playing this recently. It works as a fine alternative. Take a look around this template and change anything that might come to your mind, including LB for staff or whatever.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYD7kQFoXQskFwlFgqFskJYwz0c6Q15wt4acNJrAwBoEnnG-TZBFAB3v/Q/lBS4gAAwTAQgLAAA

I get similar or better results (depending on matchup or situation) with the same stats but different playstyle.
More access to Stealth (Smokescale field finishers + LB#3), Traited Warhorn, works almost as Diamond Skin ele but against Power (33% Bark Skin, 33% Protection, possible 50% from Weakness, another 50% with Guard, 7% from rune and Troll Unguent keeps ticking).
It lacks might stacks and stability from SotP (has 3 stun breaks and Shared Anguish). The regen and swiftness are not permanent, either. It has more utility, though.

Aldrin.7641:

Is this also viable to dungeons/fractals?

It is viable.
People want you for Party Buffs and not personal DPS so getting Spirits, Spotter and GotL is what you might have to change. The rest is perfectly fine.

It’s wrong to ask what’s viable, though. Even full nomad Ele is viable in raids if the party goes 10 full nomad Eles. There should be a video as in the longest Vale Guardian kill. 17 minutes or so? But they did it. So it was viable.

The question should always be efficiency and setup of party you are in.

StickerHappy.8052:

Exactly my point, if that ever gets implemented, how will pets be in pvp then when we can’t use foods/oil?

I think having a separate pet trait tree is the solution, gives you more freedom and build diversity than minor fixes.

This is true, as well.
If we want to have pets that are useful and worthy of being called our class mechanic – they need to scale. Period. We should have never been forced to use a specific traitline in order to achieve that. It’s exactly your point but taken a bit differently.

We need NM if we want our pet to scale (at least up to a point) and we need specific pets as well as sacrifice our stuff to improve their stats (e.g. Condition Based pets have NO condi duration and we have to sacrifice OUR traits to change it).
These both are designs that should just go. They are user unfriendly, inefficient and still not reliable at all.

Your point solves stats, buff inheriting from it’s master solves scaling. We need both I’d say equally. I’d welcome pet having 100% of my quickness and 25 might in Raids more than him having Healing Power or Condi Duration, but those would be pointless in WvW where pet-related traits would be more useful.
When it comes to PvP, pets are set to be kind of right. It’s not just our pet that can’t have food etc. in battles. Players can’t too – they share this same concept.

StickerHappy.8052:

cafard.8953:

And how about the pet benefiting from the currently active food/oil stats buff on the ranger?

This would only benefit WvW and Pve though, how bout PvP pets? They will be still subpar.

Players can’t use food/oil in PvP either.
Baseline boons and auras on pets as well is the solution. Even for PvP.

Would definitely be nice.

I’m not sure if this is the place where we need shortbow to be improved but the ideas are all reasonable, user-friendly, balanced and interactive.
I like them.

bearshaman.3421:

spirit of nature can also be helpful, less for the heals and more for the group stability w/Nature’s Vengeance. I’ve seen it make a difference, when people can keep hitting whatever it is without getting knocked down/pulled/etc.

We’re talking about PvE here.
The stationary 30% chance of not getting CCed on a 120 second cooldown after the spirit dies is waaaaay to situational to be reliable.

If people do not bring stability against CC content – ranger is not the one to provide it. Period. You are trading one out of only 2 stability sources. You should not do that.

It carried me through solo queue with a wonderful win ratio.
You can abuse it in a way where you’ll activate Guard and swap pets. The damage mitigation will stay but the redirecting debuff from the pet will disappear.
That way your pet won’t die.

It’s not an exploit. Neither a bug.
The same way goes for SotP where your pet stops giving you might on hit after swapping. It’s a double edged feature.

When it comes to organized and tournament matches – I can see it outshined by other classes’ utility.
If you are not going for bunkering alone – it still might be worth the utility slot even at competitive.

Thanks @Fluffball for improving my reply.
I felt kind of lazy to specify all of that. It’s always cool to have people who’ll back me up.

In a nutshell:

~Don’t go for healing power if you don’t intend to progress 80+ fractals or Raids
~Both Berserker and Viper are viable.
~For any group content you want Druid for GotL and Glyph of Empowerment
~https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvE-WvW-Bleed-druid this might end up being your best friend for solo

They have to completely redo the original pet families.
That’s all there is to it.

Band-aiding is not the solution. It only provokes empty expectations.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/United-Chi-s-Ranger-and-Druid-Builds/

There’s a lot of templates here. I don’t believe you wouldn’t get inspired by any of these.

The thread got lost, it might be a tiny bit outdated but I believe I didn’t screw that much when it comes to meta.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Up-to-Date-builds-New-Season/

If I remember UniChi’s thread name I’ll post his as well.

EDIT: Found it https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/United-Chi-s-Ranger-and-Druid-Builds/
But I think he listed mostly PvP builds. Regardless, it might be of some help to you.

bearshaman.3421:

Why Marksmanship over Nature Magic?

Literally because of Moment of Clarity. It allows you to keep a group of mobs dazed for around 10 sec and keep going. It made my fractals a lot easier. It worked even after MoC nerf.

Clarion Bond is also fine and works as a perma-fury substitution for Tiger with NM. Both are fine. With NM your pet deals more damage, with MoC your party has easier time (and your pet still benefits from +15% damage thx to PO).

It’s just a matter of play-style.

Fluffball.8307:

If I were recommending speed clearing hordes of trash, I’d definitely recommend power, but condi is fun for leveling for a change as OP rightfully pointed out. And it’s an excuse to use SB for something.

Haha, this is so true! I couldn’t agree more.

Fluffball.8307:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Also, conditions hit more stuff in AoE.

Eh, berserker probably has more AoE in the grand scheme of things. AoE for conditions is bonfire and splitblade and some utilities, probably only flame trap. Power has melee cleave, barrage, potentially offhand axe (new a5 is amazing!), and eventually arrow piercing. Not really a big deal either way, but power does have AoE.

I didn’t say they don’t, it’s just that Bonfire, Splitblade, potentially Winter’s Bite and traps hit 5 targets.
Berserker has quite a few restrictions. LB has a long CD (5), traited needs to line up targets, sword hits 3>1>3 targets and OH Axe goes similar.
GS would be the AoE choice but that’s not our primary DPS weapon.

Yup, completely viable.
A different setting but works just as well. It might work better in 80 lvl content (orr, Maguuma,…) where conditions can pile up and keep on rolling.

Berserker has a better starting point and then falls on in terms of damage.
Conditions go the other way round.

Also, conditions hit more stuff in AoE.

You have 2 options.

If you are going for hardcore “meta” organized groups aiming for speed runs – you should definitely aim for Viper DPS buffer.

If you are more about getting the party to success – cleric is something I can gladly recommend. It has good synergy with staff and doesn’t die in 1 hit (it still dies in 2 but that’s all you need as a healer. If a healer dies in 1 hit – you are doomed. If you can afford to take 1 bonus hit – it also means you can afford to heal your allies instead of dodging/dying)

It’s the set of armor that saved me the most time and most nerves in fractals. It gives everything. Since you are a Staff fan, you might want to get this as a template:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNAW8XnMqAVsidqAuqAEtilFBb5yFAGcwR1r6Wl5AEuGAlMszA-TBhXwAGV/BhyvaKBBs/AA-e

It offers a lot of AoE CC, most of damage boosters (if you have at least 1 condi player in group and all of you are 25 might stacked, you might want Sun Spirit instead of Frost, also, for Boss fights you’d like to have Glyph of Empowerment instead of Storm Spirit).
And most importantly – it keeps everyone alive via both heals and disruption (daze, blinds,…)

Sigils are not really important. You can go for Transference, Water,… Even Force is okay.

rollnb.8346:

Making 4-th Axe skill “Path of Scars” ground targetable is a bullkitten, it is almost unusable properly. Turn it back to no ground target please and double the damage.

And increase the width by 300%, let it apply slow and confusion, make instant and increase the range to 1500.
We should also make it unblockable.

</s>

Keep ideas real. You wouldn’t be fine if Warrior’s Rush dealt double of current damage, either.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

Both NM and BM offer offense and defense. Which is imo the main reason, why those 2 traitlines are meta.

BM is the most reliable ticket to Astral Form, and Nature Magic is just the traitline that goes best with it. It offers durability and gives pets something they should have had baseline ever since release – boons you have. Plus it can be nicely abused via WHaO.
So technically yes. Both offense and defense.
Hands down, I never needed beast-mastery for DPS. I always used it for Resounding Timbre (I don’t remember when did I use other trait from the list).