Guild Wars 2

LeonardoClaw.9180:

Is recommended after update 15th?

I can’t answer that for sure until after the patch.

If anything changes, it would probably be runes and sigils. Other than those, the rest of the build is going to stay the same based on what we know so far. It’s more likely for this build to stay the exact same after the patch than it is to not.

Fluffball.8307:

Condition damage was what inspired the question (birds have a crazy low cool down bleed, which I thought might make up for the screech.) However even without the bleeds, the bird still only does 78% of a cat’s damage.

Mostly irrelevant, but cats do more damage, and vulnerability is better than swiftness.

Makes sense. Birds have vuln too, although with inferior uptime to felines.

Fluffball.8307:

I have an excel chart in my inbox showing a hawk does ~only 73% of the damage of a lynx. I didn’t run the tests, so I can’t say much else about it.

I think someone just ran these tests a few weeks ago and made a thread. I’ll see if I can find it when I get back home.

Oh, you guys are factoring in condition damage which is skewing your results. Same thing happens when ppl test pets on the target dummies in the mists.

Condition damage is “usually” ignored in PvE theorycraft.

Jaguar is also better if you want a F2 skill that does more DPS.

Fluffball.8307:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Birds do identical DPS to felines if you prefer those.

At first glance they do, but a lot of people have tested it out and birds do significantly less damage than cats. It’s the swiftness shout they use, it messes everything up. Also cats are an added source of vulnerability if that is needed.

Maybe someone who has run the tests will post their results.

I’ll remove that part from my guide since I haven’t actually used birds myself since levelling before the pet nerfs in that one patch.

I dunno if i’d call it “significantly less” since the base stats and auto attacks are mostly the same. The other 2 pet skills + F2 do differ a lot.

Fluffball.8307:

Note to the ranger forum, I’m not sure why we don’t have a sticky listing the meta builds for PvE/WvW/PvP. It seems like things like the 30/25/0/15 dungeon running build are listed 4 times a week. We have two build threads but both are old and filled with random inefficient build

I just posted a guide I made. Check it out https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Guide-PvE-Meta-Ranger/first#post3868493

Pets:

• Jaguar: Use for single target fights.
• River Drake (Or any other Drake you want): Use for trash and multi target fights or for blast finisher.
• Jungle Stalker: Use for single target fights and when your party is not reaching 25 might stacks
• Red Moa: Use for single target and when your party doesn’t have perma fury.

Recommended pets: Jungle Stalker for single target and might and River Drake on swap for trash.

Keep your pets alive through use of F3 and F4 at the right times.

Sword:
Tips for dealing with the animation locking

1. Don’t get animation locked in the first place. This means not pressing 1 when you know you need to dodge soon. This mostly requires knowledge of the encounter.
2. Dodge earlier or predictively dodge. Basically, account for the delay in your dodges. Not too reliable because sometimes your #2/#3/dodge will fire instantly.
3. Skill/swap cancel. Interrupt yourself with a weapon swap (into GS preferably, not Longbow) or use WH#4 and dodge during the cast time. Here’s a video by GK explaining how to do this:
4. Be aware of your surroundings (cliffs)
5. If you need to, you can turn off the auto attack for more control over your AA chain. This is mostly a matter of personal preference. (ie. I play with the auto attack on, but I turn it off for certain fights). Be careful not to slow your auto attack too much, otherwise you’re better off just swapping to GS briefly.

Spirits:
Every 3s, the spirit will pulse its “buff”. The buff is a 6s “boon” that gives a chance on hit for your attacks to have additional affects. Every spirit except Frost Spirit and Spirit of Nature has an ICD of 10s, meaning you can only proc their additional effect once per 10 seconds, even if you have the “boon” still on you. Frost Spirit has no ICD, so it is an average DPS boost of 7% while you have the 6s “boon” on you. Spirit of Nature does not proc additional effects on hits, but instead provides a passive heal every second to party members within range.

1. Out of combat, you can kill your spirits by swapping the utility skill to something else and back. This will put it on a 20 second CD and allow you to recast it when your party is moving to a different location. You do not need to do this if you take Spirits Unbound.
2. When frost spirit dies, the buff lasts for another 10-15 seconds as long as you remain in the area.
3. If your party has 2 rangers, have one of them remove Nature Magic IV so you get the benefit of 2 Frost Spirits

Alternative Guides:
Brazil [DnT]
Lorek and Cell [rT]

Guide is updated for the May 20 patch.

Disclaimer: I didn’t make any of these build and take no credit for them.

Intro:

Hello, my name is Turtle and this is a beginner’s guide to playing Rangers in Dungeons and Fractals. This guide will go over the basics of the Spotter/Frost Spirit build, and provide some general tips for pets, sword mechanics and spirits. This guide will not discuss fight specific strategies for rangers, but you can ask questions about them. It will also not discuss how to min-max DPS, but instead focus on providing a general overview of the class in dungeons and fractals. This is guide is not meant to be used for leveling, open world, sPvP or WvWvW.

Quick Version:
4/5/0/5/0: Better for long fights. Has option to trait for GS/Spirits/power
6/5/0/3/0: Better for short fights. Better vuln or burst

Abbreviations:

• GS: Greatsword
• WH: Warhorn
• OH: Offhand
• AA: Autoattack
• ICD: Internal Cooldown
• DPS: Damage per second

Why bring a ranger over any other class in PvE?

• You enjoy playing Ranger (Most important reason)
• Spotter and Frost Spirit are unique party DPS boosts that no other class can provide
• Great at providing fury
• Jack of all trades utility (but master of none): reflects, might stacking, fire fields, water field healing, party resurrects, protection, condition removal, pulls. Think of these as bonus reasons instead of definitive reasons to bring a ranger. They also require you to plan on bringing these ahead of time since they require different utilities/weapons.

Gear:

• Berserker gear with Ranger runes
  OR
• Berserker gear with Scholar runes

Recommended gear: Berserker gear with Ranger runes

Weapons:

• Sword: Highest ranger DPS weapon by far. Use when you do not need to max melee range and can safely use the weapon.
• Greatsword: Use for max melee range fights, skipping trash, or when you do want to use sword. GS is ~17% worst DPS than sword.
• Warhorn: Use for blast finishers, might, fury and swiftness. Do not use #4 unless out of melee range.
• Torch: Use for fire fields or when playing with a Lightning Hammer Ele. Use out of combat to provide your own fire field for WH#5.
• OH Axe: Use for extra damage, reflects and pulls.
• Dagger: Use for fights that require extra evades.
• Longbow: Use for ranged encounters and knock backs.

Recommended weapons: Sword/Warhorn + Greatsword

Sigils:
Choose 2 from the following list:

• Force
• Night
• Bloodlust
• Accuracy (Only if you are running Scholar Runes)
• Frailty (Effectiveness decreases the more vuln you have in your party composition)
• Slaying (ie. Undead Slaying)

Recommended Sigils: Force and Night

Traits:
Marksmanship: I VII (XI or XII if 30 pts)
Skirmishing: I, (V or X if ranging)
Nature Magic: IV. (V, VII, or IX if 25 pts)

The core of this build is Spotter and Traited Frost Spirit, as these are the unique contributions that rangers can bring to a party. This build focuses on bringing the minimum amount of group support necessary, then maximizing damage from that point.

Recommended traits: 4/5/0/5/0 with Strength of Spirit as your optional trait because it benefits both GS and Sword. 2H training for low fury groups is an option as well. I use Spirits Unbound for Open World PvE.

Skills:
The only “Mandatory” skills are Healing Spring, and Frost Spirit.

• Healing Spring: Great for providing regen and condition removal to your party. Use GS #3, or WH#5 inside for additional heals to yourself and the party.
• Troll Unguent/Heal as One: More personal heals without having to blast or leap in exchange for less group utility.
• Frost Spirit: Party DPS boost. Try to place in locations where it will survive.
• Quickening Zephyr: Stun breaker and personal DPS boost
• Signet of the Wild: Passive heals and ~25% dmg boost for 8s while active. Great when used with Quickness or Conjured Weapons. Requires Signet of the Beastmaster trait to affect the ranger
• Sic’em: Pet DPS boost
• Rampage as One: General DPS elite. Also great for skipping trash because of stability.
• Spirit of Nature: Provides a healing signet ( passive heal every second) to party members within range. Also a party resurrect.

Recommended skills: Healing Spring, Frost Spirit, Quickening Zephyr, Sic’em, Rampage as One.

Other utility skills are situational and can be swapped in when needed.

thefantasticg.3984:

Should be pretty obvious I don’t share that opinion. I think it makes it more difficult to use the weapon effectively thus more rewarding when that occurs. Don’t bother me any and can’t, for the life of me, see any argument for the refusal to learn to use the weapon as is when even if you do refuse to learn how to AA with it properly, you can simply turn AA off and there is no issue what so ever.

The last thing this game needs is more artificial difficulty. The only challenging content in this game comes from imposing your own limitations, such as trying to solo bosses or speed run through a path as fast as possible. I’d rather have the ranger class be difficulty because of complex skill combinations, pet micromanagement, good timing etc. Not because the class comes with 2 handicaps (sword, pet). It’s like saying a PS4/Xbox1 game is difficult because your controller is missing the X button. I already mentioned this, but it’s not reawrding at all. You’re still not going to outDPS the warrior, thief, ele, guardian, necro (single target) next to you who has full control of his character. The only reward is that it’s significantly stronger than our other melee option, the GS.

Tbf, most of the difficult sword fights are in Arah and Fractals. It’s not hard to look good with the sword in easy content. Many of the fractal fights involve max melee range, circle strafing, backwards kiting and running in and out of melee range. The ranger sword is terrible at doing the first 3 I listed.

There is a skill cap assosciated with this weapon, but dismissing the problems associated with it by calling it a “l2p” issue is not a fair assessment. Just because you can work around it doesn’t mean it’s fine. An analogy would be this game’s instance hosting system. You can work around it by opening dungeons yourself to protect yourself from griefing/kicking, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good system.

No other class loses DPS when re positioning or getting ready to dodge.

Durzlla.6295:

I don’t think there is a single fight in this game where ANYONE can just stand there and face tank.

It’s viable, you just need to all in (ie. wont work in disorganized groups where you have some ppl zerker, some ppl tanky). But it will take 3 times as long or more.

I also don’t know why theres a ton of space after the youtube link and it’s bothering me.

The best part is, even if you master the sword you’re still rewarded with kittenty damage relative to other classes in the game. High risk, low reward. There’s even a few fights where using the sword breaks strategies and can get your team killed.

The above posters are correct in that most, if not all sword-related deaths are preventable.

Kyrus.7218:

A couple quick counter arguments:

• Spotter is useless when the team already has near 100% crit rate thanks to zerk gear, perma fury from elementalist, and Discipline Banner.

Except that this isn’t true, most classes will have (87-91%) crit chance with fury and discipline banner.
Warrior: 60% (Signet of Fury + no assassins pieces) + 28% = 88%. Spotter and food still wont take it to 100%
Guardian: 51% + 28% = 79%.
etc. I believe thief can go over 100% easily, but I’m no expert on thieves.

It’s also mathematically Superior DPS to stack your crit to 100%, which is what most guides recommend.

Rangers are still low priority picks, and in a min-max scenario, you would take only 1 warrior and the rest of the group composition would be elementalist and thieves. Swap 1 out for a guardian or mesmer if portals speed up the run or you need their utility. Lately, some compositions even been dropping the 1 warrior. Obviously you can’t run compositions like this everywhere, but the most common set up is 1 warrior, 2 eles + 2 other.

I believe that if your composition isn’t 1 warrior 2 eles 2 other then a ranger is fine since you’re not min maxing anyways. If your composition is something random like 1 necro, 1 guardian 1 mesmer 1 thief, bring your warrior instead because 1 warrior > 1 ranger. 1 guardian/mesmer > 1 ranger if you need reflects. Basically, to fit in a ranger into a composition, you need to satisfy the 1 warrior + utility (Stealth, reflects, portal) requirements in your composition. Once you have those, A ranger is fine, and argueably you don’t “need” some of those things i mentioned.

DeathReign.7821:

Ah that’s great advice, thanks! Are the trait choices alright too?

They’re mediocre. Skirmishing is pretty important for personal DPS and ~81-86% crit chance is pretty low.

DeathReign.7821:

I know the meta for dungeons is spotter/frost spirit, sword/warhorn, but what else? I came up with a build here, but I know I probably got a lot of it wrong (I honestly don’t know what utilities to take after Healing Spring and Frost Spirit, so I just took some signets that I thought worked well with Marksmanship XI.
I’ve heard that people like using “Guard”? I’m not entirely sure how it works/benefits dungeon runs – any explanations would be very much appreciated!

Frost Spirit is the only mandatory one, rest is situational. I take Quickening Zephyr and Signet of the Wild if I have nothing else to take. Sic’em is also a decent choice. I’d only use signet of stone on specific fights where you would benefit more from additional survivability.

I plan on using Birds and Felines primarily. Is that a good choice? I heard that they are the best pets for DPS.

Yep. I would recommend adding any drake into there on swap for trash since it can cleave. My personal favourite combo is Jungle Stalker/River Drake

I’ve heard that people like using “Guard”? I’m not entirely sure how it works/benefits dungeon runs – any explanations would be very much appreciated!

It doesn’t. I think the only time i’ve ever used it in PvE was AC p2, when I was doing the chains on the defend detha event. Even then it wasn’t super amazing, and was more of a just for fun thing.

Ron Cordova.9824:

I’ve noticed that spotter/frost spirit/guard gets much less hate from groups than the mythical “bearbow 3 signets” build, but are there any OTHER ranger builds that can strongly support a group?

No, but you can modify the utilities/pets/elites/offhands to be more support oriented while still keeping the core of the build.

Engineer would probably be more your style.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

…perfect for short encounters and spiking mobs down….

So what do you suggest? Use RaO? Or get in combat, then swap weapons to get fury for a trash mob encounter? Or maybe trait into NM and use 2H Training with a GS?

I’d rather just use Battle Roar, since for PvE, you don’t need any utility skills really. For me when roaming PvE its Battle Roar, QZ and SotW with RaO for vets and ^. Most things are dead by pressing 7 and then 1.

If 2H Training affected bows as well (which it should, imo) then I would consider dropping Battle Roar, but until then, its a staple for me.

Warhorn should be a staple of every PvE ranger build, and if you don’t have that you still have fury from Red Moa or weapon swapping.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Charr are great, you get Battle Roar!

This is a great skill for Rangers who do not have a short CD Fury skill, perfect for short encounters and spiking mobs down.

Wat lol? You’re funny.

I’m talking about utility skills, not weapon skills…

Even then, rangers are not a class that struggles with fury uptime.

Kyrus.7218:

Also the big issue with pets is that they are an enormous liability since they screw with the stacking agro control and get everyone killed.

Ranger pets do not get aggro unless their master is in combat, so it usually doesn’t ruin the stacking points. There are a few exceptions to this.

Example: If you’re doing the corner stack for the golems in SE P1. Do not pull as a Ranger, but if you let someone else pull it’ll be fine since they wont stop to target the pet.

Turrets in Arah seem to like Ranger pets even if they’re not in combat and the ranger is stealthed…

Norjena.5172:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Rangers do not do more damage than warriors, that’s just wishful thinking. A number that people have quoted before without any actual proof is “5% behind warrior.” Mesmers won’t outdps most classes in most scenarios, it’s extremely situational.

In short fights without a mesmer (no timewarp), Signettrait and conjoured weapons (not only FGS, LH, FB are enough) u can definitly do it.
Usually they have nice support. Spotter/Spirit for party dps makes them better then a second warrior (always i think).
In Fractals they have alot of helpful utility.

CoF p1 is bad example, u are usually not using 2 thiefs…and a mesmer ist often not needed. And this parth has got only 2 bosses, and TW is rdy there.

After the feature patch we will see more rangers in speedruns (probably).

As much as I like doing 3.3k ticks on FGS, I am not really happy about needing conjure weapons (or traited signets) to do competitive DPS. Also, thieves can use conjures well past 8s incase the fight needs 2 fiery rushes instead of 1.

Sube Dai.8496:

TurtleDragon.3108:

This post is filled with bias and ignorance towards the ranger class.

Rangers are only bad in Record Run environments, and min-max dungeon tours. Outside of those, a well-played meta ranger easily contributes enough to the group to be worth bringing, but the issue is too many people think they’re playing in that type of environment.

If your bringing rez skills then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re not running compositions like 1 warrior, 2 eles 1 thief + 1 other then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re PUG-ing, then you’re also not min maxing and should not expect to find players that are full ascended zerker geared, use 2 food buffs and stacking sigils.

I hate the average bearbow just as much as you do, but well-played rangers are an amazing asset to most teams in the game.

I thought the record cof run contained a frost spirit ranger?

It did at one point for idk how long, but it does not right now under the new rule set.

Visit http://gwscr.com/records/current-meta-dungeon-records for more info. The current CoF p1 uses 1 warrior, 2 thieves, 1 ele and 1 mesmer.

Fluffball.8307:

Atherakhia.4086:

It is common knowledge that the Ranger is 5th highest DPS in this game behind Elementalists, Thieves, Mesmers, and Warriors.

Eles and thieves I’ll buy, almost certain we out damage warriors and mesmers.

Do you have a thread reference?

Rangers do not do more damage than warriors, that’s just wishful thinking. A number that people have quoted before without any actual proof is “5% behind warrior.” Mesmers won’t outdps most classes in most scenarios, it’s extremely situational.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Charr are great, you get Battle Roar!

This is a great skill for Rangers who do not have a short CD Fury skill, perfect for short encounters and spiking mobs down.

Wat lol? You’re funny.

This post is filled with bias and ignorance towards the ranger class.

Rangers are only bad in Record Run environments, and min-max dungeon tours. Outside of those, a well-played meta ranger easily contributes enough to the group to be worth bringing, but the issue is too many people think they’re playing in that type of environment.

If your bringing rez skills then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re not running compositions like 1 warrior, 2 eles 1 thief + 1 other then you’re not in that type of environment. If you’re PUG-ing, then you’re also not min maxing and should not expect to find players that are full ascended zerker geared, use 2 food buffs and stacking sigils.

I hate the average bearbow just as much as you do, but well-played rangers are an amazing asset to most teams in the game.

thomasgjkgwdn.4760:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Pet survivability is rarely an issue.

Arashiookami.2896:

As for PvE I agree that pet survivability is rarely an issue (at least in my case), but I’ve seen many many many rangers with poor pet management

curious: when is it an issue, and what “management” do you use when the boss is able to nuke your pet?

I haven’t played ranger (or GW2 recently) in a few weeks, so these are just examples off the top of my head.

Tazza: (SE P1). I think felines can live through 1 or 2 mind stabs, but if they’re concentrated (ie. 5) in melee range then it might one shot your pet. Your pet swaps need to be fairly accurate to keep it alive through a low dps group. I don’t remember if the CD on mind stab is shorter than the CD of untraited pet swap.

Lupicus: Yeah I don’t know. I’ve never actually done this on my ranger in a guild or organized settings. (Reason being that I hate playing Ranger in Arah and play war/guard/engi there instead). This guy does kill pets a lot in a pug environment.

Ooze (Arah p1): I don’t know any tricks for this either, but it kills both your pets while you safe spot it.

Molten Duo (Boss Fractal): You can’t really do much if the berserker gets off more than 2 shockwaves in a fight.

Mai Trin: I dunno if you can actually keep it alive during the cannon phase, I just leave it dead and rez it after the cannons are done

Jade Maw: lol, but it’s not an issue other than making the fight last longer

Pet management is mostly just pressing F3 or F4 at the right time. In a speed run environment, fights don’t last long enough for them to die.

This is the same thing I say to every wilderness survival build:
You are trying to use the ranger in a role it is not good at. Rangers excel at offensive buffing, but are mediocre at best at protecting the party. Reflects are best handled by your party’s mesmer and guardian.

You do have the right ideas, but I just feel that this type of build is way too situational, and that the damage loss from no points in Skirmishing makes it not worth running. At least this build is better than most of the other ones that people post here.

Anierna.6918:

Why am I even bothering with an engi spec, you may ask? Well, because we, [DD], finally found a use for an Engi!

Pretty excited to see a record run with an Engineer in it.

Now do one with a Ranger or Necro

Attack doesn’t mean anything and is not a useful number to give around, state your power instead since power is actually used when determining damage. Attack is something like (power + weapon damage), but the sum of those 2 numbers is never used in anything but your hero panel. You also generally want to state what game mode you want your stats for, I’m just assuming it’s WvWvW/sPvP.

Mist golem tests aren’t good tests.

Modifiers are multiplicative, not additive (ie. 1.1 * 1.1 instead of 10% + 10%)

As for LB vs. SB. LB has better burst and is a better team weapon, but the sustained damage is awful at less than 1000 range. Both bows are awful compared to sword/GS.

Jungle Stalker for single target with Drake on swap for trash is what I find the most practical for PvE. Pet survivability is rarely an issue.

Nikaido.3457:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Nikaido.3457:

Also, you just don’t bring mesmers in SE.

Meta builds doesn’t mean you have to bring the absolute best compositions for each specific dungeon path. If you were going for a record, or doing a serious dungeon tour, then go ahead, but for the more casual runs you can bring a mesmer to everything.

Otherwise, classes like Rangers, Engineers and Necromancers wouldn’t see much play or have a meta build.

Well, if we chose to define meta in such a way then the “meta” build for ele should be 30/30/10 since it’s the one that works best on casual/random group compo, having both fury and some vuln stacking. On the other hand the current 30/10/10/20 shown on the website would be horrible to use outside of specific organized runs.

Well, I just feel that there can be multiple meta builds for a class, and that “X class is not used in the GWSCR of Y path” is not a good reason to dismiss a build. I don’t know much about eles, except that some guides have a chart with 6 different trait distributions based on what you need or what content you’re doing.

Nevets Crimsonwing.5271:

So Guanglai Kangyi used to say engineer dps was pretty good. Is engineer viable in any speed clear groups for any dungeon paths?

I feel engineers are perfectly viable, except in the following scenarios:
1. You want to beat a record on GWSCR
2. Your goal is to do every dungeon path as fast and efficiently as possible to make ~40 gold a day from doing tours ASAP.

These 2 scenario do not apply to the majority of the playerbase.

Their dps isn’t good though, but have a lot of utility/support. Most of which are done better by other classes. I personally enjoy my engineer a lot in fractals.

Nikaido.3457:

Also, you just don’t bring mesmers in SE.

Meta builds doesn’t mean you have to bring the absolute best compositions for each specific dungeon path. If you were going for a record, or doing a serious dungeon tour, then go ahead, but for the more casual runs you can bring a mesmer to everything.

Otherwise, classes like Rangers, Engineers and Necromancers wouldn’t see much play or have a meta build.

Ranger build needs more bears and bows.

(Serious):
The Ranger builds are fine. Some people may run slightly different weapons on their 2nd set and different pets, but its all situational.

One Note Chord.5031:

I like your signature.

The Chosen Link.3247:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Idk, whirl finisher and ice combo field maybe?

He’s talking about Main Hand Axe, skill 3 (Winters Bite). It has a 3s chill.

Yeah but Lindblur said Axe 5

Idk, whirl finisher and ice combo field maybe?

Ice drake and Axe #3 can chill as well.

Lindbur.2537:

Chill does indeed help with kiting bosses like Archdiviner, but I’m not sure about the skill recharge portion.

It does, one of the bosses I tested it on was Ginva. It’d delay his whirling defense by from 15s cd to 25s cd if you keep him chilled the entire time. It doesn’t affect auto attacks though, or skills without recharges.

It’s not worth using the Frost Spirit’s chill, because you wont’ be able to kill it on command if it’s active is on CD, and the spirit’s positioning will make it more likely to get killed.

Chill is a niche condtion, it’s great in some scenarios and useless in others.

If you don’t mind being a DPS leech, sure.

Warlord.9074:

Thiefs dont cleave. I think the ranger GS doesn’t cleave also. Cleave is a melee attack that can hit 3 targets. Not all professions and weapons cleave. Long bows don’t cleave so maybe thats your problem?

Thieves can cleave with Sword, and Ranger GS also cleaves. You may be thinking of Ranger sword, where only the 2nd hit in the auto attack chain does not cleave.

Speaking of dodges… how do you evade the leap with one dodge?. I’ve only done the fight twice, but I think it’s a ground AoE from the leap with an unblockable tremor projectile (in one direction?). I’ve done the dodge successfully a few times, but other times the 2nd part of the skill hit me.

I’d prefer to avoid double dodging on that attack if I can?

Do Citadel of Flame (p1 + p2) and Crucible of eternity (p1 + p2 + p3) daily for berserker gear. Arah gives berserker gear as well, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that place as a newbie.

Anet has a QA team?

Goodbye bloodlust and perception

If it sounds too good to true for rangers, it probably is…

nah jk idk. I’m still getting my hopes up.

Multiple pet AI quality-of-life changes and bug fixes are being made for the ranger. For example, commanding your pet to use a skill or attack an enemy will now occur instantaneously and will break the creature out of its current action. The skill activated by Keen Edge is now considered a Survival skill and will benefit from other traits that impact this skill type.

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/runes-sigils-and-balance-updates/

Discuss.

I’m excited that I’ll have an easier time swapping between Hammer and GS builds on my guardian. If only Gendarren fields had a trait trainer… (that wasn’t behind a cash shop/living story gate)

Next patch will be great when we can just retrait inside the dungeon to 20/25/0/25/0 for max melee range GS fights like Alphard and Grawl Shaman. And for 30/25 vs. 20/25, it’s basically
30/25: Better for short fights and trash
20/25: Better for long fights and/or GS fights

Hoping for a worthwhile skirmishing or nature magic grandmaster trait, since those are relatively “accessible” in PvE builds. The other thing I keep hoping for is that rangers get Mainhand Dagger, and that it’s a god kitten power melee weapon. None of that throwing daggers stuff, we already have axe for that.

I forgot #6.

6. Greatsword doesn’t scale well with Quickness. GS has a weak auto attack and is reliant on Maul for damage. Maul’s cd doesn’t get shortened with quickness, while Sword is completely auto attack reliant, and benefits a lot more from quickness than GS.

Your vulnerability numbers are a bit off as well. If you have 20 in marksmanship, then its (8 * 1.2) / 2 = 4.8s 25 marks = 5s. It’s ~ 71% uptime on bosses. This averages to a 3.5% party DPS boost, but you have to use a weapon that is at least 12% weaker. From personal exxperience playing in both PUGS and organized groups, I’d estimate the gs to be about 20-25% worst than the sword in organized groups, and 35% worst than the sword in bad PUGs. Everyone is focusing too much on the vuln, and ignoring the loss of the utility from the offhand.

I also feel that 30/25 is the stronger ranger spec, and that GS is not viable for that set up. Red moa is not really a good substitute for a cat and warhorn imo, its dps is not that good but the fury would make it worthwhile. Again, it’s another unnecessary dps loss that could have been prevented if you went the optimal route.

Dahkeus.8243:

TurtleDragon.3108:

The gap doesn’t look so bad on paper, but it is much bigger in practical play.

I don’t see how…the GS is much easier to DPS with since it doesn’t have all the issues with normal attacks that the 1h sword does. It also has a gap closer that lets you switch to attacking additional targets faster than the 1h sword does, meaning that you have less downtime.

edit
Nevermind, I think you mean that since the GS requires trait investment that’s deep in defensive trees, it offsets the damage boost of those traits.

2H training is fairly accessible, 20/25/0/25/0 is still a meta build and pretty decent, but it’s hard to take Martial Mastery in a spotter/frost spirit build. You are pretty much right about wilderness survival offsetting the damage gain. It’s like saying “I’m lowering my Overall DPS from 9k to 7k just to make GS equal to sword!” (numbers are made up and have no basis)

Melee fights where you need good positioning and instantaneous dodges are far and few (ie. Lupi, Grawl Shaman), so the sword doesn’t show it’s control weakness that often. In those fights, it’s more common to range it than it is to melee as well. One shots really only happen in Arah and high level fractals anyways, you can facetank a few hits on most enemies in the game. Consider a stack and DPS fight that doesn’t require dodging while I explain why GS numbers don’t translate into real play.

1. Everyone is ignoring the effects of unshakeable, which most bosses have. This greatly reduces the effectiveness of Maul’s vulnerability stacking. Worst of all, the vuln won’t last long enough to affect your next Maul (unless you have martial mastery, then it might idk). It’s great on trash, but it’s also significantly easier to reach 25 vulnerability as a group on trash. You also have dungeons like SE p1, where you literally don’t fight any trash and the path is entirely bosses with unshakeable. You also have the issue of your party composition containing so much vulnerability stacking, that you don’t need the extra vuln from Maul.

2. Maul is a single hit. Single hits attacks have higher variance than channelled attacks (rapid fire, hundred blades). This isn’t so much an issue in organized groups, but it is a very big issue in PUGs. If you don’t have perma fury and your warrior decides to run banner of defense instead of discipline, you’ll have like 60% crit chance with only spotter active. In the GS video I linked, I’m playing with 100% crit chance.
See the bottom of Solandri’s post for more detail on this.

3. Perma fury is hard to get without a persisting flames ele, or stacking warriors. By taking GS instead of sword, you don’t get the benefits of Call of the Wild for your entire group, which is worth 1 blast finisher and ~49% fury uptime. Consider a group composition like 2 guard, 1 war, 1 thief, 1 ranger. Ignoring guardian book and thrill of the crime, fury is only going to come from the warrior and ranger. FGJ and Warhorn will give around 80% fury uptime, but if you decide to take GS instead of S/WH you’ll only have FGJ for group fury. Do note, I am only considering the effects of group fury, not personal fury. 100% personal fury uptime doesn’t mean much if your 2 guardians and thief are only gaining 8s of fury from the warrior every 25s. Obviously, there are ways to get around this (ie. have everyone pick up the disc banner and press 2 or make the thief switch his trickery trait) but it’s more effort and has a DPS cost that could have been avoided if you just went the optimal route.

4. You can’t double stack bloodlust/perception with a GS. GS is bad for trash unless you already stacked up 25 bloodlust/perception, or you need to stay stacked/max melee range.

5. Sword/WH has an extra sigil (modifier). ie. Force/Night on Sw/offhand vs. Force OR night only on GS. I run a balanced set up so I don’t have to carry 50 weapons, Force and Night on my sword set, Force on my GS set. My Sword/WH set has an additional 10% damage modifier that my GS does not have in night dungeons.

New troll is something I’d hate to do in a PUG, but enjoy doing with friends. Although I do feel that this type of change needs to be in the patch notes since its not even remotely close to being an “exploit.” I also feel that the harder content should be in new content (lol), and that they should just fix bugs/exploits in the current dungeons.

The gap doesn’t look so bad on paper, but it is much bigger in practical play.

I’m more inclined to disagree with some of these, especially since these seem to be PUG tips as organized groups already know this. Everything is situational, sometimes you’ll find unexpected PvE uses of some of the most obscure skills in the game (ie. Throw Bolas). It’s not a matter of “Never use” but “Is it appropriate for this situation?”