Guild Wars 2

Ever heard of the rangers class mechanic? It is called “pet” and actually requires a lot of micromanagement to get the most out of it. It can offer cc, burst, support, etc. There is your “comboing ability” …

mistsim.2748:

not true, playing all day, it’s blockable. in fact, it hardly ever works.

I don’t have problems with taunt, it still hits most of the time. And it definitely goes through aegis, engie blocks and warrior blocks and i’m sure it works against other blocks too.

mistsim.2748:

because everyone is spamming blocks and invulns. cant really touch mesmers unless I get lucky with at taunt in between their blocks. this is why I was saying that BW should still go through blocks at least. but nope, dev morons continue to kneejerk nerf kitten into uselessness. everything except the stuff that matters like Mesmer and cele ele cancer.

BW is still unblockable.

LughLongArm.5460:

So we’r sure the stats are missing.
The hp pool of a pet is 1500 lower than what it supposed to be? I just cant remember the hp pool of my birds before the patch.

Can’t remember the exactly hp from birds too, but i know they had definitely more than 16k health (with full BM). Now they have 15,4k.

Archon.6480:

LughLongArm.5460:

Is it confirmed that the pet base 150 stats are missing or could it be tool-tip error only?
I used to run BM before the ptach and after and the damage on pets seems to be the same +-

That’s a good question. I am not sure, but have experienced the same. They seem to hit very hard in current state.

Pets got an additional 10% dmg bonus while the ranger is above 90% health and some builds have less armor than before the patch due to missing defensive stats from traits. So it is not surprising that pets hit for the same or even slightly more than pre-patch even with lower stats.
But their dmg is not the problem. They die way faster than before the patch, mostly because of the overall higher dmg output from everyone. Barkskin and the thoughness from GftE doesn’t help much, especially against condis. Relative to players they are weaker now (statwise, I’m not talking about usefulness/utility here).

The server which has the least player on a map gets the outnumbered “buff”. The actual difference doesn’t matter.

So if Server A has 50, Server B has 10 and you have 11 ppl, you won’t have the outnumbered buff, even though you are clearly outnumbered by server A.

I don’t think this is a bug, you can “spam” the blind anyways with eagle/hawk. This just enables you to do the same with other pets. It requires more micromanagement and you kind of “sacrifice” their F2 ability, so eagle/hawk have still an advantage.

Toughness feels indeed a littel bit useless atm, but Protective Ward counters this “burst meta” pretty well. Especially when combined with Bark Skin it can lower the first burst by a significant amount.

Yesterday in WvW an enemy warrior asked me, how it is possible to hit for only 700 with eviscerate -“There is a 0 missing” ^^

Zoke.2147:

P.S. I have played ranger, I do understand the class has weaknesses and has next to 0 chance in most straight up duels because there are no mechanics to deal with it…

And this is the point, where skill comes into play. Good rangers (both condi and power) are definitely not bad at dueling.

Why should somebody care about PPT, if matches are decided only by numbers and coverage?

Btw long range autoattack didn’t get buffed. Even before the lb buffs last year, when lb ranger was considered trash, you could kill ppl with only aa as easy as now. Autoattacking was actually the most efficient way to kill something with lb, because rapidfire was a dps loss at 1k+ range.

TakeCare.3182:

Sit in a zerg/group and push 1.

Isn’t this, what every one does in a zerg?

Btw other classes are still way more powerful/important in zergfights than rangers.

TakeCare.3182:

You’re insulated by a zerg or you’re sitting on a wall, but the only thing you’re doing… is pushing 1.

So maybe we should nerf zergs and walls, if those are the things, which make ranger op.

Klonko.8341:

-MoC + signet of the hunt + Hard hitting pet ability for a nice 200% dmg (and pray for a crit xD)

The dmg boni from MoC and SotH (and the bonus for the pet from Hilt Bash) do not stack. Unless they change this, which wasn’t announced (or did i miss something?).

Tragic Positive.9356:

But the thing is that the most key part to WvW is mobility. If he doesn’t want to play Traveler, he has to get SotH.

Trapper without SotH/Traveler is not the fastest outfight, but the infight mobility is actually pretty decent, thanks to superspeed and sword leaps (and some swiftness on weapon swap). Stealth in general is very powerful, when it comes to escaping and LR adds some mobility too. Moving speed alone won’t save you, if you get locked down by immob/stuns. Those two things are, what kills most trap rangers (who usually play with 3 traps). Not the lack of swiftness/25% extra speed.

And you can always swap to SotH/Warhorn, if you have to travel some distance without fighting.

Tragic Positive.9356:

If the player decides to go Sinister Stats for trapper runes… That misses the main point of build-goals. If you play full offensive stats – you need to take your enemy down in the least time possible. And Zerker is the clear answer for that. It would even open half of the traits and combination available to the key aspects, since we are facing here a problem of No Condi cleanse/Useless short-ranged missing LB/Traps not reliable/no mobility/no slots for Survival Abilities.

So for full offensive builds – ice trap+spike trap and full Glass would be the way to go. If the original poster requested a condi build with using longbow, I believe the purpose would be fulfilled the best with mix of defense/offense. Conditions make sense only if you live long enough to keep replying them because they have zero burst or surprise aspects.

It is not necessary to go full sinister, luckily WvW allows the mixing of stats. There are more options for hybrid than cele or full glass. Of course cele does work for trapper, but with mixed stats and a decent amount of active defense (evades, mobility, stealth, cc), you can trade defensive stats for more dmg, without loosing too much survability (in many situations a stun-/immobbreak – preferable LR – alone adds more survability than those defensive stats from cele gear).

Zerker is only your best option, if you are able to kill your opponent(s) fast, but that’s not always the case, even with full glass zerk build. If you have to kite/play defensive, the extra dmg from condis come in pretty handy.
And not many expect condipressure from a lb ranger, so there is some sort of “surprise aspect” ^^

kiwituatara.6053:

Keep in mind that Trapper LB builds gets pretty hard countered by regular LB builds. Their pets will set off all your traps, putting reveal on you.

This is true for lb ranger with good condi remove. But most lb ranger I encounter in WvW run with (almost) zero condi cleanse and are easy prey for hybrid (or condi) builds.

I played hybrid trapper in WvW a lot with this build. Worked pretty well for me.

Haven’t unlocked sinister/carrion asc trinkets yet, otherwise i would use those instead of rampagers.

If you need more defensive stats, you can add more rabid/knight/carrion pieces.

Cele is imo not the best option for trapper, because it doesn’t benefit much from the healing power. Especially if the heal skill is the only source of healing.

For me, this definitely happens against players too.

Aside from MoC I was using exactly the same build for the whole video. With MoC, Counterattack hits significantly harder than without it. Please explain me how this can happen, if it is not the dmg bonus from MoC …

Edit: Meh, didn’t noticed the second test for CA without MoC is missing (1,9k crit). I will upload a new version.

Edit2: new video

I’m talking about the dmg from counterattack. It interrupts and at the same time the dmg bonus from MoC is applied to the dmg of the knockback.

Counterattack itself triggers MoC, and the dmg is applied after the interrupt, so i didn’t need Hiltbash (or another interupt) there. It is actually more reliable than HB→Maul combo.

6k+ knockbacks from GS4 are pretty nice too, so maul is not the only skill, that benefits from MoC.

LB Rangers might have some stuff to avoid getting attacked, but once they get jumped, their options to get away are very limited. Therefore map awareness and positioning are crucial for rangers. And those two things work very well against them too …

On many points a ranger can’t even hit anything from 1200+ range.

GROMIT.7829:

1- Get close then knocked back
2- Rapid fire.
3- I dodge/evade/block (evades and blockes have a huge cooldown).
4- I close the gap and get the ranger to 20%.
5- He pop signet of stone and repeats his damage rotation that i can’t block as it’s all .on cooldown, i dodge half of it and go to 2/3 hp and then to 1/2 from auto attack.
6- He heals up to full.
7- Binding Roots.
8- I’m usually dead as he hits me again with that rapid fire.

Solution: Use your heal skill (every class has one).

The main problem with eb in beastmasterbuilds are not the damaging conditions, but more every form of soft cc. If the pet is used mainly for utility/support, this might be not a big problem, but i would never take eb, if i want my pet to deal some damage.

Fluffball.8307:

Yes. Bleeding is fairly hard to stack on you even if you’re doing nothing but SoR passive and evade spamming. If they can’t get a big condi burst on you, the HUGE passive healing of the build just outheals the condis and you can ignore them. If they do land a big condi burst, you can use HS, which is practically an invulnerability between the runes, condi clears, and leaps.

For some reason, everytime I take this build out I run into a condi necro and obliterate them. I’ve tested this against condi necros more than any other build.

I’m not only talking about surviving against condibuilds, more about killing them. Most are ranged, have at least “ok” mobility and lots of soft CC (which does not only affect me, but my pet too) in additon to their damaging condis. They can kite me pretty well and even if I get some decent hits on them, it is not enough to kill them because of their sustain.
Does not mean, i can’t kill any condi player, but at least if I meet a decent one, it is usually a very hard fight for me.
Btw condi necros are one of the easier to kill condi builds, even for me, because they are soo slow ^^

Fluffball.8307:

Overall, I like the crazy regen a lot more than a SotF or a Guard build, although those 2 are good builds that I’ve used a lot. Guard is annoying because you have to use it so frequently and it doesn’t play well with HS, and EB is annoying.

I’m not a fan of EB or guard spamming too, but you can combine the regen and SotF. To make it more clear, what i meant with SotF melee bm build, this is, what i’m currently running in WvW (works in PvP too with valk amulet and dwayna rune).
I’m not using natural healing, because survability is not my main problem with this build. At least in 1vs1 ^^

Fluffball.8307:

This build also does more damage than a 20660 or something build, because the bird goes completely crazy on people.

This is something I can confirm. Despite the mentioned downsides of my build, i really like it. Lots of fun to play and definitely not a bad build.

I’m using a similar build atm, so I know, melee bm builds do work.
But your build seems a little bit weak against condis and CC. Are SoR and HS alone really enough against condi builds? Not only because of their dmg, but more because most condi builds have lots of soft CC and are good at kiting, which is my main problem against them when i play full melee (even with SotF).
I’m not using intimidation training though, maybe i should try it (I don’t like eagle and hawk :/ )
And i can’t belive the good chasing potential. Sure, it has enough mobility to follow a running opponent, but from my experience with meleeranger it lacks enough pressure to finish off a fleeing target (unless it’s a necro or guard ^^). Not sure, if intimidation training helps much, because one leap or teleport, and they are out of range from the pet, and the cripples from dagger and gs are usually not enough to stay close (at least for me). Spamming sword AA works sometimes, but most of the time I can’t do much, if somebody decides to run away.

Just out of curiosity: Did you tried melee bm with SotF? If no, why not? If yes, why do you prefer signets?

Imo am mix of sinister/carrion/rampager is better for Hybrid Trapper than cele, because it doesn’t benefit much from healing power. You can always add a few knight or rabid pieces for some extra toughness if needed. Or zerk for more direct dmg and less condi dmg.

And the defensive stats from cele won’t help much, if you play with (almost) zero stunbreaker and condiremove (SoR alone is often not enough)

This is, how I play lb hybrid trapper:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNEQNAT8YjEq0ya7KerQ1aABhYVQ76wW2JZbXsSDTA-TlTDABUcQAYWZQf6AMRzw37PcwFAIhHAgVKhi4IAks6O1oSAAmggQJ4UKdCAgAwMn5Mn5MTIAFbBA-w

(I would prefer sinister/carrion trinkets over rampagers, but haven’t unlocked them yet)

Fluffball.8307:

If you know you’re going to CC someone, why not “pre-cast” the wolf howl?? Oh you just stun broke hilt bash? Now you’re feared, and at the end of the fear you’re in an undodgeable entangle. Makes no sense to me.

Fear + Entangle is indeed a strong CC combo, both skills are on a long cooldown though.
But Hilt Bash is a good example for “high missrate on moving opponents” due to the short self root and low range. And it doesn’t even stun when it hit the front. Usually not the best option for starting a cc chain. Even the not directly controlable (i know, they are somewhat controlable) long cd/casttime kd from canines are better than Hilt Bash most of the time.

Btw I don’t have much problems with CC’ing my opponents, just saying that many (NOT all) CC skills, especially those from pets, are less reliable than similar skills from other classes.

More CC does not mean better CC. Lots of the rangers hard CC and immob options suffer from long casttimes, long cooldowns, high missrate on moving opponents and/or lack of direct control.

I don’t want so say, all rangers CC skills are bad – this is not the case of course – just want to explain, why it is not so completely ridiculous, that other classes are more famous for (reliably) chaining CC.

WvW is not only about zerg fights. Rangers are great for roaming and small scale fights in WvW.

mistsim.2748:

EB needs to be moved to beastmastery

Yea, a trait, that hurts our pet, is definitely a good idea in beastmastery …

SotF should have stayed in NM. Being forced to take WS for condi remove seems stupid and lowers build diversitiy. I don’t understand this change.

They should switch SotF (or whatever this new trait is called) with Protective Ward.

Ravinsild.4637:

Edit: What about the Raven bird? I don’t believe Birds have an inherent bleed and Raven applies a blind, which can honestly make you even more tanky because your enemy will miss a lot from it. Just like to consider every option not just Hawk or Eagle for their lacerating slashes.

Raven and Owl are great pets for BM builds. They have the best burst and less problems at hitting moving targets than most meleepets.

Atm I’m testing a melee bm build in WvW with double birds, and it seems to work pretty well so far. The combination of bird autoattack + F2 + Maul (all with quickness from pet swap) allows some very nice burst.

UmbraNoctis.1907:

There is absolutely no reason to give two different skills of two different weapons from two different classes with completely different mechanics the same (or similar) restrictions, just because a few things are not so completely different.

And if it is the mechanic, that makes rf so op, why aren’t similar skills (yea, rf is not the only high dmg ranged channeled skill) like volley or unload not op? Or do you want to nerf those op rifle warriors and p/p thiefs too?

…

Why do you ignore me?

Condition duration is capped at +100% too.
Only fear duration can be increased to +200% because the duration caps for stun and condition are independent from each other, and fear is affeced by both (and MoC does affect fear, even though it is not mentioned in the description).

There is absolutely no reason to give two different skills of two different weapons from two different classes with completely different mechanics the same (or similar) restrictions, just because a few things are not so completely different.

And if it is the mechanic, that makes rf so op, why aren’t similar skills (yea, rf is not the only high dmg ranged channeled skill) like volley or unload not op? Or do you want to nerf those op rifle warriors and p/p thiefs too?

100b is not countered by trees, stones, uneven terrain, grass, …
100b can not be reflected back into the warriors face (sadly )

Rangers are not warriors and rapidfire is not 100b, those skills don’t have to be the same (or similar) to be balanced.

I have encountered a earth camping condiele only once (thats the reason why i wrote “almost” ^^). Died against him in the first fight, because i didn’t expect a condi ele, but afterwards i won every single time. I played a trap ranger with sb and s/d if i remember correctly.
Have met a few other condiele builds that didn’t rely on autoattack from scepter, which were usually harder to beat, but still not a big problem, at least for a condi survival ranger with sb, even with the flanking requirement.

And i don’t understand why you want to buff the autoattack instead of other shortbow skills.

Sebrent.3625:

Please scroll up and look at my post with the math on how many bleeds you can stack with shortbow. You can’t stack over 10 bleeds by just autoattacking with shortbow unless you have roughly +100% duration on those base 3s bleeds.

Skills are not independent from other skills/traits, so you shouldn’t ignore them. With a 0/2/6/6/0 build with rabid amulet, krait rune and earth sigil on the shortbow (which is an actual working build) i could stack 8-14 (average 11-12) bleeds on a golem only with shortbow autoattack. With fury 12-16 stacks. Of course those stacks wear off fast, if you are not constantly shooting, but with the mentioned build it is possible to maintain a high amount of “autoattack spam” even in a real fight. And you can easily add more bleeding and some poison and burning with other skills/sigils, etc.

Sebrent.3625:

Given that the Elementalist already starts at 6s bleeds (equivalent to Ranger shortbow capped at +100% duration), why is it that we aren’t seeing people “just crumble to auto spam” from Elementalists?

Maybe because (almost) nobody plays “auto spam condiele”, because such a build sucks? I don’t know enough about ele, to give you the exact reason, why it doesn’t work well, but i’m sure there is one, otherwise we would see “people crumble to auto spam from ele” more often.

Don’t compare single skills of different classes, and ignore the whole picture.

Hardly anybody plays bleedstacking condiele and i’m pretty sure, there is a good reason why nobody does it.

Bleedstacking condiranger with shortbow is not so rare and it is definitely not a bad build. Without the flanking requirement it would be way to easy to maintain high bleed stacks just through autoattacks.
Of course shortbow could use some improvements, but i would prefer if it becomes less depending on the autoattack, not more.

Many people use longbow, because it fits their view of ranger as an archer the most, and not because it is so “OP”. And various variants of condi ranger (without lb) are pretty common too.

And just because other skills from other classes work in different ways, it does not mean, rangers skills have to be the same. Different classes, different weapons, different strenghts and weaknesses, thats how it is and how it should be.

Soilder.3607:

I understand that but I really think the benefit would outweigh the loss on that one. It wouldn’t hit as hard, but it would still hit hard.

Meanwhile, the entirety of our burst isn’t lost on a single block, blind, or aegis.

Maul alone hits not very hard compared to other burst skills. If only half of a maul hits, I would not talk about “burst” anymore, it is more like an autoattack. It might not matter much for a longbow build, which uses the gs only as secondary weapon.
But as a meeleranger sometimes I really need the high burst from the combination of Maul+MoC or SotH. Sure, a “good” maul is hard to land on decent opponents, but if it lands, the reward is there.
Your suggestion would lower the “risk” , but also the “reward”. I would actually prefer the opposite.

Soilder.3607:

Maul – I think a problem with the greatsword is that none of it’s skills are multiple strikes or channels, which makes it hard to use the weapon against foes with constant blocks and blinds, such as guardians and theives, or even mesmers. Maul’s damage is negated by a single blind or block, whereas other GS burst skills, like 100b or whirling wrath, are channeled so all their damage isn’t negated by a single one of these. I think that if Maul were to count as two strikes (it retains the same damage, just counts as two seperate attacks) instead of a single strike, it would give the greatsword much better usability in general as well as against block/blind heavy specs.

This would be a huge nerf to maul imo. Maul really shines when combined with Attack of Opportunity from SotH or MoC. Making it a multiple hit attack will significantly lower its burst potential.

Aomine.5012:

3. Sharpened Edges: This trait needs to be a minor trait for all it worth. Most other classes has this type of trait in minor trait (33%~66% to cause x condition when crit)
2 sec bleed is not much consider you have to waste a slot for it. The on swap swiftness trait can shift into the adapt trait to compensate.

Swiftness is useful for all builds, but not all benefit from bleedprocs or even don’t want them. Those traits are fine as they are now.

Dahkeus.8243:

3) Kind of along side point 2, they often use the wolf pet too much during heavy fights and are left either without a wolf swap or without the wolf F2 when they get downed

Better use pet cc during the fight to prevent getting downed instead of waiting for it.

My pet always continues rezzing after it got interrupted regardless of which sort of interrupt was used (unless it died of course), and same was true for every enemy ranger pet I interrupted while rezzing.

Ithilwen.1529:

In the case of a turret engi. The answer is simply to range them. So I don’t see that as excessive.

In the case of LB rangers the answer is simply to get close and kill them. So I don’t see that as excessive.

Ithilwen.1529:

I can’t cap a point without being open to long range fire. That’s the reality. There is not a single point on a single map that is not exposed. ( arguably, Skyhammer A and C are somewhat sheltered ) Thus if I use LOS to save my skin, I cannot help my team.

1. This is not true. On most points a ranger can’t hit anything from 1200+ range, even if the opponent is not actively hiding.
2. A ranger who shoots from far away can’t cap/decap a point either.
3. You can’t cap a point, while attacking a turret engi from range, but he can. Turret engi is way better at decapping/defending a point than LB ranger, so I don’t understand, why dealing with a LB ranger is a bigger problem in conquest mode.

I’m currelnty using this build and it works better than i expected. Sinister/carrion instead of those rampager/assassin pieces would be better though.

Of course it is a pretty glassy build and if you don’t time your evades/pet cc/ stealth well, you will die very fast.

Pets don’t trigger MoC and it affects only the first hit from rapid fire (and other multiple-hit-attacks). So yea, MoC is pretty useless without GS.

anduriell.6280:

Also i don’t know were you get the idea of “do damage” when the skill states “when attack”. Even in that case, the “do damage” should be taken as “direct damage” instead “any damage caused by any effect by the ranger”. It’s only 3 seconds stealth.
As i said, this skill is useless because is broken.

Every single class will be revealed, if they deal direct damage while stealthed. Does this mean, every stealth skill is broken?
Condition damage won’t reveal you, neither does damage from the pet.

Be careful vs necros and s/d thiefs when using RaO, because they can corrupt/steal the stability.