Guild Wars 2

Things you can do to interrput/stun/daze/fear… etc based on each profession:

1. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Daze
2. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fear
3. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Knockdown
4. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Launch
5. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pull
6. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Push
7. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Stun

It’s fairly easy to interrupt them if you are able to do it from range (interrupt/fear/stun/pull/push skills). The problem is that you will not be able to interrupt them all the time since you are much more limited to stop them than they are at jumping into stealth. So choose wisely when this should occur, the worst time to do it is early in the battle, the best time is after they have used at least two teleport skills, or after they refuged, or after they spent some initiative and will be forced to use their utilities to dissapear… many options here. The only problem is interrupting them on melee range, you’d have to get lucky not get blind powdered in the face, which will blind you and force you to miss your interrupt skill, the time gap is really short to react to it consistently.

WvW roaming should only be done if you know exactly what you’re doing, that goes for any profession out there. Also roaming isn’t a one dimensional aspect either in WvW, it all depends on your world and what is currently happening when you log in. I tend to be very successful at roaming as a ranger, however it does come with huge challenges, as you will often find group play rather than solo play (depending on your world) or zerg play vs organized guild zerg play. All these aspects clash with each other all the time in WvW.

So why do I state the obvious? Because it’s important to know that as a ranger you cannot have a build that will be transparent on each of the above aspects. You can however learn where the roaming action is occurring alone, and pray that you only encounter roaming action.

Here is a post I answered to including my ‘roaming’ build thoughts, its quite detailed and I hope you can get all or at least part of what you need from there: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/LF-Guide-on-WvW-sPvP-Build-s/first#post3951880

Now is it worth it? Let’s think about this a little, if you like ranger anything is worth it because you will be willing to find a way that works for you, just like most of us rangers have. You take the risk of not having a transparent build, which other professions can achieve with greater ease than rangers, but the reward is there. Being limited by class mechanic to a specific role (sniper but squishy, group roamer but very limited big blob support, solo roamer but slightly limited group support) allows you to be free to decide what you like to do most, which isn’t really bad at all.

However, if you had to try warrior or thief, you would find transparency in roles between roamer and blob support. Don’t let this fact turn you away from rangers since rangers are known to be excellent roamers, but it’s also important that you understand the challenge, that you hear it from us as well, that it is not easy but it is very fun.

I would suggest a bleed/burning build 2/2/4/6/0 with the following setup: II – II – VI, VII – Vi, VIII, XIII. Your weapons are shortbow with perception + sigil of earth, sword/torch using sigil of geomancy + smoldering respectively. For the gear full rabid will be the way to go, same for trinkets, and krait runes. Food you will want anything with precision + vitality or condition damage + vitaliy. Your other consumable should be maintenance oil for more precision or tuning crystal for condition damage. Utilities should be troll unguent, sharpening stone, muddy terrain, quickening zephir, entangle.

You only care about having a high critical chance for the ranged portion of the attack and using entangle right away after you use concussion shot, make sure you are flanking the enemy. Follow through with quickening zephir while flanking and then after that use sharpening stone.

Swap weapons once you are next to the enemy for sigil of geomancy to kick in. Now use bonfire on their feet, followed by snake strike, muddy terrain (for the fury which will help apply bleed on crit), then sword 1 until the weapon swap is ready. Once you can weapon swap, use sword 2, then throw torch and weapon swap to short bow. You should immediately flank and use muddy terrain again for the fury.

Pet: canines or birds will do best here, I recommend drakes and spiders only if you can reliably use their AoE skills consistently. Any feline with bleed will help, Fire drake and reef drake for the win as well.Also I found that spiders are more efficient when you trait for poison master.

*Tip: * you can also try to modify this bleeding build to make it work for poison master.

When you reach level 80 you’ll probably want to take a look at a condition damage build via celestial poison master + beast master build, it’s very strong and it fits the beast master role quite well.

Thanks for the ideas mate, but don’t forget that the Dev ‘suggestions’ box is over here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/archive/suggestions

Nice ideas though, I have some of my own too bad they haven’t really done much to implement any of them yet.

I don’t think there is a current level-by-level guide out there since ranger leveling is quite forgiving, easy and fun to play. Given that your armor stats will be more defined once you get to level 80, I suggest you stick to anything you like. For starters you cannot go wrong with a power build, focusing on longbow play with a melee weapon as support. Then as your secondary trait line it’s really up to you and your play style, you can choose spirits, traps, pet, etc. For the melee only approach do trait into Wilderness Survival as you will need the toughness and pair it with 1 on any backup build you like (pet, spirits, traps, raw power). This is the time for you to move around and learn all there is to know about rangers.

Now all non level 80 builds should start looking like this: x/x/1/x/x due to the great benefit that having faster endurance regen brings to any ranger situation. From there on its your choice.

Starting somewhere between level 30ish and 40ish trapper play will become very doable and it’s a very useful play style, by all means use it as soon as you can trait for it. Once you reach past level 60, builds will become more viable since you will be able to trait into at least 1 grand master trait line. From here on out, spirit play will become viable, beast mastery play will become possible and pure melee combat will become very possible (bark skin for the win!).

Rangers are quite versatile in their options so mastery of your preferred play style will not truly begin until after level 80, when the challenges of WvW, PvP and dungeons become a big threat to the safety net that PvE provides for rangers. Do avoid at all costs spending big money on gear until you have defined at least one or two solid approaches in ranger builds that you like, be patient and enjoy the ride!

Mystogan.4157:

i have the condi remove on survival skills, and that makes me hesitant to take rampage as one i did switch to perception but I’ve been testing my armor and it feels nice as is. I’ve been thinking about switching gs for s/wh and throw in frost trap for more defense and mopre swiftness.. I’m jet afraid of the lost dps. lol

Try not to steer too far away from the build’s purpose though… longbow #3 + great sword #2 is a very strong way to engage, or great sword #3 is a great way to disengage when in stealth. Truth be told the best way to gain defense in this build is adopting signet of stone traited. This build is more about dealing big damage, staying alive and repeat, so if you accept that then all you need to do is master 1 vs 1 situations.

Which approach are you all using for the frosty ranger? Frost trap is a must but it all depends on the combination. Frost trap, grenth runes, traited or untraited traps, frost pets, poison master + frost support, sigils of hydromancy, freeze on critical or bleeding build using rampager aided with frost… so on and more, so what’s your approach?

Do you feel that you completely understand what is happening on the other side of battle, what your seemingly immortal opponent is doing to stay alive? I suggest that you begin by understanding precisely this, so that you can properly modify your approach and build to better suit the challenges in battle. Sometimes it also happens that you are doing everything you can but they do not die, whereas in reality you are doing it all in the wrong order. The simplest example I can think of is not using poison after/before your enemy uses a heal or pops a regeneration boon on themselves. Another example is not properly timing a stun before or as the enemy heals. In the case when fighting elementalists, using all your condition damage during or immediately before they use the condition clearing heal skill can also be a good example, when you should save some if not most for after their heal.

Mystogan.4157:

I dontsee any changes lol

You arent looking close enough, let me explain:

Weapons – Cavalier, your toughness is a little higher which is vital and your loss of DPS is minimal.
Oil: master maintenance oil bumps your passive critical chance to 32%
Superior sigil of perception in long bow: with 25 stacks your chance bumps up to 44% which is not bad at all, allowing you to crit more often via Fury from survival skills.
Elite: rampage as one is more efficient for your purposes, you can still use entangle for the benefits, but in your case the benefits are from both elites. I just find rampage as one to be more useful on your build.

I made a few improvements based on the above build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJARTjEq0xaJLusw1ag9gadAUAndrhw9WcEtNA-TFCBABfq+jR7PAwTAAjLAQWK/UUXQDHCgzUCSGAmFA-wQ

My one dynamic comment about the build is that, depending on the situation, you should change read the wind for remorseless by getting out of combat. That opening strike is VERY beneficial due to the 100% crit chance on enemy kill. Just think about this: a) going through an enemy zerg swinging your great sword, when your zerg is on the winning side of battle, you will get tons of benefits from remorseless. b) Read the wind when the battle becomes ranged, during defensive maneuvers, during enemy chases (you can swap traits here if you get out of combat).

Ok so I love burning builds on ranger since they are so strong that you cannot go wrong by adapting some sort of burning in your condi build (yes that is true Poison Master builds).

Now I get that you want to keep regen up for as long as you can, I believe that you are losing more than gaining by not taking up Off hand training rather than Oakheart salve. If you really want to keep burning up for as long as possible this is the way I would go. Now being that you are a beast mastery hybrid, I understand that you would lack more condition clearing options than a SoF hybrid would, which is why you would opt for Oakheart salve.

The thing is that it would only heal you for less than 2k, while condition damage against you will certainly stack higher than that in a period of less than 15 seconds, which leaves you with the choice of applying that murderous burn on your enemies often and more reliably, rather than getting a little heal every 15 seconds… see my point? Besides bonfire traited with a wider area around you is truthfully more effective against targets that are on the move.

Which brings me to my other point: Jungle spider’s immobilize + bonfire or fire trap = sweet burning, coupled with your short bow’s concussion shot = more BBQ action. I get it you need good timing for that, but it’s quite possible to get it done right. So what if they get out of that trap? Throw torch with long range and quicker recharge is ready for you on command (use it wisely!).

I wager the best way to test your build in 1 vs 1 will be against another ranger who is strong enough to fight you (or better). We truly are each other’s nightmares, bring your stuff to pvp one day and let’s see if any flaws shine from it.

scirocco.9805:

And still u are missing the point completely, how again is it fair too shoot someone in a back for 3 min while they are fighting someone else, and he just shrugs off the damage. Then he turns around and kill me in seconds. He didnt dodge and I did not dodge its not about how we play, its about he having as mutch damage if not more then me and being able to take 10 times the damage atleast.

I dont care about your uber elite 1v1 builds, I play group pvp mostly, and skirmishers is what hunters do best so my power build is the most damage I can do as a hunter so its fine. If I want to play with conditions I have my necro that does it 10 times better.

I believe warriors provide the proper counter against many power builds, especially with their built in skills to minimize damage while keeping an overall high DPS. This fact shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, so if you expect to bring down a well built warrior in no time then you’re not truly understanding what you’re up against. I agree with you, warriors do have it much easier than rangers and it IS quite overpowered in many areas of the game. Now if you are able to set these facts aside and focus on how to get around their strengths, then you’d have a better success rate against them. I am not trying to put you down here because I do sympathize with you, but I also don’t see why you can’t accept that well built warriors are quite simply a pain and a half, accept it and work around it like everyone else, I’d be glad to discuss my own ideas on how to do it with you.

Kilger.5490:

I miss dark age of camelot where pets basically ignored stealth. I mean it makes sense for your dog to basically be able to sniff out anyone nearby!

This times a million, why would my pet be confused by what my human senses cannot perceive?

Do you find it more beneficial to have axe/torch – sword/dagger rather than axe/dagger – sword/torch? I tend to think that axe/torch introduces the ‘oh well I am out of dodges now this might hurt’ situations. I understand that the only loss you get from using sword/torch is the ranged pressure, but then again sword/torch should be used when you know your enemy will melee into your zone. Also try to get used to stomping warriors by standing behind your pet (your pet gets knocked down for you), nothing worse than trying to stomp someone to get interrupted by the warrior, and then having an ally jump in and res them. Another tip, in case you have to pop your elite (spirit) and win the fight like you did at the end of the video, quick swap into another elite so you’re not forced to wait the 240 seconds without another elite available.

Let me know your thoughts good video.

Zephyron.7081:

I am not trolling. Please be kind enough to give useful feedback. I main a guardian. I have a level 62 thief and 80 Mesmer. The Mesmer has lost its appeal and the thief is just too squishy. I love my guardian, but I want variety.

I am interested in ranger, but here are my questions:

1. What role does the ranger fulfill best for tPvP, WvW, fractals?
2. What advantage does the melee ranger have over the thief and Mesmer?
3. Is the ranger less squishy than the thief?
4. Has the community’s perspective of the ranger improved since the feature patch?
5. Has any of the new GM traits allowed for newer effective builds?

To be honest, I am mostly interested in a melee ranger that doesn’t rely on the pet too much that does decent dps and has plenty of condi removals. Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance to all who respond. :-)

1. tPvP: Rangers are quite solid in all aspects of PvP, however it takes quite some practice to define your own here. Typically rangers can be built for point holding at home or far, or as support-roamers between home-mid or mid-far. Most of these builds are ideally condition damage based such as trapper, bunker survival, or spirits, it all depends on you and your preferred approach.

WvW: there are a few roles rangers can contribute to here. #1 most popular among players is ranged support, which works quite well in large zerg battles as you can pick + choose kills and not lose to DPS via piercing arrows, you can sit next to kill shot warriors, mark a target and initiate killing spree. Roaming is essentially where rangers are best suited, due to their wide range of abilities, but do expect it to be as challenging or even more challenging than PvP. Needless to say, in WvW you better know what you’re doing as a ranger.

Fractals: as a ranger I have not found them to be much of a problem. The best application rangers have is that they are typically the last person to go down. You can build like a bunker via healing shouts + spirit support and be a great boon for your group, while dealing strong damage via conditions. Remember the key is to know your fractals and play them well.

2. Melee is a bad way to approach thieves or mesmers, the best way to fight thieves and mesmers as a ranger is to build for mid range domination. The advantage is called survival + constant pressure via the combination two sources of damage (you and your pet). Needless to say, in order to be feared as a ranger by thieves and mesmers, your skill must be high, the combat mechanic of dodging, condition clearing, pet pressure, condition pressure, consistent regeneration and the rotation of all these elements is complex to say the least, but viable.

3. It all depends on the build, but I don’t think anything can get squishier than a full glass thief. Rangers however can be traited to be the toughest mid-armor profession in game. I can go 1 on 1 against guardians and warriors in terms of toughness, however our skills serve a different purpose so do not expect to feel immortal either, you will die if you’re careless… unlike a thief who will die regardless of how tough they build themselves as long as they do not use stealth mechanics.

4. I think it has, but not entirely, more so that it has changed. Rangers are widely more accepted but they are still regarded below all other professions. You will quite occasionally find people who do not want to know about rangers and those are the ones who have not adapted to the changes or do not trust them. I personally like to demonstrate ranger progress via my ranger actions rather than words, and I recommend you do the same.

5. Very much so, I can’t go into detail here since it would take up a lot of time to write about them, message me in game and we can go over them in pvp.

I highly recommend that you try out all the possibilities in pvp before settling into your current ‘idea’ of what you want your ranger to be. Rangers still have the highest skill cap in terms of mastering the profession, to some people it comes naturally but to most it does not. If you’re still thinking on that melee ranger look into builds involving ‘Survival of the Fittest’ and go from there.

hedjaz.7362:

I have a level 25 human ranger. I have not invested any skill points yet as I am not certain of what build i should follow.

The only certain aspect of it all , is that I wanna use a longbow and a great sword.

I have found many build videos on youtube , however I am not sure they are still valid right now. Many if not most of all are older than 5 months so if anyone could direct me somewhere I would be very grateful.

Short story :
I wanna build a glass cannon ranger that is equipped with LB/GS and I am looking for updated guides.

I recommend that you take it easy until you reach level 80 and save up on gold in the meantime. Once you get to level 80 is when you should begin to worry about what builds would suit you best, that is because of the high versatility that each ranger build brings. For example, when I first started I wanted a glassy long bow build myself, but I ended up hating now glassy it felt, and ended up liking the 1 vs 1 aspect of playing a ranger more and more using condition builds.

In terms of a good glassy build, you cannot go wrong using this set up:

Armor: Berserker
Runes: Runes of the Ranger
Sigils: of Fire / of Strength (On GS)
Utilities: As seen in the video
Traits: 6 / 5 / 0 / 3 / 0
IV, VII, XI / I, V / – / V / -
Video proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BYUXyO8yyw

@OP why don’t you try to get with one of the rangers in this forum to teach you the ‘ways of killing everything pvp and laugh about it later with your bear’?

If you feel you’re not competent enough just ask right here in this forum if there are strong pvp rangers who can share their techniques and maybe even go as far as training you (for example I am one of them). You can play along side one and learn from their pointers and from your mistakes as well. In no time you should be competent enough to only be defeated by 20% of the top tier pvp population alone, most pvp players cannot properly handle a well prepared battle ready ranger in my experience.

In PvE I used it to help in events where I couldn’t be in 2 places at once, so my pet got the kills for me and all I had to do is press F to collect the bags. In WvW it helps to make them invisible and not have them die needlessly + the added protection is nice for them. As a shout skill its strong in a condition-regen build, that swiftness + regen is very convenient even when you’re not in combat. What I don’t get is why pet’s don’t get a 100% critical chance as they enter combat from stealth, that would be very ideal. As to what is confusing about it it’s simple, how can your pet truly protect your flank if you’re not in PvE? The best way to use it is to be smart about it, send in your pet stealthed to create an opening on an enemy, especially if you’re into beast mastery that pet will hit hard.

@trunks: let’s get real, you have a hybrid beast master – condi / regen build going on here, which is very interesting. Does it work well for you in PvE/PvP/WvW or only a few of these? Looks fun and aggressive, but I can see there is a trade off in the stun breaker and dodge area. How do you deal with poison damage hindering your regen ability?… I’m guessing the answer should be along the lines of they die first haha :-)

I just let the hordes of players I bring down in pvp and wvw everyday with my ranger do the talk about how bad rangers are, especially when I get to win those 1 vs 3 fights.

CRrabbit.1284:

If you wanna some fun in WvW, go zerk LB/GS, that’s the best use of ranger in WvW now.
If you are running with pug zerg, go with EE+PA, you need not RTW.
If you are running with organized group, consider yourself as a thief, go with EE+RTW, focus on 1 target, you are helping a lot since you are a real killer since in a tight fight, every single 1 counts.

Condition/Regen ranger shines in 1v1, but that’s it, roaming =/= 1v1, in most cases you are facing 1vx, you will still have a hard time.

Completely agreed, WvW is a lot of different things and it changes from server to server, it depends on what you want to achieve. Fun in a solid zerg, build bursty. Fun in a zerg that keeps on dying then build bursty but tanky, fun roaming? Try not to roam alone unless you feel you can take on anyone 1vX, organized groups is exactly what it is, help out by getting kills especially of those whom are most vulnerable to you: the back line. The best way to contribute in organized groups as a ranger is by getting kills and applying a lot of immobilize to the main blob… not to mention not being too squishy… a very squishy ranger is almost as good as a dead one since organized groups are too dynamic and big damage will hit you from time to time.

Littlefeather.8623:

Dahkeus.8243:

Holland.9351:

To give them a break: They would have to store 44 names for each ranger in the game. Now they only have to store 2 names, which is already 2 more than any other class.

If you can come up with a solution for them without having to store 44 names for each Ranger in the game, then I’m sure they would be glad to hear it.

If they can store the visual appearance with every customization slider setting, hair color, armor set, armor color, current pets, current equipped weapons, current achievements, original story/personality setting, etc. for every single player in the game, then I don’t see why they can’t contain a simple string value (name) for each pet, especially considering that most rangers don’t have each of the 44 available pets.

That’s the thing, the way the DB was probably setup is accounts/characters were the meat and potatoes, if Pet names were not a static feature by design it no programmer would re write the entire DB for that reason alone. The coders would have to add these values to the account/character, and yes with the capacity for 44 values per ranger.

They can add a new relational table to the DB just for that purpose, so that it’s associated with the pet id and user id, you can use any methods of making this carry as little weight as possible, but it shouldn’t be a terrible thing to store data like this. They can restrict the number of character and type of characters people can use; as people in the real world name their pets with any made up names, not numbers or symbols.

They could make pet more interesting to use, for example your pet can have an adrenaline bar of its own, which when filled would give the pet boons, or a special ability aside from F2, or rampage as one would automatically activate… make it more interesting to spend traits into beast mastery, not just from a ‘numbers’ point of view, but visually as well. Having a pet can be a more significant advantage than it is today (as long as you trait for it let’s be fair).

What kind of ridiculous programming is going on behind the scenes to name pets? seriously ANet, it can’t be that hard to preserve that information. I would be more keen on playing my ranger if my pet names would stay consistent whenever I log in.

If you’re truly looking for a regen/conditions build for WvW you need to understand how it works. Condition damage won’t do you too well in zerg fights due to the aggregate condition clear + stability in zerg fights, especially if you’re constantly facing organized enemies. The bottom line is power damage will be more useful to you and your allies as a ranger in zerg fights. However, once you find yourself alone… that’s when regen/condi ranger shines.

The actual regen/condi ranger looks like this except (I kept your gear choice since it’s not far off, full apothecary otherwise): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV3fnEqQvgWLIWsAVLGAToanAdaA86GcfBLwED-TViAABecEAAU3gP7PAwBBoRlgcq+TZK/24BA0xFAgQATWDA-w

Axe/torch will not work too well for you given than you have no evades on that weapon, but torch is great overall as a condition-damage weapon.

If you want something power based for WvW then try Pelopidas’s build which is a good option based on healing/shouts. If you want something more related to WvW power + survival here is my personal choice (please note how you get fury from using your skills which is quite beneficial): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLmsw1ag9gadA0Andrhw9WcEtdJfqC-TFDBABmq+DHHQAMOCAbp87q9Ha4CAsiuAAeAAqohZjDlQGHgAJVCSIAWLAA-w

I agree its very annoying having to constantly remember to press f3 in wvw on large scale fights, but its function is working as intended. It just doesn’t make logical sense for your pet to teleport back to you when pressing F3. What I feel that the pet needs in this aspect is another option. Right now we have F1 for attack this dude, F2 for use your skill, F3 for return to me, F4 for swap pets, what about an F5 for close ranged combat? Say the pet will roam anywhere within 350~800 distance away from you, whatever you tell it to fight. If you have it on passive only to use F2 abilities then your pet won’t accidentally go attack an enemy when you use F2 if said enemy is away from range, in that case you should know to toggle this F5 back to ‘full range’ so your pet pursues your targets. You certainly wouldn’t toggle F5 into ‘ranged combat’ all the time, but I can see it serving a very useful purpose in all areas of PvE, PvP and WvW.

Littlefeather.8623:

Signet that makes you run faster, GS for leap

When out of combat and no enemies on sight, swap back to a more useful utility immediately thereafter.

How about the fact that many things the ranger does are harmful to the pet? Conditions and damage is dropped onto the pet, so a lot of the ‘pet being alive’ or ‘pet being in combat’ traits are completely useless in many scenarios. There should be a rework to allow a better synergy between the ranger and the pet.

Dodge and stealth at the end of the animation would be nice, even if it is just for 2 seconds. About the pet, they should remove the fact that if both your pet dies you can’t do anything until the cool down comes around. They could even make it a trait in the beast mastery line, that way you can always have pets on (especially in wvw zerg mode).

Wow…… that’s wow

They depend entirely on hammer / bow rotation, so first learn it very well as it is highly predictable. Use the natural ranger mechanics to get around every single aspect of a warrior’s rotation. Once you have that down the difficult part begins, bringing them down. Most well built warriors are hard to bring down, either because you exchange plenty of damage (conditions or power) for survival.. which is good, but then you don’t output enough damage consistently. This is where you need to learn on the go, what kind of warrior mechanics they’re using to stay alive, and counter their stay alive mechanics with your dodgy / damage mechanics.

I suggest conditions to bring them down, much more reliable and consistent. I prefer short bow / sword – torch with hmm… a few build choices actually, but most of which have high condition damage, solid condition removal and / or solid health regen choices. For example 2/0/6/6/0 is pure survival of the fittest kind of build with bark skin, also 0/0/6/6/2 is shout renewal build, both very strong in the condition damage area and in the survival area.

Now examine warrior’s survival methods: #1 they will kill you fast… granted best survival method. #2 a combination of condition removal options, boon granting and defy pain. Condition removal usually comes from their adrenaline expenditure, this is tricky for a warrior, if they cannot build up enough adrenaline from hitting you then they cannot excel in battle as quickly as you will.

So the #1 method is to avoid as much direct contact damage as possible (preferably from hammer). The instant you see hammer come out, be ready to use 2-3 dodge skills, time them correctly, sometimes you can just run away from range by using 1 dodge skill and kite them for a good while before they change back to long bow. When they use long bow, avoid bursting them, keep on kiting in a slightly passive manner. That fire/immobilize/blind is a strong preparation for the upcoming hammer. In case you have your ranged weapon out, use poison/bleeds (if you have sharpened edges excellent time to use it), if you have canines or spiders save their stomp/fear/immobilize have them do their thing, watch their health as that big AoE fire will hurt them, you want them to be active for the hammer rotation. If your melee weapon setup is up, I sure hope you have a melee / dodge weapon up, for example axe / dagger or sword / torch combination works best. Needless to say, kite away from the fire. The trick is to keep condition damage flowing (especially poison) to reduce their regeneration skill an capitalize on reducing their health pool.

Now hammer swap! the warrior will come down on you and your ranged weapon is up, swap is on cooldown: dodge out of the tripple stuns. If you have rampage as one then brilliant, if you successfully entangle them, great! Pound them with all the condition damage available to you, use your pet stomps, really punish them make them run into their long bow. Now throw even more condition options while saving your escape utilites, bring out wolf fear / spider immobilize, and if you do it right they will go down. Now if they don’t go down, the warrior will come with that hammer again, so be ready its a quick rotation so anticipate it.

Let’s review:
1. learn the rotation.
2. big survival / condition damage build works best, kiting weapons and utilities for staying alive.
3. watch the hammer and dodge around or you’re dead, watch the longbow and kite, punish them!
4. pet: canines for the win.
5. defy pain! wait… wait… wait… ok here comes the hammer, dodge and punish!
6. Bonfire -> bonfire -> bonfire, throw torch!, apply poison to reduce their health regen, stay alive, wait for defy pain to finish… kite the warrior, heal, pet stomp! Bonfire repeat!

^ Too long did not read?
READ THIS: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Vid-Ranger-Duels/first#post4026384

All of the above should apply as long as the warrior does not activate endure pain, either passively or actively, save all you have for after it goes on cool down, stay away from the warrior and apply condition damage pressure alone.

I either get tons of hate from warriors when they lose, or cheers and awe… don’t really get why… most of them are quite easy to defeat.

It’s easy, first focus on making a solid build. I beat them with all the following: Beast master, condition bunker, regen bunker, power signet, power survivalist… whatever you want as long as you have strong survival and damage output. Use a pet that will provide solid DPS and have it focus on either Strugar or Chomper… it really doesn’t matter who it is, but I think killing Struggar on your first go will be easier.

Use a ranged weapon, preferably short bow or axe, to apply pressure to whoever you choose but make sure your pet also attacks the same one you are. The most important thing you need to do is be on top of Chomper’s food, eat it do not let him have any, it will give you a huge boost in power. As you do the – running to grab his food – watch out for Struggar, he will not like this and will charge at you from time to time.

As you get powered up, you will bring one of them down and then focus the rest of the battle on killing the other one, which will be easy since you’ll be powered up. Make sure to prepare properly for the battle, a weak build will not do you any good unless you’re quite skilled.

You aren’t far off on your assumption on what a WvW roaming condition ranger should be doing. All you need to do is find ways to optimize your role, rather than spread out and try to cover all choices. As rangers we get the luxury of variety, so work with that in terms of your strengths, rather than everything at the same time.

2/0/6/6/0 suggests a bunker – roamer – conditions build. Dire is one of the gears that’s a thumbs up by the general consensus. For grand master traits, you should adjust to your situation… roaming ok bark skin for the win, poison master is a fun choice, empathic bond if you consider problems will come due to condition damage (big zerg incoming!).

Circle of life < Nature’s protection when roaming, use Nature’s protection when roaming in groups and you know you will go down more often than you expect, I wouldn’t do it but it’s a generous choice for allies.

For runes of the krait, you’d want to go with 2/2/4/6/0, swap gears to Rabid for Sharpened Edges. Otherwise, the safest bet in terms of runes will be Undead.

If you want a change of pace, try a shout-condition-healing build 0/0/6/6/2, full apothecary gear… its my preferred WvW choice.

Axe? A lot of people like it, I like sword/torch – shortbow. Why sword? I am comfortable with it, it helps me in terms of turn-around-run-get-out-of-that-big-damage-here-it-comes! situations you find all the time in WvW, as well as it allows me to better control the play field in roaming fights. I also feel that axe goes well with dagger, at least you’d have 1 option to dodge out of death every 10 seconds.

Poison master looks more like this → sword/dagger – shortbow, spider – poison pet (drakes are not bad at this), superior sigil of doom on shortbow for the win (even without poison master) to help mitigate enemy heals. Also don’t forget to carry with you food to either boost your condition damage + duration or food to help reduce it!

More questions? Of course, Signet of the Hunt! use that whenever you are out of combat and swap it for a survival utility immediately (muddy terrain is very convenient in wvw).

Hit me in game I’m up for help anytime.

Pure Heart.1456:

I do not believe it will be any good, and you will be eaten alive by pretty much everyone.

Because,

There are people out there that can do 10K+ damage against high-toughness builds in a few seconds, so with all your points in Vitality (to reach 30K) and therefore low-to-zero points in toughness and healing you will take even higher damage and you will not be able to heal yourself back to the full 30K anyway.

Second, with all your points in Vitality, you will do very low direct damage, and 950 condition damage is merely average.

Eaten alive, I say.

To make things short, keep your health between 18K and 25K, that’s as safe as you can go without losing on your damage source, toughness, or build utilities. That you will be eaten alive? Sure, I second that, but not by everyone.

kiwituatara.6053:

awge.3852:

kiwituatara.6053:

awge.3852:

It wasn’t hard to deal with Lidari as a ranger, well that depends on the build cause glass cannon with no sustain and no condition removal = dead. The hard thing to deal with is Lidari’s rotation (that goes for any profession) and how fast you can put her down before time ends.

Just beat Liadri with:
-Shortbow only
-Full zerker
-30/30/0/10/0 Signets (Hunt, Stone, Wild)

Took me a while, but its doable \o/ wooohooo!

Edit: I’ll have to agree with Durzulla on this one. SB + Zerker.

Wicked! I managed to beat her with condi-regen build, condition-survival build, beast master build, mid glass using shortbow. I don’t have zerker gear so it must have been fun to work with that

Congratz! I haven’t tried other builds and don’t think I will xD. Which builds did you think was easiest and hardest? BM build sounds kinda odd since pets usually die instantly :O

BM was one hell of a challenge, you need to remember where the blasts of black death will come from and 1. keep yourself alive, 2. keep your pet alive/attacking/retreating on time. You’re always shooting arrows with shortbow just to help whenever lidari decides to stand where the black diarrhea is coming from, cause you want your pet not to get bathed in it and die on you. For me personally, a hybrid build works best. Strong condition removal options, 1 strong source of damage and 1 supporting source of damage (either condi or power up to you). I like conditions more personally to kill Lidari.

Thiefs, hate them so much I made my wvw experience all about killing them, what world score?

kiwituatara.6053:

awge.3852:

It wasn’t hard to deal with Lidari as a ranger, well that depends on the build cause glass cannon with no sustain and no condition removal = dead. The hard thing to deal with is Lidari’s rotation (that goes for any profession) and how fast you can put her down before time ends.

Just beat Liadri with:
-Shortbow only
-Full zerker
-30/30/0/10/0 Signets (Hunt, Stone, Wild)

Took me a while, but its doable \o/ wooohooo!

Edit: I’ll have to agree with Durzulla on this one. SB + Zerker.

Wicked! I managed to beat her with condi-regen build, condition-survival build, beast master build, mid glass using shortbow. I don’t have zerker gear so it must have been fun to work with that

The whole point of running a bunker/skirmisher build is to go out there and pretend you have a big bullzeye on your back, pretend it’s day 1 with your ranger and you don’t know why you happen to be running towards a bunch of enemies, pretend that you should be running away instead and destroy every single misconception anyone has about rangers by dancing into all of your victims as you destroy them in battle, especially thieves.

The #1 way to kill engineers is to fight them at range. Save your dodges until they drops the elite on you, then dodge your way out of there (rampage as one + lightning reflexes + sword 2 will do it). Then as a good ranger, range the life out of the engi, look out for when they use their tool kit as they can pull you into a lot of pain, stability will help in this scenario. If they sit by their turrets, then comfortably sit away from their turret zone until they dissapear, or the engineer decides to chase after you (50/50 chance)… let’s accept it people, every profession should have a way to bunker down.

Also if you truly want to pursue a fight within their supply crate (totally not recommended but its possible to defeat them!). Via a condition build, get your torch out and bonfire them, throw torch, these are your tools to negate their regeneration and to hurt them where they stand/run off to. If you’re using any sort of bow weapon, you will need piercing arrows to hit the engi through those tough turrets, otherwise you’re likely to be point blank to hit them right. If you’re looking to approach via a power build, then stay far and barrage them, punish them from far away, wait for them to come to you and swap to your melee setup to bring some pain.

Recommendation? Look to fight engineers wherever you go to, or ask a friend (however mediocre they are) to go to pvp with you. Also 1vs1 arenas will help, you might find an amazingly talented engineer there, so don’t be frustrated if you cannot win, just learn from your mistakes. Also fight in open spaces, turrent engineers excel in close quarters.

PlagueParade.7942:

Started ranger 4 days ago and have been using this build in pvp the whole time. I’ve actually been doing decently well. I’ve found myself using sb pretty much the whole time, though I find the learning curve of sword a bit high so far. =oP

The use of sword is a bit delicate, but you want to be patient when using its skills. It’s mostly a dodging weapon with which you can apply pressure with, so take that apart and let’s understand it better… dodging weapon #1, apply pressure with it #2.

1. skill on sword is the only thing you will need to use to apply pressure, use it when you do not want your enemy to run away, as it applies cripple very frequently. You can also use it to detect hidden enemies as you will begin to fly around all over the place and likely throw off their attack / retreat.

1. skill you use to get away from enemies… un-select them and use #2 again to fly into a different direction, thus throwing enemies into further confusion (works quite well so practice with it). #2 is also a good option to use to get far away from enemies or to jump straight into their face (hopefully not unintentionally!). #3 is great to use in a ton of situations, it is the ace of the sword skills.

Let’s go into #3: use it when an enemy just healed, poison reduces their healing power, or just before you can predict they will heal to reduce how much they will heal. Use #3 to dodge + apply poison + #2 to get out of a sticky situation and #2 again to further get out / or jump back in if you feel that you should; this combines to two dodges and creates / closes the gap.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

…seriously.. if you guys want the ranger to be more useful , instead of an Option for a bit of trolling fun, you wouldn’t be trolling,.and try to be constructive by giving points of views from other classes, not everyone in the game has the time to lvl Multipul lvl 80s

Exactly, what’s the point of contributing to a subject if I have to scan over tons of trolling posts? I wonder if that’s how the devs feel about reading threads like these.

Anyhow, having an elite pet sounds interesting, I’d like to see juvenile wolf activate a howl that would enlarge him and would also summon a wolf pack of say 7 (including the juvenile wolf) to attack an enemy. When one of the wolves hits the enemy, it would cause damage, cripple and stack and cause vulnerability (like rapid fire). So the pack of wolves would each disappear after their attack lands, ending with the juvenile wolf causing a bang and a 3 second fear. At the end of the attack, your pet would disappear for the duration of a pet swap cool down, so it wouldn’t be necessarily an overpowered elite strike because you’d lose usage of your pet for the duration of the pet swap cool down.

I think this build would be a more solid option than the OP: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLmsw1ag9gadA0Andrhw9WcEtdJfqC-TFTEABZq+zDHQgFeAAOp8Tp9HA4CA4hugIOCAdohxhDlADHggCVCSIAWLAA-w

(disclaimer: marksmanship & nature magic master traits should be changed to optimize damage depending on the situation you’re faced with).

As power builds go, you want to capitalize on dealing damage just as much as you want to capitalize on staying alive and being much tougher to kill than your average bear bow.

It’s important to realize that all builds serve a purpose, some better than others, but all are vulnerable to a certain aspect in the game. It’s just impossible to throw it all into one build. Let me know how you consider this build with the OP build and please post constructive criticism.

Bird is very annoying in providing extra dps to already dps-bunker professions and it’s harder to avoid than the rock dog (visually). Although I wouldn’t trust the success of a match to the extra pet, it does help.

Seisyll.5914:

Go condi bunker (i.e. spirit ranger) and protect close point

Most condition bunker builds are viable for spvp and tpvp. You need to choose your role first because rangers fit three different roles, which are point defender, roaming point defender and strictly roamer.

For point defender there are many variations to the build. You can go with spirits for bunkering a point. In 1 vs 1 you have a good chance to win, but against skilled players you can still die if you’re alone, so this build is very effective knowing your team will roam to back you up.

For point bunkering as well, you can go heavy damage with conditions and a very dodgy setup with either a) consistent condition clearing or b) high rejuvenating power. Both are quite optimal in situations where you expect 1 vs 1 and 1 vs 2, however you’re restricted from supporting roles as you’re all damage and personal survival. Your effectiveness will depend on your skill for the previous roles.

The third role will be roamer. For this role, the versions of what you can use are quite versatile, they’re all tweaks to the existing heavy condition bunker, spirit bunker, condi damage – rejuvenation bunker, or even a power build. For this role you want to optimize survival by not getting stuck in fights, always providing quick help and moving onto defend a point in most need of you. I believe the best setup for this as a ranger is spirits / high condi damage hybrid.

Now for the builds specifically I suggest you look into all the combinations you can make for heavy condition survivalist based on 2/0/6/6/0, heavy condition spirits based on 2/0/6/6/0, condition damage and rejuvenation based on 0/0/6/6/2 (all of the previous builds you can use rune of the undead as a place to start experimenting). Last but not least max bleed damage based on 2/2/4/6/0 with krait runes. Weapons will depend on you personally as well as skills, just take a little while to experiment with everything and if you want more info just ask I’ll reply.

Good luck!

Someone asked a similar question and I replied like so: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/LF-Guide-on-WvW-sPvP-Build-s/first#post3951880

I hope it helps!

My personal pvp build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjEq0xaLLmsQ1aABhaVA0uGS2l1d+eDfdBbqA-TphAwAeOCAL3fgcZAAHEgOXAgNPAAA

Objective:
- Strong in 1 vs 1 and 1 vs 2, focus is to hold a capture point or to steal.
- medium/close range combat, kiting with short bow is very useful to hone in on enemies from close/far.
- condition removal comes from utilities + dodges + elite, so the timing of what to use and when is 100% based on personal skill.
- poison application should always be reserved when an enemy has rejuvenation buff or before/after they use a healing skill.
- access to ranged and close range fire damage <- best condition damage next to bleeding.
- Bleeding must be constantly applied via shortbow by flanking the enemy, or can be reserved for a condition damage burst as follows: shortbow #1, entangle, concussion shot, canine pounce, sharpening edges, wolf fear, swap pets, drake hound pounce, apply poison at very close range, more shortbow #1 on flank).
- Muddy terrain should be used as the – go to – condition removal + slow enemy movement on choke points or when they jump outside capture points (be smart about it).
- Lots and lots of evade available, be smart about how to use them in sync with the above.

It wasn’t hard to deal with Lidari as a ranger, well that depends on the build cause glass cannon with no sustain and no condition removal = dead. The hard thing to deal with is Lidari’s rotation (that goes for any profession) and how fast you can put her down before time ends.

Well at least there are builds people can use to play and not suck instantly, the real problem most players are facing is on how to deal with them. I personally eat meta builds with my non-meta ranger (if that’s what custom builds are called). The easiest way to deal with the meta builds is to #1 identify it, #2 double team quick kill the life out of them with a counter-meta build. Guardians should be the first to go down, kill the elite spirit from ranger right away and deal with the rest of them asap. Usually if you can’t take one down they will get backup, this can be used to push your forces to wherever the enemy took them out from.