Guild Wars 2

Make it 15% chance to block while wielding a melee weapon and 15% chance to evade while wielding a ranged weapon, that’s what makes the most sense; besides warrior can make it’s attacks unblockable so what’s blocking using a ranged weapon good for if your enemy can just smash through your bow (IRL anyone?).

Fluffball.8307:

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/traits-unleashed-forty-new-traits-and-more/
http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/

Thanks, I clearly didn’t read the whole thing carefully.

My opinion?
Build 1:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMMQNAV8fjEq0yaFLGsQ1aAZVQQaP4EzDTePSvYRETZFrAqUA-zEDB4iCyoOJjEAmkGhmGj+AgABKPqIaslRFRjV3ATxiIq2joIa1BAQACkZASBAzcA-w

Build 2:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMMQRAsf3YjMq0yaFLGsQ1aAZVQQaP4EzDTePSP2TETZFfBqUA-zECB4iQoOJjkOR00Y5RFRjtMqIas6GYKWER1BAQACZGASBAzcA-w

Why:
Wilderness Survival traits are optimized for your overall bunker build, they are optimal given that you rely on survival skills.
Beast Mastery is your second source of damage, so bursting your enemy down on pet swap and weapon swap will be key, especially if you use it along with your Wilderness Survival traits.
Weapon Choice: drop greatsword, it’s not good for condition damage, it’s more practical in other situations. I can say that via lots of trials with it. Sword/Torch synergizes well together, axe/torch does not, you want axe/dagger for the dodge and extra cripple as you will want you enemy to stay at range. Shortbow is a great hit & run option which you should explore with in roaming combat situations, especially when doing condition damage (concussion shot is great for interrupting enemy heals, especially d/d elementalist’s heal rotations… so don’t waste it!).

Add your own flavor to the situation, your BM trait choices were not bad but it’s good that you experiment with what you’ve got.

Good luck!

This can have positive and negative effects depending on the scenario, however it looks like it will be more positive than anything else. Sure you may encounter a thief that will get out of combat and try to kill you with 8 different build swaps… but aside from that it gives you more options too. Besides for us jack of all traders what’s better than knowing you can truly adapt to all situations on build/gear swap?

By the way, can someone tell me where this intel is coming from? A link would be great.

I feel that this shouldn’t even be a trait, considering how they were quite keen on horizontal character development, if that was the case then it would make more sense to automatically increase the speed of your longbow arrows as you put more points into marksmanship. With 1x the speed between nothing and adept, 1x~1.75x the speed between adept and grand master, with finally 2x the speed when you reach grand master level. That’s an addition that wouldn’t break game play and would make sense for marksmanship overall. It’s almost like saying… well we know we screwed up initially by making longbow highly dodge able at range, so we will patch things up like that.

Is that unfair to other professions? That’s worth considering, but I don’t see it happening so I’m not going to get into that.

Truth be told, every time I faced a long bow ranger I straffed most of their burst damage skilled and went in for the kill. Now longbow rangers will have a more reliable way to make sure the damage lands and that longbow has a more meaningful purpose.

We have been thus far discussing the negative sides of having ONLY double the speed on these projectile, however fellow rangers as you all well know, that is not the only thing that is lackluster. The key to the success of this will be on how you personally use it. I can already see a lot of glassy (or high crit for that matter) WvW zerg surfing rangers taking advantage of this to deliver big numbers.

What is more interesting is in fact the other 4 unknown GM traits and how they can be used to expand the ranger’s potential.

I get it: they want longbows to be more of a thing for rangers than they already are. However I don’t see how faster projectiles are supposed to be a trait choice that is important enough, to overcome all the other longbow shortcomings that rangers have to eat everyday. I just hope that the other 4 traits are more significant, or that they add higher critical damage/chance on this read the wind thing.

ThiBash.5634:

Relax guys. The ele gets more healing that only affects others. At least your trait has a niche use…extra healing on other players is about as useless as it gets, given that most of our healing comes from blast finishers ratehr than our heals themselves.

And of course, the fact that nobody needs or wants a healer…anywhere.

Actually that can be very useful thing, especially in organized WvW play where you would be the beloved partner of all the heal-guardians in your group/guild.

Double the speed on arrow released is definitely underrated, they should at least increase the critical chance and/or critical damage by about 15% and it would make sense because if you can read the wind, not only will your attacks be faster, but they will be much more accurate and deadlier.

While we are at it, might as well make a post on the balance forums about this and flood the kitten out of it so that it doesn’t take them 1 year to make an update to the new trait.

It’s as Fluffball said, they still haven’t entirely risen community wise from last place, however rangers have struggled for a while and we have come together. It certainly takes quite a bit of skill to hold your ground as a ranger, but now many different and efficient builds have emerged for those skilled enough to play them. Take a look around the forums, also if you’re really interested in your ranger then join the multi-server [Winds] guild (look in the forums) for constant ranger fun + feedback.

A build that is adaptive to both ends of the WvW game is tricky, because regardless of how you make it, you will have to switch utilities, weapons, pets or perhaps traits on the fly. Now the good thing is that despite that, you’re free to make your own modifications when it comes to the craziness of WvW.

Here is the basis of the solo-5man-zerg build I’ve developed with my guildies:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQJATRjMq0xa/KOsw1agY9gQBaQtHcySn3VAVnshKtC-zQCB4fDRjgIY0HJKBqIasF4FRjVXDT7KpqXRWFDgQAhWAA-e

It gives what I call an “all around contribution” to WvW. But the best part is that, say you know you will be faced with a few 1 vs 1 on the way to your zerg fight, you can easily jump into dire gear (clothes + accessories that is), and maintain the same trait lines, while changing certain trait choices to your liking. So you don’t have to go back to the professions trainer to change it all every time you want to do 5 vs 5 or 1 vs 1, instead of zerg fighting, within 30 seconds you are ready for anything.

Here is my setup for the solo-5 vs 5 man aspect of WvW:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1agY9QQEaQtHcy8n3VAVnsiotC-zQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOTqIasVTFRjVJjIqWpEjQALGDA-e

Traits remain the same, a couple of trait choices change (marksmanship, wilderness survival), but that’s a few clicks change, then the equipment. Pets are your own choice. This build maximizes on solo survival.

Both builds provide with: very high toughness, quite vital in the hectic high tier environment (Blackgate over here), very decent vitality, capitalizing on a major source of damage (power + critical damage, or conditions with conditions duration).

I’ve obtained positive feedback on the first and second builds so far, but naturally you’ll make it your own and add your own preferences. It’s the basis to something that is great and can be better enjoy!

Trapper or Spirits is the way, the regen bunker and the signet bunkers are strong as well but not as team oriented as the first two. Try them all if you like and see for yourself. If it was up to me I’d go with trapper as long as I am teaming up with someone who can exploit them or add to them somehow (like an ele would), similarly for spirits except I’d probably go with a guardian.

nagymbear.5280:

Check this video out, the greatest player playing the game. Go watch it you mouth breathers!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaWcAek5_JE

Looks like Bear wasn’t so useless after all (engineer fight) nice video

I just took a look at the build and modified it thanks to your suggestions, check it out:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1agY9QQEaQtHcy8n/VIWnsiotC-zQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOTqIasVTFRjVJjIqWpEjQALGDA-e

It does look like a more solid setup, especially with the added power, conditions duration and vitality. It’s just a small step up from what I had before but fighting anti-condition builds seems more manageable, as well as pure power builds. The only clear difficulty will be against other condition builds, on a fight where you don’t know your enemy, swapping bark skin for empathic bond is a very critical choice that is hard to make on the fly.

atheria.2837:

What is your build? I am not getting anywhere near the numbers most are – I’d love to improve.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1agY9QQEaQtHcy8n/VIWnsiotC-zQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOTqIasVTFRjVJjIqWpEjQALGDA-e

The most important part of the gear are the ascended accessories; they won’t be hard to get once you spend sometime in fractals. Dire gear can be pricey unless you craft it yourself, then (by today’s market) it can easily be around 30+ gold investment at a minimum. If that’s too expensive for you then you can get by with apothecary gear without losing out on anything. The back piece is a different story, if you want to go cheap select the ascended one with rabid stats.

@Manek
I understood what you meant by the wasted healing power, but in order to repurpose the apothecary gear I would reserve it to use it on a regen build instead. Regarding dire the overall price shouldn’t exceed 20~30 gold to get the insignias from TP, that being said it’s a better choice than healing power providing me with ~50 extra healing power. I’ll play around with the stats online and see if full dire or carrion/dire works better.

@ItIsFinished
Did you set your traits the way I did? I make up for the condi-removal builds by traiting 30 into marksmanship, that’s truly only to get the benefit of signets which are imo very vital in 1 vs 1, but at the same time the added power (~2500 total with gear) does pack the steady punch you need as you apply conditions, so far it’s worked decently well against condition removal builds… but then again there very skilled full regen/condi removal players out there, those are a pain to bring down because now you depend on your skill alone to get around their rotation and overcome them. FYI Shout warriors are alright once you get an on demand cripple on them, using double spiders or double canines for example.

I suggest that you make a build with which:

a) allows you to do your role in WvW group play.
b) if you must roam to get to your team, with just swapping your equipment you jump into your roaming build, so if a thief pops up you can deal with them and then move along to your group. After you’re safe from roaming attackers, as you approach where your group is, swap your gear and jump into your group play mode. I personally enjoy finding them roaming now that I can just swap gear an show them who is boss.

It seems like an amazing pain in the —- but in fact that’s the only way I can do it. Its very often that someone’s build for group play is completely worthless in solo fights. We can all suggest a tab in the equipment panel (laveled PvE / PvP / WvW… or Build 1, Build 2.. etc), with which you can swap into another gear on the go, if you are out of combat. But all you can do now is follow my suggestion and get used to it, or continue to fall pray to those thieves who will take advantage of your roaming moments.

Manekk.6981:

awge.3852:

Manekk.6981:

awge.3852:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1agY9QQEaQtHcy8n/VIWnsiotC-zQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDjQATWDA-e

This is the best 1 vs 1 build I’ve come up with and I feel that right now it’s quite optimal. I’ve used it in PvP and WvW conversely. Now, in 1 vs 1 regardless of your build you truly depend on your own skill + reaction time; that aside, what does my build bring to the table? An emphasis on damage matched with survival.

Survival factor: Signet of stone, bark skin, healing power, high toughness, a healthy amount of vitality, superior sigil of energy, lightning reflexes, signet of renewal, and don’t forget your pet!

Damage factor: Conditions + pet + well executed burst + your very own reflexes and battle intuition. My personal rotation depends on the enemy, but overall this ranger is quite tanky so I know I can lure enemies into a strong damage rotation.

A typical high damage rotation will be like this:
Entangle + wolf’s howl at the same time, bonfire on their location, plus serpent’s strike (for the poison) which will also place you behind them, followed by your wolf’s leap which should stun them, and some melee, swap weapons to concussion shot (from behind), followed by poison volley, swap to spider in case they want to escape the entangle’s immobilize so you snare them right away. By now your sharpened edges should kick in and you can set yourself at range in case your enemy decides to pull you into their own rotation somehow; this rotation (without entangle) should be available to you after 20 seconds, so if your enemy does catch you off guard and keeps you in melee range, swap weapons and drop bonfire, if you really need to you can use signet of stone and mitigate all the damage, or you can save it for an uh-oh situation, but I personally like to use troll unguent and mitigate most of the damage that way.

General advice as a ranger in a 1 vs 1? every action you take counts, don’t waste your skills in a useless rotation that your enemy can escape, you need to reel them into it, make them feel like they have a chance, be brave and risk some damage in order to force them to waste some skills on you, that’s how you add your flavor into the fray.

Disclaimer? heck yes, you’re fighting against some sturdy condition damage build? swap to Empatic bond, fighting that annoying hit and run warrior in a very open space? consider swapping your shortbow for axe/dagger, both your pets to spiders and your elite to RaO. The key of the build is in survival via signets, healing power, high toughness and decent condition removal; plus damage via a non stop stacking of conditions with a rotation with clever pet usage. I’ve had lots of success with it but success depends entirely on you, so best of luck!

Apothecary and healing power seems totally wasted on that though, no healing spring and no other regen application at all and not even signet of the wild so why the healing power? for troll? you gain 50h per tick for that might aswell go full dire or anything else than apothecary really.

Honestly that’s a good point, however given that full dire gear is a bit pricey for me to get, I haven’t had the chance to test with it other than in PvP. The benefit I get from this setup not only applies in 1 vs 1, I like to run with it in WvW and whenever I am in a group I benefit greatly from having higher healing power from the shared regen that you get in those situations, that’s truly the main reason I chose apothecary over dire. However if you do have full dire feel free to test my build and let me know how it rolls.

I’m pretty certain any regeneration you get from others is based on their healing power not yours, unless something changed.

Well then that’s news to me (and incredibly obvious now that I think about it). Now all I would need is to save up enough to get full dire gear and roll with it, but your suggestion as to use healing spring and signet of the hunt won’t be overlooked. After all this is the best condi-build I have and despite it being honed for 1 vs 1, it does really well in group situations added that I use more methods for healing power usage (shout build perhaps), I should be in a good spot with the apothecary gear.

Manekk.6981:

awge.3852:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1agY9QQEaQtHcy8n/VIWnsiotC-zQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDjQATWDA-e

This is the best 1 vs 1 build I’ve come up with and I feel that right now it’s quite optimal. I’ve used it in PvP and WvW conversely. Now, in 1 vs 1 regardless of your build you truly depend on your own skill + reaction time; that aside, what does my build bring to the table? An emphasis on damage matched with survival.

Survival factor: Signet of stone, bark skin, healing power, high toughness, a healthy amount of vitality, superior sigil of energy, lightning reflexes, signet of renewal, and don’t forget your pet!

Damage factor: Conditions + pet + well executed burst + your very own reflexes and battle intuition. My personal rotation depends on the enemy, but overall this ranger is quite tanky so I know I can lure enemies into a strong damage rotation.

A typical high damage rotation will be like this:
Entangle + wolf’s howl at the same time, bonfire on their location, plus serpent’s strike (for the poison) which will also place you behind them, followed by your wolf’s leap which should stun them, and some melee, swap weapons to concussion shot (from behind), followed by poison volley, swap to spider in case they want to escape the entangle’s immobilize so you snare them right away. By now your sharpened edges should kick in and you can set yourself at range in case your enemy decides to pull you into their own rotation somehow; this rotation (without entangle) should be available to you after 20 seconds, so if your enemy does catch you off guard and keeps you in melee range, swap weapons and drop bonfire, if you really need to you can use signet of stone and mitigate all the damage, or you can save it for an uh-oh situation, but I personally like to use troll unguent and mitigate most of the damage that way.

General advice as a ranger in a 1 vs 1? every action you take counts, don’t waste your skills in a useless rotation that your enemy can escape, you need to reel them into it, make them feel like they have a chance, be brave and risk some damage in order to force them to waste some skills on you, that’s how you add your flavor into the fray.

Disclaimer? heck yes, you’re fighting against some sturdy condition damage build? swap to Empatic bond, fighting that annoying hit and run warrior in a very open space? consider swapping your shortbow for axe/dagger, both your pets to spiders and your elite to RaO. The key of the build is in survival via signets, healing power, high toughness and decent condition removal; plus damage via a non stop stacking of conditions with a rotation with clever pet usage. I’ve had lots of success with it but success depends entirely on you, so best of luck!

Apothecary and healing power seems totally wasted on that though, no healing spring and no other regen application at all and not even signet of the wild so why the healing power? for troll? you gain 50h per tick for that might aswell go full dire or anything else than apothecary really.

Honestly that’s a good point, however given that full dire gear is a bit pricey for me to get, I haven’t had the chance to test with it other than in PvP. The benefit I get from this setup not only applies in 1 vs 1, I like to run with it in WvW and whenever I am in a group I benefit greatly from having higher healing power from the shared regen that you get in those situations, that’s truly the main reason I chose apothecary over dire. However if you do have full dire feel free to test my build and let me know how it rolls.

You played very well in your video, however what surprise me the most was how poorly prepared those players where to fight your build. It seems like your experience surpassed theirs because they ate everything you threw at them, especially those traps who have a clear ‘here it comes’ animation. Cheers!

I use sword/torch in PvP and WvW with my heavy conditions – bunker build. Sword is an all around solid weapon to right with, but torch requires you to time its attacks properly. Fire damage hits really kitten condition builds, so you need to squeeze all you can out of it. To get bonfire to work, you need to follow the flow of the battle to where your enemy will be in melee combat, or forced to be via cripples/immobilize or by exhausting their endurance. Throw torch should be used the moment they successfully escape bonfire, so to keep them eating fire damage for as long as possible. With a solid condi build you should do no less than 700 fire damage per tick and that’s pretty deadly already; especially because you will try to stack bleeds and other conditions on top of it.

In my experience, if you will be stuck fighting on melee range, due to your own choice, the nature of the fight, or due to your opponent’s pressure, them make them fight on top of bonfire and maximize your damage. If your enemy has very strong melee capabilities then it would be wise to use signet of stone + bonfire, have them waste their burst on it and possibly their heal as well, then follow through with your own burst to bring them to their knees.

For the record, don’t run Axe/Torch unless you know exactly what your are doing, it’s a kind of setup that is more successful on ranged encounters, give it a try against a thief in WvW if you need to understand why.

Sevans.4619:

awge.3852:

Sevans.4619:

Invites should be up to date.

First WINDSday night dungeon run went alright, got a few dungeon paths knocked out. Hope to see a few more faces next time!

Can we get more info regarding events and such? Perhaps a website would be good.

That’s actually something I’m working on. I work a lot so between working and playing I only make progress on it sparingly. Should be up soon-ish, though. I’ll post the link when I’m done.

In the meantime I’m using the guild message of the day for events and such.

Whenever you get that done put it on the MOTD, sadly I’ve been too busy this whole month so I am always missing out. Also from now on my ranger will only rep this guild, so I’ll be doing PvX with anyone who wants to join me, especially PvP/WvW since it’s my forte. FYI is DarkSouls 2 truly worth it? I loved the 1st installment.

Read: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/first
Then post your suggestion there, and make sure you write it in the correct format.

Forzani.2584:

No run speed makes it tough for me to consider no matter how good it performs 1v1

I swap signet of stone for signet of the hunt when I am running from point A to point B, I keep my eyes peeled for enemies and I am quick to change back to signet of stone the instant I see someone. Plus if you really need to get away from someone you can use sword 2, lightning reflexes, sword 2 to make a huge gap.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1agY9QQEaQtHcy8n/VIWnsiotC-zQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDjQATWDA-e

This is the best 1 vs 1 build I’ve come up with and I feel that right now it’s quite optimal. I’ve used it in PvP and WvW conversely. Now, in 1 vs 1 regardless of your build you truly depend on your own skill + reaction time; that aside, what does my build bring to the table? An emphasis on damage matched with survival.

Survival factor: Signet of stone, bark skin, healing power, high toughness, a healthy amount of vitality, superior sigil of energy, lightning reflexes, signet of renewal, and don’t forget your pet!

Damage factor: Conditions + pet + well executed burst + your very own reflexes and battle intuition. My personal rotation depends on the enemy, but overall this ranger is quite tanky so I know I can lure enemies into a strong damage rotation.

A typical high damage rotation will be like this:
Entangle + wolf’s howl at the same time, bonfire on their location, plus serpent’s strike (for the poison) which will also place you behind them, followed by your wolf’s leap which should stun them, and some melee, swap weapons to concussion shot (from behind), followed by poison volley, swap to spider in case they want to escape the entangle’s immobilize so you snare them right away. By now your sharpened edges should kick in and you can set yourself at range in case your enemy decides to pull you into their own rotation somehow; this rotation (without entangle) should be available to you after 20 seconds, so if your enemy does catch you off guard and keeps you in melee range, swap weapons and drop bonfire, if you really need to you can use signet of stone and mitigate all the damage, or you can save it for an uh-oh situation, but I personally like to use troll unguent and mitigate most of the damage that way.

General advice as a ranger in a 1 vs 1? every action you take counts, don’t waste your skills in a useless rotation that your enemy can escape, you need to reel them into it, make them feel like they have a chance, be brave and risk some damage in order to force them to waste some skills on you, that’s how you add your flavor into the fray.

Disclaimer? heck yes, you’re fighting against some sturdy condition damage build? swap to Empatic bond, fighting that annoying hit and run warrior in a very open space? consider swapping your shortbow for axe/dagger, both your pets to spiders and your elite to RaO. The key of the build is in survival via signets, healing power, high toughness and decent condition removal; plus damage via a non stop stacking of conditions with a rotation with clever pet usage. I’ve had lots of success with it but success depends entirely on you, so best of luck!

The worst part is when you are surrounded by a ton of players and your pet takes conditions from them instead of you, this skill needs some serious rework. Just in case a dev is reading this, remove emphatic bond as a trait and make this signet do what empathic bond does.

If you read the above you should have a decent idea of how to have condition removal on a ranger, in my opinion condition removal is alright, but it definitely could be better. Depending on what kind of ranger you play you will get better results for condi removal, but the most solid way to avoid the damage is to have decent healing power paired with decent condition removal, and reduced condition duration on you.

The easiest way to jump into healing power with a ranger is to check out a conditions build with Apothecary gear; there are many variations but the gear is the basis for the build.

- Used signets in a big WvW fight without traiting them, thinking they would save your life.
- Get super fired up every time a thief is killed by your hand and your hand alone.
- Scratch your head and get super confused whenever you need to figure out a new build.
- Wonder why pet controls aren’t more intuitive.
- Throw your hands up in the air when you die due to sword 1 auto attack.
- Feel a sense of adventure because you have a pet running next to you.
- Enjoy that moment when you are down but your spirit of nature revives you on the spot, revenge is sweet.
- Fail to understand why everyone dislikes rangers, even after you have worked out a serious build and managed to be the #1 most competitive player in your guild.
- Have had a whole bunch of thieves hunt you and you alone down in the middle of a zerg fight in WvW.

Hey Sevans, it seems that eventually the guild will reach over 9000! Kidding I mean over 500, so have you put down any plans for expansion? The good thing about rangers is that we do feel like a community, so there is much room for it in my opinion.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Bambula.3649:

wtf even for record runs a ranger can be used.
no even in most frac you dont need a longbow

Rangers, necros, and engineers are currently not used in record runs. Even if you use one for an unclaimed record atm, another guild would beat it with a composition that doesn’t include one.

Most ranger players are going to need a longbow or ranged of some sort in fractals because the strategies in PUG environments or in disorganized, low dps groups are quite different for fractals. This is also even more problematic when you consider the lvl 49 instability, where you are sometimes just better off ranging if you can range without dodging where otherwise you’d dodge while meleeing.

I disagree that you must use a longbow, if you know how to play you can just stick to sword/axe or GS for that matter. A power build allows for signet use which can help a lot (signet of stone), you can gear for high critical damage rather than high precision, while maintaining 2000~3000 defense and not lose in power. Certain setups can also elevate melee play, for quickness rolling or max critical chance on a high critical damage setup, it all depends on how you approach it. Then again, not everyone is comfortable doing melee alone, I can see the need for ranged weapons depending on the speed run, but it really does come down to how well you know your dungeon and your play.

In terms of ‘passive pet mode’ I always thought that this would synergise very well with the Beast Master trait line. There are traits in there under the name ‘training’ and for the most part those are quite useless in large encounters, where having a pet die on you instantly is not a viable option. If having the pet on passive will help it stay alive, then these ‘trainings’ should allow the passive pet to employ it’s F2 skills with these traits. For example, agility training should allow a passive pet to give swiftness to allies on F2 activation, same will go for vigorous training, etc… Which in my opinion is one heck of a way to employ your pet efficiently. Naturally to make it balanced the usage of F2 will have to be thought out. Perhaps depending on the pet you will get a training boon, or you will get all the boons in one shot, but you can’t switch your pet to aggressive mode for a duration of time, etc. This goes hand in hand with how you mentioned the spirits could work (by absorbing them). In fact it would be nice if you could absorb a spirit and get interesting varieties of utilities, for example getting earth based damage (like an elementalist) on spirit absorbtion, or getting a boon towards toughness that’s shared with allies, etc. That would open up an interesting combat mechanic for a ranger who is all about ‘attack attack attack’ into a ‘team player’ type of fighter… let’s not forget to include condition removal in there; pretty interesting ideas.

Sevans.4619:

Invites should be up to date.

First WINDSday night dungeon run went alright, got a few dungeon paths knocked out. Hope to see a few more faces next time!

Can we get more info regarding events and such? Perhaps a website would be good.

For you to really enjoy ranger you need to have 2 builds, one that focuses around condition damage and the other one that revolves around power base damage. It’s a bit difficult to focus on both, but there are advantages of centering your build based on this.

First of all, power damage allows you to use longbow and sword/warhorn to the best of their abilities. It also provides you with entrance to signet builds, which are very useful especially in stressful situations like large world encounters (living world for example), dungeons, and fractals. You will then have to choose how much toughness in Wildnerness survival you want to match your lack of defense. I always go 30 in here, for any build since it is simply the best way to stay alive, while adding critical damage or critical chance with your gear.

For condition damage, there are so many options. Trapper is the most popular, beast master is really interesting since you use your pet to deal big number damage while you dish out conditions. Boon regen condition damage + beast master is a very recent build, it focuses on you + your pet dealing damage and using shouts to stay alive. Spirit build also falls along these lines and if it fits your play style then its excellent in group play. For condition damage builds your weapons should be something like shortbow, axe/dagger, sword/torch, depends on what you like most.

Anyhow, do take a peak around the forums for people’s suggestions, here are my builds and they actually are the ones you can take to WvW and be useful without dying easily:

- Power: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJATRjEVN29VGWo2Bi1DCFoB1ewJLdeXBUdyGq0K-jQCB4fDRjgIY0HJKBqIasF4FRjVXDT7KpqXRWFDQIgQLAA-e
- Conditions: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQNAV8fjAVV29VGWo2Bi1DBRoB1ewJzf+Xh0fyKi2K-jQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDTIgJrBA-e

It’s PvE viable the way it once you adapt the latest changes to it, you can easily do your own modifications to it (like I did above) and run it anytime in PvE and WvW.

The way I see it is that many rangers don’t know how to control their pets; more importantly they don’t want to or don’t know how to work with them. If you put the time to run dungeons, fractals and do events everywhere, then you should not be considering your pet a hindrance, rather use it for what its meant for.

As a ranger I cannot deny that there will be places where it’s best to dismiss the pet (large WvW scale events for example), but for the most part you can use your pet as an asset rather than a hindrance.

The build itself is not half bad, yet you do isolate yourself to a single source of damage which is condition damage via condition duration and critical bleeds. Note that in practice you’d be facing fair 1 vs 1 fights against enemies who are not geared properly to resist condition pressure, however in reality WvW will present you with multiple challenges in which your conditions will be countered.

Being a condition applier myself, and knowing how pet can be an unreliable source of damage (if you where to say let’s combine conditions with pet damage by putting points into beast mastery), I can provide you with the build I currently use. It is very heavy in conditions just like you, it goes deep in toughness and has very similar vitality, but it brings power damage and signets to the game play: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMUQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1agY9QQEaQtHcy8n/VI9nsiotC-zQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDjQATWDA-e

I find it to be more reliable than traps because you have more options to your disposal if say you are in pinch situations, or you happen to fight strong condition removal enemies and there are always plenty out there.

If I was to change your build, I would first do so like this, although its a bit rough since I haven’t tested it myself:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQNAV8fjEq0ya7KmrQ1agYVQQtHcy8Yi9wQO6RnIKVVB-z0CBYhQINBG1JZk3wkHQEIAZSFRjtaqIasaGYqUER1eEFRrmUAwsGA-w

Specific Game Mode
PvX
Proposal Overview
Pet Roles
Goal of Proposal
To better define the role of pets in the ranger’s combat rotation.
Proposal Functionality
I propose that pets should have a more meaningful role in combat. Why do rangers have to go abusing their pets in order to gain survival? Signet of Renewal, “Protect Me,” and Empathic Bond all kill/harm the pet; it just seems very counter intuitive the rangers have more functional “pet killers” than utilities that actually allow players to effectively work with their pet. Also if pets are such an important and integral part of the rangers, why is it that pets are completely useless in large scale combat? Skills such as Rampage as one literally do nothing for a pet who is in the middle of a boss fight, a huge living world event with lots of monsters, or the day by day mayhem in WvW. Please note that in large engagements pets are rendered as ineffective and given that pets are an “always on” functionality; it often results in rangers sacrificing what most would consider a fairly significant portion of their damage, either by way of having a passive or a dead pet. In such scenarios, the game needs to provide rangers and or pets with options. All professions can specialize to a role, and by including or modifying a trait or a utility that would be meaningful to rangers in large scaled combats, then a ranger pet can seem a viable option in large scale combat. Specialization in Beast Mastery could provide pets with trait mechanic that would be most suitable for large scale combats for pets. Compassion Training could simply improve a pet’s traits and F2 effectiveness while in passive mode. Stability Training could give constant stability to pets and on F2 activation it would provide an AoE stability to allies, as long as the pet is in passive mode. Speed Training would provide allies with AoE speed to allies swiftness on pet’s F2 activation while the pet is in passive mode. Vigorious Training would provide allies vigor on pet’s F2 activation while pet is in passive mode. Make passive mode a 10 second cooldown. That would also force a new skill tree where one ranger could truly be a Beast Master without running into Nature Magic for spirits for the support role. At the same time, it would give pets a much more meaningful role in the Beast Mastery traitline. If traits are not the way to go, then make an elite signet which will provide pets with something like the above while on pet’s passive mode.
Associated Risks
Pet AI will need an improvement depending on how this role is better defined by the devs in technical terms. Pets and how they have been presented could change to a more meaningful role, which will impact the way that rangers use them nowadays. The ranger community will have to submit substantial feedback in order for the devs to work on positive changes, however this is only under the devs initiative to expand on this idea. Different builds will easily be affected by a change like so, therefore exhaustive testing will need to be performed in order to better balance out the utility of having a ‘boon’ pet.

Specific Game Mode
PvX
Proposal Overview
Pet Responsiveness
Goal of Proposal
To give Rangers true control over their pets F2 abilities
Proposal Functionality
Rather than using back end server functionality to direct pet’s actions. Instead of running actions through the pet AI directly, the pet F2 functionality could be designed on its own thread, perhaps using a tiny percentage of the user system’s resources, which would communicate to the pet’s thread via priority to take over whatever the pet is currently doing. I understand that there are multiple implications, mostly pertaining to the current design (back end server communications, pet AI animation, and everything else), but in the end everything that the pet does relies on pet AI + user commands, in our case its clear that user commands should take absolute precedence over it. It’s important to note that in a do or die situation, your pet will need to know from you exactly what to do and those reactions are quite critical since we are talking about very quick decision making even for the average player. Pet needs to be on par with the combat design period.
Associated Risks
Naturally a lot of figuring out how to get around this issue, I do not foresee that the players will be negatively affected by it, since pets are always by design running with the AI rather than with the user commands.

It’s a shame that these patch notes are not true, the ones related to the ranger are actually pretty decent.

The sentinel front liner is still viable, but take it with a grain of salt. I made my own modifications to it and I am liking the result: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJATRjEVN29VGWo2Bi1DCFoB1ewJLdeXBUdyGq0K-jQCB4fDRjgIY0HJKBqIasF4FRjVXDT7KpqXRWFDQIgQLAA-e

Sent you a mail Sevans…
Mon Fils, Black Gate, Zero Negative guild, PvE/PvP/WvW/Fractals/Dungeons/Living Story (everything). #1 ranger danger in my guild, class leader etc etc… shoot me an invite.

I am best suited for either Skirmisher or Beast Master, your pick, but with my experience I can do any role except of course beginner. See you in game.

I play like this nowadays:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQNAV8fjAVV29VGWo2Bi1DBRoB1ewJzf+Xh0fyKi2K-jgCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDzeuIa1CBIdNA-e

I find it more solid than BM bunker, using pet as a support rather than the main source of damage, since the pet damage can be mitigated by experienced players and most blind/stealth thiefs. Access to signets helps with ‘uh oh’ moments and buys time, decent healing power, decent power to dish out when fighting enemies with strong condi-removal, and strong condi damage + access to lots of conditions.

Don’t ask why when the answer is so obvious: new rangers. Everyone needs an excuse to clear conditions, they are playing around with the traits and utilities which they yet don’t fully understand. Remember that the learning curve from pve to wvw for the ranger is the highest of all professions. I personally think using bear is pretty stupid, since in WvW pets just die like flies in large scale combat, however all pets work well when the ranger uses them the right way. Now if you see a bear bow ranger, just kindly tell them to use signet of renewal instead, or to trait for empathic bond, or just let them die and get to doing the real ranger job. It’s stupid yeah but don’t go crazy over it.

Rym.1469:

Why?
-Biggest room for mistakes
-You’re mostly fighting semi-melee and don’t die
-Conditions tick, tick, ticking
-Pet can hit something when starts collide, because you fight in close quaters and have some slowing effects
-Because nothing else is viable

Ranger build sure is strong when a capable player runs it, however it is not the only viable build, there are others yet only a handful out there (with or without variations of the build).

I honestly wish that the regen build would be more versatile since it forces you to play in small scale (roaming solo and in groups), if there was only a way to make it more portable to large scale WvW play it would be so sweet. Not to mention it’s a great build for dungeons, but not the only one.

How about naming it [POWR] for Power Rangers? It may sound like a pun, but its quite catchy and all rangers can easily recognize it. If the guild expands you can easily rename it to [POWR] for Powah Rangers, or Pwng Rangers, etc.

Either ways, regardless of how the guild is named, send me an invite. I am currently the ranger class leader for the guild I represent, which is a T1 guild in the Black Gate war council, and I will be looking to recruit capable rangers for our pushes. Naturally they can continue to represent the ranger guild as it is a community guild for rangers.

This build won’t do you much good in WvW, it has simple flaws when compared to more solid builds for pure ranged combat. Remember 100% ranged situations are not guaranteed in WvW, you should consider having a ranged weapon and melee weapons as well. Also you want to maximize your toughness in WvW if you want to guarantee survival, as well as maximize on the type of damage you want to do (in your case Power). Here is a build that will likely do what you’re looking for: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJATRjEVN29VGWo2Bi1DCFoB1ewJLdeXBUdyGq0K-jQCB4fDRjgIY0HJKBqIasF4FRjVXDT7KpqXRWFDQIgQLAA-e

Feel free to work around it if there is something you don’t like, but I can guarantee that this build will give you results: strong long range and melee damage, overall hard to kill, access to condition removal, access to invulnerability, pets will lean and stun the enemy you decide to focus on. Also another tip, its quite cruical for you as a ranger to position yourself properly in WvW, don’t jump into the front line wielding any form of bow, use a melee weapon instead. If using ranged damage, try to flank the enemies, watch the flow of battle so that you don’t get trapped between 20 enemies, etc.

Don’t forget to modify this somehow to include the upcoming signet elite, I can see spirit builds benefiting greatly from swapping one spirit for a signet of stone.

My biggest issue is pet in WvW, they’re amazingly unreliable. One day they will save your life, the next day they will die and die and die… and die again. So to have them or to keep them is a question that’s difficult to answer, how about giving us pets that will actually do something other than consistently dying in WvW? Brainstorm it people, we can’t get rid of them, so we might as well get stuff that we can use.

Another thing is regarding the active signet traiting, it really forces your hand deep in that trait line, why not make it as a passive effect of the 25th trait line in the Grandmaster tier?

Being a ranger in WvW, you are easily stuck with the ‘big dps build’ or ‘roaming build’. Can the game overall get an update which will allow a secondary build and equipment pannel, with some clever mechanic behind it? As long as you are not in combat you can swap without double clicking every piece of equipment / trait out… something along these lines.

What about siege, thiefs are excellent users of the golems, they can teleport around with them, excellent stuff. Can rangers get a bonus for using arrow carts or ballistas or something that will make them more significant? All them berserker bear bow rangers need a place to sit people!

Rangers are masters of nature, if we choose to use signets, can these also buff our pets depending on their affinity? Examples: regen pets get a benefit from signet of the wild, condition pets get benefits from signet of renewal… so on and so forth? That would make them more WvW viable.

I can go on fellow rangers, but bring in the brainstorm.

I disagree with gearing up for full berserker for large scale WvW fights, as a ranger you are easily the target of all pugs who are looking to get their kills, rather than the organized guild group that you may or may not participate, who are focusing on mowing down an enemy blob. Not to mention that thiefs will always hunt rangers down regardless of the outcome of the battle. If you go full berserker just to deal big damage, you really need to play carefully and on top of that have someone watch your back. I like to play with a combination of big damage and strong survival, why? Because a dead ranger is worth nothing compared to one that can stay alive. Sacrifice in damage isn’t significant either, you can take a look here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJATRjEVN29VGWo2Bi1DCFoB1ewJLdeXBUdyGq0K-jQCB4fDRjgIY0HJKBqIasF4FRjVXDT7KpqXRWFDQIgQLAA-e