Guild Wars 2

skystorm.9280:

borya.2964:

skystorm.9280:

[…]obviously being melee you can’t start a fight from far like you can with LB and instead[…]

Thank you in advance

While the both builds above aren’t bad, you should consider a boon sctaking build cuz the (better) damage (with might stacks) let you bring some toughness and better utilities. The warhorn and the bristleback can help you to keep range pressure. The build is a general idea rather than a real specific one :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBhYD7kSFokFslFwWQgqFMwJU+fPAHePs9dA8vQB0wl8s0A-TVjIABbpTIQ1RA4JAwuKBfv/QSKB/RpweqIwmmg7UhQHlV2fRAASJCpAGbZE-w

Thank you very much for sharing – not a fan of warhorn though : /

Well, i am not especially a fan of warhorn but it simply outshines other offhands in this kind of build and compliments the GS :

- Hunter’s Call :
- 1200 range pressure (besides the Bristleback).
- Good damage overall (mostly with might stacks).
- Vulnerability stacking that compliments Maul’s GS.

Call of the Wild :
- Boons, obviously. In this build your perma regen, swiftness, fury, you can easily stack 10, 15, 25 mights and you have good access to protection and quickness duration.
- Unblockable attacks from your pet that now also compliments Maul’s GS.
- Blast finisher to blast your smoke cloud ’s smokescale without loosing GS 3 or Sword 2.

That’s a lot, really.

skystorm.9280:

[…]obviously being melee you can’t start a fight from far like you can with LB and instead[…]

Thank you in advance

While the both builds above aren’t bad, you should consider a boon sctaking build cuz the (better) damage (with might stacks) let you bring some toughness and better utilities. The warhorn and the bristleback can help you to keep range pressure. The build is a general idea rather than a real specific one :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBhYD7kSFokFslFwWQgqFMwJU+fPAHePs9dA8vQB0wl8s0A-TVjIABbpTIQ1RA4JAwuKBfv/QSKB/RpweqIwmmg7UhQHlV2fRAASJCpAGbZE-w

Razor.9872:

bearshaman.3421:

Mainhand Dagger.

^

I would like a power-based elite spec focused around frequent sources of fury, stealth, and a trait that grants us increased ferocity for each stack of vulnerability on the enemy.

Two handed/main hand (i dont’care) lasso with a 1200 pull and a blast finisher. Thanks.

The only things you need from HOT are the Bristleback and the Smokescale and maybe Durability runes & Concetration sigils or some of the new stats available.

That being said, you should stick to your ranger for duels. Unlike most other new specs, core ranger is by far superior to the elite spec when it comes to duels.

I use both skills in large scale fights in WvW and guild raids (healmmobilzer build). In fact, Muddy Terrain, Etangle, Vine Surge and Natural convergence are the only offensive skills i can land.

Even if it works, somehow, my main issue is that i can’t really call an “immobilizing” in TS, cuz i don’t even know if it will work properly. Etangle, despite the tooltip, is blockable and the entire skill can be negated (literally, nothing happens, no initial damage, no roots). I would be happy if MT could recieve some new effects, but for now, the animation (the animation doesn’t reflect the actual radius) should be changed, and velocity and activation time (maybe the radius) look at.

FrizzFreston.5290:

borya.2964:

PookieDaWombat.6209:

Let me repeat the key word in there in case it was missed: FREE.

Good customer. You’re a baby who is sleeping and dreaming in his baby carriage, called liberalism.

Nothing is free, never.

If nothing is free then why does the word even exist?

You would have first to define what’s “exist” means. But hopfully, human language is able to create, combine or connect words with things, concepts, phenomenos, ideas, abstractions that does not “exist”.

Etangle :

Despite the tooltip, the initial attack of skill can be blocked, and if it is blocked, the vines won’t be spawned on the blocking foe. It needs to be fixed. Also, it should scales with direct dagame as it scales with condition damage.

Muddy terrain :

This skill is kind of old school now. The activation time should be reduced and the velocity increased.

Thougth ?

You both are right.
If you have one target (targeted), then you have 4 options for your pet to attack the target:

1.) In both AC and G mods (you’re not attacking), use F2, and then the pet will reach the target to land the F2, or land the F2 at your side, and then he will attack the target.
2.) You’re in AC mod (you’re not attacking), you can use F1, then your pet will stick to the target.
3.) You’re in AC mod, you need to attack your target, then turn the pet in G mod, (or the contrary) and will stick the target.
4.) You’re on G mod, just attack your target.

In all 4, the pet will stick to the target, even if you remove the target. Now if you have two targets A end B, if you want your pet to attack A, you need to target A and then use one of the 4 options, but 2 and 3 offer better control and timing without wasting F2. Once your pet stick to A, if you target and attack B:

In 2.) Your pet will keep sticking to A (untargeted), while you are attacking B (targeted). It’s indeed the only way to achieve that. Unless you use F2 (your pet will reach B ), or swap pet and the new pet won’t attack any targets until the next command.
In 3.) Once you attack B (targeted) the pet will stop to stick to A and will reach or attack B.

That being said, you still have 4 different ways to engage your pet vs your target just because you sometimes want him to stick to a specific one and you have 2 different ways to call back him. The F1 tooltip is even actually wrong. It’s way too much and too complicated, that’s why, depending on playstyle I guess, rangers find their own way to make the pet practical (I was a big user of the old Guard utility skill). And it’s probably the reason why there is no simple answer to the dead pet sentence in WvW. We could say that that the pet would receive less damage on AC mod for instance, but hell you can’t because any form of other actions cancel the said AC mod effect, etc…

OGDeadHead.8326:

Out of range attacking or cancel attacks won’t work with pet in Avoid Combat mode.

I am not sure to understand what you mean, but i would say turn your pet in Guard mod, and you’re ok, no need for the F1 here .

OGDeadHead.8326:

F1 is also the only way to get your pet to switch to another target in combat (and stick to it), without you having to do so (other than to quickly target the other enemy and ‘tag’ it with F1).
So no, the functionality of F1 is far from useless.

Ok, i believe you. But from my point of view, “plenty” of use is actually 1 niche command in such a case. We are talking about pvp / WvW fights right ? I never do this, neither in solo roaming (vs at least 2 guys), nor small scale fights, nor large scale fights. Besides, i watch a lot of vids (ranger / druid mostly) and i never saw anyone reliably do this. I can see 2 reasons :

1.) Pratically (am not sure that is the good word to get the idea in english) you don’t have the time to do it, it’s an action mmo with big spikes damage. Let say you’re fighting two guys : the time you chek and point the one who’s not targeted, while still figthing your target, to use your F1, and chek for you pet to know if he’s actually sticking the second target (untargeted), you’re virtually dead. I feel like i haven’t the luxury to reliably do this.
2.) Our pets, for all the reasons we all know, stick to nothing.

Like i said, F2 and Guard/AC mods are concretly enough for pet management during a fight. When i say “useless”, i mean “pratically” useless. I can’t imagine that we (rangers) should perfectly use all the F1 commands to successfully fight, cuz for real, it’s nearly impossible. So, if we can achieve, globally, all we need to do with 2 commands whereas there are 4 commands , there is a room for improvement.

Simple facts :

1- Your pet attacks your target.
2- F2 makes the pet (in addition to the F2 skill) to attack your target (even in “Avoid Combat” mod).
3- When your pet he’s in “Avoid Combat” mod and you activates “Guard” mod, your pet attacks your target.
4- When your pet he ’s in “Guard” mod and you activates “Avoid Combat” mod, he returns to you.

As a result :
- You have 3 different ways to make your pet to attack your target (2 and 3) so the F1 is ABSOLUTLY USELESS and NEVER USED. You obviously have a room on the F1 to do anything else rather than a command that you can achieve in 2 other ways.
- “Guard” mod to “Avoid Combat mod” and your pet returns to you (4) so F3 is really barely used, you got another room.

All the F command are in conflict, (F2 and Guard/AC mods are concretly enough for pet management ) it needs to be fixed. Then you could find other usefull commands.

With the build i posted above, the idea (it’s an exemple) is to slighty reduce your healing power (but keeping a good amount to really heal you mates) to increase your damage (critical chance and ferocity) and boon duration, keeping the same toughness (more healing with sraff, more damage with LB). You can mix some stats in a better way.

With Skirmishing line and altruism runes (and the concentration sigils, it’s an expensive option) you’ll be perma fury, and you’ll have double pew pew with Quick Draw, and a bit more might stacking.

New one : http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnUqA1CitCCOsActgl9Ab52FAObPxhy1TD+tWX/rlMtzA-T1CBQBJUliAcEA+wDAAQ7PAK1VEjSs8oLAAXCAsoM4RKBZlSjAAIA7cnpzdG4n/8n/8n/sb+zf+zb+zSBE4yI-w

Didn’t change anything but few stats, runes and sigils :
- Crusader coat and leggins + 2 zealots rings to increase your damage ( 33% critical chance without fury and 176 critical damage)
- Sigils of accuracy to replace sigils of rage
- Runes of altruism, second source of fury and might stacking (wich benefit to your party)

Your only source of fury is Clarion Bond, 20 sec every 30 sec, the entire Marksmanship line (with remorsless) is pretty much wasted in my opinion. You probably took the line to increase your Critical Chance, but you could find other ways to go. Sigil of Rage is not very good and what would be the second sigil on LB ?

You have no cleans outside CA but you probably deal with it. If you’re opened to change one line and may be one or two utilities we could suggest you some new builds i guess, keeping the idea (damage, toughness, healing and boon duration),
It’s doable with HOT stats.

Nice vids

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWTnUqA1CitCCOsActgFGB75JMsaZwN1paXlJc9tCAl480A-T1SBQBrSphZUCCgjAA+0BUuHAACVX5P7PMxLBQYUmhHNBHUliAAIA7cnBgf+zf+zf+zu5O/5Pv5PLFQgLjA-w

The main issue i have with this build is that untill your group needs a heal, you’re truly useless, and you can’t be useless for so long while in frontline.

jcbroe.4329:

My main question to you is whether or not you’ve tried picking up a the rooting utility in your build, no regearing required, since the patch. Since the boon meta no longer has the capability of maintaining a full uptime on Resistance, if you’re in a guild organized group and have your stab from them, you can run entangle and ancient seeds, and even pick up muddy terrain if you want to go all out on the immobilize utility.

While keeping the bunker/healer idea, i also think that it’s the way to go (and it works pretty well) :

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmYD7kSFokFsWQwjFgqFswJYwt0aaP95Fs4aYNDr+WAoENmG-TlSNABe+AA0W9HA0BM+BB4zjAQ+KBVX53y7Po7FAQZNDBAQAM0hO0hO0h2O35O35O3ZpAubXF-w

Hi guys, i wanted to share a build that i am playing for weeks now in WvW .

The build was born from a simple fact : damage as a druid is truly useless in a zerg if you want to be frontline (i am not gonna explain any further).

The build have two different sides :
- Heal & and boons (mostly on the back or retreat, but it can be used on the push)
- Immobilize on the push

Veteran rangers would probably know how to use it properly so am not going to give all the details about the way it works. I personnaly don’t use any source of stability, so your positionning is very important, but you still can use SOTW instead of the GOA or even something more selfish, but the stats will carry you.

The build really works well, i would like to link a video, but unfortunatly i can’t record zerg fights with my old computer. Without any damage i still feel very useful with both sides of the build and bring something very specific and probably unique.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBmYD7kSFogVsWQwjFgqFswJYPvgRVDDulWT7pNDr+WAoEp3A-T1SNABar+j6KnWe/h8VCCgOgPPCAKrZwzHAAvXAgxPIAsrkJAACA7cn7cn7cnlC4udVA-w

Let me know what you think, i am still trying to improve the build.

The guy is playing a pvp build (mostly made for players who barely played ranger pre hot). As a resuslt, he doesn’t know what to do with sword/dagger (used to chain evades on a point) in WvW. He could at least bring a warhorn, or make a good use of a GS or a LB (every thing is more usefull at this point) … It’s 15 minutes of staff, and it’s quiet boring, really.

MidoriMarch.8067:

and no thief only rely on evade and stealth and stealth has so many counters nowdays which means evade is the only clutch to save thieves. If u ever duel a same skilled level of druid vs thief, thief has no chance of winning thats how it is and thats not a l2p issue. In order to beat druids with thief u have to 100% outplay them to get them down.

yet Druid? superior short cd’s on weapon set skills . mobility on gs or staff , good healing , regen , 1200~1500 range kiting , easy access to stability and might boons , can stealth , good damage.

There is a big misunderstanding here : rangers already hard countered thieves before HOT when using NM line.

You could also add block and evades to your list, but at the end, all of this belong to core ranger. NM + BM + WS (for a personal test) lines , were already very powerful before hot : you could have both survivals and shouts traited, perma swiftness and regen, tons of boons for ages, 1500 range, mobility, stealth, blocks, evades (depending on weapon choice) and a full skill bar of cleans. And you could already find bunker rangers trolling several guys (defender runes build) with high regen etc.

HOT just brought more sustatin, not only to druid, but to all classes.

I saw, a few times in the last days, some bunker thieves (there is probably a specific build here) literally dancing around ten guys without even using stealth, it’s the most broken thing i ever seen since launch, i mean, for real.

If you find a bunker druid, just leave him. No matter the class, trolls are trolls, and druid isn’t the best one, that’s for sure.

Heibi.4251:

I handle revs pretty well. I take most of them down pretty fast. And when they’re downed and throwing hammers at you, just back off and range them down + pet, if you’re low on health. You’ll always run into a really good player sometimes who makes a rev look god-like, but not too often.

Heralds Roamers don’t use hammer but sword/shield (sometime axe) and staff, marauder gear and durability runes.

I, myself too, (as a power druid, not too tanky) have some issues with this kind of herald who are near to impossible to beat when at least equally skilled. They are ready to dodge, evade and block all your rotations on demand while doing huge damage.

And on top of that, if they use legandary weapons, they’re really too shiny and difficult to read even if they use the same rotation over and over (well, i feel more upset about it with heralds compared to other classes).

The boring part is that you also need a very good pet management and call back (or avoid combat with the new key) your pet when they use the shield, wich is normally unnecessary with other classes in a 1vs1.

If someone have better advice rather than going condi or high bunker, i’m also interrested.

bigo.9037:

jesus christ the amount of clarification you need to understand my point.

nature magic = more boons on pet = easily stack / maintain 10-25 stacks of might AND more CA regeneration.

wilderness = nothing. a few cleanses, inferior healing and stunbreakers.

CA = stunbreak every 10 sec. 13 condi cleanses / 10 sec.

and also i read your other comment again. honed axe is not useless. the heck are you talking about? 13 seconds of weakness in AOE is not useless. the other options arent worth it for this condi build.

I just said that you should take Wilderness Survival over Nature Magic and you answered me that i couldn’t compare WS and Celestial Avatar. Then you wrote a whole text comparing WS to Druid, but I never said that you should leave the Druid line.

Here again : “wilderness = nothing. a few cleanses, inferior healing and stunbreakers.”, you’re comparing WS and Druid lines. It’s pointless and there is nothing to understand here from what i said in the first place.

You just took the 3 meta traits lines and tried to insert a condi build in it. That’s why you take most of you trait buy default (mostly in NM). You can’t make a good build this way.

In WS the minors are very good, more endurance, protection on dodge (and you dodge a lot..), you could take Oakheart Salve (that is basically better than Rejuvenation minor). Then Ambidextery is your trait since u use Torch an Dagger, less CD + 150 condi damage (even if you don’t really care care about stats, precision wasted, 250 ferocity wasted etc.), your main damage come from torch. Bark Skin is good against a first burst. And Wilderness Knowledge is great with survivals, you could have the cleans you need here to take another runes, and there are a lots of good runes for condi builds.

By the way, TO is a very strong heal, mostly traited. Obviously you can’t use a HOT the same way you use a burst heal, but i am not going to try an explanation here. But the good thing is that you can still choose HAO if you want, because you can have both survivals and shouts traited while keeping BM, you could even keep trooper runes and remove condi with both your shouts and survivals… And Entangle would be good to immobilize your opponents in your Bonefire (for now they just have to leave the red circle). Wilderness Survival, Beast Mastery and Druid (to be clear lol) would be really better for the kind of build you’re looking for in my oppinion. Your build is not optimized, like, not at all.

You even took sigil of doom in your dagger, in a weapons set where you already have 6 stacks of poison if you’re smart (Stalker’s Strike alone means perma poisoned with your dagger). I don’t think that Jesus would help me to understand you choices xD.

bigo.9037:

i already tried fiddeling around with wilderness survival but theres nothing to compare with celestial avatar. in todays meta its simply a must. you cant live without it. while using traitlines other than nature magic ive died many times due to the fact im unable to cleanse conditions, break stun and heal my self at the right time.

also, the grandmaster traits are extremely problematic in wilderness because you lose something either way. if you go with the one that makes your pet take conditions from you, you lose the cooldown reduction of survival skills. of course, it is more condi removal than the cooldown reduction trait, but its very inconsistent. it takes 3 condis after 10 sec.. and then 10 sec later repeat. you have 0 control over when this happens, and that means if you rely too much on this to cleanse off condis midfight youre going to die very soon after the first time you use celestial avatar to cleanse the condis.
im not sure but it also feels like the pet has to be within a certain range to be able to remove your conditions? either way, 3 condis / 10 sec is not enough when you have 0 control . dont forget that with CA, you can cleanse 13 condis every 10 sec. just to put that into perspective.

and the survival skill CD reduction trait… well… theres only 2 usefull survival skills. well… 1 actually. troll urgent doesnt heal fast enough. youre not a necro. youre not running clerics armor. you will not survive healing for only 800 / sec. cleanses 2 condis.. sure. lighting reflexes is probably the only good survival skill. evading backwards is very usefull as a ranger. and it removes up to like.. 3 conditions. and has a decently low cooldown.. but ONLY if you take that trait.

basically, if you take CD reduction trait, youre forced to run 2 survival skills. 3 is too much, the elite is useless in comparison to SotP.

if you take the 3 condi cleanse / 10 sec, you cant use survival skills….. what the kitten is the point then?

with nature magic you get better benefits, more condi cleanse, ( and stunbreaks ) more heals etc. etc. etc…… theres just no reason to run wilderness. ive already tried. but it doesnt work.

edit: yes, i have tried swapping out the runes while using the wilderness traitline. but it doesnt matter. i even tried the rune of the dolyak to compensate for less astral regeneration. but it still isnt worth it.. youre still missing out on some very important things.

NOT building for celestial avatar is like not even using the druid traitline in the first place. CA is what makes druids viable in the first place. you NEED it and you WILL die without it.

You’re confusing Nature Magic and Druid lines.

bigo.9037:

Hey everyone. i’ve put together this condi druid build and a video explaining how it works in detail as well as how youre supposed to play it properly.

i’ve been trying to mess around with other condition druid builds for a while now and so far it just seems that the only way to make it work is to use the same two traitline as any other meta-like build: beastmastery and nature magic. this is due to the fact that combining these two traitlines just gives you much more astral force than any other set of traitlines because of the pet boon-share of regeneration etc..

So far ive had a lot of fun with this build during the last 30 games or so.. and im considering crafting a gearset so i can use something similar to roam with in WvW.

Link to the build itself will be in the video description.

Link to video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RipduLc3DU

Let me know what you guys think.

You don’t need Nature Magic to share regen with your pets from Resounding Timbre and shouts. I think that you’re focusing way to much on a way to quickly generate Astral Force while you’r not a support build. The precision is completly wasted, and Honed Axes is useless. Wilderness Survival is a better line to pick rather than Nature Magic, and survival skills would provide the cleans you need , so you could take so much more usefull runes… Also i would use Axe/Dagger and Sword/Torch for combo. First thing to learn with a condition ranger is to cover your burn stacks with others conditions with a good rotation instead of spamming everything on CD and missing half your condition applications.

Tragic Positive.9356:

I personally think Signets might need a look-at, too.
If you check
Signet of the Hunt – the ability is horrible. Ranger as the master of multi-hitting of very low attacks has a bonus 50% damage on next attack – useless.
Signet of Renewal – flawed design. The only pet it works with is SmokeScale in it’s F2. Everything else is just a TnT explosion on your pet in case it works which it doesn’t most of the time because it has short range.
Signet of the Wild has way too weak passive. I don’t remember it making a difference.
Signet of Stone is … Fine, I guess. But having the CD halved just as duration would make it more appealing. Everyone can see you activated the skill, so they’ll just kill someone else instead and you have to wait 80 SECONDS (which is more than 2/3 our elite skills) to make enemies target someone else again (because they won’t waste any more cooldowns on you.)

Brutish seals : Activiting a signet grant might to you and your pet. Signets recharge faster. Maintain the passive effects of signets when you active them.

Honestly, i can’t see anything op here : few toughness ? a clean every 10 sec ? 25 % speed (withthe perma swiftness we can have or Natural stride) ? A pitiful regen (you need like 1200 healing power for the regen to tick like the boon with no healing power) ? It’s a good start to me.

SOTW need to be instant and break stun, nothing to explain here, really : break stun + stability (remove the growing thing from another age).

bigo.9037:

ah that’s not what I mean though.. I’m just trying to explain how and why, for pure dmg stats, zerker would still be better than this condi spec etc..

It’s kind of wierd to question the OP’s build that obviously works. The build she use seems to be effective in outnumbered fights when the one you actually use is not, or is maybe less effective (i also watched your vid), cuz in a pure power build, you have no damage while kitting.

I am not a fan of the build she use, not my playstyle, but i like the very specific choices and the theory craft work on it.

As regards the OP’s question, you could move in T1 where roamers are more aggressive to test your build. Just an idea.

On a side note, i would have appreciated some music (i think i can remember an old vid of yours with good songs).

Tragic Positive.9356:

But why would he want to swap pets as a beast-master, in the first place…?
He could just as well swap pets + F2 for the very same result – thus having the boons after swapping. His statement has no logic if what you say is the case.

The idea behing the change you would make, is to buff a pet wich is already, as you said, pretty much well buffed with a lot of boons. So, you think that a pet with regen, mights, siwftness, fury ect really need on the top of that, the actual ZS on his f2 to be effective ? Leaving the second pet you need with nothing (outside Clarion Bond) ?

Because you need to swap pet, at a certain point, no matter what. And pet swapping is instant, so i don’t actually need to worry about any radius (or an f2 bug) when i need for ZS to land. I am sorry, but i can’t see any improvement with your change vs the actual skill.

Wondrouswall.7169:

[…]

Yes, thank you. You explained it way better than i did.

Tragic Positive.9356:

~I’ll add my personal candidate for Zephyr’s Speed. I don’t think you want to strip your pet of all the fury, quickness and might just to get that pitiful 3 second quickness and some random 3 might.
How about moving it to F2 ? Wouldn’t that feel a bazillion times better and more rewarding?

Such a weird logic. The actual ZS actually help you to reapply boons on the new pet, to begin a new rotation. With your change, you strip all the boons AND get nothing on pet swapping unless you use Clarion Bond. Plus i don’t want a radius on this trait, and you seems to forgot that pets have very differents CD on their F2. The pitiful 3 sec of quickness when swapping pet is primary made to buff you rather than your pet and proc the boon to land a Rapide Fire as an example. Swapping pet while the one you actually use have a lots of boon, to land a burst with ZS is a strategic choice. You have an active trait 100 % on control that you want to move in a radius with the F2 and all the pets issues we all know ?

Namica.2951:

[…]I love my ranger to death. [..] so I’m now looking for another class to main.

Kitten logic for a great thread.

I like both F2. Smoke Assault is a good skill, it would be great if, Pack Alpha, Go for the Eyes and Wilting Strike could work… But all is bugged. But i agree that a random Smoke Field is useless.

It’s weird, you should at least have 2,5 sec with NM, there is no bug with this traits line. The issue could come from the amulet, but am not going to spend 10 gold to test this.

Based protection is 2sec.
With 20 % boon duration in NM it’s 2,5 sec. It works.

If u use Runes of Earth for example (30% protection duration) + NM line, it’s 3 sec and it works.

Since you made the effort to add some pictrures, you could try to explain a bit better. Where comes from your protection duration to begin with ?

Tested with the Smokescale and the Bristleback. In BM line :

Pack Alpha :
- The Bristleback F2 have a cd reduction (15s-12s), the other traits have no cd reduction.
- The Smokescale have no cd reduction on its F2 (24s). Smoke cloud is the only trait with a cd reduction.

Go For The Eyes :
- Sats are ok. Blindness doesn’t work for both pets.

Wilting Strike :
- Doesn’t work for both pets, no weakness.

Beastly warden :
- Doesn’t work with the Bristleback, no taunt.

We all know that Anet can fix things very quickely…. BM is broken with those two pets (didn’t try Wyverns). Can we have a quick fix please ?

Crapgame.6519:

borya.2964:

Crapgame.6519:

Low tier troll build? I guess ignorance is bliss.

Low tier because of the pets who can’t stealh and the damaging component of traps.
Troll build because you rely on stats to survive, it’s a condi build, you unreasonably choose a full traps bar for stealth over stunbreaks and active cleans, it’s easy and successful against disorganized PUG, preferably played with another troll build etc.

None of the best ranger youtubers play trapper, absolutly none.

Pets lack of stealth is a bug. No more than any other stealth class who has a mini out.
It is about choices, not everyone needs a stun break.
It isn’t all about organized play – Organized can be solo, scout, small group/havoc.
Youtube has nothing to do with skill – it is a social media tool.
Not everyone runs Meta nor does playing a meta build != skill.
Tier != skill. It is a population and wall clock coverage thing, everyone knows it.

It isn’t about people being sensitive, it is about the attitude that anything non meta or tier 1 being a troll build or not valid. People try different things. People choose to use the traits, runes, sigils, armor, and other stats differently. People play to have fun, not conform to a box as you are alluding to. There is nothing wrong with playing a trapper ranger no more than someone running glass/zerk.

Heck, the OP was running a double melee build with traps in WvW. Not even the freaking LB yet you want to say he was running a troll build. Go figure.

I chose my words because the OP is actually, a youtuber.

WvW roaming is a good place for experimental builds and rangers have a good fexibility here, the good rangers that everyone is familiar with play very custom builds light years away from kitten meta. I didn’t speak about meta. On the the opposite side, troll builds (trapper ranger is not the best for sure, but still) are absolutly and strictly the same for everyone, on all professions. They don’t try anything, choose anything, it’s the absolute conformity.

Once again, i like the OP’s vids, but not this one. I remember a guy who posted a vid few days ago (LB ranger, solo and small scale roaming, & even the other one playing in zergs) and he had pretty bad feebacks and strangely, no one came to say that he could have fun with it. But it’s anecdotal i guess.

Oh, and it’s not a melee build.

Crapgame.6519:

Low tier troll build? I guess ignorance is bliss.

Low tier because of the pets who can’t stealh and the damaging component of traps.
Troll build because you rely on stats to survive, it’s a condi build, you unreasonably choose a full traps bar for stealth over stunbreaks and active cleans, it’s easy and successful against disorganized PUG, preferably played with another troll build etc.

None of the best ranger youtubers play trapper, absolutly none.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

[..]

The OP is a good player and i perfeclty know what is capable of with his main necro, that’s why i am frank. Nothing rude in my words except for sensitive people. You didn’t play the game for ages so you should wait to rediscover WvW roaming. There is no other sub game mod in the entire game that promote so much salty laziness. You can even find proud streamers who play ghost thief those days. Anyways, nevermind.

Trapper ranger is a low tier troll build. You run half the time with another trapper ranger, so yeah, you can successfully reach your goal, even with 40 hours of play.

Raven.9603:

by “good players” in the rekt group video, the enemies were assisting eachother and were clearly not pugs. it wasn’t an all-that-high bar, it was more to show how being under pressure makes a fight fun to watch.

I agree with your definiton of a good roaming vid, but it’s quiet subjective . The ranger is far from being great, camping longbow, untargeted 60 % of the fight, dodging when is not focused, running back under pressure (or trying to) and barely watching what’s happens behind him. When i see a guy loosing a key to stow his weapon during a fight, i just stop watching. He’s doing the minimum when you play ranger in a group, nothing more.

hadeskin.4021:

hardly a comment is offensive
this is the idea to “smash the keys and pray to die”
is only one mode of play when you do not have a good day or is already stressed with the game, and so want to laugh when you kill someone with a dumb move

That’s why i used a preterition but it didn’t work. It looks like you’re playing under caffeine, cocaine and alcohool, moslty. When i see your weapon skills slightly flash it makes me think of a game crash.

You can land a condi burst without to spam your skills, pay attention, half of your skills requiere a good postionning, dont waste 3 weapons skills on a warrior’s block, don’t use TO like a heal burst etc. You’ll do the exact same thing without to be a burden for your team and you will be able to hold a 1 v x fight.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

borya.2964:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Question: How is running Apothecary with Staff at all effective?
Answer: It’s not. At all.

Come on, you’re a theory crafter specialist. You know it is.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWVjEqQNL2yCesAVLWMEM4u6YNt28uSdtAmAw6q0NiuA-TJRFABws/AWlBA4JAk8lAAA

It’s not really effective unless the weapon itself applies a condition, it just will not do enough damage, imo. I think it can work, but its not going to be good unless something is added.
Weird one that could be amazing if the staff had some condi.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Build-Dual-Staff-Condi-Healer-Druid

You can’t take the settler’s amulet to make damage, you take it to be a condi/support healer. It means that your primary role is to take care of your mate with CA and have some pressure when you don’t need to use it while having the sutain needed.

1.) You have enough healing power to make a good use of CA.

2.) You’ll have the pressure on SB and staff : You can use Ancient Seeds in a reliabale way cuz you know that you will proc it only on SB or on weapon swap. You can take Sun Spirit instead of SE. You ‘re perma fury, so you will possibly inflict stacks of poison, burn, torment, bleeds and immo when swapping staff. It’s quite enough to pressure your opponent for the next 10 sec, you can also keep Entangle and/or MT for the staff use.

3.) You have movement speed, mobility, an evade, and endurance regen, .3k armor, enough cleans and a break stun that save your Natural Stride.

I’m not saying that staff doesn’t need some conditions, but between it can’t work “at all” and “it can work”, there is an ocean. And actually, my build work even without changes in this specific role, condi/supprot healer.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Question: How is running Apothecary with Staff at all effective?
Answer: It’s not. At all.

Come on, you’re a theory crafter specialist. You know it is.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWVjEqQNL2yCesAVLWMEM4u6YNt28uSdtAmAw6q0NiuA-TJRFABws/AWlBA4JAk8lAAA

I don’t want to be rude but you’re just spamming every single skill on cd as quickly as possible without to pay attention to anything. As a result you always miss half or you skills (you don’t even landed a single Throw Torch correctly). It’s terrible to watch.

Indeed, nice to see you here Irenio, you bring some good news.

Tragic Positive.9356:

While I believe PvE solution such as the Fractal effect (-50% damage from everything if not targeted) might solve everything, I can tell that it’s mathematically incorrect to implement it for PvP. Because every damage soaked by the pet is potential save of a player (5-men cap can include a pet instead of player).

Yes, Heimskarl’s idea looks appropriate, for ranger’s pets at least.

Zatoichi.1049:

as mentioned lately, I like the idea of making Resounding Timbre copy boons as WHaO currently does. If every Shout put out decent boons (either to pet or player), it would be great synergy:

WHaO: gives Regen and Swiftness to player and pet. base.
Guard: Pet gets Protection, Stealth, and Retaliation. Pet guards the area, and it first attack either Taunts or cripples
Protect me: Pet gains protection and Resistance for 6 seconds, pet absorbs all damage. Breask stun
Search and Rescue: Pet gets Stability and revives a downed ally10% faster with Regen and Vigor. If you begin to revive a player while this skill is disabled you gain Aegis.
Sic em’: Pet gets Quickness, Superspeed and Fury and its attacks cause cripple and reveal.

It’s realistic and good, but it brings nothing to the party. I really think that shouts, with simple changes, could have a good synergy between the pet, the ranger AND the party. Like “thanks dude, we love your pet”.

Jericho.4598:

Skill 5, Daze/Stun should apply 3 stacks of confusion, 5 stacks if the player is successfully stunned.

It’s a common request and have no other purpose but create perplex rangers. We don’t need cheese, thanks.

The issue with Sic Em is that it’s mostly used against thieves and mesmers wich have both access to telelport. It makes the tracking part useless, thats why the skill should teleport the pet, with the same effects and superspeed i guess instead of 40% movement speed. That being said, i am hardly opposed to some ranger teleport or stealth, we are rangers, not thieves.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Lazze.9870:

borya.2964:

Resounding Timbre : Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to allies. Reduces recharge on shouts. Your pet gain Aura Of Nature when activating a shout 3s.

I like it, but it suffers from having the effect wear off before getting the chance to take advantage of it.

Why not go all out for once, and make the pet apply the auro to nearby allies aswell.

Even better.

Well, i was inspired by Light Aura from guardians and the duration is pretty much the same, resistance is an obvious choice and weakness have some synergy with other traits. The fisrt goal was to improve the pet survivability, but indeed it would be really better. Keeping in mind this possibility, i had some ideas.

Protect me same CD: It would punish the opponents who keep attacking the ranger buy buffing you and your party. You would have a visible icon and it could have some synergy with traited signets.

Guard same CD: AoE denial

Shadelang.3012:

Wanted to step in and thank everyone for staying on topic. Ive seen alot of different ideas from different playstyles/perspectives. Too many for me to create a proper grouping of. Some are horendously OP. Others seem to be a bit UP. But nearly all of them seem to be honest attempts to fix some of the core issues with these utilities. I havn’t been able to pay this thread as much attention as I would have liked in the last 14-16 hours or so but im trying to stay abreast of everything haha.

Theres alot of reading involved though.

One thing I would like to say however. In a few cases I see places where people diverge pretty heavily from the skills current theoretical role. If possible I would like to see them improved in ways that enable them to fulfill there current roles more effectively. As the ideas of the shouts themselves aren’t bad.

Note. This is just my opinion of course. And should have absolutely no bearing on your own decisions beyond that of any other random voice on the internet. But heres what I am hoping comes from this thread.

Guard:Becomes either an area support or denial skill. One that benefits allies from being near the affect. Or harms enemies for being near the affect.

Protect Me: Probably needs the biggest rework. Should be seperated from SoS in functionality so its not directly competing with a superior skill. Should be given its own method of protecting the ranger in a way that encourages its use in a shout build.

Sic Em: A “Chaser” skill and the closest to being in decent working condition in most game modes. Id like to see this receive mostly a mechanical change as its current form can be frustrating to use in many situations. Simply not having this cancel when you call back the pet or have it switch targets would do amazing things for this skill.

Search & Rescue. Arguably useful in VERY specific situations. Id like to see this skill have a broader range of uses OR turned into a RELIABLE rez skill. I would rather see this have some kind of direct support element to it.

Well, like in every threads we never know what game mod people have in mind and it’s huge bias. But i like the fact that you keep a sens of proportion.

In addition to a little rework of shouts (honestly, they are all closed to be good in their mechanics) we could have something very specific to ranger’s shouts (hardly tied to the pet). Maybe something like :

Resounding Timbre : Shouts apply regeneration and swiftness to allies. Reduces recharge on shouts. Your pet gain Aura Of Nature when activating a shout 3s.

Shadelang.3012:

If you run guard. Do you use it for its intended functionality. Or to pop boons.

If you run sic em. do you give any other order to your pet for the duration. Because that prevents you from using this skill to its fullest.

If you run protect me. How can you justify a defensive skill that kills our class mechanic and even prevents capture point contribution when its competition SAVES our class mechanic as well as us and doesn’t interfere with capture point contribution.

If you use search and rescue. How often do you find your pet gets interupted/killed while attempting to rez. How often does it succesfully rez something in an area too risky for you to attempt that rez. Does it do it on its own. or with signet of stone or bark skin WITH rampage as one protecting it. How much investment does that rez take compared to other rez skills.

I am a roamer and WvWer, it’s the only thing i do in the game for 3 years.

1.) Guard never left my bar, it’s like LR, i just can do anything without it. I use it for the boons and the fonctions. The boons are on a short CD so it’s very useful against classes who can remove, steal, rip or corrupt. It’s my only source of mobility. The stealth for the pet is great and have good sinergy with Hunter’s Shot. Protection help with pet survivability and the command makes the pet management slightly easier.

2.) Sic em is not one of my primary skills, but since i have both survivals and shouts traited, i sometimes slot it when there are too much mesmers and thieves in the area.

3.) I don’t use it, i know that it doesn’t work very well but even if it could i wouldn’t use it, i don’t use any kind of invu skills, not my playstyle.

4.) I never use it. I love my class, but revive a mate is too important to be tied to the AI. Period.

I use SOTP very often, for stab ofc and cuz of the lyssa runes from my build. I never use WEAO, TO is way better to me. If i use several shouts i don’t have any problem in the chain of orders. It’s L2P issue.

Puck.9612:

Jekkt.6045:

i think the main problem here is that 2min+ of swiftness, regeneration, fury, protection and the quickness are kind of ridiculous… the numbers that is, but then again it’s not even that strong. i think they’re just adjusting it because they don’t want classes to have such a long duration of certain boons.

Unless that class is an ele

Come on, there is nothing wrong to be perma vigor.

I posted a CV to Anet to be game designer.

I have some waiting tables skills.

Am pretty confident.

imagangsta.1349:

Using the shout “Guard” and then using “We Heal As One” should be giving the ranger Stealth and Protection (and if traited regeneration and swiftness), because last I checked stealth was considered a boon yet I’m not receiving the 10 seconds of stealth when using that combo. I’m not sure if its a bug or not just thought I should bring it up to someones attention.

Come on…

Mcrocha.3891:

20s cooldown is the cooldown of Troll Unguent.
Base QZ would give you 12s (6×2) and then Zephyrs Speed would give you 6s (3×2), this is only taking the BM line. That’s 18s with 1 trait line. You can take any other two trait lines that you want and get 18s.

Troll Unguent, you mean WEAO ?

You need WK in WS to reduce the survival’s CD and FB in NM to share the boons with your pet. 3 lines.

Take a break buddy.

Mcrocha.3891:

In exhcange for two condi removal every 20 seconds you can have 6-7s quickness just by swapping pets right before WHaO is cast. You can have 12-13s quickness by popping WHaO shortly after QZ is cast(say you just got bursted and need to stunbreak/heal). That’s totalling ~20s [..]

- Where the 20 sec Cd comes from ? ZS is on a 15 sec CD.
- 6 or 7 ?
- 12 or 13 ?
- 7 + 7 = 13 ?
- 20 sec ?

Mcrocha.3891:

No, again lets say you NEED to heal so you cast WHaO, a 1s cast, 3/4 of the way through the cast, you swap pets=8s Quickness. You’re not casting heal immediately after swapping pets, you are using heal normally when you need to, but also deciding to swap pets then in order to get 8s Quickness. This is broken in itself because this could potentially have 50% uptime.

Now you don’t have to heal every time after you use QZ, but if you do and then decide to combo it with pet swap as discussed above then you will get 20s Quickness. Essentially you will have almost 50% uptime on Quickness for the cd of QZ. If you do not decide to pop heal, then your Quickness uptime is still ridiculous because of the 6s you get from QZ.

You mixed differents CD (traited an untraited) and differents based duration with and without Lingering Magic.

Jeez dude, it’s not that hard to be accurate.

Mcrocha.3891:

The reason why it is op is because it takes zero investment.

- You absolutly need 3 traits lines WS, NM and BM (that is not the meta like you said), 4 Traits, WEAO and QZ to achieve this. It’s far from zero investment for an hard rotation in a real fight and that is mostly, like others said, very dangerous. On the top of that you need to be a good ranger who can keep his pets alive.

Ragnarox.9601:

So 100% quickness uptime and awesome dmg is not OP right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRfYhQZ-dA

cmon, be realistic!