Guild Wars 2

Yes! The very one, I love it, it’s a beautiful model I wish there was a dagger that looked as good.

Yeah, I’d like one but, I’m used to it that we don’t have one. Mostly I’d like one because my axe looks awesome, it looks native american like, with skin and feathers.

The thing that annoys me about the longbow is that, I’m better off picking up the icebow than I am using my own longbow.

If the longbow had icebow like attacks and damage I’d love it.

I like the off hand axe, it’s just the #4 skill that ruins it for me and means I end up with my dagger instead.

I think dagger is underrated as well, and I feel bad because I’ve disagreed with users of it in the past, but I’ve found myself using it more and more in sPVP and while I miss my axe #5 I can’t live without the cripple and extra dodge (on a stupidly low cooldown) anymore. As well as that the damage is really not that bad, it’s not as high as torch but with a condition build it’s still decent damage output.

It’s comical watching thieves try and immobilise me. I’m most likely using my shortbow so I hit quickshot, you don’t move back but you still gain the evade, jump to melee set and then have another three evades that will all still evade even if you’re immobile and then after all that and I need some ground or I decide for a total retreat I can time the removal of conditions hit Lightening Reflexes and then Hornet Sting, hold my “about face key” and hit Monarch’s Leap, it covers a HUGE amount of ground all of them also evading as they go. It sounds a lot but I’ve got it down to a fine art now, just simple practice, the ground I can cover in retreat is massive.

That’s before you even consider my two normal evades with increased endurance regen and vigor.

Even if the thief catches up to me I don’t care, my cooldowns are so short I just do the whole thing all over again, evading all the way with my regen pumping away. Thieves that can kill me are few and far between.

Although all that said, I’m not suggesting that our ability to retreat means we’re perfectly okay, just that the off hand dagger extra dodge has become a powerful tool for me, even with the large damage output of the torch, which is also a very good off hand.

Maybe if the horn had a CC removal on it’s #5 as well, I’d use it more.

(Ignore bad english, typed on a phone).

I actually find a good time for an enemy to get hit by our pets is when they close to melee, they can still keep moving but our evasive attacks with sword make it harder for them to keep on us while moving around a lot which allows your pet to hit more.

The weak point to that is that you’re relying on your pet for damage, and also for it to be alive. Which is why I much prefer condition damage even in a bunker build because as rangers we seem capable of decent damage output while still being tanky.

The pet seems to be two sides of a coin, they are very important and powerful but also a pain to micro manage and come with some bugs and issues.

Sorry, I’m not really getting the point aimed at in this thread, not sure I see what you mean. Maybe that’s just me though.

Pozmol.5061:

Btw , what do you want to shoot from bow ? fireballs ? -_-

Which we can already really, either over a ignited firetrap or with bonfire.

Funky.9762:

A good starting point is the 0 0 30 10 30 build, equip full apothecary ( shaman in the mist ) or cleric gear ( i think toughness + healing > toughness + vitality plus they offer some condition or direct dmg ). From this point start tweaking it to balance damage vs surviveability.

I think this is pretty much it in a nutshell, I started with cleric and then moved to shaman and find it much much better even without traps, I think moved my survivability down a little and raised my crit chance to help with procts and extra damage.

The amount of bleed damage I can do is insane.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Thanks for the input guys. But for more info about weapon choice. I use shortbow and sword/axe. I really don’t want to move away from it just for gameplay preference, I like the feel of them so I’m willing to trait/gear up to make them work as besst as possible (even if it’s not the best compared to other weapon setups)

Sword is great for survivability, in extreme situations, I find if I’m in trouble I’ll jump to my melee weapons and I’ll use evades without worrying about if I’m hitting anything just to keep my TU working without me taking damage, throw in the dagger and you get one more as well as your two normal evades and high endurance regen/vigor.

Pendleton.6385:

LOTRO’s hunter was pure dps with no pet. It was squishy but a good representation of the woodsmen/archer type role.

Heh, loved the movie Legolas like eye stab with arrow then shoot attack in LOTRO.

Xsorus.2507:

capuchinseven.8395:

Xsorus.2507:

capuchinseven.8395:

nerva.7940:

runes of the undead (added to pizza and 25 stacks of corruption) gives about 1600 condition damage, which is absolutely disgusting considering how much tank you have. i havent met any prof/spec that i couldnt melt. i will need a lot of convincing to give up undead!

This, I’ll run undead (or melandru in the past) and the amount of damage I can put out and still be survivable is great. My guess is you run more defensive stats than me though and my condition damage is below yours as I try and run as high a precision as I can for the chance on crit to bleed sigil as well as life steal food which means lower healing. I don’t gain the corruption stacks.

I might try dropping my precision some to get my condition a little higher but I like the life steal and chance to bleed on crit and not worrying about my positioning as I only run traps in sPVP and not in W3 so in W3 I like to know I can bleed without moving behind them.

I agree with Xsorus on the condition duration but I’ve just found I prefer the extra condition damage from undead and can get higher duration from food anyway, I prefer the damage.

The way it works is, lets say you just have the 40% condition duration from food..

Your torch throw will say “Does X amount of damage over 8 1/2 seconds” You don’t get that 1/2 second of damage.. So basically any Condition Duration from the 40% food that is 1/2, 3/4, 1/3 is wasted….

If you pickup an extra 10% condition duration from any source, You bump the Torch throw to 9 seconds, Which means you gain an extra 600-700 damage on your burn

Yes but condition removal really needs to be considered from a PVP and WvW point of view, as well as things like bleeds reaching a max when applied by more than more source.

Hence why I’m not sure I’d want to run the runes and food.

from a WvW standpoint, I run into more people with no condition removal then those with it..

That’s a fair point, I run with a tight group and we’ll condition remove a lot, but your point is fair. And I do agree with your main point, duration is better than damage I’m just not sure I want to run the food and the runes (I’m just trying to convince myself so I don’t have to spend more money on a runes change.

Xsorus.2507:

capuchinseven.8395:

nerva.7940:

runes of the undead (added to pizza and 25 stacks of corruption) gives about 1600 condition damage, which is absolutely disgusting considering how much tank you have. i havent met any prof/spec that i couldnt melt. i will need a lot of convincing to give up undead!

This, I’ll run undead (or melandru in the past) and the amount of damage I can put out and still be survivable is great. My guess is you run more defensive stats than me though and my condition damage is below yours as I try and run as high a precision as I can for the chance on crit to bleed sigil as well as life steal food which means lower healing. I don’t gain the corruption stacks.

I might try dropping my precision some to get my condition a little higher but I like the life steal and chance to bleed on crit and not worrying about my positioning as I only run traps in sPVP and not in W3 so in W3 I like to know I can bleed without moving behind them.

I agree with Xsorus on the condition duration but I’ve just found I prefer the extra condition damage from undead and can get higher duration from food anyway, I prefer the damage.

The way it works is, lets say you just have the 40% condition duration from food..

Your torch throw will say “Does X amount of damage over 8 1/2 seconds” You don’t get that 1/2 second of damage.. So basically any Condition Duration from the 40% food that is 1/2, 3/4, 1/3 is wasted….

If you pickup an extra 10% condition duration from any source, You bump the Torch throw to 9 seconds, Which means you gain an extra 600-700 damage on your burn

Yes but condition removal really needs to be considered from a PVP and WvW point of view, as well as things like bleeds reaching a max when applied by more than more source.

Hence why I’m not sure I’d want to run the runes and food.

jkctmc.8754:

Condition Duration >>>> Condition Damage.

In sPVP yes, or anywhere in fact but outside of sPVP you can gain a lot more than the runes alone can provide with food which makes the pretty huge lump of condition damage you can gain from undead runes more interesting, even more so when you factor in, as you said removal tools. Although the food and runes of the nightmare together would be interesting to try, I don’t have those runes outside of the mists though.

Nugget.8031:

Nightmare runes actually give +20% duration. The tool tip says +4% and +6% but i read somewhere that its +6% and +14%. Not sure if those are the exact numbers but it definitely gives 20% duration in total.

THAT actually makes them sound way better, that’s pretty huge for just runes alone. You say definitely though, have you tried it?

Toughness, and then healing but healing is dependant on what heals you’re using, for example I use TU which is powerful but really doesn’t gain much from healing power so I don’t really stack that much of it and stay very survivable with decent condition and pet damage.

Healing is useful though, our other two heals and our proct’d regen gain greatly from it.

nerva.7940:

runes of the undead (added to pizza and 25 stacks of corruption) gives about 1600 condition damage, which is absolutely disgusting considering how much tank you have. i havent met any prof/spec that i couldnt melt. i will need a lot of convincing to give up undead!

This, I’ll run undead (or melandru in the past) and the amount of damage I can put out and still be survivable is great. My guess is you run more defensive stats than me though and my condition damage is below yours as I try and run as high a precision as I can for the chance on crit to bleed sigil as well as life steal food which means lower healing. I don’t gain the corruption stacks.

I might try dropping my precision some to get my condition a little higher but I like the life steal and chance to bleed on crit and not worrying about my positioning as I only run traps in sPVP and not in W3 so in W3 I like to know I can bleed without moving behind them.

I agree with Xsorus on the condition duration but I’ve just found I prefer the extra condition damage from undead and can get higher duration from food anyway, I prefer the damage.

jkctmc.8754:

@Sol

I called my wife to give me my build, and stats.

Gear is; Precision, Toughness, Condition damage for all armor pieces, Power, Precision, and Condition damage for jewelry, and weapons. (I forgot to have her check, but I think I have one piece of Knights armor somewhere). This puts me at a raw 52% critical hit, without Fury. Throw in Sigil of Bloodlust on a secondary set of axes, and my attack goes from 2600, to roughly 2900, with a solid amount of armor sitting at 2700ish. Once you pop Rampage as One, you go to 72% crit, and your damage on both raw hits, and conditions climb rather quickly.

Using Rata Sum runes, coupled with Winters Bite (Pet causes weakness with the attack) you can keep Weakness up near permanently against most classes, which synergizes well with us applying Protection to ourselves. Couple that with Chill, and d/d Elementalists have a heck of a time switching between their elements. This works great against any non-critical hit build, which most bunker builds are not.

This allows me two choices on my traits.

What I’m running now; 30 WS III, VII, XII .. 10 NM VI .. 30 BM II, VII, XII
What I switch to about every fourth day; 10 Skirm II, 20 WS III, VII, 10 NM VI, 30 BM II, VII, XII

On my Axes I use Sigil of Purity, and Sigil of Generosity, though I’m considering switching to Sigil of Air, and Sigil of Fire. My Shortbow is sporting Sigil of Air for now. I sometimes run Axe/Torch, in place of Axe/Axe, and my Torch has Sigil of Fire on it.

That’s close to what I run in sPVP after ditching Cleric, most of my heals just don’t need heal power to be effective and I’d rather the toughness and high crit for %chance on crit food and sigils.

Different weapons though.

Outside of sPVP though my stats are a little scattered.

I think the horn is fine really, as is the torch and also the dagger, which I use defensively but also it has fairly good condition damage, not torch level but still good. Off hand axe really needs some looking at, #5 is great but #4 is just useless.

It is hard to say, as mentioned above. For example given the way condition damage works for rangers, I often run a BM build with no points in skirmishing but still use traps with condition duration added on elsewhere.

My survivability is high, my personal damage is high, and my pets damage is high.

Kasama.8941:

The tanky sword/x 1v1 builds have always been there. Try playing something that isn’t a trap or vigor/dodge build, and it becomes really obvious. Longbow/greatsword direct damage builds, support builds, pet builds, and spirits builds, are all horrible.

True enough but many classes say the same on their forums as well as making the “we are fine at x but useless in y” statements. That doesn’t make our issues any less important but our issues are no more important than other classes who suffer issues.

Wothan.4673:

Warhammer online has this issue with lag , and lost lots of player few days after.

Yep but in War you have subs.. if GW2 was 12.99€/month like WAR, with the actual culling, queue, fail com of Anet… it would be a bigger fail than War.

Many WvW focused guild stay on GW2 because it’s free of subs, it’s all ( like us, if GW2 was monthly subs we leave after 2 mouth… ). Since the start of GW2 the WvW condition is a shame, and worse that War at the same time.

That’s just bull and not even slightly true.

jkctmc.8754:

haviz.1340:

jkctmc.8754:

I guess you don’t know the history of Chopps, and those who stand behind him, and you don’t understand that when he makes a thread like this, he’s actually talking about all aspects of the game, and trying to tell people the Ranger needs no help. He has said multiple times that if you believe the Ranger needs help, you just don’t know how to play the Ranger.

What I see here is a burst test in pve.

It’s not shocking to discover you’re a Thief, who is also supporting the idea that the Ranger class does not need any help, most importantly in WvW. I had a feeling balance wasn’t what you were looking for, I just needed you to say it.

It’s not shocking to discover you think that narrowly. I have six characters and none of them I consider “main” ideology but seems like a lot of people comes from various mmos where you’re stuck to something like “main” and not from gw1 pvp where you’re mostly stuck to role because you can reroll in 1 minute and get fully equipped and levelled character.

Would you be so kind and point out where I said that ranger didn’t need any help? 5 minutes of gameplay points out a vast amount of improvements it needs, burst capability not being on the top of that list.

You wouldn’t understand if you havn’t had to deal with Chopps in other threads. It’s his attitude in other threads are behind his reasoning for this thread.

Do you feel the Ranger has an equal level of burst in WvW, that a Warrior, Thief, or Mesmer has?

I have no idea why you seem to feel that insults and child like rage will get you what you want but every post you make seems to contain both those elements as you quickly try to back peddle or move a thread off its topic.

You were the first person to mention PVP and W3, you’re the person that continues to mention it in this thread and you’re also the person yet again, throwing out the insults and trying to back peddle and make out it’s someone else’s fault that you keep talking about W3.

Those that say we are underpowered say that they do play other classes and that that’s why we’re underpowered. Don’t know what their point is because I have several other classes and I still think ranger is fine, a little buggy with a steep learning curve but mostly fine both in tPvP and W3.

Expect this thread to turn into a mass of trolling and qq from the typical posters though.

Bran.7425:

capuchinseven.8395:

Yeah I’m not saying it’s not happened but I think it’s pretty rare that my pets died from the conditions, it ever.

Also, I think emphatic bond was tested and it doesn’t pass them on to your pet, it just says that they do, I never tested it myself though.

Now you done it someone is going to read that and it will become yet another lackluster trait for ranger.

Ha well it’s been mentioned a lot, it’s the only reason I knew it myself as I just assumed it worked as read. I do know the pet still needs to be near you, as with the signet. If the pet is out of range you’re stuck with the conditions.

Xsorus.2507:

capuchinseven.8395:

Xsorus.2507:

capuchinseven.8395:

Cleric is okay but without precision, power is really not that great. Shaman is much better and frankly I’m slowly dropping the amount of healing I use as well, all my main heals don’t use healing power and my main heal TU, doesn’t benefit that much from it.

I dropped my healing and it ticks for around 900 and before was about 1000, but with less healing and more precision I can still have over 1800 toughness, now with over 1000 condition damage and a 30% crit rate using chance to bleed or steal health sigils.

The other main heals, (from the BM tree and signet of the wild) don’t gain from healing. So my survivability is still high but my damage much higher.

Signet of the Wild gains from Healing Power

It’s Natural Healing from the BM line that doesn’t gain from it.

Yes you’re right, it’s a small amount though, but yes you’re right I think it adds about 5/6% from your healing power.

yea, it doesn’t do much, with 1000 HP it’ll double it basically.

Actually to be fair when you put it that way that’s not that bad if you’re already stacking healing, it’s not something I’d want to just stack healing for, but that’s not bad.

Harrywinky.8632:

Troll.

15 char

Not sure what you’re talking about, I’ve done something like this before and it works just fine, dunno what you’re getting at.

Xsorus.2507:

capuchinseven.8395:

Cleric is okay but without precision, power is really not that great. Shaman is much better and frankly I’m slowly dropping the amount of healing I use as well, all my main heals don’t use healing power and my main heal TU, doesn’t benefit that much from it.

I dropped my healing and it ticks for around 900 and before was about 1000, but with less healing and more precision I can still have over 1800 toughness, now with over 1000 condition damage and a 30% crit rate using chance to bleed or steal health sigils.

The other main heals, (from the BM tree and signet of the wild) don’t gain from healing. So my survivability is still high but my damage much higher.

Signet of the Wild gains from Healing Power

It’s Natural Healing from the BM line that doesn’t gain from it.

Yes you’re right, it’s a small amount though, but yes you’re right I think it adds about 5/6% from your healing power.

Xsorus.2507:

P/D thieves don’t have much trouble with it, I think its the 3rd Attack (might be second) that’ll hit the root and teleport them out of it.

However I prefer Entangle in my builds because they generally have to use some sort of ability or skill to get out of it, and then if i’ve done PI and Bonfire on top of them..It’s panic inducing….

It’s biggest use though is Zerg Bombing and chasing people escaping from Zerg vs Zerg Fights…

Getting stuck for a few seconds in a zerg vs zerg fighting when being pushed = death most of the time…

It has its uses…All of our Elites really do…

Dropping two traps or bonfire is a pretty good way to get some burst out of it actually, I tend to drop entangle afterwards, it tends to get a little hidden in the burning for a short while.

Xsorus.2507:

Drarnor Kunoram.5180:

Eurantien.4632:

Empathic bond removes every condition every ten seconds. Signet of renewal removes every condition and is also a stun break (if you’re pet is alive and in range). What more do you need?

One that doesn’t screw over my pet completely?

I did not notice the condition removal on dodge before, thank you for pointing that out. Also, the active skill for the bear just shot it up in my book. I’ll have to try using it more often.

Swap Pets..

Its rare for your pet to actually die from the conditions it eats off of you.

Yeah I’m not saying it’s not happened but I think it’s pretty rare that my pets died from the conditions, it ever.

Also, I think emphatic bond was tested and it doesn’t pass them on to your pet, it just says that they do, I never tested it myself though.

Funky.9762:

both.

Apothecary

Yeah +1 this.

Remember with runes and food you can shorten condition duration on you as well, conditions just drop off you.

Personally there are too many prerequisites or requirements with healing spring for me, I much prefer trolls and when used actively rather and often with high toughness, rather than when the crap hits the fan, it’s pretty godly even without much healing power.

I say this because moving to TU freed up my runes, allowing me to increase my condition duration, which is often ignored but is a very effective way of upping damage.

Without Dwyana I just didn’t find it as good as TU. It’ still very powerful though, if you want the condition removal and the burst heal opening that you don’t get from TU, and if your build has high healing, again you’ll likely get more out of spring, TU works well in builds with low healing where as spring is very good with high healing power builds.

Cleric is okay but without precision, power is really not that great. Shaman is much better and frankly I’m slowly dropping the amount of healing I use as well, all my main heals don’t use healing power and my main heal TU, doesn’t benefit that much from it.

I dropped my healing and it ticks for around 900 and before was about 1000, but with less healing and more precision I can still have over 1800 toughness, now with over 1000 condition damage and a 30% crit rate using chance to bleed or steal health sigils.

The other main heals, (from the BM tree and signet of the wild) don’t gain from healing. So my survivability is still high but my damage much higher.

nerva.7940:

Entangle is actually used as a finisher preferably after all defensive cds have been popped. Most of the time you just need those extra 2 seconds to wrap up. works on multiple opponents regardless of skill. There, you learned something today.

I find if they are going to die to entangle they’d die to something else simpler anyway and just personally prefer rage as one. I don’t think it’s bad, and in a WvW enemy pack I think it’s great but personally if I had to pick between either one I’d take rage as one. So many uses for it, escape, damage, travel.

I agree with you about it, I just think there are more uses for rage as one and it’s a gamble if they break out of it or not. Just my personal choice though, I don’t think it’s bad.

I don’t think you understand what a retaliation pack is and why everyone sees them, that’s okay though you seem to get a kick out of huffing up you chest and reducing threads to little worth.

Also last time I checked, I didn’t turn down anything from you, I laughed and ignored your comical and whiny PM because you some how don’t understand why you beating me or not beating me in a dual proves nothing other than… you did or didn’t beat me in a dual…

The other straw man arguments don’t help either.

*I just had to come back and re-read your post, you REALLY do get yourself all huffy don’t you.

I want to believe you guys about the GS being great, and I don’t think it’s bad, it’s just that outside of moving around the map faster, I get better survivability (evade on command is just so much more useful than the evade on the final auto attack #1), escape and damage from a single sword with an off hand choice.

The block is nice and so is the stun and I love the look and easier movement but when it comes down to a long cooldown block or 3 more endurance free evades with a press of a button, I’d take the evades.

Not to mention a BM pet swap speed boost #1 with sword and F2 from bird has some really nice dps for gutting thieves.

I DO love the knock back after block and the fast movement though, it’s not like I’ve not tried to love it.

Lightsbane.9012:

eoloe.4379:

I run my condi/traps ranger with SB 99% of time because staying at range makes you more survivable (in wvw at least).
and since burning doesn’t stack in intensity, burning trap is more than enough.

except it isn’t. as the burn lasts 3 seconds. bonfire gives 5 or 8 stacks at once and lasts 1 1/4 seconds. sooooOoooooO…

Lightsbane.9012:

capuchinseven.8395:

Lightsbane.9012:

why aren’t you using torches? why do i only feel the tickle of your shortbow?

Because anyone that thinks the main point of the shortbow is damage or that touch is worth it when you already have access to fire isn’t as smart as they think.

That isn’t to say touch isn’t very powerful, it is but…. Oooooh wait, you’re trolling.

if i was trolling i might be a little less informed?

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Burning

If you have something different or informative about the above link to let the community know about, please make a post about it like a grown up so we can all talk about it rather than a troll post designed to annoy shortbow users.

NargofWoV.4267:

our guild Rangers, we call out whenever we manage a Badge, it is such a rare event.

Your story would probably convince more people if you read about how the random loot drops for badges work.

Lorelei.3918:

DPS lost for not having any power is a lot more dramatic. Especially against high toughness enemies.

Conditions ignore armour which is the stat increased by toughness.

jkctmc.8754:

capuchinseven.8395:

jkctmc.8754:

capuchinseven.8395:

jkctmc.8754:

Has anyone else used Barrage on a mass of enemies, only to be downed because they all had retaliation on them?

I stopped using Longbow after that. <laughs>

The same can be said for many, if not all classes, and not a direct fault of the longbow.

You might want to play other classes brother. I do, and I can tell you no other AoE in the game has downed me, ever.

This massive amount of misinformation is getting old.

The massive amount of anecdotal (I’ve never so it must never) misinformation you spew is getting old. Retaliation is not something that effects rangers singular when hitting a pack of enemies in WvW and all classes complain about it on the WvW forums be it AoE or not.

Did I say your point was incorrect? No.
Does it effect barrage badly? Yes.
Are we the only ones that suffer badly for it? No.

You honestly don’t know why Barrage is worse, when it comes to retaliation, do you? I’m starting to think you don’t play a Ranger, nor have you ever leveled any toon to level 80.

First, and foremost when you use Barrage, it does damage TWELVE TIMES to multiple targets, so during its duration, you can take damage from retaliation (60) SIXTY TIMES, while other AoEs trigger once, taking retaliation hits (5) FIVE TIMES.

Do you not see the difference?

Yes totally agree it hits very hard AND it’s channeled so if you’re stupid enough to start firing into a pack of players using retaliation then you are to blame. It’s so typical of the ranger forums that because we get a powerful AoE that is somehow a bad thing because if you are dumb enough to fire into a pack of retaliation enemies it will hit back hard, rather than it being the fault of the player sat at the keyboard.

ONLY on the ranger forums would a valuble skill be called bad because a bad player can use it badly. It’s no different than killshot warriors killing themselves on my Whirling Defence and then trolling the forums and in your words, “stopped using” rifle simply because they were too dumb to stop firing at the whirling ranger. Honestly I think you forget what you’ve said sometimes and then have to slightly alter your point as you go on.

Does barrage suffer badly from retaliation? Again, yes, didn’t disagree. I think you just like arguing.

Are we the only class that suffers from killing ourselves on retaliation if we’re dumb? No.

So your point is that a very powerful AoE (and our only) should be totally ignored and discarded because you keep firing into a retaliation pack, like retaliation only hinders rangers. Thanks for the advice.

Lightsbane.9012:

why aren’t you using torches? why do i only feel the tickle of your shortbow?

Because anyone that thinks the main point of the shortbow is damage or that touch is worth it when you already have access to fire isn’t as smart as they think.

That isn’t to say touch isn’t very powerful, it is but…. Oooooh wait, you’re trolling.

Yeah I agree, Cleric in WvW doesn’t cut it, at least that’s my personal view. High power just doesn’t work without a decent chance to crit as well. Conditions come with restrictions and problems of course but at least you don’t have to lose survivability when you stack conditions.

Something else that some others miss is condition duration as well, I personally find once you hit around 1000ish condition damage that using + condition duration food, sigils and runes is much more effective than adding on more and more condition damage.

jkctmc.8754:

capuchinseven.8395:

jkctmc.8754:

Has anyone else used Barrage on a mass of enemies, only to be downed because they all had retaliation on them?

I stopped using Longbow after that. <laughs>

The same can be said for many, if not all classes, and not a direct fault of the longbow.

You might want to play other classes brother. I do, and I can tell you no other AoE in the game has downed me, ever.

This massive amount of misinformation is getting old.

The massive amount of anecdotal (I’ve never so it must never) misinformation you spew is getting old. Retaliation is not something that effects rangers singular when hitting a pack of enemies in WvW and all classes complain about it on the WvW forums be it AoE or not.

Did I say your point was incorrect? No.
Does it effect barrage badly? Yes.
Are we the only ones that suffer badly for it? No.

Last night I tried a condition build instead of power, keeping a typical BM bunker like build (nothing in skirmishing for traps, but keeping myself tanked up and well healed) and then instead of running Cleric gear which I’d normally run in sPVP I ran Shaman, so condition/toughness/healing (can’t remember the order of the stats for Shaman).

I swapped out my defence runes and slotted some condition duration and did the same with my weapons.

It was very powerful next to a purely power based defence build even without the trap traits, the only down side was a lack of stun/immobilise breaks which I’m used to running. Once you managed to get the bleeds and poison running and then get them onto the traps the damage would just fly as your BM pet rips into them (a thief managed to bring down my pet fast last night and instead of swapping it out like I normally would before it died I let it die and carried on without a pet for the fight and he still went down pretty hard, the damage was just flying off him, even when it was cleared I’d just put it back on him again).

The damage was very high and survivability other than the lack of utility was still very very good with high toughness, healing and regen.

This is just one night though and not the first time I’ve tried with traps outside of the normal skirmish build (I’ve tried them as a power build as well but I preferred the utility) I spent some gold on some new apothecary exotic items with real life money as well so I’m going to give the same build a try in WvW because it did work really well for me.

I think it’s because when you go with power (even up close to 2000), without the precision you’re just not getting as much out of it as you can, but when I build up my precision my survivability suffers drastically. With condition damage and traps I can keep my damage up and not lose any survivability other than utility, although conditions can be cleared of course so they come with their own issues. It does mean though that in a BM build you’re not as dependant on your pet for damage and overall right now I prefer it.

Xsorus.2507:

Moddo.7105:

Trying using GS#5 with this build. Hilt Bash : 30 Daze your foe with a hilt bash. Stun them if you hit from behind. Your pet’s next attack does 50% more damage.

The 50% extra seems to work even if don’t hit a opponent. My Jag macked someone for 6800 once using that.

Really now.. well isn’t that interesting … will have to try that.

Ha hadn’t thought of that either, I’ll have to take a look at that after I finish playing around with a condition build.

I tried using heal as one last night, maybe it’s just me but I do much better with TU and the cooldown isn’t far off. It was nice to have the burst heal though.

As for greatsword, I’m never one to tell someone they are doing something wrong so I’ll just say PERSONALLY I just can’t get my head around greatsword, other than getting around the map nice and fast I find a single sword has better damage, better escape and better evasion and also has a better option choice with an off hand.

I find nothing funner than locking down a thief with a well place stun, swapping to sword and pet swapping zephyring my chain #1 the hell out of him with my pet being close enough to get the benefit of the zephyr because you’re in melee (great tactic that, lots of burst).

It’s not like I don’t want to like it, I have a great skin on mine (hur), I love the mobility but I just can’t get it to work for me.

Chopps.5047:

Haudruff.7804:

“My” ranger-build (pure melee) is especially made for 1v1, and very sucessful there. Be it spvp or wvw. Imo rangers r one of the strongest 1v1-professions, though u might have trouble catching every enemy that runs away, other professions do that job better. It all depends on your profession-build. They can be so different, depending on what u build it for and how u feel comfortable with it. E.g. a ranger putting more then 10 points into skirmishing traitline cant expect to be good in 1v1 for most builds. Everything, skills, weapons, traits, choice of pets, stats on gear is important ofc, and shapes the build into what direction to take. Ranger has a bigger and better set of tools to counter and deal with any build/profession out there then most classes, especially lets say warriors.

Is there any way you can squeeze in more cripple to prevent players from escaping? A bigger change would be to use GS “swoop”. Thoughts?

I was to use a GS, but I just find myself hinder by it, even when wandering. It gives you great movement options but I just don’t get the options I get from a single sword (or even the survivability, the evade on #1 is great but only if you’re hitting something and not on tap like it is on a single sword, the block is just too long of a cooldown for me) and then a swap to a different off hand depending on what I’m doing.

Maybe I should give it another try with the greatsword talent to bring down cooldowns.

Heh, someone else using the build I’ve been using.

s’why I find the “I’ll just kill your pet” trolling from some people on the board to be funny. Really? You’ll kill my QZ, Sick’em, 30% extra crit damage and heal on crit supped up totally in stealth that I swap to as soon as I see you’re trying to kill my pet, jaguar?

Maybe they would, but with this build it’s always fun to watch what happens when they try.

Here’s mine, I find masters bond useless even with the jaguar because I still still swap pets, so I drop it for extra survivability. I also find it works well with other DPS pets like birds even without the stealth.

The only problem I have with this build is stuns and immobilisation’s so I don’t tend to run it in sPVP.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJARVnAVkYZVQSWwaZgopgSWip4QI69IW0q9A;ToAgzCnoqxUjoGbNuak1sIYgB

(Ignore the greatsword, I’m trying to change my mind about it and force myself to use it.)

jkctmc.8754:

Has anyone else used Barrage on a mass of enemies, only to be downed because they all had retaliation on them?

I stopped using Longbow after that. <laughs>

The same can be said for many, if not all classes, and not a direct fault of the longbow.

Arrg this is a hard one for me right now, I’m mostly power, toughness, healing and with food I can sit at around 1800 toughness with over 1000 healing and still get close to 2000 power but I’d been considering if I’d be better off with condition damage over power, given my build gives me 300 condition damage anyway, but I feel that to get the most from conditions I’d have to drop my utilities and take at least two traps and I do agree with what you said about traps but I’m just not sure I want to lose my utilities.

Just not sure if I’d be better with my close to 2000 power or with around 1000 power and over 1000 condition damage. Trying to decided if I HAVE to take traps if I go condition damage or if I could stick with just my bow and sword conditions in my current BM hybrid build and wear them down as I’m very tanky (or even use traps but don’t take the improved traps and stay tanky).

It also looks like critting is more important that just power.

Great thread!

Chopps.5047:

Superkav.5012:

One could also use sword skill 2, de-select target (when autotarget is turned of) turn the other way and press second part of the skill to jump away even further…

Correct. Now correct me if I’m wrong but unless you have autotargeting turned off under settings, Monarch’s Leap will go into an enemy (if one is within range), regardless of whether you one have one targeted.

Also, note that this is difficult to do without custom keybindings-including a binding for ‘about face’. I strongly recommend all rangers turn off autoattack in pvp, turn off autotargeting, and use custom keybindings with the goal of minimizing the required motion of the hand to complete essential tasks.

Yeah I think you’re right it will go into an enemy.

“About face” is so useful, I think if I had any trouble using it manually myself I’d bind a macro to my keyboard to allow me to about face before leaping away, it’s a very powerful ability. I just wish there was another keybind for “clear target” other than the escape key, I did bind that to a better key on my Nostro’ pad but if I hit it too much I get the game menu, ha!