Guild Wars 2

Thx for sharing this, Chaos. Having switched from mesmer to ranger, I don’t make it back to the mesmer forums as often.

When I used to play mesmer, I basically only ran into power rangers in WvW. I thought of them as easy wins. But a group that had a couple of longbow rangers was a real pain to harass after the changes. I hated getting rapid-fired to death after slipping in and killing someone.

Now playing trapper ranger, I think most mesmers are not a problem. I don’t seem to run into many that play lockdown in WvW, so I’m not sure how I would do against them.

Thx! I really like the stomping tip – I’ll definitely need to use that.

I’ve heard people say not to stack traps before. I can see how it definitely spoils stealth, but against someone like a thief who I know will close to melee range, I’m not sure I see the value in spreading them. Maybe, it would be a way to get off more splitblades and other shots because the thief gets revealed further away from me?

The only time I ran with a zerg, I noticed a big difference between having plus condi duration (offensive) food versus minus condi duration (defensive). I felt like I could help, but my pet died frequently, and I really had to watch for stuns.

I put together a video of some of the things I’m learning roaming in WvW as a trapper ranger. I still make lots of mistakes, but I’m having a ton of fun. I think if trapper runes were allowed in PvP, I would give it a shot.
http://youtu.be/kGNHdiMjePE

I show the build at the start, but here’s the link as well.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAnfVjEq0ua3KmrQ1aABhYVQ73wW2RZbp8jR82D-TFyCABA8AAO+QAAo+gw3fwT1fm4MAkoSwsU+FAABwRP6RP6RPazcmzcmzcmFCYxaA-w

Hope you enjoy the video (and the music from my more youthful days). I’m happy to get more advice and tips! Thanks for all the suggestions and answers so far!

There’s a fair bit of luck in not getting blinded. But if you kill everything in 30-40 seconds, there are only so many shots.

Drakes don’t have knockdown. But they do have tail whip. I try to have a fire field down before switching since the tail whip is not only AoE, but it’s also a blast finisher. And there’s another little benefit – it puts on weakness for 1 second.

Another little benefit of drakes that isn’t obvious – their bite and chomp attacks cleave. So if you can get a couple targets close together, the drake hits both.

I’ve seen other people use other pets really well, and I’ve only been playing ranger a couple of months. But I really like the drakes for roaming in WvW.

Thx for volunteering!

Perhaps there’s some way to test scaling as a helpful tool.

Can either scale rewards or scale scoring or both.

Probably try something simple to start like just use ratio of enemies to allies on the map at the moment points or a reward are given.

I’ve ended up using marsh drake and river drake because they have a bit of range on their attacks and the attacks bounce. Still, it’s rare to get more than one of the five pulses to hit another player.

I put together a quick video of what it’s like to use drakes taking a camp. I try to point out a couple of the things I’ve learned so far.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F1StrrseE4&feature=youtu.be

The build I’m using is a variant of the one you linked. My build looks like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAnfVjEq0ua3KmrQ1aABhYVQ73wW2RZbp8jR82D-TFyCABA8AAO+QAAo+gw3fwT1fm4MAkoSwsU+FAABwRP6RP6RPazcmzcmzcmFCYxaA-w

I know people use the canine pets really effectively, but I never really got the hang of using them well. For sure, when I take a camp, I don’t want them to run away. And it’s usually no problem to get them all to stay in the same area.

Against other players, the drakes seem to do fine for me. They are easy to manage. And it seems like with the Agility Training trait, they are able to keep up with most players.

Have fun!

I’m fairly new to ranger, but I’m using a fairly similar build for taking camps.

Here are a few suggestions:
- Swap vipers nest for ice trap – posioning them is more valuable than chill
- Always wait until camp supervisor has no righteous indignation
- Try to get guards to stack in a small area – usually you can draw them around a corner, building, etc – if that proves difficult for some reason, stand next to one of the scouts – all but one other scout will come to you
- Consider using drakes – they are more durable. Put a fire field down before the first attack (with flame trap or torch). Usually they will do tail whip and give you and them might. Use the drake special attack when opponents are stacked.
- Swap first drake after using special attack. Ideally have another fire field down. When you swap in the new drake, use troll unguent heal after a few seconds

Good luck!

Please separate stronghold and pvp queues.

Before GW2, I had never played any pvp. After a few months of PVE leveling, I poked my nose into WvW. At first, I was horrible and didn’t really understand what to do. Now after a couple thousand hours (mostly roaming solo), it’s my favorite part of the game by far. I really enjoy fighting other players even if I still get demolished sometimes.

A couple months ago, I finally tried pvp for the first time. I stumbled into the wrong section and ended up being a handicap for a group of people playing in a ranked match. I might go back and learn more about conquest pvp, but I don’t want to do it right now.

I am, however, really interested in playing stronghold. But I would choose to continue skipping pvp entirely if there wasn’t a queue specifically for stronghold.

I’ve only played two pvp matches ever, but stronghold looks interesting.

Lately, I’ve been really having fun with a tapper build in WvW. It seems like it could be a good defender – at a minimum delay the attackers, but probably kill a lot of skritts with the conditions. Does it seem like a realistic role?

What runes do trappers use in pvp? I started playing ranger specifically to use the trapper runes. Is it realistic to hope Anet would add them as an option?

Similarly, I don’t see a dire amulet choice. Is the build editor just missing that or is there some reason it’s not an option in pvp?

Thx!

I played a phantasm mesmer for about two years mostly in WvW. A good chunk of the early days, I was just learning to play. Mapping keys instead of clicking things, learning to dodge, etc. About two months ago, I switched to trapper ranger.

Clearly, this is not a comparison of similar things except that I played them both as a WvW roamer. Bottom line: trapper ranger is a bit better roamer option (at least for me) than phantasm mesmer.

With both builds, I feel like I should win most 1v1’s (I still lose some – but I feel like both of these builds can win a 1v1 versus any other profession).

Where the trapper ranger really shines is in taking camps and towers quickly and in 1vX fights. With all the AoE damage, I can clear a camp or a tower much faster than the phantasm mesmer. In two years of roaming as a mesmer, I won maybe three or four 1 v 2 fights and never more outnumbered than that. In two months as a trapper ranger, I’ve won a couple of 1 v 3 fights. For sure, winning most outnumbered fights come down to opponents making mistakes

The phantasm mesmer can apply a bigger burst from a greater range on a single target than the trapper ranger (though probably less than longbow power rangers). The PU condi mesmer has reliable stealth.

My main point is, coming from my background, the trapper ranger seems like it’s in a pretty good place. There are lots of little things I would like to work a bit better – mostly in terms of controlling the pet. In a zerg fight, the pet dies quickly – much like phantasms. But the profession is really interesting and the help on the forums has been great. I only wish I had tried it out sooner…

An elite trap would be fun – I would definitely try it.

It seems like adding elites would be an easy way to offer more options to players who don’t choose to go down the one specialization path.

There’s a nice thread from about a year ago which has some great testing of the agility training trait
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Agility-Training-Better-than-it-seems/first

That post didn’t have any drake pets in the test, so I decided to do a quick test. I didn’t do all the trials in the original thread. There’s just one test on a moving golem without agility training and one test with the trait enabled. Here’s the video:

More tests would even out the randomness of critical hits and tail swipes landing. Both of those things are pretty much just chance (tail swipe depends on the golem happening to change direction at the time the drake does the attack). In these tests, the non-agility drake gets luckier with 2 more critical hit bites and 1 more tail swipe that hits.

Overall, the agility training drake kills much faster (120 seconds) compared to without agility training (161 seconds).

These times are much slower than the raven, jaguar and wolf tested in the thread from a year ago. I’m guessing this is because raven has a much higher damage auto-attack, jaguar uses it’s second attack (but drake never will because it only uses chomp when injured), and wolf cripples its target periodically.

I’ve only been playing ranger for a couple of months, but here’s what I’m hoping druid is like:
- Can use staff which has a lot of AoE, CC, condi and support (heal/protect) abilities
- Can still use all heal skills, utilities, and elites of regular ranger, but has one additional heal and elite and three new utilities to choose from
- Loses access to beastmastery trait line, but gets new traitline options
- Has some way to keep pet alive in a large fight – this is the only part of WvW that feels not viable with my ranger right now

Just wanted to share a quick video of a WvW fight in a camp to show how my condi trapper ranger is coming along. It starts as a 1v1 as I try to hold a camp I just cleared and then it gets hectic

I still make tons of mistakes, but it’s a lot of fun to play this build.

The great advice and answers to my questions have been extremely helpful. Using the geomancy sigils has made a big both in the direct effect in dps and in reminding me to try to get close for splitblade and poison volley.

As always, I’m happy to get feedback on things to do differently and improve (amazingly, I never use splitblade – but it’s because things get dicey right when I was about to use it and sometimes the cast time for that just feels too long)!

And if anyone can provide a map of all the 6-inch hills in camps that obstruct torch throws and concussion shots, I would be grateful…

Thx – very helpful answers!

If the pet is out of range for a ranged attack, and I haven’t given it any other instructions, is there any reason that it wouldn’t be closing on the target that I’m attacking?

I’m using agility training, so my pets move pretty quickly.

I’m just trying to build up some “natural responses” like: if I hit F2 and it doesn’t start to pulse, then just wait a couple seconds and hit it again.

Thx for all the help as I learn the profession.

At times, I feel like the pet is not very responsive when I try to use the F2 (special attack) or F3 (return to me) commands. I’m wondering if there are a few rules or pointers that will help me to use these better.

Here are a few of the specifics that I see (for reference, I’m using river drake and marsh drake in part because they have a ranged attack so I feel like I have a fair chance of being in range when I use F2).

- Press F2 and nothing seems to happen. I sometimes see “pet is out of range” in the combat log, but what should the pet do in this case?

- Press F2 and the button “pulses”

- Press F2 and the pet starts attack, but stops before using all five

- Press F3 and the pet appears to stay engaged for a few more seconds

I suspect that there are several builds like this already. Just curious if anyone plays something like this in solo or duo WvW roaming and how it works.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRUQNAW7Ync0QxNWbD+2ABimIYokqFi+ACgJg6vIK6VA-TFyCABAcEAAU3AWK/Ye/BPV/RiHAwYKBn+iAEAABYmzMZWmBH9oH9oH9oNzZOzZOzZWIgFrBA-w

Couple of specific questions:
- Can torment sigils proc on critical hits while in Death Shroud?
- How hard is it to get spectral wall to actually hit an opponent in a 1v1 fight?
- Does anyone use Mistfire wolf? (Seemed like a possible way to add burning) If so, does it use the Necro’s condi damage or it’s own?

Thx!

After helping my son make his minion master build (thx for all the help – he really likes it!), I thought I might explore Necromancer more.

I’m currently trying out a condi ranger build, so I was looking at possibilities for a necro condi build. I was wondering if anyone ever tried making a condi Necromancer using the Charrzooka something like this as a source for fire.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRIQNAW7Ylc0o2mF3w3GktNRwgIVroPEYC1fj2E-TFyCABAcEAO+BAQ1+DAqbwT1fm4iAkoSwsU+FAABgZOzZOzZOzCBsYNA-w

The spectral skills aren’t really ideal since you can’t be applying other condis with them while you’re using the charrzooka. But they look interesting to me. A possible alternative that looks pretty aggressive is replacing the spectral skills with corruptions like this: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRIQNAW7Ylc0o5mV3w8GktNRwgIVroPEIC1Jj2E-TFyCABAcEAO+BAQ1+DAqbwT1fm4iAkoSwsU+FAABgZOzZOzZOzCBsYNA-w

Anyone ever try experimenting with something like this?

I was already using torch, but the little tweaks in this patch are quite nice.

Although I haven’t done a ton of testing, I notice fewer dodges of the thrown torch.

And the bonfire is noticeably bigger which really helps me get more use of it in WvW fights.

Thx for the tweaks!

I don’t have that many hours roaming on a ranger yet, but I did probably 1500 hours on my mesmer. I think the prior comment about roaming with a small group to get started is really smart. If you haven’t been doing a lot of fighting against other players, roaming solo in the wvw tiers that have fair populations is probably going to be frustrating.

When I decided to make a ranger for roaming, I went with conditions and traps because I thought it was more survivable and could possibly handle multiple opponents. Fairly often when you’re roaming, you’ll run into some kind of outnumbered situation. It’s totally fine to run away from those, but I like to try some tough fights (and I lose lots of them).

So I would try to get some experience in WvW first before you lock into a specific build (especially if you’re thinking about buying / crafting expensive gear).

I’m pretty new to the profession, but I like the drakes the best for the roaming I do in WvW.

They survive during the times I forget about them, they seem to blast finish well, and the tail whip hits hard.

Plus I think they look cool

Thanks and thanks for sharing the build – it looks really good.

It’s ironic after playing mesmer for so long that I still goof up on picking out the mesmer. I tabbed past the right one – for some reason, the signet didn’t stand out to me.

It’s easier for me to manage pets with a lot of vitality. When I was using drakehound and wolf, they died a lot. But perhaps some of that is learning curve as well.

Anyway, thanks much for the feedback and sharing your build – I’m having a lot of fun still learning the profession.

Here’s a 3-minute video of a fight at a WvW camp to show how the build is coming along. Thanks for all the help answering my questions and sharing tips. After two year of just playing Mesmer, there’s a lot of adjusting to do and you all have been really helpful.

Sorry the video cuts off at the end. I hit the stop recording button because I was worried about locking up my PC (it turns out the video file was already 11 GB at that point). I actually took the camp, but the outcome isn’t as important as the build ideas. I make tons of mistakes in that fight, and a lot of how the fight goes is because the opponents make more mistakes. But there are a few things it illustrates about the build

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAnfVjEq0ua3KmrQ1aABhYVQ73wW2RZbp8jj82D-TFyCABA8AAO+QAAo+gw3fwT1fm4MAkoSwsU+FAABwRP6RP6RPazcmzcmzcmFCYxaA-w

First conclusion is that I really appreciate the quick cooldowns on the trap skills. Sometimes I’m looking to use the traps too much. But it’s extremely helpful both offensively and defensively. Because ground targeting takes a while, sometimes I let them go even when I’m not hitting quite where I want. I don’t worry about it too much because I feel like the fight will likely go through that spot eventually, and because I don’t lose too much on the cooldown (and if I miss everything with a trap, I probably get 3 seconds of stealth).

Amazingly, empathic bond seems to be a sufficient condition defense so long as I pick pets with fairly high vitality. As a Mesmer, conditions were tough and pretty much required a utility slot to handle. These aren’t particularly condi-heavy fights, but the build also seems to work against some of the engi and necro builds. On the flip side, taking two traits to act as a stunbreaker that mostly only functions every 90 seconds feels like a tough tradeoff.

Pets are the last big area where I’m still trying to work things out. I see the value in the immobilize of things like the jungle spider and drakehound. As I’m fighting so far, it hasn’t mattered tremendously if the opponents are immobilized or not. I get how the wolf fear can be really powerful, but so far, I rarely use it well. Because I’m not great at pet management yet, the pets with lower health pools don’t work so great for me. I need the pet to do a reasonable amount of damage, so I’m avoiding the bears right now.

I do like river drake and think I’ll stick with him. The F2 hits at least a few times when I use it. The tail swipe is great because I usually have a combo field down. I tried ice drake and may go back to that. I’ve tried the siamoth (like Flopy the Rabbit uses in his video), but the process of finding, picking up and using the item is too much for me in a fight. In this fight, I’m testing using the warthog and trying to start with its dropped item. That works fine for the first opponent, but I never use it again. And in the whole fight, I think he lands his charge attack once – against a downed opponent… lol. I’m currently trying river drake and marsh drake.

Thanks again for all the help.

Thanks very much for the help and advice.

I’ve been doing a little today. I agree that the charge is more miss than hit. The “tell” animation takes forever…

I’m thinking about using one of the offensive (warthog/boar) types as I’m roaming in WvW. My idea is running around with the item in my hands most of the time and using it at the start of the fight. They last 30 seconds once you pick them up, so this going to be a bit of a pain to manage (along with swapping warhorn and signet of the hunt).

Anyone ever try to play in WvW with this kind of approach?

As I keep having fun learning about the ranger profession, I am experimenting with pets.

It seems the pig pets are rarely used and recommended. I’ll do some testing, but I’m curious why they don’t seem to have any place they fit.

Also, if you use the F2 skill and inflict a condition, I assume that uses the character’s condition damage and condition duration. Is that right? Thx!

Thx very much – really useful information!

Thx much! I know it’s a very general question, and for sure, player skill is the dominant factor.

I’ve never really played any of the other professions and I’ve never played a condition build before, so I’m just trying to get a feel for how fights might tend to go or if there are any “hard counter” builds for a condi ranger.

I’ve seen that engineers often seem to have limited condition removal, and careless thieves can easily get loaded up with conditions. But I also got taken down by a good condi thief build (probably this is just him being a much better player).

Thanks again for the feedback.

I’m having lots of fun learning my condi trapper ranger. I’m mostly roaming solo in WvW.

I know I’m still making lots of mistakes, but I’m trying to set my expectations on how hard a particular fight should be in general. I had a fight the other day with an elementalist, and it seemed like I could barely scratch him (but it could just be my lack of skill and experience)

I have two years experience as a phantasm mesmer, so I have a good feel for what kinds of professions/builds that character should be able to win against in a 1v1 (and that build did really well except against good thieves).

Are there any particular professions or builds which should be extra strong or extra weak against a condition ranger (using traps)?

Managed to catch it on video. Chomp did about 1300 and healed about 680

The drake used it when it was pretty far down on health (maybe 60%)

I’ve been trying to capture this attack on video, but the drake never seems to use it.

The build editor says “bite a foe and gain health” with a damage of 1422.
I see a lot of bite attacks for about the expected 500-ish damage

The wiki says the same description and shows an attack that is about 3x stronger than the auto-attack.

Does the drake ever use this attack? If so, what does it show up as in the combat logs? Is there anything that triggers the attack (e.g. the drake has to be damaged)?

thx!

@aleksander

The wiki states that super speed has a bug and caps the speed at swiftness out of combat.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Super_Speed_
>>> Bug: Does not exceed the blanket speed cap of 33% out of combat, 25% in combat.

My (albeit limited) testing so far seems to show that I am never faster than someone with swiftness. Do you have data from testing (maybe video?) that shows it actually is faster?

In terms of my suggestions around stealth, it’s really a question of design intent. The trapper runes give stealth on trap usage. So the question for the developers is whether their intent was for this to be viable in combat. If so, the existing mechanism doesn’t work very well, and I’m assuming they are meant to be usable in combat (which is why the delay mechanism was put in).

So both of my suggestions may simply be bug fixes. Seems tough to argue with at least the concepts I’m suggesting get fixed unless you have some other data.

I’ve only been experimenting with ranger and traps for a couple of weeks.

My two requests are both about the runes of the trapper:

- Make super speed actually special – either faster than regular swiftness or at least make the duration longer

- Make the stealth realistically possible to use – maybe the trap damage doesn’t unstealth you (mesmer phantasms work like this), make the stealth always apply with a delay after the trap has been deployed (so spike traps at least can work), etc

I want to keep playing this profession and using traps as my main style.

The build editor I’m using applies any condition duration extension to all the conditions I apply and all the ones that the pets apply.

Is that actually true? I have 60% duration increase, but it seems like the wolf howl is still 2 seconds (I haven’t caught a great video to measure precisely)

Also, do things like the bleeds pets apply from Crippling Shot or the weakness they apply from Winter’s Bite get the benefit of my duration bonus?

Thx!

Just wanted to say thanks again for all the feedback and help.

This is how the build has evolved based on your guidance.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAnfVjEq0ua3KmrQ1aABhYVQ73wW2RZbpsiG82D-TFyCABA8AAO+QAAo+gw3fwT1fm4MAkoSwsU+FAABwRP6RP6RPazcmzcmzcmFCYxaA-w

I’m concentrating on swapping close to the opponent and using the 2 skill right away. I’ve put on 15 bleed stacks like that (when keen edge trait procs right when I use split blade, that’s 10). With the poison trap and making sure I’m close for poison volley, I don’t feel like I need either a spider or a doom sigil (we’ll see over time if that’s correct).
Troll ungent is keeping the dogs alive longer.

Still making tons of mistakes, but having lots of fun learning. Thx again for the help!

Thx very much for all the help! It’s a lot faster to have other people point out where I’m missing the concepts.

I had no idea that entangle doesn’t work on stealthed targets. That makes no sense.

I could definitely switch frost to poison. I had frost in there to have a trap that I knew would give me stealth even if it hit, but I think the poison is probably more valuable

Thx again!

Thanks for all the answers on my questions and feedback. I’m having a lot of fun trying out ranger with this traps and conditions build. The build I’m using is like this but with worse gear.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAnfVjMq0ua5K2rQ1aABhYVQ73wW2RZbpsiG82D-TVyCABAcCAO+QAAo+gw3fwT1fSUJYWK/k4BAM9RAIAACgje0je0je0m5Mn5Mn5MLEwi1A-w

I recorded a couple of video clips of how I’m playing this build because I would like feedback on what concepts I’m getting right and where I’m not really thinking about the class correctly. (I’m a pretty average player, so I make lots of mistakes. But I’m looking for places where I’m getting the concepts wrong.)

In this first fight, I’m trying to kick a mesmer out of a north camp he has taken. I never could beat him by myself. In this fight, I’m trying to use the traps a lot for their stealth effects.

http://youtu.be/Ir4gQSE4gOI

In this second fight, my friend and I get into a chaotic 2 v 2 v 1 with two thieves and a necro. My friend is also playing a condi ranger, but with a focus on chilling. We end up doing okay, but it’s pretty much a madhouse. (I often roam with Signet of the Hunt equipped and try to swap it out before a fight. This is one of the cases where I forget to swap it out…)

I’d love any feedback or suggestions on the concepts that I should be using. Thx again!

Thanks very much for all the feedback! I should have been clear, but this is just for WvW.

This is the first profession that I’ve really tried besides mesmer. I spent basically two years doing a mesmer phantasm build in WvW, so I have to unlearn a lot of things.

For me, the question on Rabid versus Dire is, why am I trying to crit? The sharpened edges trait is nice but the duration is short. Does it produce that much damage? I think of high vitality as part of condition defense strategy, so that’s why I like Dire. But I might be really missing something.

I originally was using the jungle spider and drake hound. I might go back to it again. Alternatively, I’ve considered putting another doom sigil on the bow.

As a mesmer player, I love mobility in combat. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wanted to Blink somewhere… I was hoping that super speed was actually… super… Does anyone have any insight on whether this will actually ever be faster than it is?

On the rotations, you’re right that it doesn’t often turn out exactly like that. I’m mostly trying to get a sense of parts of a rotation that have synergy. Like, does it actually work to use the wolf Fear with short bow to get the auto-attack bleeds or is it usually worthwhile to put down the flame trap before swapping to short bow to proc the burning on the projectile finishers. I’d be thrilled to get little sequences that people find really helpful

Thx again!

I’m having fun learning ranger. Right now, I’m using a build like this (without all the ascended gear)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNQQNAnfVjMq0ua5K2rQ1aABhYVQ73wW2RZbpsiG82D-TVyCABAcCAO+QAAo+gw3fwT1fSUJYWK/k4BAM9RAIAACgje0je0je0m5Mn5Mn5MLEwi1A-w

Anything seem really wrong with the build?

Second, I’m trying to get used to a rotation that feels good. There are likely lots of changes in the heat of the battle, but this feels like a nice starting sequence.

Start with axe/torch/drakehound

Use F2 early – nice to immobilize and land the rest of the attacks
Throw torch (4)
Winters bite (3)
Splitblade (2)

Swap weapon (short bow)

Fire trap

Swap pet (wolf)

Use F2 (assume that the fear cast time takes a bit of time – I’m still testing this)

Poison volley (2)
Cripple shot (4)
Sit in auto-attack (while opponent runs)
Concussion shot (5)
Quick shot (4)
Use the ice trap (there should be nothing here that breaks the stealth)

This burns a lot of pet skills early, but it leaves entangle, bonfire and spike trap for a burst coming out of stealth.

Is this a reasonable approach for a rotation?

Thanks for all the help and advice!

Thx very much – I really appreciate the detail.

Lots to learn with a new profession

Thx much for the help!

On the wolf, if you’re using a condi build, are you using the fear just to take pressure off of you and let the condis work? Or is it something you can reliably use to interrupt?

I was hoping the stealth from the traps would fill the role of dropping pressure and allowing repositioning, but it seems like only frost traps can do this and even that is pretty tricky (if bonfire or another trap field is doing damage, stealth from the frost trap still gets cancelled for me).

Thanks for the help on newbie ranger questions. I’m having a lot of fun trying out the profession.

I was recording some video to try to see the mistakes I’m making, and happened to capture this fight at a camp. At about the 45-second point, I use the spike trap on the elementalist

If you quickly start and pause the video, you can see the “trapper” and “super speed” icons appear as the trap is in the air. Then when the trap hits, I lose my stealth.

When testing this outside of WvW, the spike trap would hit and then give me stealth. My guess is that the delay on granting the stealth doesn’t take into account the flight time of the trap, and all my tests outside WvW were done at basically 0 distance. If this is correct, spike trap will never grant stealth when thrown at max range – but the runes seem to be encouraging a build that uses the traits.

So it seems like a there should be an easy fix in the code here to not have the stealth and speed trigger until the trap hits the ground (plus a tiny delay). That would make spike trap work pretty nicely.

Or am I mis-understanding how this works? Thx!

Thx much for the help!

Now it’s just tons of practice…

The spider F2 skills say “my next attack” causes the effect (immobilize for jungle spider).
It seems inconsistent. Can anyone explain what’s actually happening? Is it actually the pet’s next attack?

The spike trap seems to not break stealth when I try it in controlled tests. If I put the spike trap directly on the target, it triggers and I go into stealth after that. If I use it in a WvW fight, it seems like the stealth is often broken. What are the possible reasons? Can someone walk into the spike trap after it’s been triggered and get damage?

Any recommendations for pets for a traps and conditions build in WvW? I’ve been using jungle spider and drake hound because I like the immobilize.

Thx for the help!

Thanks for all the help and feedback on the build for my son over the last few weeks. We decided to test it out by doing a 2-man run through Honor of the Waves story mode. The video just shows the last seconds of each of the boss fights (maybe a minute on the first champ, so you can see how they typically went.)

http://youtu.be/qeS8EE_ZIyI

The fights took a while, and we wiped three times (mostly when we got too aggressive). But it was possible to do the whole dungeon as a 2-man. I think the only real conclusion to draw from the video is that the minions do a pretty good job of keeping bosses in place and letting us attack from relative safety.

In no way should this be taken as a claim that minions function great all the time. Sometimes they stand around and don’t help. I’ve tried taking his minion build into WvW, and it’s tough. People kill the blood fiend right away, and thieves seem to slip past the minions as if they aren’t there.

I’m sure that most serious dungeon groups would never want a minion necro since the minions sometimes agro things you don’t want, and the overall dps isn’t fantastic. But for a small family group (including just a 2-man), it’s a pretty nice build.

I’ve been playing some similar concepts for quite a while. You’re definitely doing some different things with your build, but I really try to get interruptions when playing my build.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhQQNAR7ansISZa2oGupB3aGJ1IM996LJHCK5XIA-T1yHABnt/AQKpE7CAEo6DIqCTPKT8RpwAPEAv0NAwRA4OlgBAQAYlPX4CX46sMAVLA-w

I’m trying for might and vulnerability from the interrupts instead of direct damage. This is a might-stacking video (with a couple of small gear differences)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBStdjXeeYI

And this is a video where I look at vulnerability stacking with the same basic build
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3D6SIvmg8g

I’m definitely not a necro expert, but I don’t think the necro’s power affects minion damage. The wiki says they have a fixed amount of health and damage.

There are traits that increase the damage. I’m only using one of them (Vampire Master) in these test builds because that’s the way my son wanted to make the build.

Thx @softspoken I put in Unyielding Blast and did another test (video below). The fight was shorter and the average dps for the full fight went up to 4164

I couldn’t test the jagged horrors on the dps golem, but I tested them in Orr. Counting the damage from the bleeds, they look like they do about 195 dps. So with two of them out for the whole fight, I would expect the minions to contribute close to 1800dps.

The results from the video match that really closely.
Minions 66,293 / 37 sec = 1792 dps (they probably get interrupted, and the jagged horrors expire at some point – but they get a bonus from the vulnerability stacks)

Necro does 73,373 / 37 sec = 1983 dps

Rock Dog is actually doing 459 dps, but his summoned duration runs out before halfway (he was summoned in a prior fight)

Death Nova itself is only 191 dps (between the poison cloud explosion damage and the poison condition damage). But when you count in the two jagged horrors summoned by this trait, it’s over 580 total dps.

Overall it feels like adequate dps, so I’ll see if my son continues to like playing it and look at incorporating some of the other tips here if he needs more of something.

Thx much for the help!

Thanks much for the feedback!

I really like the idea of Unyielding Blast. I’ll see if he likes that one.

Overall, the base minion damage seems so low, it feels a little bit like a losing game to invest in increasing it. (This may just be a mindset thing for me since I come from the perspective of phantasms for mesmer.) But it can be a pretty significant when it all gets added up. The Vampire Master trait seems good for my son because it gives him some passive healing, and it’s on the way to the Fetid Consumption trait which is really helpful because he doesn’t watch for conditions very well yet.

The Vampire Master trait seems to add anywhere from about 10% up to perhaps 100% dps (for a Jagged Horror) depending on the minion. I need to see if I can test a Jagged Horror by itself in the dps trials to see if it works like I think. Also, I didn’t capture the Vampire Master damage from the Shadow Fiend in the pve test because they only appear on the screen and not in the combat log.

For sure, a ton of the damage in the pve test comes from using AoE skills when many mobs are present. (Life transfer on the grubs for example. I don’t know if that’s a “valid” dps test, but it reflects the kinds of fights that happen in dungeons and sometimes in WvW.)

Thanks much for the feedback and help. He really likes his necro, so hopefully it continues to work well. And I want to make sure we have a good concept before starting to work on all that ascended gear…

I recorded some video to help me understand how my son’s build was working. I thought it might be useful to share (and see if I’m looking at anything really incorrectly).

Here’s a link to what the build would look like with top gear (ironically most of his gear was damaged when I tested – didn’t see it until I recorded the intro):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fRQQNAW3djM00VbbN+1webiohQ6gjip7+CpaH-TlBFABCcRAlgIp8jm9HsT3wkq/AwTAIAACwO3Z6sODG6QH6QH6Qbn7cn7cnJDg+CA-w

Here’s the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qd2z7Y2vhvI&feature=youtu.be

My goal was to understand how each minion contributed to dps, and what total dps might look like in a pve fight. I’d love any suggestions on tweaks that fit the general concept. For sure, the video is not meant to represent the best that this build could be played. I’m clicking skills because that’s how he plays (and I don’t really know much about necros… lol).

Thanks for suggestions – hope this is helpful.