Guild Wars 2

Nicknobreak.7543:

Really? I mean, are we talking about the same class here? Wait… Really?

Your response is, as I imagine it, given in the same tone a coach would give to a decathlon competitor after they came in last for every single event.

“Cheer up, Charlie Brown.” Says Lucy, “You’ll kick that football next time! Remember how good you were at kicking soccer balls? Kicking a football is like the same thing!”

I just can’t even see it. Who the heck were you fighting? Elderly people filming for a “Grandparents react to Guild Wars 2” video?

My response to you is the same as your response to the other person…. anyhow….

Ranger isn’t lacking in the damage department at all, or the self sustain.

If you can’t get it to work, I don’t know what to tell you that boils down to anything more than a “learn to play” argument, so instead of wasting the time to type out paragraphs and paragraphs of information like I normally tend to, I’m just going to let it go and chalk it up to all of us being frustrated about different things.

Those of us who play ranger all agree that the patch gave ranger an overall net buff and that we are at a better spot than what we have been in for the past 3 years (since the games launch), and as for the things we feel are still missing from the toolkit, those should hopefully be addressed come expansion time.

From my experience, if we are talking PvP then yes, Beastly Warden is worth it over Zephyr’s, but if we’re talking WvW, then only in the smallest scales has it been truly effective for me (the larger the fight, the more “melty” it tends to get for pets).

As others have said Canines, but I saw Eura mention it first, because the Taunt is instant, you can F2 then cancel cast it with F3 before the full animation goes off and save your pets actual F2 effect for when you want/need it, but still get off the effects of both Beastly Warden and Go For the Eyes.

You can use it to do things like with a Drakehound, Taunt into the Canine knockdown into the immobilize, and although it does have lots of team play potential, the most immediately noticeable effect is that you can force people to eat all of your damage.

Hitting somebody with a full Rapid Fire channel is usually pretty uncommon, and most of the time you have to catch them in the open without blocks/dodges (the ones who get by full channels otherwise are the L2P baddies always making QQ threads in the forums). Being able to guarantee not just your damage, but anybody else attacking the target with you at the time, is amazing for taking people out, in either gametype I mentioned.

Zephyr’s on the other hand is good in its own right, and is more versatile as to how you can use the effect (stomps, rezzes, speeding up swoop to escape, speeding up casts of Rapid Fire, turning the LB auto into a semi-burst, etc). You can get whatever you need to do done faster, and it makes your damage more of a twitch reaction to counterplay at the cost of not being able to lockdown the target as well to damage it.

But that’s my take on them.

I think that 45 seconds is a tad much (don’t even get me started on Sharpening Stone, especially when I start comparing it to venoms…).

30 to 35 would have been justifiable. I mean, maybe 40 seconds even (comparing it to Updraft on ele, closest I can make, and they can trait a 33% cooldown reduction).

45 makes it weak to me, especially for a class that needs its utility skills more for survival arguably than other classes.

Yeah, ANet somehow took spirits, which were a functional necessity (as in, every class needs some sort of support role gap filler) but a hated competitive build for skillcap and passive issues, then buffed actives which was a good idea to alleviate some of those concerns, but then simultaneously nerfed their ability to move and removed triggering on death, which both indirectly hurt the only active play spirits had.

Now? The Elite Spirit is awful, and somehow the spirits ended up being even more fire and forget passive play than before for the majority of their actual effectiveness.

So… GG ANet I guess.

The entire weaponset needs a redesign:

SB1: needs to bleed when not flanking (either a 1, 1.5, or even 2 second base) and then double duration when flanking. If the direct damage needs toning, fine.

SB2: arrow “sticks” into intended target (the things it pierces only get 1 stack, or just remove the piercing mechanic from SB traits entirely and give it its own unique mechanic that isn’t copy/paste projectile pierce) and stacks poison every second (like warrior sword 4), but can be activated early and “detonate” to create an AoE field that stacks poison and/or whatever else if needed in the area. If it’s too strong, give it a mechanic like Guardian staff 2 where the active being used and strong is offset by an increased cooldown.

SB3: Needs to stay the same, then add an unconditional “removes cripple/chill/immobilize from the pet” and also a conditional “evading an attack also removes these conditions from you.”

SB4: Condition damage needs to scale off of the player and not the pet. Should make the pet apply 3+ bleeds with their next single attack, instead of 1 bleed for 3 attacks.

SB5: Keep functionally, and then bring back some GW1 magic and add “skills interrupted by this attack while flanking have a 10 second cooldown increase.”

Now, am I going to get upset if people disagree with my vision of the SB? Not at all. But I do think I’m illustrating my point; that ANet and I are far away from common ground on what the SB should be.

While I understand the OP’s sentiment, I have to make this comment for other responses….

I’ve been a part of the GW community for a very, very long time (prophecies), and I can say that without a doubt, the few suggestions of “switching” the functionally of the bow 2 skills is by far the worst idea I think I’ve ever seen in my entire time as part of the community.

That isn’t to be rude either. It’s just legimately an awful idea, sorry.

The OP on the other hand makes lots of sense, thinking about the bow as a heavier weapon that should thereotically be slow with high damage and weak at range.

The problem is this history of the LB in GW2. Rapid Fire up until the change that doubled its cast time wasn’t even a damage increase over the autoattack, except at the closest range. The skill originally fired about as fast as the shortbows autoattack, and was more than likely originally designed as a way to offput the diminishing sustained output that came with counterplaying the LB by getting into shorter range, because the ranger was originally designed as a sustained damage class and it pretty much took the entire community fighting to get the point across that the design idea and original Rapid Fire was bad design and ineffectual, and that struggle was a very, very long one.

The concise reasoning behind why LB and SB won’t change is pretty simple overall though; Killshot already exists, and they gave the version of SB2 that people seem to gravitate towards to Engi Pistol 2.

I say leave the LB as is, but the SB does need an entire revamp that I intend to post my thoughts on in that thread going around. Specific to this though, SB2 should work more like Warrior sword 4 but have a different 2 part effect. Part 1, single target projectile, stacks Poison up to 5 on the intended target (every target it pierces gets poisoned but it doesn’t stack on them). Part 2 of the skill would be to “detonate” the stacking effect early that creates a field that stacks poison and/or torment on things in its radius (which would then play off of how all SB3-5 are 100% finishers).

But that’s just one take on it.

LughLongArm.5460:

I heard it on WP channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEgazaOtjqY
from 7:30 min

I don’t understand how you can bare to even listen to….. that. He’s like the Tmartn of GW2, but with unnecessarily long videos filled with speculation.

As for what he was mentioning, unless I can’t read, there was a dev post that has since been removed where, in a bullet pointed post, they said they were tracking balance and conditions in particular, and would be working every week up until HoT to make changes as needed before the expansion launches.

The fact that I can’t find that post anymore doesn’t really bode well for the items mentioned, including the tentative schedule of how often balance would occur.

Eurantien.4632:

I really dislike how it feels as if pets just keep getting nerfed. They have no ability to condi clear and walk in some pretty wacky paths. It is SO EASY to just throw a cripple at it, or a chill, jump down a ledge, or just kite the kitten thing. That’s counterplay… so is stability… how does one justify the FULL BW nerf? How does one even justify the nerf years ago with pets doing “too much damage” when you could still walk away from them (even on node) in this manner?

The sad part is that they are like this even WITH the built in speed boost from Beastmastery….

Mesmers Chronomancer is getting Superspeed clones on shatter, which is one of long time mesmer players complaints, and I equate it to being similar to the issue we have with our pets movement.

The problem is that we can’t “shatter” our pets, so giving them permanent superspeed isn’t going to be a thing ever.

I really think that ANet needed to bring back an iteration of an old GW1 skill (Strike as One) that shadowstepped the pet to the target.

I also keep hearing that ANet hired an AI expert to come consult them…. but I haven’t seen any confirmation of that and I feel like every time I hear it, somebody is just dangling the carrot, so to speak.

Yeah, I really hope that Staff will be power based and/or control based, and my biggest hope is for some sort of new mobility too.

I think that combined with a not-useless new utility family, ANet will have given the class just the right amount of the things it needs to succeed.

I don’t understand why it needed the trigger change even…. all it needed was to interact with the proper runesets and to also heal the pet.

It’s like every time ANet touches Healing Spring it gets worse lol.

Just an update for Eurantien; I saw your other thread about Healing Spring and I’ve just been staying away from it because it’s so harmful for pet survivability.

I ended up making my mainstay build 0/0/6/6/6 even post BW fix with LB/GS. It could probably be run with conditions but I mean…. why lol. Everything melts so fast and our condi output isn’t exactly the highest out there right now that I’ve just had to stick to power.

As you and I mentioned at some point, may as well just run Mesmer at that point if we’re looking to build competitive team compositions, but I don’t think that Ranger is weak at all right now; we just got the short end of the power creep stick.

I’ve found myself not getting hardcountered the way I felt by common threats (Thief, Guard) before the specialization patch, so I mean, if we evaluate our own position, we’ll either be nice and situated as the nerfbat makes its rounds, or we’ll be buffed up to match the rest of the games power creep.

But, I guess until then, we keep playing different builds in an attempt to improve/remain in practice. From what I can tell, the competitive community is suffering the most from the patch right now after all of the changes, and I’d say it’s pretty universal that nobody wants mesmers or burning to stay the way they are right now.

For me personally in WvW, and granted it could just be the quality of opponents, but it’s been taking a small group of players to effectively gank me down between my Wilderness Survival and Protective Ward lines.

That being said, I don’t solo roam in WvW ever, I always have some sort of team I’m with.

I run with 2.5k toughness WITH Signet of Stone by the way, so, essentially near full glass, with LB and GS. Never died to a thief before patch, and haven’t really died to anything less that 3-5 people locking me down and attacking me. As a matter of humorous fact, thieves and mesmers that have been trying to burst me down die on me lol.

The more I think about it, the more I don’t understand how Enlargement and MDG weren’t fused together as one STILL really hard to justify taking trait unless it’s an adept or competing with other lackluster traits.

mistsim.2748:

jcbroe.4329:

So at the end of the day, I’ve only been frustrated with you because I’ve literally needed you to explain your own reasoning, especially when you said you didn’t think things were competitive, while attempting to remain realistic about all of our options.

.

no problem. Beastly Warden is an instant aoe taunt which you can cast every 15s. you can interrupt heals, rezzes, stomps, peel for your teammates, lockdown targets, defend yourself from getting trained down, and in my particular build ensure that spike damage is being landed.

other than spike trap, point blank shot, and maybe healing spring, all other forms of utility the ranger brings to a team fight are tiny and in my opinion insignificant. our damage is average. you mentioned Mesmer interrupts, warrior stuns and thief’s cc, along with the damage they bring. we can actually bring similar damage but less spike (running zerker or situationally with Remorseless with maxed fero), with more survivability and more cc. only Earthshaker is comparable to BW really. I actually prefer BW because we can unload on the taunted target while the taunt is occurring in the pbaoe of the pet.

ive tested most of the builds youre listing, and I know what detailed testing entails because ive done many guides for the community in the past. I did not see value is most of them when comparing the ranger to what others bring. so from my testing, any build not running BW will just be average overall, because the damage we bring is middle of the pack while utility remains worse, if not non-existent.

I like Eura’s build for the Entangle, dogs, Spike Trap and BW. that’s a lot of utility, even though Spike Trap is sometime situational. I don’t like the amulet choice and it seems the build is instagibbed by condi pressure but that’s for him to sort out. however, the CC it brings is some of the best in the game, while damage is at least average.

Thank you and I really am sorry about all the fuss lol. Just write it off as me having a bad day haha.

Out of the builds, I’ve been very drawn to and comfortable with the Wilderness Survival, Nature Magic, and Beastmastery (with BW of course). I find that it gives me everything I want to maximize the utility of the trait split.

The other Trait split I’m really attached to for PvP is the one you posted in Heim’s thread (of course I checked when you said something), with Marksmanship, Wilderness, and Beastmastery. I find it to be more offensive oriented but also more rewarding because of it.

I’m having a hard time liking Skirmishing because I want to run the trap trait with Healing Spring because it’s so good, but with Healing Spring not healing the pet, at the moment I feel like it would be handicapping the build too much. I haven’t been able to give the Quickdraw option (Skirmishing, Wilderness, Beastmastery) a fair opinion because of that yet, though I don’t imagine the build performing all that differently from Marksmanship.

As for the 6/0/6/6/0 split, I pretty much retired it entirely to group play in WvW (I use BW if I’m small group/roaming) which is really a different beast entirely, and where I personally don’t find BW to be as useful in a 20 to 40 man environment. In that environment I’m still working out whether I like the split or whether picking up Zephyr’s Speed would be more beneficial, but that’s neither here nor there for PvP hahaha.

Gotta work on whether or not I like Skirmishing better than Marksmanship. If Healing Spring was working properly it would help -.- I want to be to reliably test whether or not a traited Spring can make Wilderness Knowledge unnecessary, but watching my pet get killed because the skill is bugged is beyond frustrating.

I think that, like mesmers (chronomancer is giving them some highly requested changes that include more traits for the “clone factory,” perma-speed boost, and superspeed clone movement shatters), any sort of reasonable option we get for this along with other things the class feels as though it is lacking at times will come along with the Druid.

Now as to whether or not ANet is going to stop dragging their feet on reveals (it doesn’t take a working build of the class in the game to write a blog post detailing some things that classes should for certain expect) is a completely different story, and I am feeling my motivation to log in and play before more information or a even a release date is confirmed to dwindle more every day.

It makes it very hard to have this type of discussion and give ANet feedback so the expansion doesn’t ship with rangers STILL not having access to the tools we lack.

It’s like that family guy “mystery box versus boat” scene. We tell ANet we need a boat, and instead they offer us a mystery box with the idea that “there could be anything inside the mystery box, even that boat you want.” And we go “but why not just give us the boat” and they go “because the mystery box is more fun, and you never know, you could even get that boat!”

….And then we get Strider’s Defense and a water spirit and everybody facedesks.

Point being, their lack of open dialogue on topics like this is troublesome, and as much as I want to have optimism for that mystery box they are offering us…. I’d rather them just acknowledge that they’ve listened and then give us, in some balanced and useful form, the things they’ve listened to.

@Mistsim;
(going to bold the information parts)
Look, I’m not saying for people to not take BW, I’m just trying to evaluate it realistically when I form an opinion on it.

I was frustrated because, just like this statement here, you seem to think I disagree with you about the power and potential of BW, which I don’t. I even have it in use on more than half of the builds that I’m circulating in and out of testing and crafting around as I go.

I just wanted to know why you think builds that aren’t utilizing BW lack a viable or competitive value.

The things that a 6/0/6/6/0 build can do are provide perma-fury to all teammates in range, pump out better vulnerability stacking than any other classes build that I’m aware of which is personal/team utility, and change damage procs off of remorseless and moment of clarity (you can get guaranteed damages boosts on Maul from Remorseless and using it after Trolls, Pet Swap, and QZ, and I need to figure out if proc’ing MoC then using QZ adds MoC and Remorseless together for a 75% damage hit). It can do all this while having the best survival capabilities of any other zerker/marauder class I’m currently aware of, which will mean more than it seems it does if the one shot mechanics finally start getting toned down (there is no way mesmer and grenadier for engi aren’t getting hit).

The 0/6/6/6/0 build trades that perma-fury and quite a bit of the vulnerability output for the massive utility of having weapon skills a lot more often. I personally think this is the weaker option on a power based build. You do get tons of self utility and it does have a significant enough effect on potential damage output, but you trade everything the other build brings for a team for just spotter really. On a condition set, however, I find quickdraw to be much more valuable. You can pick up twice as much evasion and essentially evasion tank point bunker, arguably with more success than Guardian players trying to make their point bunkering build work again, and certainly more damage. That being said, this setup also still suffers from team support, meaning that your own value to your team is directly reflective of how the enemy team plays against the build and how well you play the build.

Out of both of these options, I’ve already personally concluded that the second one is more gimmick based (at least on the condi front), and a gimmick than can already be more emphasized in a 0/6/6/0/6 build anyhow, and that gimmicks only work as long as people don’t get wise to them. On the power front, I think that earlier in the thread I already mentioned to Eurantien that if I was him I’d swap the build to 0/6/6/0/6, so that alone should show my stance there.

With the 6/0/6/6/0 build though, I have been very back and forth about deciding. On the one hand, BW is great, and taunt is a great utility. On the other hand, it isn’t as though the other build lacks team utility. I don’t know of any classes bringing perma-fury to their whole team or hitting hard while outputting a ton of vuln on a target that will absolutely matter to your other damage dealers, and the build is absolutely no longer as reliant on its team to peel for it when it gets jumped.

On the Taunt front, we have mesmers insta-stunning AoE areas, thieves insta-interrupting and subsequently locking down targets, engis capable of playing decap and therefore capable of controlling areas and targets, Guardians who can still potentially bring wall (staff) and/or ring (hammer) for locking a target (or targets) down and warriors bringing hammer again with it’s AoE control.

On the other build’s front, Mesmers and thieves can both in some way provide themselves near perma-fury, so the benefit of the build becomes stressed on team comps because you aren’t necessarily useful to classes you would commonly +1 with, although to some degree the other classes would benefit from the fury (and other boons but those are less consequential and more common). The the benefit really boils down to just damage output, which at this current point, just take another mesmer is really the consensus, and the ability to survive and not have to get help from the team to peel, which matters, but you’ll still be displaced from the position you were in and benefit your team less in some ways by having to turn attention to what is on you than the team fight you were just in.

So at the end of the day, I’ve only been frustrated with you because I’ve literally needed you to explain your own reasoning, especially when you said you didn’t think things were competitive, while attempting to remain realistic about all of our options.

I’m sorry that you felt attacked, I’m really just trying to gather metrics and come up with some conclusive information here lol. The 5 builds I have been testing are 6/0/6/6/0 strictly power, 0/6/6/6/0 power and condi, 6/0/6/0/6 strictly power, 0/6/6/0/6 power and condi, and 0/0/6/6/6 power and condi.

mistsim.2748:

there’s not point arguing how essential/amazing BW is for any ranger who wants to be “competitive”. it’s really frustrating at this point. you either see it or you don’t. your build is either useful or it isn’t. rangers in my mmr bracket not running BW are pretty much just rallybait and contribute nothing to their team. other profs bring more damage, more survivability, more everything. so people need to look at their build and ask why they are running it, what is its role?

he probably took 2-handed training to increase his survivability and mobility by having lower GS cooldowns. casting weakness every now and then does nothing for you if youre getting trained. having that swoop or block come off CD earlier makes all the difference.

This is the exact problem I have with your viewpoint. You’re spouting nonsense about BW being essential and necessary, and nobody is disputing it’s viability.

The problem is that the burden of proof is entirely on you to prove claims that mention builds without BW not being viable.

I don’t care that you like BW so much. That’s your prerogative and I’m inclined to agree with you on it.

I’m frustrated because you keep calling other builds not competitive, pretty much screaming over and over again “BW is good, take it or you’re bad.”

That isn’t constructive, that isn’t an argument, and when you make blanket claims that are unsupported by reasoning or facts, the burden of proof ends up entirely on you.

To reiterate, you aren’t going to be explaining why BW is good, or saying things like “BW is just the better option.” As a matter of fact, I don’t even want you to respond to me with a single thought about BW because it isn’t relevant. I want you to have a CIVIL DISCUSSION with me and any other people in the thread why no other build is viable or competitive and how you’ve come to that conclusion so quickly and definitively.

Facts, reasoning, pros and cons, opportunity cost explanations. If you give me a good argument, I’m very much inclined to agree with you. But saying arbitrary things like “BW is better” while not even attempting to even support a claim like that is going to fall on deaf ears, so to speak, which is why I’ve requested you don’t even talk about BW at all for what I’m asking of you.

Please don’t get me wrong either, I’m not trying to attack you in any way, I just want you to back up your arguments because it helps everybody in the long run.

At this point though, I have no reason to even believe you’ve tried any different builds since the patch. It seems like you tried BW once, it worked for you, and you’ve dismissed everything else immediately since then and refuse to try other builds or give them any opportunity or merit because they don’t have BW, and you just don’t get to dismiss other builds like that and start calling them uncompetitive without having any scrutiny.

So here’s me scrutinizing your claims, not about BW, but about other builds. Prove me wrong, or prove some of my sentiments right, really, I don’t care which way it goes because I’m not here to be right, I just want you to prove something for the sake of my sanity.

Well 2600 armor is what the heavy golem has in PvP Heart of the Mists…. So yeah.

Well I guess the point I was making about BW compared to other things that are on demand is that the on demand factor relies entirely on the pet, making the pet being where it needs to be a factor. Whereas an engi using rifle 4 or a mesmers interrupt mantra or thieves sleight of hand steal can literally just be used at the discretion of the user, rangers have to account for an additional factor in that equation which is HOW certain pets use their skills (ie birds will never waste the BW proc because the travel to melee range to use their F2) and the positioning of the pet itself.

I just mean that it isn’t on demand in the sense of “I can press it and it happens” and it much more of “it will happen when I press it, but only if my pet is already in range or else I have to wait for the pet to travel to the target to activate the skill, or cancel the command, or waste the usage otherwise.”

I don’t know, I’m rambling at this point but I hope you get what I mean Eura. The majority of my previous response is more directed at the people going around just throwing Beastly Warden at every discussion without being realistic or even trying to discuss constructively why it is a better option as opposed to it just being a competitive option.

But yes, I don’t think that BW cancelling blocks and going through virtually every defensive utility including evades is an intended mechanic, and I fully expect we’ll see that changed in the future.

Edit: I’ve really liked 6/0/6/0/6 for smaller fights on a power build. You can really just make people eat your damage right now. I mean, to some degree it’s pretty much super broken with the way BW is working right now lol. Super doubtful it’ll avoid the nerfbat. It gets pretty blown up in bigger fights though, especially when competent players figure out the build and Bark Skin gets taken down.

I’ll be very happy when ANet finally gets done rebalancing all of the problems created by the patch and I can personally start to evaluate builds on where they actually might stay for awhile and not have to worry about everything changing on a day to day basis.

I don’t know, I think calling BW “on-demand” gives it a bit too much credit. Things like instant activation skills with no situational requirements are on-demand, BW on the other hand is reactive but the only times in which it is on-demand are when these criteria are met:

• The pet F2 is available.
• The trait itself is off ICD.
• The targets are within the short radius.

Again, the only argument I’ve made against BW is that I meet other traits criteria of effect more frequently than I meet the criteria for BW’s effect.

If we’re going to start cross examining builds though; what does BW bring for a team that a mediation guardian doesn’t? Or a power block mesmer? Or a control based engi? Or a hammer warrior?

The honest reality is that I can still come up with a ton of other classes I’d run before a ranger if we were talking best in slot comparisons regardless of what the ranger is running, and until some of those options are changed or are toned down, the existence of BW isn’t changing much for the position of a ranger on a team in my opinion.

So once we get past the “everything can do it better right now” reality check, we come to my exact sentiments on the trait; yes, it’s good and it works, but it isn’t gamechanging. It doesn’t revolutionize builds, and it honestly doesn’t even make any “class matchups” all that different than running any other build, although yes, it may make a fight end faster here or there.

The honest truth is that right now, who is going to take a ranger, even a ranger using BW, over a Mesmer/Warrior/Ele/Engi/Thief?

Now, I’m not disputing that most ranger players are going to probably end up with 0/0/6/6/6. It seems pretty obvious to me that aside from specific player preference, it will be the go to trait setup for both power and conditions in PvP. But for me personally, to say that it is better than a 6/0/6/6/0 build or a 0/6/6/6/0 build is definitely pushing it.

For WvW, I’ve seen both work in different ways, but I ended up thinking that Marks/Wilderness/Nature was the best combo for running glassy because the traits pretty much cover all of your weaknesses.

However, in smaller group play, I’ve found Beastmaster instead of Nature Magic useful with both Zephyr’s Speed and Beastly Warden.

For roaming, I’d probably end up with Beastmastery with Marksmanship and Wilderness, but if I found I was taking too much damage from things, I would forgo the Beastmastery with it’s offensive utility and take Nature Magic for the defensive utility it brings.

In general, I’d call Nature Magic the “safe” option for WvW. Beastmastery won’t really help you “pew pew” any better other than maybe taking advantage of Zephyr’s Speed here and there, but Nature Magic combined with Wilderness will almost certainly save you in situations where you otherwise wouldn’t have survived when thieves or whatever else jumps you.

In a more general sense too, one is active offense, and one is passive defense, so it really ends up being which you feel you need more.

Pvt Frosty.6973:

Interesting, I’ve not even considered the new spike trap so far.
To latch onto what jcbroe said, in my eyes, out of all our traitlines, the two that synergize best are Nature Magic and Wilderness Survival. Reduced damage during regen and a pretty frequent protection boon + weakness to add onto Bark Skin and easily perma fury sounds pretty decent at least on paper.
Marksmanship I think is too situational for organized PvP and then there is that ever so awkward clarion bond (talk about “synergy”, lets latch a 30 second skill onto a 20 second skill and call it synergy!!)
After that it is really just a question of Skirmishing or Beastmastery. Taunt or Quick draw etc and I am very hopeful that team comps could even be built around a taunt ranger.

I just want to echo this. I think that the Wilderness Survival/Nature Magic combination is super strong and I’m really unwilling to pass it up on most builds (the only two builds I don’t think I take it are 0/6/6/0/6 and 6/0/6/0/6).

Also that yes, Marksmanship, ESPECIALLY without Remorseless, is one of the weaker link traitlines, and pretty much gets carried by Remorseless (with Moment of Clarity being a nice pickup), at least in PvP (I personally like Lead the Wind and Brutal Seals for my WvW build with Clarion of course, but WvW is a completely different beast).

My personal preference at this point would be Quickdraw over Beastly Warden though, even though it wouldn’t even be a dispute between the power of the two, because I think Beastly Warden is the more powerful effect, but Quickdraw, on the other hand, seems less situational, aka more applicable to more situations.

Either way, I don’t see either option carrying the build to a point of being “meta” alone, but I can see how a team could play around a ranger with Beastly Warden for organized play, and honestly even though the traitline isn’t the greatest, I think the only other build that brings any sort of team utility would have to be a Clarion Bond/Windborne Notes for maintaining perma-fury on damage dealers, which could also be built around.

Besides that, everything else starts to come off as more dueling oriented than team oriented, and at that point we have to go back and examine them, again, against the other builds that end up meta to see where our builds lie versus theirs.

Particularly, while Eles, warriors, and thieves are pretty settled in already, engis are in flux state awaiting grenadier changes and build testing, guardians are in flux state as well, and mesmers are currently strong but are almost definitely awaiting how hard the nerfbat hits them before the meta ends up entirely setting, whereas necros are stronger but they are where they were; a team has to be built around having a necro on it, or else the necro plays downstate all game.

Eurantien.4632:

For me, my choice was… I want to help out in a team fight. The way I did that was through pet CC, my own damage, and condi clear with SoR. I still have some team condi clear with HS potentially. Sure, clarions bond is good, I love MoC, and the GMs are ok but I think the utility of quickdraw is just too good. That extra mobility with swoop, the nearly back to back stealth ability, and others just make it too good for me to give up. Personally, I think WS is one of the worst traitlines that we have. I just don’t really like the traits. I don’t need the extra condi clear or the fury from WS. Sure, refined toxins is cool but I’m not gonna be at 90% hp for long (retal) and i’m not the only one throwing out poison.

I’d almost argue that WS is more of a dueling traitline than the others I have chosen. You guys are giving me things to think about. I am in no way the end all be all of ranger builds, I just thought I would share something that I was having a good time with and I enjoyed playing because it felt effective.

Well I personally have a harder time giving up Shared Anguish and usually pick it over Refined Toxins lol, I just meant to make the point that both were good.

Right now I haven’t really seen anybody come up with any wrong builds, the traits kind of all just mesh really well together. I’m pretty positive though that whatever build any of us end up running is going to revolve entirely around where the other classes builds land, and the shaves ANet will be doing over the course of the next few weeks (burning will probably get hit, as well mesmer, either in the burst or the steath category).

Morwath.9817:

jcbroe.4329:

Sol.4310:

No Ranger’s ESL again, why because we have no real roll.

Other classes do each roll better. When you design team comp for TPvP you design it around rolls.

So you question the builds as whole and what team support they bring how effective they are in 1v1 2v2 team fights how mobile how good is there escape how good is there burst.

When you add up the options where does the Ranger really fit in I’m having hard time finding a roll for the class.

Didn’t the caster for NA say something about Eura having played on the team in the game they didn’t show. From my understanding it was a PUG and they didn’t win, but still, it would have been nice to at least see the match.

Not that it changes your point at all.

P.S: why are we skipping viewing matches in such a small “esports” community anyhow? I mean, Capcom streams for like the whole 14 hour event and shows every match as far as I know, how come we are skipping showing games in a 4 team bracket lol. I’d understand a little more if there was double the amount of teams with double elimination rules, but as it stands right now, skipping stream matches might be “efficient” for the tournament, but is lazy and hurts the viewing community as a whole who are there to see team comps and strats and their classes in action in a PvP tournament. “Tune in for the things we aren’t showing you” seems to directly contradict why people even watch in the first place.

Sorry, had to vent.

Eura is like Nos. No matter if Ranger/Necro is meta, they play their class…

Well since it’s too soon to tell what optimized team builds are just yet, there isn’t a true “meta” yet, there’s just a bunch of players on a team competing in a tournament on their mains trying to figure things out, which imo makes the tournament much more relevant to see every player and team play, both for theorycrafting purposes and for “class representation,” because when you watch a full tournament that’s mostly only Warriors, Eles, Mesmers, Thieves, and drool over rampages “nerdgasm’ing” the whole time instead of casting the tournament properly and talking about the gameplay, you alienate a large portion of why a community is even watching a tournament after patch; which is to see how things play and what ideas people have come up with.

But I digress; can’t change the past now.

I find it really interesting that you aren’t running with Wilderness Survival. Actually, after Talgo and I (and others as well) came to the conclusion of Remorseless/Wilderness Knowledge/Protective Ward (6/0/6/6/0) utilizing Clarion with Windborne notes and pretty much maintaining perma fury/swiftness through traits alone for both yourself and your team within range, I was almost positive you’d come to a similar conclusion, with either that, or with 6/0/6/0/6, 0/6/6/0/6, or 0/6/6/6/0 for power.

I understand the choice of Skirmishing though, it’s a variant with a few changes (Windborne Notes to Evasive Purity) that I’ve personally run (0/6/6/6/0), and outside of the fact that Healing Spring is bugged and not healing the pet (which once it’s fixed will make it my go to PvP choice), I completely understand the utility choices.

I guess I just think that Wilderness Survival is too invaluable to pass up, even ignoring the cleansing traits. Outside from the lowest tier selection where either Oakheart or Expertise Training (depending on whether or not Beastly Warden is being run), the other traits are just too amazing to not bring to a build imo. Refined Toxins and Shared Anguish are both great trait choices, protection on dodge, and built in Bark Skin, before we ever even talk about cleansing.

In your particular build, I’d probably take Wilderness Survival before Nature Magic every time, but that could just be me.

Besides that I think that you and I have just built for different things lol. I was looking more for team fight potential while having the ability to small skirmish/duel, and I get a very “primarily duely” vibe from your build, with the potential to help out in team fights.

You’re the one who makes things “meta” though, not me lol.

First of all, nobody is “exploiting” anything. If a pet is doing something strange, it is entirely the fault of the AI, which is completely out of the players control, and we can’t make the pet do or not do this thing you think is a bug (which I’m not disputing, I’m transitioning to my next point).

Second of all, this isn’t the bug report forum, so saying something about it here does nothing. You should have made a post in the bug reports detailing the circumstances of which this happened without interjecting any bias/opinion (because ANet staff in that thread doesn’t want to hear it, they want to hear just about what the bug is).

Sol.4310:

No Ranger’s ESL again, why because we have no real roll.

Other classes do each roll better. When you design team comp for TPvP you design it around rolls.

So you question the builds as whole and what team support they bring how effective they are in 1v1 2v2 team fights how mobile how good is there escape how good is there burst.

When you add up the options where does the Ranger really fit in I’m having hard time finding a roll for the class.

Didn’t the caster for NA say something about Eura having played on the team in the game they didn’t show. From my understanding it was a PUG and they didn’t win, but still, it would have been nice to at least see the match.

Not that it changes your point at all.

P.S: why are we skipping viewing matches in such a small “esports” community anyhow? I mean, Capcom streams for like the whole 14 hour event and shows every match as far as I know, how come we are skipping showing games in a 4 team bracket lol. I’d understand a little more if there was double the amount of teams with double elimination rules, but as it stands right now, skipping stream matches might be “efficient” for the tournament, but is lazy and hurts the viewing community as a whole who are there to see team comps and strats and their classes in action in a PvP tournament. “Tune in for the things we aren’t showing you” seems to directly contradict why people even watch in the first place.

Sorry, had to vent.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Well, you did say ranger is balanced. Meaning not having to much of something and not lacking anything. So, I don’t know if my leap is that big.

My point is, damage output may not be bad…but it is not near what other classes can do at the moment.

Well I am sorry if that was unclear then lol I’ll fix the post. Yeah, I pretty much 100% agree with everything that Sol says on that other thread I mentioned.

What I pretty much see happening is that the things that are over the top right now (Grenadier nade engi, 100-0 perma-stealth mesmer, Rampage stance zerk warrior, burn engi/ele/guard probably through a generic burning nerf, thief “I can have my cake and eat it too” everything in one spec D/P build, etc) are going to receive some sort of hit, and then all of the “bads” will go back to complaining that “Ranger is OP, pew pew too strong” again.

Me personally, I’m hoping that Druid at least addresses some of the issues the class has with team utility and AoE damage with the Staff and introduced utilities, but I still completely doubt that we’ll ever see the powerful offensive utility we need like boon punishment and extreme control options and mobility that make the other common power builds on teams competitive for the slots they take on team comps (Thief, Guardian until the most recent patch where people don’t think it’s good anymore now as a power/zerk build, Mesmer, Warrior, and to some extent Necro).

As a condi-pure build, we might be able to compete with engis in some places if engis get the changes that take some of their damage over the top, but again, we still really don’t have the same caliber of AoE damage or bring the same amount of controlling options at the end of the day.

But at least the damage is there at the end of the day without abusing any bugs/builds. I still remember the amount of effort I (we all) spent, extensive forum discussion after extensive forum discussion, for ANet to even take notice of those discussions and “buff” Rapid Fire to half the original channel time because the skill was horrible before, so it isn’t that I don’t want buffs, I just want to make sure that ANet gets around to finally buffing the right things to give us some best in slot competing options, and I personally don’t think that damage, at least not Longbow damage, needs to be on that list (good arguments can be made for the GS auto and auto, and some weapon revamps if not damage boosts need to happen for Whirling Defense on offhand Axe, shortbow as well, and warhorn. Also, the speed of the mainhain Axe autoattack projectile needs a 25-50% velocity boost imo. But I could make a whole thread on the changes I think need to happen, and still might as we approach HoT, I was waiting for the Druid announcement though lol).

Gotejjeken.1267:

jcbroe.4329:

It’s just that for whatever reason, your average ranger players lives in a bubble in which they are completely unaware of the metric the class measures and think that if they don’t have their own “broken, in need of nerf” hundred nades PU instagib Killshot Rampage 1 button press skill (which many people would argue we do anyhow), that we are somehow weak.

So no, we really are not weak as rangers. We are balanced.

Your entire point revolves around rapid fire. A skill that is really easy to reflect, block, or otherwise mitigate.

You can’t negate engi grenade spam, mes stealth kills, or power thieves ‘all in one’ shawdow step to 4-6k heartseeker like that.

Sorry, ranger is broken and weak. No one is taking them in any PvP scenario, and our PvE usefulness is extremely limited.

Engi grenade spam has the exact same counters that ranger LB has.

Mesmer is widely regarded as broken after the patch and will get nerfed in some regard, guaranteed.

Thief is easily counterable and does the same amount of damage a single Rapid Fire does, so I’m not sure the point you’re trying to make there?

If you think for one moment that the reason why nobody takes ranger in PvP is because the damage output is bad, then you just don’t PvP, because damage has never been the reason, which is why I responded the way I did to this thread.

It has been pretty much universally agreed upon the that reason people don’t take rangers on teams is because they lack the team utility that other classes have, and I didn’t for one moment try to dispute the reasoning behind why rangers aren’t being taken as though we are in some incredible spot, I merely stated that ranger damage output was balanced, which you somehow inferred me as saying the class isn’t in need of anything in any department, which is a pretty big leap to take considering the post I just recently made in the Forum Specialist thread floating around here.

I don’t want Hidden Barbs, even with Keen Edge added back to the trait, to compete for the GM slot. It would weaken my current condi build, and I’d just as soon play without it and just get over Keen Edge being removed.

Hahaha it’s fine. Here:

• Vulnerability:

• This condition was changed so that it not only increases direct damage, it also increases condition damage. Each stack will increase direct damage by 1% and condition damage by 1%.

Taken from: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/info/updates/Game-Update-Notes-June-23-2015/first#post5217689

So, the way it should (I’ve heard some reports of some buggy functionality but nothing I’ve been able to recreate with Opening Strikes) work is that every time you activate remorseless and get Opening Strikes back, you reapply 10 vulnerability between you and the pet for 10% more condition damage.

Combined on a build with Light on Your Feet and Hidden Barbs and that’s moment of time where bleeding alone is ticking for 40% more damage than usual.

I honestly still haven’t got around to messing around with my shortbow build ideas to refine them though

I’ve been enjoying the changes across the board so much that I have neglected some of the stuff I’d rather not test just yet, mostly due to finding other builds I really like and to having an impending sense of “ANet isn’t going to let the game’s balance remain in the condition it is in for very long between now and the HoT release” hahaha.

Well with similar logic, what idiot is going to stand there and let 100 blades hit them or facetank a rampage or a mesmer damage rotation?

Particularly, with Rampage and Mesmers Stunlock burst at the current moment, there is widespread PvP debate and controversy over whether or not these are OP and should be nerfed (for the record, certain aspects of both should be, Rampage is an OP lich that doesn’t remove stances when the transform happens, and the mesmer rotation can 100-0 from stealth; something thieves can’t even do, at least not without a player reacting).

And I mean…. it isn’t like rangers aren’t complained about either on power builds. 8-10k Rapid Fires at 1500 range that can’t be strafed (meaning a target has to either get out of range, Line of Sight, blow a cooldown, or reposition behind/through the ranger in a way that cancels the cast) on a short cooldown are widely considered “OP” and “cheese” by a very vocal (if not large) portion of the community.

It’s just that for whatever reason, your average ranger players lives in a bubble in which they are completely unaware of the metric the class measures and think that if they don’t have their own “broken, in need of nerf” hundred nades PU instagib Killshot Rampage 1 button press skill (which many people would argue we do anyhow), that we are somehow weak.

So no, we really are not weak as rangers. We are balanced, at least damage wise on the LB.

Durzlla.6295:

Puck.9612:

Sounds like you are mixing up keen edge with sharpened edges. Sharpened edges actually got a slight buff (the bleed lasts a little longer).

I do think they need to bring back keen edge though. Either add it to hidden barbs or wilderness knowledge

Sharpened Edges also makes it so that your pet ALSO applies bleeds, is it super useful? Meh, that’s debatable, but it’s sure as hell not a nerf.

As for Keen Edges, imo it should be merged into Hidden Barbs, it only makes sense..

I’ve been thinking about which trait I would like it to be merged with a lot, and after lots of thought, I have come to this exact conclusion; merge it with Hidden Barbs lol.

From a PvP/WvW standpoint, there are multiple effective builds.

Marks/Wilderness/Beastmaster and Marks/Wilderness/Nature for Power (Marauder LB/GS).

Skirmishing/Wilderness/Nature and Wilderness/Nature/Beastmaster for Conditions (Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch Carrion).

There are others too, but these 4 setups I’ve been able to verify through myself and other players the most.

StickerHappy.8052:

jcbroe.4329:

StickerHappy.8052:

Why marksmanship tho? Remorseless on a condi build?

Because the new vulnerability increases condition damage as well as physical damage, so I haven’t have the chance to test how effective it is with just going the more defensive (Nature Magic) route or more utility based (Beastmastery) route, but with just one proc of Light on your Feet when Remorseless is renewed, and condition damage should increase by 20% between Vulnerability and the trait.

Just need to do more testing at this point to figure out if the opportunity cost is worth the trade in defense or utility for the Marks line, and whether or not Quickdraw is just overall better in terms of providing damage and utility (quickdraw on throw torch is so strong by the way, 4 second throw torch cooldown).

I’m going to test them myself, but my play time will be a bit limited today and possibly tomorrow :/ so I’ll try to get some of the variable stuff figured out asap lol.

Tried going Steady Shot, Light on your feet, remoresless and the flankig damage, I dont even see a difference when i use my SB, yes the damage on aa wont get you 1k

with 50% damage on traits + cele amy, never critted for 1k, the trait could be broken.

I wasn’t intended to take the trait to power up power damage lol.

I mean, I should have regarded the OP you made more before I just started talking, and that’s my fault, but…. I would have to rethink some choices if I was going cele, and if I was going power based, I wouldn’t be taking Shortbow at all.

This would be my starting point: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-JV-Fk;1F-y-p2ZDF-0;9;4YZ_;023705-147;4IFo6V;1fgm9fgm90c

Lol it was never intended not to have a cooldown, I don’t understand why everybody is whining about this change to a mechanic to make it work as intended.

The trait is still amazing by the way, it was amazing before people even discovered it didn’t have an ICD, and will continue to be an amazing choice going forward.

Multiple rangers are having success with power builds that I’m aware of, and afaik, the PvP power build got even stronger with the new remorseless and ability to maintain fury permanently or near-permanently.

Try a 6/0/6/6/0 build or a 6/0/6/0/6 build. Both of those have seen lots of success from a lot more people than just myself.

If anything, it’s our condi-builds that got hurt by the patch, at least in terms of damage output comparatively to what other classes can do, but that sort of thing is being looked at by devs to make changes because conditions are considered to be in too strong of a spot due to certain specific professions since the patch dropped.

….Steady focus wasn’t even the best in slot trait option for the old build, Signet Recharge was. Both traits are highly situational. Moment of Clarity requires an interrupt, which we only have a few of on long cooldowns, and Steady Focus in a PvP environment is almost never in effect unless you are scraping bottom tier hotjoin, because you will almost never have full energy.

For the new system though, Moment of Clarity ends up being the preferred slot option because it’s a condensed version of the old build that picks up all the traits it needs on a single build, and gives you the most opportunity to fire off heavy hits on the LB/GS set with Remorseless and Wilderness Survival.
However, again, the signet recharge is still a really great option for considering the build that’s most common is Troll, LR, SoR, SoS, and either Entangle or Strength of the Pack.

This changes when you swap over to running in a group in WvW though, because you can actually utilize Steady Focus more often in group play with being a ranged player in a group, whereas Moment of Clarity becomes less useful with the amount of stability being spit out by everything, with again, the Signet trait being a viable alternative.

1. Condi-Survival and Power Survival. Really, with the conditions the way they are right now, you can’t afford to NOT run cleansing, and Wilderness Knowledge is best in slot over Empathic Bond right now (unless you are running a utility bar with not survival skills including a different heal and elite) unless you enjoy having your pet one shot by the current conditions.
2. I wouldn’t even call traps great. Great against lower tiered players, maybe. You won’t see any good players getting caught in traps all that often though, and most will just outrange/avoid the traps and make you feel over-invested on a utility (Spike Trap stands alone though now so you can take it on other types of builds like Condi-Survival and it works). Moving on to spirits, no, they’re terrible. Passives didn’t get changed, and the actives being changed doesn’t justify them being rooted in place, which was the weirdest expenditure of effort on the dev’s part I’ve seen since the game launched; reworking the actives of the spirits and them making them immobile so that nobody will ever get hit by the actives again.
3. Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch 0/0/6/6/6 is my favorite iteration running Beastmaster so far. Birds are still amazing when traited with BM, they hit like trucks, I use Owl/Raven so their cooldown coincides with Beastly Warden, so my F2’s are on demand interrupts, and I as a player can soft CC and condi-pressure down the target with a whole new level of pet utility that wasn’t there before.
4. No, I just don’t like the GS trait. Natural Healing and Wilting Strike are better in slot options than the GS trait. Fury proc’ing is too random to take full advantage of Remorseless the way I’d like to. You have a chance at gaining fury to gain Remorseless back which can totally be wasted by an autoattack or underutilized because your Maul isn’t off cooldown and it gets wasted on a different attack. The fury on crit chance should be 100% with the time interval in place.
5. I haven’t seen any “odd” builds at all as viable. It’s exactly how it was predicted to be, Wilderness Survival being a mandatory traitline with any other combination of specializations added to the Wilderness Survival staple with the amulet, corresponding weapons, and utilities working well, minus traps at top tier and spirits at any tier.

So yeah. I’ve played around with 6/6/6/0/0, 6/0/6/6/0, 0/6/6/6/0, 0/6/6/0/6, 0/0/6/6/6, and 6/0/6/0/6 and out of those, my favorites have been 6/0/6/6/0, 6/0/6/0/6, 0/6/6/6/0, and 0/0/6/6/6, respectively taking into account the order of the traitlines in the old system.

Attributes have never changed based on damage% modifiers. It’s a “hidden” damage bonus that gets applied directly to the damage formula.

StickerHappy.8052:

Why marksmanship tho? Remorseless on a condi build?

Because the new vulnerability increases condition damage as well as physical damage, so I haven’t have the chance to test how effective it is with just going the more defensive (Nature Magic) route or more utility based (Beastmastery) route, but with just one proc of Light on your Feet when Remorseless is renewed, and condition damage should increase by 20% between Vulnerability and the trait.

Just need to do more testing at this point to figure out if the opportunity cost is worth the trade in defense or utility for the Marks line, and whether or not Quickdraw is just overall better in terms of providing damage and utility (quickdraw on throw torch is so strong by the way, 4 second throw torch cooldown).

I’m going to test them myself, but my play time will be a bit limited today and possibly tomorrow :/ so I’ll try to get some of the variable stuff figured out asap lol.

solrik.6028:

jcbroe.4329:

See, what I was hoping for is that arming time referred to a period of time traps could be stood on before then activating. That would have been the most ideal change to the way traps arm imo. That way, people would have less opportunity to activate traps at the outer edge, and pets/clones wouldn’t instantly set off traps when they touch them.

Activation radius is smaller than “effect” radius.

The difference in radius is literally a side step.

Know what I do when I play against rangers using the new trap build? I send in the pet, trigger the traps, and call it back so it doesn’t sit in them. Then I either sit at range or I engage closer (depending on whether I’m bow or A/D S/T), and if I engage closer, I count to 9 seconds after the traps have been engaged, then back off out of trap range, and repeat the process until the trapper is dead. If they are aggressive, I just continuously kite and avoid the traps and because of their arming time, unless you stop moving, you will literally never get caught in a trap without the ranger getting you with some sort of CC first (or your mouse dies or some other sort of anomaly like that).

I’ve also played traps myself, and loved the new traps up until I came across the first few matches against top tier players, who are smart enough to play in a similar fashion and never really get caught in traps ever, definitely not often enough to base a build around them and call them effective against quality players.

This has just been my experience though. I’d personally love to see all of our builds work, so I’m not trying to discourage people not to play with traps, I’m trying to offer up constructive experiences and criticism to actually allow the build to be evaluated, just like we all do for every major patch and period of time we are testing potential top tier viable builds.

Razor.9872:

jcbroe.4329:

Here’s the problem with traps, even before this update; if any decent opponent sees you use them, you will never hit them with a trap. They will just outrange you or dodge through them to trigger and avoid them entirely.

It’s literally the same exact issue a bomb kit engi has, which is why bomb kit hasn’t been an optimal choice since around the same time traps stopped being optimal (aka both of the builds utilizing them fell out of popular usage).

Now, that isn’t to say you can’t make them work. I’d say that playing a set designed to stay within range like Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch compliments traps well. Problem is that, again, against any decent opponent you’ll have to be super aggressive and intelligent with trap usage so that the opponent can’t just avoid or evade them entirely.

True. But then you can start spacing them out so dodging 1 doesn’t dodge them all. And even if they do dodge 1 or 2 — there goes his endurance — gg. Just have to take advantage of he/she being unable to dodge further.

See, what I was hoping for is that arming time referred to a period of time traps could be stood on before then activating. That would have been the most ideal change to the way traps arm imo. That way, people would have less opportunity to activate traps at the outer edge, and pets/clones wouldn’t instantly set off traps when they touch them.

It would make dodge rolling through them not necessarily a counterplay anymore, and people would have to be much smarter about their positioning and more aware of your actions as a trap ranger.

As it is, I’m just seeing traps right now as having all the same problems as before the patch, with the additional problem of not being able to throw them on a team fight and nuke areas with traps, which actually made them more situation applicable than they are now.

Its such a mixed bag for me personally, because I want to like them, but against a good player, especially who’s playing a class that doesn’t have to enter your trap range, it feels like a very limited, uphill battle.

I haven’t play tested it yet, and I’m on mobile right now, but it’s on my list, so quite a few things are going to be variables.

Shortbow and either Sword/Torch or Sword/Dagger. Bleed on crit sigil and either torment on crit or vulnerability on hit on shortbow, energy and geomancy on the sword set.
Rabid. Krait Runes.

Traits:
Skirmishing: sharpened edges, hidden barbs, quickdraw or light on your feet (don’t know if light on your feets damage is more than using quickdraw on poison volley and throw torch or the utility of quickdraw on shortbow 3 and sword 2 or 3, etc)
Wilderness Survival: Oakheart Salve, any really in the next slot, this is preference for now, and Wilderness Knowledge
Lastly, either Marksmanship: Clarion Bond, Brutal Seals, and Remorseless
Or Nature Magic: Bountiful Hunter, Evasive Purity, and Protective Ward
Or even Beastmastery: Go for the Eyes, Wilting Strike or Natural Healing, and Beastly Warden or Zephyr’s Speed.

Utilities are Troll Unguent, Sharpening Stone, Lightning Reflexes, and Signet of Renewal, with Entangle. You could swap Sharpening Stone for Signet of Stone, but right now my own personal preference is to run with as much condi-clear is possible and then try ro add more on top of it.

Here’s the problem with traps, even before this update; if any decent opponent sees you use them, you will never hit them with a trap. They will just outrange you or dodge through them to trigger and avoid them entirely.

It’s literally the same exact issue a bomb kit engi has, which is why bomb kit hasn’t been an optimal choice since around the same time traps stopped being optimal (aka both of the builds utilizing them fell out of popular usage).

Now, that isn’t to say you can’t make them work. I’d say that playing a set designed to stay within range like Axe/Dagger Sword/Torch compliments traps well. Problem is that, again, against any decent opponent you’ll have to be super aggressive and intelligent with trap usage so that the opponent can’t just avoid or evade them entirely.

atheria.2837:

jcbroe.4329:

atheria.2837:

vespers.1759:

Err… did we get any new builds? from what I’ve seen power ranger got buffed, condi ranger got nerfed hard, and trapper ranger got nerfed hard too.

since we had 3 viable builds to begin with, it seems like now we have 1.

(fingers tapping) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap)

Still waiting for any builds to be posted that are:

1. WvW

2. Condi that I have seen and been melted by even with four condi clears.

3. Fixes for our new and most damaging issues – broken skills with pet healing being number 1.

I know you and I don’t see eye to eye, and that’s okay, but I’m going to post for you what I run in WvW, updated for the patch: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J;5FFx-d2cDF-0;9k2Z;1Y_a;0238157057;4INl6W;1m9fgm9fgN-Gz0-35;2VO-aWY1kYi3w_6Z-870H-7V-17VZ

My only comment is that I can’t be sure which aspect of WvW you were referring to, but I don’t solo roam, and even if I did, I wouldn’t honestly change a thing. I play with small guild groups all the way up to full sized “guild raids.”

If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer constructively, and if you have any criticisms, we can try to have a civil debate about them.

When I’m playing in a large group setting, our guild runs essentially half glass, where two 5 man groups go AoE nuke and anti-periphery while everybody else goes frontline/zerg group. My group is myself, another ranger, 2 thieves, and a mesmer, while the other group is another mesmer and a mixture of glass eles and necros.

We split off from the main group and collapse on backlines, and my group has target priority on squishy casters and thieves, keeping the damage off our zerg group and the damage classes off of our casters.

I originally started playing this same role for my guild on mesmer, and now, my guild leader requests that I play on my ranger because I “one shot whatever I attack and I never go down or die,” so you won’t hear me complaining since ranger is my main lol.

Other than that, I can’t imagine playing conditions in WvW, or even really enjoying playing condi. I’m sure I could make it work if I tried, but it just doesn’t suit my preferences in large scale, open field combat.

Thank you.

That was very kind.

Anytime!

I don’t ever mean or intend to come off as rude or like a jerk, but it can definitely happen as we all have bad days and we’re only human.

I really am sorry for the times it does happen though, if you (or anybody) ever catches any of my responses like that, I might not always be aware of whether or not my response was inflammatory at the time, but just let me know and I’ll do my best to correct the situation.

There’s a very high tension environment revolving around the patch right now. My own personal manta repetition of “I will not needlessly rage post” combined with deep breathing exercises doesn’t always seem to be enough to get the job done lol.

atheria.2837:

vespers.1759:

Err… did we get any new builds? from what I’ve seen power ranger got buffed, condi ranger got nerfed hard, and trapper ranger got nerfed hard too.

since we had 3 viable builds to begin with, it seems like now we have 1.

(fingers tapping) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap) (tap)

Still waiting for any builds to be posted that are:

1. WvW

2. Condi that I have seen and been melted by even with four condi clears.

3. Fixes for our new and most damaging issues – broken skills with pet healing being number 1.

I know you and I don’t see eye to eye, and that’s okay, but I’m going to post for you what I run in WvW, updated for the patch: http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-J;5FFx-d2cDF-0;9k2Z;1Y_a;0238157057;4INl6W;1m9fgm9fgN-Gz0-35;2VO-aWY1kYi3w_6Z-870H-7V-17VZ

My only comment is that I can’t be sure which aspect of WvW you were referring to, but I don’t solo roam, and even if I did, I wouldn’t honestly change a thing. I play with small guild groups all the way up to full sized “guild raids.”

If you have any questions, I will do my best to answer constructively, and if you have any criticisms, we can try to have a civil debate about them.

When I’m playing in a large group setting, our guild runs essentially half glass, where two 5 man groups go AoE nuke and anti-periphery while everybody else goes frontline/zerg group. My group is myself, another ranger, 2 thieves, and a mesmer, while the other group is another mesmer and a mixture of glass eles and necros.

We split off from the main group and collapse on backlines, and my group has target priority on squishy casters and thieves, keeping the damage off our zerg group and the damage classes off of our casters.

I originally started playing this same role for my guild on mesmer, and now, my guild leader requests that I play on my ranger because I “one shot whatever I attack and I never go down or die,” so you won’t hear me complaining since ranger is my main lol.

Other than that, I can’t imagine playing conditions in WvW, or even really enjoying playing condi. I’m sure I could make it work if I tried, but it just doesn’t suit my preferences in large scale, open field combat.

I like it but I’m still not sold on it yet. What I mean by that is that in instances where I’m not running it, I haven’t found a situation yet where I think to myself “if only I had taken Beastly Warden.”

Like, I totally acknowledge it’s value and utility, I just don’t see it as out-competing any of the other overall specializations I could take, except maybe Marksmanship on certain builds. At least not to the point where it’s a clear choice at the current moment.

Right now it’s just in a position, along with Quickdraw, where I can’t actually tell if I like it better or not.

I have for certain decided it on it as the more offense oriented alternative to a power build for sure though, the two best power setups I’ve played with and seen other rangers run being 6/0/6/6/0 and 6/0/6/0/6.

Atherakhia.4086:

More doom and gloom than me? I’m not sure that’s possible…

You’re logical, and I’ve never known you to be misinformed lol.

Fluffball.8307:

One of the devs posted that they know condis are too strong. I’m expecting a nerf in a matter of hours or days, not weeks or months.

Yeah, in 6-8 seconds Guardians can do more damage with burning than they ever did on their burst build…. and without a cleanse or enough cleanses to strip the burning off, every class not running a vitality amulet (and even the ones that ARE) is dead in a matter of seconds regardless of how they spec’d.

So let’s just see how long this lasts lol.