Guild Wars 2

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAsf3YnUqAtsglsA2CCctgFOBDulOT7pPvgFXirZYVpCAlMtxA-TpgMgA7lBA2fAA

Just gonna leave this here. I’m not sure how good it will be but it has many characteristics of a successful build:

- multiple stun breakers (third being optional, swap for SOS)
- decent mobility with perma swiftness
- huge heals and toughness for avatar
- lots of stab, regen, and some might (WHaO is there for stacking these)
- ancient seeds will synergize with your team’s cc and wyvern’s charge; could sub for lingering light
- plenty of Condi cleanse
- quite a bit of stealth for escapes
- regen will tick for a lot

Weaknesses

- low vitality… susceptible to burst and burn stacks…. could easily switch to celestial stats
- might stacking is situational without fortifying bond
- taunt may not interact well with the new pets due to their unique f2’s
- not enough prot, which is huge…consider grove runes and energy sigils. Can’t fit NM trait line into this particular build. But we have bark skin

Smokescale’s effectiveness is up in the air, but it could potentially be very strong in 1v1’s, especially with some might.

Super tanky version with energy sigils for more prot, and soldier runes for more vit and cleansing. Very solid support build. Might be possible to go with a glyph instead of Protect Me. The new glyph of alignment would work nicely.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAsf3YnUqAtsglsA2CCctgFOBDulOT7pPvgFXirZYVpCAlMtxA-TJhHwAPLDA4JAsb/hAnEAA

It’s not necessarily rangers that start screaming OP. It’s usually players maining other profs. When taunt went live, most complaints were coming from high mmr players after they got wrecked. There’s nothing we can really do about this.

As I’m theorycrafting for release, I’m beginning the realize the painful and frustrating truth: we don’t have enough viable stunbreakers.

Identifying the Problem

- have you seen what the chrono can do? If not, watch Helseth’s recent stream. Getting caught by a chrono, without a stun breaker now means certain death

- reapers: similar issue, it will be next to impossible going in melee range with these guys without multiple cleanses and stunbreakers

- others: d/d eles will remain very strong, hgh engies, standard interrupt mesmers, and scrappers. All builds with a ton of CC that should remain relevant.

Our Stunbreakers

1. LR: still a good option, but heavily dependent on WK gm
2. SoR: somewhat dependent on brutish seals due to its insanely long CD
3. Protect Me: extremely unreliable for its invuln function because even the strongest pets can’t deal with the focus burst damage coming in the xpac. The pet will die within 2 seconds after which our invuln will wear off. Its cd is way too high even traited
4. Qz: hands down our best stun breaker but very dependent on WK due to its long cd. Situational utility in Condi builds, but that’s a minor issue

Where Does This Leave Us?

We basically have two viable stunbreaks, both of which are strongly tied to Wilderness trait line. We will need at least 2 stun breaks to stay alive in the upcoming meta, especially if not slotting SoTP. With SoTP and SoS we could get away with 1 stun break. So right off the bat, we can’t really use glyphs and unless going for a trapper build, we’ll have to invest in WK. We need an invuln, and at least one stun break, so likely we wont be able to slot glyphs.

Trapper builds may allow us to get away with not using more than one stun break due to plentiful stealth, but the rest of the builds are locked into WK.

I concede that we can stack a lot of stab with SoTP and WHaO, but this leaves us vulnerable prior to loading up on stab, and dependent on shouts and BM. In turn, this leaves us without sufficient condi cleansing unless we go WK as well.

My favorite utility setup might just be WHaO/LR/QZ/SoS/SoTP which is what I’m running now.

Suggestions

Our utilities are in a dismal state. Devs should consider drastically reducing SoR and QZ Cd’s at the very least. Protect Me needs some sort of rework for sure.

At least one glyph must have a baseline stun break outside of avatar.

If Signet of Hunt had a stun break and a small Condi cleanse, it would be viable in power builds. Currently it’s not slottable.

There could be a trait to allow entering into avatar to break stun.

One trap must have a baseline stun break. Ideally Spike because its the most viable and most used.

Sprits require a large overhaul so I can’t even begin to comment here.

TLDR

We only have two viable stun breaks heavily dependent on one trait line. Being pigeon holed into WS heavily reduces our build variety. Disseminate more stun breaks across various utility lines, and reduce CD’s across the board.

It just needs to be a straight up block (channeled while moving) with an optional pbaoe knockdown available during the channel, perhaps a spin move. call it the Tiger’s Tail. Super thematic, responsive, intuitive. Remove the sword throw, it’s silly and a copy of the warrior’s skill except worse.

I really like the theme of our AA. I would go both ways, slightly increase damage and slightly increase speed to give us more evasion while spamming AA. It just feels so right doing it with quickness.

I agree on hilt bash being a short leap, kinda like eviscerate.

Maul could use a very slight animation speed increase. And I feel swoop is fine, but it should act like Astral Grace while leaping over hills/inclines….instead of making us stuck for a split second which has gotten me killed many times.

most of ranger weapons are horribly clunky, ineffective and outdated. without revamps to them, we’re gonna be in a rough spot come launch

Zietlogik.6208:

I am more annoyed that in the water a completely dead pet can res the ranger while you cannot even stomp :/

But that only really applies to WvW.

OP since release

Illusions and phantasm aren’t on the same level as our pet. They’re meant to be spammed and destroyed in pvp at least. Our pet on the other hand simply doesn’t do much other than being an f2 bot in pvp, and for this they have to be alive

If we nerfed the d/d ele, we would have broken the entire profession. Two years later and here we are, it’s the only viable ele spec

UA isn’t necessarily OP for its damage. It’s just another invuln lol. And it’s the whole package that’s problematic, which includes the blocks, the teleports, the boons… reminding you guys of anything yet? Why are people (devs included) even ok with this?

Demented Yak.6105:

Sorry mate. It’s kind of hard to take you seriously.

That’s alright mate. I don’t want to be taken seriously. I just want to create a discourse and wake some people up to be a little more honest and proactive. The Herald isn’t one of those ’let’s keep an eye on it’ issues. But I fear the devs feel it might be, which means we may have to deal with a bunch of broken builds for an entire season.

Nobody wants to kill the prof/spec but I’m sure most players will agree that OP outlier builds becoming meta, and the entire game revolving around them (i.e. how do we change our comp to counter that d/d ele, oh lets just use two eles) isn’t really any fun.

Burtnik.5218:

Gaaroth.2567:

Wat? Play against someone who decentlymknow how to kittener you and tell me if it is god tier xD

Leagues coming. That qq should end soon as voice of some random hotjoin players wont matter anymore. Kinda funny that nearly all these complains coming from ranger mains in general.

Revenge for Whao fix?

Yes leagues are coming, and I’ll be in the top one, just like I’ve been in the top mmr bracket for a long while, playing with and against the best NA players every match. I’m not actually worried about what the average scrub can do with the herald. But I know what the seasoned players will be doing, and it’s going to cause a lot of problems for game balance, just like the chrono will.

I supposed it is too much for me to ask people to be objective with the shiny new herald. It’s kinda funny how the only ones not advocating for balance are the glassy-eyed rev fanboys. At this rate we’ll likely be seeing glint/shiro and the chrono dominating the meta for months to come. Maybe not, still looking forward to the pre-release notes.

Some people just haven’t a clue about what they’re talking about. Seeing a the shiro/glint in the hands of a seasoned player will make people wanna uninstall the game. There are certain players reading this who know exactly what I’m talking about. And I don’t think anything is going to be done about the build before the release. i called it here.

The chrono is basically at the same god tier with the right build. And I dont mean 1v1’s when I talk about these buids…i mean wrecking everything in all situations.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

Overall, after the last BWE, we felt like revenant was in a solid spot. For launch we mainly focused on bug fixing and a few outliers such as changing the second hit of the sword auto-attack as well as speeding up the tablet move speed.

That’s not to say that there aren’t more things we are thinking about how to improve or tweak, but we want the profession to get in more playtime and thus more feedback before we make any more larger changes. I’m definitely reading all the feedback and taking under consideration for future changes so keep up the awesome work.

Herald/shiro is god-tier Roy. I don’t think it requires months of play testing to warrant some sensible nerfs. plenty of people have given this feedback already on these forums. not to mention that many of us witnessed how overpowered it is in the hands of seasoned pvp’ers. this one definitely slipped past the internal testers (not sure how).

Herald shiro is god-tier OP and I haven’t seen any notes for its nerfs prior to release. it will either get smacked down in the new patch notes, or we’ll see it in the top tier meta comps along with the chrono for the first pvp season.

Gotejjeken.1267:

Hate to be the cynic..but here goes.

This isn’t a change to make ranger better, as it includes all player minions. Even worse, this change is not helpful in the least for WvW where pets get instagibbed in zerg vs zerg.

General question for the devs, do you guys really fear pet’s this much? What I mean is, truly if they were changed to be 95% reduction in all game modes unless specifically targeted…you think that would be game breaking?

Note, not ALL minions. Ranger pets. Specifically ranger pets. Which saddens me to be lumped in the ‘minion’ category as they are a vital part of the Ranger. It’s not like we can spec out of them like necros or insta kill them for massive damage / conditions like mesmer.

pretty much =( pets are our " prof mechanic".

the new f2 for the bristle does something like 5k in pve. so with 25 might stacks, we’re talking 10k. but likely they will nerf it. that smokescale attack looked pretty broken. 8k without crits or might.

just to help you guys out with a discussion I’m not remotely interested in, five percent is 0.05. 20000 × 0.05 = 1000. so for pve, it’s going to be just fine. maybe not for illusions, but ranger pets will be fine.

Dojo.1867:

You can easy stack 25 might with signets or just maximizing all other sources.

Just pet swap with clarion bond and the grandmaster in beastmastery will put your pet at 6 stacks or 12 with nature magic which will put you at 18 if you WHAO.

actually I was just playing around and Companion’s Might + SotP should do it, but that will require us to not go for Resounding Timbre.

this is an interesting discussion and if you’ve got other ideas, put em out.

Shoe.5821:

revenant looks more OP than it is

its got powerful abilities that are somewhat limited by the energy mechanic

right now its suffering from the grassisalwaysgreener effect but we’ll see how it works out in practice

this is a huge understatement. the Herald was completely broken in the hands of competent players during BWE3, and sadly I haven’t heard of any incoming nerfs to the herald or the chrono (btw have you at all witnessed what the herald can do when played by an expert?). but mark my words right here, herald and chrono will be totally OP in all aspects of pvp, and we will likely have to sit through an entire pvp season with these two as “required” top dawgs…with their perma blocks and insane damage.

regarding OP’s concerns, the few rangers that are left in the competitive pvp environment will have to be very creative with their new tools, as per usual. while other elite specs will be able to whip up various OP builds without much sense or effort, we’ll be scrounging for crumbs in our druid trait line to make LB, staff, and GS work.

more specifically, we are in a dire need of reworking more than half of our weapons that essentially hit like noodles, that have been left in the dust 3-4 metas ago when they could have been somewhat useful. and more than half of our utilities that are completely useless (spirits, half of the shouts, half of the signets, two survival utilities, and a few of the signets; not to mention most of our pets with overly situational ai-controlled abilities and f2’s).

I think our current devs may be up to the task, but we will have to wait a while indeed. in the meantime, I will be making a rev myself, and enjoying my druid casually in its limited role.

Aomine.5012:

His main complaint comes from ranger being shifted to Druid entirely as a mean to justify all the ranger’s stuffs leaving to rot, like sword, axe (both main and offhand have problems), warhorn (4), and stuffs.

this is absolutely correct. as I called it (when Colin said during an interview that core profs WOULD be getting the same treatment as elite specs), core profs and their mechanics got left in the dust by the new tech. I mean, look at the intuitiveness and smoothness of the staff and the druid trait line, compared to offhand axe, warhorn, and a slew of useless GM’s.

Wondrouswall.7169:

Not even sure why you quoted me and typed that reply. My question was simply asking if it would reduce condition damage like “Playing Favorites.” Whatever floats your boat, though.

I’m just whipping out feedback ideas as they come. it was actually pertaining to Heim’s suggestion to implement Playing Favourites for WvW, so I guess I quoted the wrong person.

I was actually hoping there would be a little bit more solidarity among the ranger community regarding bringing this to wvw where mass aoe’s are a much larger problem than in pve; but most users appear glassy-eyed over the strictly pve changes (which, I concede, are fantastic and long-awaited by those players). yet many of us don’t even play pve, and wvw rangers have been partially crippled in zerg fights since release.

Wondrouswall.7169:

I’m curious if the damage reduction is just for direct damage only. The Mistlock Instability, Playing Favorites, reduces both direct and condition damage. Will this act the same way?

the problem with implementing Playing Favourites in pvp (if we were to do so) is that the pet would still contribute to 5 target aoe caps. meaning that zergs could run a bunch of necros and rangers to “tank” aoe damage.

so this leads me back to my third suggestion: allow us to enter combat without our pet and simply summon him as needed. once summoned, he has to stay out for x amount of seconds. while he may likely die, at least this way we will have more control over our pets and their abilities instead of entering combat crippled with one pet dead.

[going off of this, we could even play around with a new mechanic – when ranger summons the pet, there is an additional effect upon the pet’s “arrival”. I could be an aoe boon, a cleanse, some sort of debuff, or a small amount of damage.]

[again, to restate the problem for WvW rangers: because zerg vs. zerg is so crucial to this game mode, and because pets follow us blindly as we wade through the blanket of ground-targeted aoe spells, we basically make contact with the opposing side with one pet already dead. this has been an oversight for 3 years.]

this change would be a lot easier to implement than any of the other suggestions as a simple QoL adjustment.

Spurnshadow.3678:

Warning to Devs:

Do not implement this in WvW. I spend 90% of my time in WvW, and this would be a terrible change. Yes, certain trait lines are not viable in WvW, but not every trait line is, regardless of if it’s a pet class or not. Some traits are designed for WvW, some aren’t. But here’s the big concern: statistical damage reduction.

this is most definitely a concern. but there is a variety of simple solutions for rangers. (FYI, ranger isn’t a spec. it’s an entire profession, ok?)

for example, they could allow us to stow our pets and keep them stowed whilst in combat. no bonus required, it just allows us to activate the pet as needed without it getting mowed down in the moving zergs. once the pet is summoned, he has to stay out for x amount of seconds before we can swap. he will likely die, and that’s fine. but at least we have more control this way.

the other option, that the poster above me mentioned is to simply change the code and make pets/ai/minions not contribute to the 5 target cap limit. but the former option is probably a lot easier to implement and would make WvW rangers ecstatic.

Roy Cronacher.1576:

We felt like minions were in a good place for PvP so we didn’t want to change them there for now. Thus, the interaction between players and minions in PvP combat will remain the same.

Hi Roy, I know I already posted my feedback but I just wanted to add one more thing. In essence, I disagree that pets are ok in pvp. reason? well, it’s not ok for pets to die to RANDOM damage. someone killing the pet should be at least a little bit skill-based, i.e. it should at least require the enemy to target the pet. have a look at this:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Imo, if they were to implement a damage reduction for pets using the Mistlock Instability:Playing Favorites mechanic, then pets would be in a good place for both PvP and WvW.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Imo, if they were to implement a damage reduction for pets using the Mistlock Instability:Playing Favorites mechanic, then pets would be in a good place for both PvP and WvW.

wow, that is so cool. didn’t know about that. should have been easy to implement, no?

what the hell is the point of pets dying RANDOMLY?

I really like the direction Blizzard’s Overwatch has taken. the game is about to hit beta, and it’s already got more foundation in place than gw2 has accrued over the last 3 years. they basically said “we’re interested to see player’s reactions to the game, and we’ll observe where the players take it…if it’s esports, we’ll be ready to support it. but our priority is making a fun game.”

even though I bought HoT (almost entirely because of Irenio and what he’s done for the ranger in such a short time), it is very likely i’ll be spending most of my time in Overwatch once the beta weekends start. I do feel that, for once, gw2’s devs MIGHT have a vision for its pvp, but it will take another 1-2 years to actually implement. and it will have to be conquest, NOT SH. gw2 might be in a good place another 3 years down the line. but the approach was just so very wrong out of the gate.

Gaile Gray.6029:

I thought my fellow rangers would like this news.

Hi Gaile,

only the ones who exclusively do pve. it’s a missed opportunity for those of us who aren’t interested in GW2’s pve. GW2 isnt a pve-only game. but if I did play just pve, I would be happy, for sure.

but as you said, a bunch of us have a new hope for this ugly duckling of a profession (since release) with Irenio actively reading our feedback and acting on it.

sorry to be such a negative Nancy, but those of us who have stuck with the profession since release have been through a lot of “game-related hardship”.

OMGimAnoobLOLOL.4730:

If you’re planning on keeping Jungle Stalker just to transfer 25might, to Bristleback, then the build is already over.

no, sir. you are the one who is over, based on your disconnect from the reality of upcoming changes.

also, I’m just curious: how are you guys intending to play might stacking builds without using WH and/or MH axe? I understand the feedback regarding GS vs sword, and I partially agree, but you cant stack 25 might without the warhorn or axe. this build is basically about permanently stacking 25 might and then going to town on people.

hi guys, please have a look at the suggestions I left in the new thread Irenio posted in. support these suggestions as theyre relevant to pvp/wvw players, or simply come up with your own. there are several easy solutions they could implement for us in those game modes. as things stand, this is a huge missed opportunity and a bit of a letdown. I apologize to the pve folks, but I don’t give a hoot about GW2’s pve. but still, minions/ai builds remain completely unviable in wvw and pvp.

Hi Irenio,

this “systemic change” is a missed opportunity and rather disappointing for us pvp-only folk. especially for the wvw’ers. here is the feedback I left in Roy’s thread, please have a read.

in WvW, ranger pets get decimated in seconds by zerg aoe’s and are virtually non-functional outside of small skirmishing scenarios. the other areas you missed: engie turrets and other non-pet AI in pvp, theyre totally useless. spirit weapons, spirits, gyros and so on.

SUGGESTION #1

I can see the CHALLENGE of trying to balance player’s AI in pvp. but the simple thing to do is just make them immune to 5-player aoe attacks (includes ele’s pbaoes, necros wells, etc.), but still keep the damage the same on CLEAVE and single target attacks, while slightly buffing some of their HP.

this basically means the opponent must at the very least aim or even select the AI he wants to destroy, instead of just facerolling aoe’s and pbaoe’s until everything is dead. I thought gw2 was supposed to reward skill-based play? wouldn’t minion/ai builds be interesting to pick apart over time? wouldn’t that require an additional layer of strategy as it buys time for the controller of said ai? wouldn’t this make the game more interesting?

I was completely against what you guys did to turret engies, even though I only play the ranger. previous to the turret changes, I enjoyed picking apart turret engies, blowing up their turrets one by one before moving in for the kill. instead of seeing opportunity in this and just slightly nerfing the HP of turrets, you guys knee-jerked the build into complete uselessness. when will you learn? when will you stop doing this?

SUGGESTION 2

the other option is to have a DYNAMIC system that takes into account how many aoe’s are on the ground, and just cap off how many affect the pet, i.e. max of 3 aoe’s at a time.

SUGGESTION 3

here is ANOTHER good suggestion that should be easy to implement in my opinion, at least for rangers. simply allow us to stow the pet in heavy aoe situations, and bring him out only when he is needed. i.e. we can enter combat WITHOUT the pet! once he is brought out, he has to be out for a while before swapped to the second one. this may indeed lead to his death, but at the very least he wouldn’t be following us into a zerg and getting melted, effectively reducing our effectiveness right off the bat. no skill involved, just silly mechanics.

these “systemic changes” for minions/ai mean absolutely nothing to pvp’ers who wanna play builds involving minions/ai. these builds are unviable competitively and have been for a very long time. hope u guys have a look at my feedback above.

in WvW, ranger pets get decimated in seconds by zerg aoe’s and are virtually non-functional outside of small skirmishing scenarios. the other areas you missed: engie turrets and other non-pet AI in pvp, theyre totally useless. spirit weapons, spirits, gyros and so on.

SUGGESTION #1

I can see the CHALLENGE of trying to balance player’s AI in pvp. but the simple thing to do is just make them immune to 5-player aoe attacks (includes ele’s pbaoes, necros wells, etc.), but still keep the damage the same on CLEAVE and single target attacks, while slightly buffing some of their HP.

this basically means the opponent must at the very least aim or even select the AI he wants to destroy, instead of just facerolling aoe’s and pbaoe’s until everything is dead. I thought gw2 was supposed to reward skill-based play? wouldn’t minion/ai builds be interesting to pick apart over time? wouldn’t that require an additional layer of strategy as it buys time for the controller of said ai? wouldn’t this make the game more interesting?

I was completely against what you guys did to turret engies, even though I only play the ranger. previous to the turret changes, I enjoyed picking apart turret engies, blowing up their turrets one by one before moving in for the kill. instead of seeing opportunity in this and just slightly nerfing the HP of turrets, you guys knee-jerked the build into complete uselessness. when will you learn? when will you stop doing this?

SUGGESTION 2

the other option is to have a DYNAMIC system that takes into account how many aoe’s are on the ground, and just cap off how many affect the pet, i.e. max of 3 aoe’s at a time.

SUGGESTION 3

here is ANOTHER good suggestion that should be easy to implement in my opinion, at least for rangers. simply allow us to stow the pet in heavy aoe situations, and bring him out only when he is needed. i.e. we can enter combat WITHOUT the pet! once he is brought out, he has to be out for a while before swapped to the second one. this may indeed lead to his death, but at the very least he wouldn’t be following us into a zerg and getting melted, effectively reducing our effectiveness right off the bat. no skill involved, just silly mechanics.

these “systemic changes” for minions/ai mean absolutely nothing to pvp’ers who wanna play builds involving minions/ai. these builds are unviable competitively and have been for a very long time. hope u guys have a look at my feedback above.

StickerHappy.8052:

Why do you need might stacking on a trap build?

to do more damage. we can now stack might on any build.

Cufufalating.8479:

You’re giving up the standard condi-cleanses from WS to get an occational full cleanse

shouldn’t need more than two condi cleanses with 3 source of stealth. we’ll see I guess. this build gets you the might stacking and the traps. it’s a super offensive build. we could easily go into WS over BM, but id probably play that with cele.

^good, but then you have no mobility and u cant stack might.

SoR is a stun break.

BM is for taunt, shouts, and big pet damage.

Photinous.4628:

Honestly, sword/wh provides very little pressure even with 25 stacks of might. You lack a block, any type of escape or gap closer and 0 cc on that weapon set. I’d rather have GS with 0 stacks. You also only have 2 condi clears here, which means you will get rekt really fast by anyone with condi damage (basically any ele, engi, necro or guard these days).

Meh, I was carrying with this build in top mmr when we got the WHaO buff for like 2 days. It works better in practice than u think. Some version of this build will probably be competitive, if not just hella fun. It’s just another way of playing the power ranger, not to mention it wrecks your standard lb/gs builds 1v1 because it just does insane sustained damage.

Sword is just fine defensively with the two evades, I’d just have to watch my positioning and pick my targets. Mobility is decent with hornet’s sting, superspeed and perma swiftness.

What you don’t understand is that hunter’s call ticks with 25 might stacks on both you and your pet, along with sword AA and stability outputs way more pressure and sustained deeps on a single target than GS. Swoop/maul will at most give you 7.5k if they both hit, and then u gotta switch back to LB for pressure. With my bird, sword and quickness I can put out roughly 5k dps until I gotta back out. Just try it on a golem and you will at least be convinced of how much damage it puts out.

It’s basically a nuking build. Pick your target, careful with positioning, and get out with QZ.

Manekk.6981:

I have almost exactly the same build but I was trying a more defensive version with trooper runes and in games with lots of condi I also took evasive purity over windborne I feel it works very well.

For sure. U can go pretty defensive with this. Celestial ammy would work and strength runes aren’t even necessary.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkSFaZxSWwhF4axQmQ5H+i34fNE5TcnsBwBcyTO3E-TpBFABFcEAE4BAIeZAHOIAls/AAXAAA

this build basically gives you perma 25 might and virtually unlimited on-demand quickness. that’s 3k power in spvp lol. some condi cleanse, otherwise it’s pretty sturdy. might even be better with celestial stats.

I’m actually able to get 20-23 stacks of might on live right now, so you may not even need SotP. but I think WH will probably remain essential. finally, a use for Hunter’s Call. axe/x is another possibility, but it’s not very good defensively. probably more appropriate for condi/cele builds.

one thing that excites and concerns me is the bristle’s new skill:

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spike_Barrage

they will have to tone down the base damage, otherwise the f2 will do about 10k damage with all the might stacks, and the dps will be absolutely insane with quickness. the build includes the bristle =)

the cool thing about WHaO is that you will be able to instantaneously transfer 25 stacks of might to your other pet after swapping.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Spike Trap – Stun break on skill use
Frost Trap – Encase in ice for 2s on initial pulse.
Viper’s Nest – Remove 1 boon per pulse.
Flame Trap – Cleanse 3 conditions on trigger.

/drools…

i especially like the changes on frost trap and viper nest. theyre essential imo.

I updated the “sample build” up top with a more competitive trapper build, based on feedback. after thinking about it, dropping staff and Astral Grace is totally doable because we have so much stealth and superspeed. the build includes shouts for might stacking, so it’s super offensive.

Is there a single post in which you post something constructive that’s not s complaint about the profession? Why don’t you just roll another prof?

I wont even try to clarify your concern. I could, but I wont.

Kitty.1502:

Why staff? Why Healing Spring? How is this build going to handle condi pressure? Why Strength of the Pack? Why Electric Wyvern and Smokescale? Why Refined Toxins?

Please don’t troll my thread. It’s for constructively discussing the trapper druid and all of its variations. I just got the ball rolling with my build and I don’t feel like justifying everything about it. I’m asking people to share theirs.

But I will say that the answer to most of your questions is “because stealth” and “because poison stacking.” The rest you can answer on your own by looking up the different rangery things on the build site. Hope that helps.

Sagat.3285:

runeblade.7514:

mistsim.2748:

not sure about u guys but I don’t wanna play against immortal necros. theyre not adding dire because of necros.

Which is funny because condi necros isn’t a good build.

and you know that condi dire wouldn’t work for 1v1’ing and bunkering how exactly?

not sure about u guys but I don’t wanna play against immortal necros. theyre not adding dire because of necros.

I just don’t understand why we don’t make more maps like Foefire. honest to god, that formula just works the best with gw2. we all like that map the most. if you just changed up the environment to a different theme, and varied the bosses (i.e. so theyre not soloable), it would make a lot of people happy.

it seems much resources and time have been sunk into SH. so be it. I feel the mode would be so, so, sooo much more fun if we had 8v8’s or 10v10’s on it. as things stand, the map is depressingly barren, uninteresting and it takes way too long to get back in the action. not to mention the mechanics that are in place are flawed (i.e. archers, rushing the boss, etc.)

jcbroe.4329:

So for PvP, as a damage build, what do we think, does running Nature Magic/Beastmastery/Druid work out? Marauder LB/GS:

if youre gonna go marauder, I feel you need survival still. two stun breaks (LR and QZ), SoS, and SotP.

Druidic Clarity is reliable only once, at most twice during an engagement. when I was testing seeds of life (from glyphs and avatar), I actually did not find them to be viable at all in practice. when youre running around kiting people, you cant wait in a small area for the seed to explode. that just doesn’t work. so I found WK essential still, unfortunately.

given how quickly people will focus you in avatar form, I also found protection to be absolutely essential… so to be survivable with marauder stats, I ran NM for protective ward, WK and druid. I suppose if I wasn’t too worried about condi spam, id run BM instead of wilderness. that has been my experience dealing with comps that had condi pressure.

but I’m thinking all this will change with improvements to Hp scaling, and the addition of trapper runes. all of a sudden, settler and celestial stats are looking very appealing.

is this 8v8 yet, are archers useful, did you shrink the map, why is there a treb, or is there less PVE?

a lot of us are finding SH boring in the 5v5 format. in fact, most experienced pvp’ers stopped queueing for SH during BWE3 and took their elite specs over to conquest. out of 25 games i played that weekend, only 3 were in SH before i got bored.

i hope this feedback is helpful in some way…i’ll probably watch this tourney to see if it’s at least more fun to watch than it is to play.

Ehecatl.9172:

Anyway, I am curious why you’d take Glyph of Alignment over Flame Trap. .

I went for the poison stacking theme. With it, we could probably get 15 stacks of poison on someone within 2 seconds (Refined toxins, poison master, doom sigil, poison volley, snake trap).

Alignment also has a huge defensive aspect to it.

Not really a serious build, just messing around.

i’m really excited about how sturdy settler would make us with all that toughness and huge heals. and it’s probably the only way of making traps work…

Burtnik.5218:

mistsim.2748:

morrolan.9608:

You’re adding trapper runes but not Dire stats? Why on earth not?

are you kidding me? necros bro. even engies would become virtually unkillable.

Wait..Arent conditions a problem olny in low tier?! I dont see a reason to not add them, after all conditions are low tier problem..why people suddenly are so scared at adding dire stats in?

because necros would become godly. simple as that. they synergize too well with vit and toughness. the condi damage is moot. at least right now, their godliness is kept in check by cele stats, and they rely on might stacking for damage.

i changed up the original sample build because you guys were fixated on it, not really contributing anything useful to the discussion. so here is a more competitive trapper build

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQRAnY8fjUqQ/KWuCurAXLWYEM4m6Utr+8EWdpOmCwlLAUyDGD-TJhHwAPLDM4hAA4MAIZ/BA

we have shouts for might stacking, traps for stealth and damage, and your standard a/d s/t set, which is only possible because we now have swiftness from WHaO for mobility. originally, I felt too dependent on Astral Grace for mobility and escapes, but it’s not needed.

it’s easy stacking 25 might with this build. we also have decent condi cleansing, but I wouldn’t say we’d be strong against condi pressure. it’s a super offensive build that does a ton of damage. BM line is for shouts and we get taunt out of it as well.

we can run it with settler to heal the team, carrion, rabid, or cele to be more well-rounded.

oh, because people were asking – the lightning assault from the wyvern is to proc ancient seeds (it’s a knockdown). spike trap will also allow us to proc ancient seeds. i think another option that would give us more sustain is running the new lingering light GM, but I’m not sure how it works yet in practice.

thoughts on the trapper druid in general?

morrolan.9608:

You’re adding trapper runes but not Dire stats? Why on earth not?

are you kidding me? necros bro. even engies would become virtually unkillable.

if you look at ranger traps, as they are now, they are almost completely useless defensively. meaning that, as the meta is now, we can at most slot 1 trap because we need at least one stun break and an invuln.

I don’t know about the DH, but a stealthy trap ranger wont be OP. if we’re slotting two traps, then we have to give up either a stun break or signet of stone. my suspicion is that even with trapper runes, a trapper ranger may not even be viable. a novelty at best.

look at the successful specs: they have multiple invulns and blocks, and they do a crapton of frontloaded damage. take away SoS from the ranger, and you have a spec that is extremely vulnerable to burst.

now the cool thing about the trapper druid running settler stats will be that he can support his team with big heals, decent cc and condi pressure, while stealthing around. it will be interesting, a nuisance at best. but I don’t think viable.

Kuju.2153:

Trapper runes sound like a potential nightmare for the new gamemode, and then there is the dueling server trolls incoming hard. Good luck with that one admins.

again, not sure about the DH, but ranger’s traps don’t have a defensive function. stealth and SS certainly wont make the ranger good against coordinated CC.

personally, I feel trapper runes should get nerfed to have a 30 or 40 second ICD, and traps buffed to have some stun breaks and condi cleanses.

well it looks like we’re getting trapper runes in spvp on HoT’s release. it will make things a little more interesting, but what bothers me is that it wont solve the massive underlying problems with traps. everyone is gonna be hyped about trapper runes, and we’ll soon forget that traps every had probs.

that being said, trapper druid will be kinda cool.

isn’t this mode disadvantageous because you cant look behind without turning the character?