2 condi clears is plenty, I haven’t needed more since the June 23rd patch. but you can always grab entangle. mobility is actually insane, with high quickness uptime, sword/LR and perma swiftness. you could go GS, but then you cant stack might. I believe u can get 25 stacks just from casting SotP —> Hunter’s Call —> WHaO
oh I just left that open. air/fire on LB as usual, energy/air on sword/wh. there could be better combinations, I was lazy.
mesmers are ez now heh. lots of condi cheese running around, that got buffed.
marauder is the way to go =)
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this is one of the most effective ranger build ive played so far. I’m sure many of you figured it out by now. I think this will be the way to play LB, at least until druid comes out.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkSFaZxSWwhF4axQmQ5JeC04fNE5PensBwBUwlD-TpQOAB9WGAg9HAA
the build really has everything. condi clearing, stun breaking, all that boon stacking goodness (25 might, 16s quickness, perma swiftness, stab), in addition to insane survivability, 8k rapid fires, 2.5k autoattacks, etc. pets to taste. if youre daring, you could swap out one trait line for marks. evasive purity for windbourne notes.
enjoy <3
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1 vs 1 rooms
bursted down quickly
no1 cares about 1v1’s against bads. conquest comes down to team fights.
“quickly” is quite relative. you wont 2v1 a good d/d ele quickly, not without a signet necro. their sustain didn’t change at all.
just play the condi cele bunker, swap TU for WHaO. good spec, got better today.
ele nerf didn’t really do what we needed it to do. the spec is still out of hand.
Ranger is actually kind of strong right now in a 1v1…of course, they can’t cleanse very well, and the gimmick people are complaining about here is terrible, but the profession itself…
the cele condi bunker got buffed quite a bit with WHaO (I can now get 20+ stacks of might for a short time), but the gimmicky boon stacking build is a free kill.
the entire WH is basically for stacking might, it does no damage. sword does no damage, MH axe does no damage. we have all these boons on a rotten foundation of a prof. LB and GS are virtually the only weapons that scale ok with power.
spirits cant ever change the outcome of a fight. they get one-shot, boons are weak, actives just don’t do much.
condi on pets – great when they land their f2’s on something
whats the point of slotting guard if you cant do any damage, cleanse condis, or stunbreak as a result? we have more than enough prot without using it.
meanwhile d/d eles are still destroying everyone in high pvp brackets.
good d/d eles seem about the same. still too much might, too much damage and too much sustain. slightly nerfing damage on an OP spec did very little as predicted.
it’s basically impossible to kill it 1v1 with most specs, signet necros still required to counter it.
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nothing interesting happening with rangers until the druid rolls out. a bunch of noobs are clamoring about some boons on a spec that does zero damage.
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the cele might stacking build on the ranger is trash in my spvp bracket. little sustain, little condi cleanse, and we simply don’t have weapons that scale well with might. yes, quickness, yes 25 stacks of might. and do what with it? Call of the Wild still sucks, sword sucks, and pets are sometimes reliable at best.
for those serious about cele just play your standard cele bunker, and swap out TU for WHaO.
those of you calling WHaO OP and playing the above build, you’re not playing against good players.
there’s nothing interesting happening for the ranger until the druid rolls out.
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I wrote pretty much exactly what you said in the OP, in the balance and druid feedback threads. so I hope Irenio will pass that on to the team .
indeed the main problem with the ranger is its weak foundation: weak and poorly designed weapons, weak utilities, and ultimately, no vision for the profession. for the longest time, the ranger didn’t feel like anything. now, LB/GS feels pretty good, druid will have a feel to it. staff seems solid. but we remain stuck with all these crappy weapons and utilities that have barely been touched since release: sword, OH axe, WH, SB, shouts, and of course a lot of our pets.
I hope the next patch deals with some of this stuff.
I think the rate of building celestial force will be decent, because most of the time we’re healing and doing damage simultaneously. we’ll find out in a few days.
lol I first read titles as “…from afk and rangers”
1400 crits yeah. bird f2’s crit heavy armor for 7k on 25 stacks. tested it last night. this setup is probably the only viable one I can think of right now. bird cele ranger is going places. just wish I could make axe work on a power build. too bad we’re so reliant on sword or GS.
they tried without trinity, it sucked. theyre bringing it back, people are happy.
I don’t think your healing/damage while in avatar counters the bar’s depletion. you build up the force, activate avatar, and then have a static 20 seconds to do your thing. rinse and repeat. the real question is how fast will force build up.
you cant actually just heal using the avatar. to fill up your bar, you have to do damage AND heal others. that’s the fun part. I feel there’s a lot of confusion here…we’re not “stuck” in avatar mode all the time. in fact, we get to use our utilities and elites as well.
Celestial Form
Generally, not my favorite idea. I would have preferred something a little bit more creative (this seems like just another shroud).
Its a transformation effect. but mechanically works different. You don’t get a second life for one thing. in fact, you don’t even get a weapon in Celestial form. (at least I didn’t see one during celestial form)
its a beefed up version of a ele with gyphs, except we get one aspect to swap into and its a generally more powerful since its not spread across other aspects or attunments or whatever.
I also noticed that it is indeed very similar to shroud. I actually like it better. instead of life force, we build another life bar by actively healing ourselves and 4 other people. unlike the necro, avatar’s aoe debuffs are devastating, #3 and #5 being my favourite. Natural Convergence does more dps and has more utility than Undead Shackles and Life Transfer combined. we also get to use our utilities and elites while in avatar which is sick =P
I feel most of celestial avatar skills are meant for frontlining due to their limited range. the big weakness of the druid is the lack of on-demand prot and stability, so we have to make up for this somehow. we also have only one reliable invuln. when getting caught out of position, I don’t think we’d be able to heal through it. staff #3 will help immensely for sure.
I was thinking of going either sword/WH/staff, or GS/staff, with pretty tanky high power stats and a bit of healing power. WHaO, SotP, SoS, and 2 glyphs (maybe SoR + glyph). the healing numbers shown in the stream were rather large, and that was without HP. if the abilities scale well, we wont need much.
the other thing to remember, as I wrote in another thread, is that Natural Convergence is a huge nuke; and Irenio said Tidal Surge might get a damage component as well. we can cast NC twice before avatar expires (I think), meaning we may not need too much damage outside of avatar and a few mauls here and there. if youre at range, you wont be able to use NC effectively.
in short, I don’t think LB will synergize too well with staff for a support-ey build, but it could work for skirmishing/dueling. melee weapons work a bit better with staff imo, but we’ll find out soon enough!
I am not sure where I stand with might stacking…I just feel the ranger simply doesn’t have enough hard hitting weapons to take advantage of the 25 stacks! it’s either LB or GS.
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a few people in this thread are just venting at this point, no constructive discussion happening whatsoever.
Nothing wrong with being a healer but we chose a dps long range which is called RANGER, and if we wanted to go for a healer then we should have done so in the first place. .
with tomorrow’s balance changes, LB/GS power rangers are going to be in a really, really good spot. they were already viable in both raids and competitive spvp, it’s just that in spvp they were overshadowed by mesmers and d/d eles. both of these issues will get addressed with tomorrow’s patch. i can think of 3 power ranger builds (at least) that will be viable and competitive.
regarding the druid, you don’t have to play the elite spec if you don’t want to heal. that being said, the druid has some pretty good offensive options as well. we’ll be seeing some amazing dueling builds with the elite spec, just due to how much sustain it gives us.
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just curious, what builds have you guys got in mind?
this change will make my celestial bunker stronger. the heal will synergize nicely with s/t + a/d and we should be able to grab 25 stacks of might from our pet. I cant really think of any other viable ways of using this change.
axe/warhorn is sort of interesting with tankier builds. but I’m still feeling kinda unsure about incorporating MH axe into a viable power build. sword is a weak weapon for a power build, as it’s purely defensive. but going without it or GS would be rough on our survivability. so the only combination is can think of is a/wh/gs, which heavily depends on pet damage and doesn’t really give us much utility. is there any way of working MH axe into a power build?
it does 11k damage minimum on heavy armor, without any buffs, 1.6s channel with quickness. the final tick crits for at least 5.5k, not sure what the stats were in the stream. you can set it up with Lunar Impact aoe daze. opponents will either have to blow a bunch of cooldowns or dodge rolls to get away, or eat it.
it’s basically a combination of Life Transfer and Undead Shackles on a zerker necro in one skill, plus it also pulses aoe Slow and does a lot more dps. we can use it twice per avatar transform.
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Druid will be great in WvW and possibly GvG’s just by virtue of the shear healing it can put out. .
in addition to cc, debuffs and burst damage (if geared properly). hard to tell what will happen with all the new specs and which ones will be broken/OP, but I strongly believe druids will be required for gvg’s and raids.
you can build the druid offensively. celestial avatar has a lot of CC, self heal, and burst damage. it’s gonna be great, you’ll see when you test it.
lol yeah, that’s gonna be amazing for support druid. I’m actually excited about playing mine offensively. that will depend on how quickly I can fill up celestial energy without healing power. celestial stats might be good, like on guardians. likely we’ll need a few sets of gear.
but I think youre right, nomad gear may be our best choice.
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yeah I’m gonna be testing this next weekend as well. Irenio mentioned during the stream, the stats weren’t even maximized, so does that mean damage will be even higher? cant wait to find out.
obviously the sustain damage of the avatar isn’t that significant, but the burst and utility it provides are impressive.
ahh sorry for the confusion. I was comparing NC to Life Transfer, which indeed has the same damage modifier as Soul Spiral. I’m seeing a lot of parallels between celestial avatar and shroud.
I have to agree with this. the druid is beautifully designed and enhances the prof in many ways (seriously guys, we don’t have to stack healing power to use the druid). not to mention how well designed the new pets are.
the only time I saw this level of creativity and clarity for this profession was the beastmastery spec cleanup and Beastly Warden. and also perhaps the implementation of Remorseless. I hope we see more of this kind of work on the ranger.
No it’s not Deathshroud on steroids. They don’t get a second health bar and there attacks mainly heal and support as opposed to doing damage.
there is virtually a second life bar, in the form of heals. except theyre going out to 4 more people. so I’m giving another life bar to 5 people including myself.
NC does quite a bit more dps than life siphon, not to mention the slow condi.
lastly, we have an aoe daze for additional utility.
if you take piercing life blast spam out of the equation, Celestial Avatar does a lot more aoe dps, in addition to providing huge utility via debuffs and burst heals.
would love to see Irenio comment to this when he has a bit more time.
Lich and Plague form was more of a clear cut issue of “hey, let’s not punish minion masters for pressing their elite”.
this is reasonable.
They should change Spirits into colored Wisps that orbit the Ranger.
Best idea ever!
this is the best idea ever, and ive been suggesting it for almost 3 years now. for some reason, it wasnt the best idea then as very few agreed with me. regardless, some guy made a thread about it, so people should support it.
If you have 1 waterfield and 10 guardians with hammer 2 jumping to it you only get 5 blasts.
i’ll try to explain once more. that’s the case if they cast #2 at the exact same time. this is highly unlikely, blast finishers are often easily staggered without much thought.
Not everyone has the coordination to blast water fields. Second, Druid can heal groups of people mid fight without the need to restack and blast.
every decent raid group has this coordination. not sure who’s left playing wvw right now, but certainly a year and a half ago, everyone and their grandmas were blasting water fields competently.
that being said, I agree that the heals from the druid will be highly effective. it’s not a matter of mutual exclusivity…people will be running druids AND water fields cuz why not?
druids will be able to crank out 10k+ damage over a 2s cast with Natural Convergence, in addition to slowing and immobilizing foes, cleansing condis, and throwing out huge aoe heals. this becomes a 1s channel with quickness.
Tidal Surge will also likely get an aoe debuff or dps component to it. we’ll have to see how quickly we can fill our celestial energy bar. but so far, this such a cool variation of the Deathshroud. I like it, but it begs the question…did they run out of ideas?
correct, that’s what we’ve been saying. so in a large raid group, you can easily get 10+ blast finishers. effectiveness of water fields decreases as raid size decreases.
Lunar Impact (or even Glyph of Equality) with Ancient Seeds GM + Natural Convergence
…done with 25 stacks of might, stability, and quickness. from the stream numbers, Natural Convergence does a minimum of 11k damage on heavy armour, without any buffs (1.6s cast with quickness). the pbaoe daze from Lunar Impact with Ancient Seeds is basically equivalent to an Entangle. the slow from NC will cause victims to pop their cds or waste dodge rolls.
this combo is easy to setup and repeat in a good raid group, and is enough to carry druids in any frontline wvw comp, or even to clear points in conquest. this is without Tidal Surge getting its dps/debuff component in the next iteration of the skill, as Irenio mentioned.
are we going to need any other damage sources? not really. celestial avatar is essentially a deathshroud on steroids + more utility. we can select weapons and traits that allow us to maximize our heals, so we can recharge Celestial Avatar asap. this means possibly slotting warhorn and windbourne notes for the regen. sword/wh/staff looks interesting and gives us a ton of survivability. we could also maximize blast finishers on top of water fields to further boost our heals (I believe we can get 5 blast finishers now lol, or at least 4). baseline heal numbers look so good that I doubt we’ll have to stack HP, meaning that we can use offensive stats.
to all the rangers out there sobbing in a corner: druids are going to be required in wvw raids. this will work out for you as long as you don’t mind healing your mates in order to dps.
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No.
yes, what I said. the field doesn’t simply become useless after 5 blast finishers lol. you can crank out as many blast finishers as you want, as long as theyre not simultaneous. even if simultaneous, I thought there wasn’t a limit. if staggered, for sure, no hard limit.
I guess youre thinking about wvw raids? I used to hardcore play a cleric guard in raids. while water fields are simple to use without any cap on blast finishers, being able to crank out 15k aoe heals reactively in a few seconds without coordinating 5-6 blast finishers always made a huge difference.
that being said, water fields were much more effective for larger raid groups (20+), whereas cleric guards were more effective for smaller roaming parties (5-10 people). as the amount of potential blast finishers increases in a raid group, the greater the potential of the water field.
this point is moot though because the druid will be able to crank out huge reactive heals in addition to having a water field. I’m actually much, much more worried about our LACK OF STABILITY. we should be using unity glyph, so no SotP sadly.
-Only 5 people can interact with a field
you are confused. 5 people simultaneously (virtually impossible to coordinate), unlimited if staggered, even by a fraction of a second.
Anyone here ever run wvw with a good Guardian back when tomes were a thing? Re grouping to blast water fields did not negate the usefulness of your tome. Having the extra healing can be a game changer especially if you are up against a group that punishes you for stacking.
and this. bear in mind, the tome guards were just topping people up. it worked well for frontline groups heavy on other guards with perma prot. the tome could never replace the burst heal of a water field, rather it’s merely a supplement.
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there is a lot of support for this. ive actually been suggesting this for almost 3 years (feel free to look in my post history lol).
- keep Spirit of Nature a spirit tree. greatly decrease his cooldown, OR greatly increase its utility and RANGE if CD is kept the same. otherwise, he is cool. however….
- convert spirits into wisps that orbit the ranger. passively, they are invulnerably and they imbue weapons with certain effects (fire —> burning, frost --> chill, etc.). this would make autoattack spam weapons with high RoF like SB quite strong.
- when used actively, wisps are shot out by the ranger to a certain location and they have two functions: they create a field with or without any damage (fire, lighting, water, etc.), and they give the ranger a boon OR stunbreak OR cleanse a few condis.
this is simple to implement and would forever solve the issue of spirits.
please support this thread if you want spirits to be usable. with the terrible buffs they will receive on Tuesday, players will continue to ignore them. not sure about you guys, but we don’t need another 6 months of testing to convince ourselves how horribad spirits are.
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I’m a little bit worried about staff.
problems:
- no aoe damage Consider making Astral Wisp pulse damage to surrounding 5 targets around the original foe at 240 range.
- no conditions
- underwhelming utility
- Vine Surge: either buff the damage so that we’re critting 3.5-4k with 100% crit damage, or increased the immob to 2-2.5s untraited. this skill simply does not do much. cleansing only chill, cripple and immob is quite weird.
- Sublime conversion: buff to heal for 200 per projectile baseline. should be healing for 300-400 with 1k healing power. otherwise decent skill due to its low CD.
strengths:
- Ancestral Grace: a teleport + large heal + blast finisher…very nice.
- Astral Wisp looks strong, as long as it scales really well with healing power; damage looks ok.
graphics:
- I don’t agree with the visuals of the staff. white + light purple colour scheme of the wisps is just not cool. why not a bright glowing green? or just dark purple like celestial avatar? the theme needs to be a little more…strong, and not so soft, fluffy and ethereal. meet us halfway. most of us don’t want to ride unicorns into battle on top of a rainbow.
- celestial avatar animations and colour schemes look beautiful, probably the best in the game. well kittening done.
Utilities:
- glyph of tides simply does not do enough. it scatters enemies, and its pull in avatar is situational (assuming avatar isn’t up all the time). damage is poor, and the water wave looks too symmetrical and unnatural. this glyph simply reminds me of Muddy Terrain, which is never slotted. they both look “ok” when traited, but there are many better utilities.
- glyph of alignment: one question – why would I slot this? I need invuln, i need stun breaking, I need mobility, i need boons, I need condi cleanse, I need massive damage, I need hard CC, and so on. this glyph has poor damage and the debuff is simply too weak. I can get weakness in many other ways and cripple is useless in practice. that being said, weakness is a strong condi. but utilities need to be game-changers, and I simply have too many other options for aoe weakness as a ranger.
- I feel the other glyphs are ok, but consider adding stun breaking, increasing damage (minimum 3.5k crits with 100% crit damage), and/or some boons. please don’t release any more useless utilities that will never be slotted in serious pvp. we have enough of those and you’re simply creating more work for yourselves. =) nip the problem in the bud and release one set of strong utilities with the expansion.
- examples of excellent, widely used utility skills: lightning reflexes, quickening zephyr, signet of stone, signet of renewal, spike trap. there aren’t many and rangers have a very limited tool set. there are already too many useless or downright mediocre utilities that need to be fixed.
hope you guys read our feedback! cheers.
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staff/GS will be a cool new build. they synergize so well. other than LB, the rest of our weapons don’t really do any damage.
staff + s/x, or staff/SB might be interesting with traps. not sure about condi builds yet.
a designer dev in ranger forums? is this a start of a new age? welcome Irenio.
could you work together with us to solidify the core ranger? there is a lot of work to be done on abilities and weapons that no one has been slotting in spvp and wvw:
- spirits
- shouts other than WHaO and SotP
- muddy terrain and sharpening stone
- shortbow, offhand axe, and warhorn (notably Hunter’s Call and Whirling Defense)
- a slew of grandmasters including Poison Master, Invigorating Bond, Empathic Bond, Honed Axes, and so on.
- dozens of pets with bad F2’s and no utility (good job designing the new pets btw)
fixing the core ranger is arguably more important than the druid, which was well done btw. looking forward to it.
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Meh, who cares. In less than a month from now you’re gonna see revenants/heralds, reapers and chronos all over the place drastically changing the meta, Eles are not going to be top dogs anymore.
and druids. healz y’all
sorry, I should clarify I only speak from a pvp perspective. in spvp/raids, +10% damage to 5 people is a huge buff to the squad’s burst. I wouldn’t necessarily slot that glyph in pve encounters.