lb/gs power builds have had a significant skill ceiling increase via beastly warden. it’s actually important now to manage your pet and time the interrupts. also, quickdraw gives additional resources that need to be micromanaged.
I already tested the moas. they heal for 4500 with Natural Regen. I have tried moa + fern hound with settler stats and it’s pretty fun. but in current state of the game, the damage is too huge to heal through. maybe later this sort of build will be more useful.
lack of vitality on useful amulets is a huge problem for us. crusader is probably ok.
hmmmm this is interesting. I totally dismissed this trait, but the range on the chill is huuuge. looks very satisfying too. the GM also reduces OH axe recharge.
I think for this GM to be competitive they need to at least double the ferocity bonus, say 300-350. because BW is just too good. Richochet needs to hit harder. maybe, 1500 on crit.
the problem with both axes in general is they don’t provide us with a survivable toolset. no evades, no practical stuns, no escapes, kitten poor mobility. each toolset must have some of these, or at least one. look at warriors – all their weapons, except for rifle, have many of these. our GS has it. Lb has it. this is why we’re pigeon-holed into GS/LB on all power builds. do you guys think they will ever understand these concepts?
240 is the size of a trap. I did initially think it wouldn’t be enough, but ive yet to see BW fail due to a range limitation. in fact, BW hasn’t really failed me yet, just bad plays on my part. it’s really responsive at least.
rangers could be really strong now in the front line as well. we can run valk/cavalier stats with Remorseless procs, be tanky, and just nuke people for 6k. lots of stability and aoe taunt with bears. you guys should be seeing more and more of these rangers in zergs.
^youre sounding like a broken record. ran into a couple of very good trapper rangers, you can actually be really survivable while slotting 2 traps. 0/6/6/6/0 is quite strong.
it feels d/d d/f eles got buffed. burns are ridiculous on them. and what happened to cele getting its condis nerfed? we’re still facerolling the same kitten as before with perma prot and perma 15-25 stacks of might.
I see BW becoming pretty much a must, if the ranger is to be on an organized team. interrupting heals, stomps, rezzes; taunting to focus the target and burst it down; quick defense against thieves and shatter mesmers which can easily turn the fight around…the applications are near limitless. BW also gives you more choice with pets.
I was pretty hyped on quickdraw as well, it’s a tough decision (not for me though).
everything that’s not bear gets nuked pretty fast with all the shatters, staff aoe’s, and medi guards. it’s not a huge problem. but I like having one of the two pets that’s always alive and reliable. condi cleanse aint bad either.
ravens have a slightly lower f2 CD than the snow owl, but I find the chill invaluable. I wouldn’t get too used to hawk/eagle because GTFE and WS will/should get ICD’s. we’ll see I guess, enjoy it while u can.
also, the other reason to not use two ravens is that the f2’s share a CD. this is from the days of the cleric bunker when a single raven could spike someone for 6k with the f2, and the cd’s were separate. now ure much better off either going raven/snow owl, or some other combination.
the other thing to notice about birds is just how much damage they do on single targets over the course of a fight. they’ll cut through thieves, eles, engies, and especially mesmers. we’re not as reliant on dogs now because BW gives us the hard CC.
2 condis every 20s with Shake It Off, LR and QZ. I haven’t tested drakes yet with BW, i just tend to focus single targets so bird is king there. so far that’s all ive needed. u can add Lyssa to SotP and SoR instead of Protect Me. it’s the playstyle too I think. I kite around a lot, stealth and reposition, CC with point blank/hilt bash/BW. so it’s difficult to get a good condi spike off. I make sure I don’t go in too deep unless my SotP is activated. and all the condi cleanses I use have a very short CD. the build is extremely aggressive, I get new fury all the time to refresh Remorseless so that’s more damage, and if it’s not going well I reset fight.
people seriously need to play around with QZ some more. the superspeed is insanely strong on this prof. with the damage we’re putting out right now, it’s easy to overpower most specs with sheer aggression, CC and burst. QZ helps there. but u can use it defensively too.
here is evidence that indeed neither the +25% damage nor the 100% crit chance applies to the other 4 targets when executing Maul with Remorseless proc. all the numbers are different, only closest golem takes the hardest hit. vulnerability is applied to all 5.
yeah QZ wouldn’t work without WK, it wouldn’t b an efficient utility without the condi removal. it’s really nice with superspeed for that gtfo option. and when u pop it with SotP feels like your ranger is on crack.
^on that note for those who don’t know, the taunt will be cast around the pet, regardless of you having a target or the pet making contact with it. when im tryin to get away, i’ll quickly swap to bring the new pet out and taunt whoever is chasing.
In PvP, when I don’t run Condi, I run GS/Sword Axe with Valkyrie and of Rage (or Wurm)
great tips and almost identical to my build. I don’t find Sic ’Em necessary, but I do like Protect Me for the low CD, as long as ure ok with slotting a bear. I also use LB instead of s/a, but I would use the latter in wvw. god I wish they buffed WD.
I like the build, I run something similar. I prefer WK, LR and QZ over signets and EB because u get way more on-demand cleanses and offensive power. but I do have to run brown bear for additional cleanses, it works quite nicely.
im glad others are seeing the utility we have now with BW.
it’s a nice little guide but there’s nothing OP about it. you can actually get a lot more damage out of running 2 traps and have pretty much the same survivability. also SB is very underwhelming as it offers very little survivability compare to a/t. thing about this build in general (I ran it for a few hours yesterday as well, with and without traps) is that it just doesn’t have enough resilience to live through all the explosions happening in pvp right now.
remorseless or opening strike proc does not apply the 100% critical strike chance to all 5 targets when using GS Maul, FYI. this problem does not exist with Swoop, which always cleaves and crits 3 targets with remorseless. I added this to the bug thread.
Remorseless opening strike proc does not apply the 100% critical strike chance bonus on all 5 targets with Maul on GS. on tightly grouped targets within Maul range, Remorseless/opening strike seems to apply to only one target always, while regular stats apply to the other 4. for example, with 24% crit chance (when fury procs), Maul will always crit on the closest target, but only sometimes crits on the surrounding ones. tested on rows of golems in mists.
strangely, the opening strike vulnerability stacks apply to all 5 targets all the time. the crit chance does not. not sure about the dmg multiplier
this problem does not exist with swoop, which cleaves all 3 targets and crits every time on all 3 with remorseless proc.
so this could be an opening strike problem. or an remorseless problem?
I don’t like signets simply because they don’t give you fury and all of them have extremely long CD’s. you also have less condi cleansing as a result of not slotting survival skills. but if it works for u, it works.
no, cele was garbage. I hated it. you had two builds 1) cele might stacking and 2) zerker on thieves and guards. the meta only included 5 professions, i.e. u didn’t really need a Mesmer, ranger or necro, unless necro was Nos level.
it’s too soon to tell, but im seeing all kinds of interesting things happening. with how hard pure condi and power builds are hitting, I don’t think cele will be king any longer. as a result, gameplay will be more fast-paced, more twitch, higher skill cap, and high risk-reward.
oh my god yes. this is what im running now, it’s not my build at all got it from Heim and blitzkrieg. I adjusted pets and utilities to suit me. signets aren’t the way to go imo. but ive been wrecking with it. should work for wvw frontlining too with gs/s/a and two bears.
I haven’t even optimized it yet. when things settle down, and if no one else does it, i’ll probably do a guide. maybe im being narrowminded now, but I think this is the new hotness as far as power builds go. oh and it’s survivable as kitten.
u can do various things like Lyssa runes, SoS, SoR, u can even take out QZ but I wouldn’t recommend it. brown bear is for condi cleanse and Protect Me, snow owl just eviscerates things. there’s just no need to go marauder/zerker if you time your fury procs well, but know that most of your burst will be coming from GS and the bird. LB is more of a utility weapon in this build.
would anyone be able to maximize the stats for wvw? I think I wanna start gearing up for it.
yeah, tough times being rabid =( I wanna make it work I really do. but it’s actually problematic that we lost a bit of vitality from our condi builds (from the NM line).
I really thing they should give ranger high innate HP for the medium armor group.
I thought for sure id be going LTW with LB. and it does have its role, it’s kinda niche. u get more RF, better AA and piercing. probably useful for something.
but I see Remorseless really shining for players who prefer to use the GS a little more. the other thing is, the more fury procs you have, the more bonus dmg u get. so u wanna go into WK and Resounding Timbre to get fury and reduce SotP CD. u also maybe wanna get two-handed training for more fury and reduced CD’s. then u might as well grab BW.
regarding pets, I use snow owl when I wanna kill someone, and brown bear if I need to use Protect Me. it’s much better than SoS due to lower CD and stun breaking. it can suck getting stuck with the owl though with swap on CD.
my issue with the build is that it just appears too clumsy. in the heat of the moment, it’s difficult to perfectly setup all this damage. it’s too complicated in practice. i still don’t feel that SoH is useful because it doesn’t add to our survivability in any way. consider taking QZ instead of example (as long as u have WK).
and youre right, our vuln stacking is insane now. love it.
Irenio, do you mind just addressing the range nerfs to the offhands – are these truly intended, or a bug, or just oversight? there was no mention of it. i can understand the projectiles being nerfed to 900, but Bonfire must retain its 240 radius. it’s very lackluster now, just about all of us agree.
well yeah, the last proc occurs at 9s, so by the time that’s up it’s 12s. i would still argue it was a huge buff, mostly because of the CD reduction. 36 secs vs….150 or something?
