So I played all day yesterday after the patch, trying to narrow down a new solid and functional Ranger meta concerning traps. I quickly realized this was out of the question as the traps deal terrible damage now for many reasons and they’re too slow for cleave. They are unfortunately completely unviable at this point.
i ran traps yesterday all day as well, and my results were a little different. I find traps “pretty solid” with the right team, and i even went into BM. so no extra survivability from NM. i was knocking down, taunting and bombing people all over the place. u can easily get multi-kills on point if youre timing is right. this is using a/d s/t of course.
my suggestion would be to buff poison trap because there’s no reason to run it; reduce spike trap CD down to at least 30s; and halve the cast time. arming time is fine.
and then the other issue of course is the nerfed radius of bonfire. it’s really hard to catch more than 1 person in it. it really needs to go back to 240.
regardless, I think their priority should be to make s/d viable again, then work on MH pistol. im actually pretty bored fighting d/p’s. I liked it when s/d was part of meta, and u didn’t always know which thief you’d get.
RaO duration nerf? —
I just came back to the game after being away almost a year to see what was new/improved. My build (mostly for WvW) was BM/Condi “Guard” spammer (Apoth + Settler’s gear). As I recall, RaO lasted about 22 seconds before the update, but now it’s 3-4 seconds for me, which is totally useless. I mostly used Entangle with my build, but there were times when RaO was preferred, but no longer.
Update seems quite disappointing for condi Rangers, other than a couple of cool features for pets F2s , from what I can tell so far.
RaO (SotP) is way, way better now. it actually lasts 12 seconds and is usually traited for 48s CD. so by the time it finishes, you only have to wait 36 seconds before it’s up again. imo, you would only get SotP to synergize with Remorseless.
I pvped a little bit this morning…Sorta remember why I quit the game.
The build I enjoyed the most was Skirmishing(3,6,7)/Wilderness(3/4/8)/Beast(1/4/7)
using two birds (though I may change that up to something else)
Utilities were Trolls/SOTW/Lightning Reflex/Spike Trap/Entangle
Eagle doing 2 Bleeds/Weakness/Blind every 4 Seconds is silly good…
Throw in Beastly Warden for that Pull (which lines them up) and Spike trap and you have a fun day. I thought about dropping SOTW for Sharpened Edges simply to Stack 20+ bleeds on someone super quick.
But yea..Eagle with those traits actually makes Ranger Shout build have a run for its money.
u can still do 0/6/6/0/6, just not the way you want to. you have to run a few traps to bolsters your condi spike, otherwise u cant compete with other profs’ condi builds. I ran it for about 5 hours yesterday, worked great with a good team. not the most survivable. but then u can always go 0/6/6/6/0 and skip Beastly Warden, still use birds, and do lots of damage while surviving.
my dream build was 0/0/6/6/6 bunker with birds, but sadly it just doesn’t do enough damage. and regen bunking isn’t viable at all right now. not without the Resistance boon.
And quick draw maul and rapid fire hits like a truck, shame there are so many other classes that do it better ;-;
not so sure. and u don’t really need quickdraw to burst people down. with Remorseless and your bird’s f2, you can land 10k damage instantly without any might stacks especially if theyre taunted, and then another 5-7k with rapid fire + quickness if you quickly swap over. ive been one-shotting thieves, not just the baddies either.
Sadly, you’re probably right … I’m not sure what ArenaNet is doing/thinking … they’ve already nerfed some things less than 24 hours after the patch and left more egregious things alone.
Valk, eh?
Have you tried remorseless with Cavalier?
it’s not really useful and I think u know why. 16k HP disappears awfully fast with 10 stacks of burning and15 stacks of bleeds. 26k HP, now that’s a nice buffer. originally I wanted cavalier stats, and it might be more viable for wvw. but with all these condis going around and no Resistance boon, valk is the way to go.
yep, im finding EB practically useless in this environment, outside of celestial shoutheal which im enjoying, and even in that its not great.
Will be upset if we don’t get a on demand condi cleanse when druid is revealed.
we will for sure get some party-wide Resistance.
Trying to cleanse 12 different condition stacks at 1-3 condi clears per skill is futile.
I’ve also tried Rune of Lyssa. The conditions ticks once before the elite cast time finishes lmao, still most of my health gone.
Every ranger should be running signet of renewal for its active lol.
SoR, brown bear, and 3 survival skills with WK should always do the job. ive had success running with just the survival skills and the bear on valk stats. haven’t needed lyssa or SoR just yet. of course the other way to deal with condis is to just CC and blow up the guy before he can stack them. stability (SotP or SoW) helps tremendously against necros. in gw2, offense > defense every time.
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Brown bear is a good idea, I roll with it. I think they made it so condi burst is extremely punishing, kind of like getting spiked by a zerker build. You just need a ton of on demand condi cleanse, which is why EB blows. They will likely be introducing more resistance boon to countrerplay this.
Not to rain on anyone’s enjoyment but I feel these will get icd’s. They should.
Regarding my experiences yesterday, BW just owns thieves. Birds die to staff ele and medi guard aoe’s so I’ve actually switched to using one or two bears, which never die.
After trying the remorseless valk build, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to zerky playstyle. Damage is quite similar but with valk I can fight with GS more.
and it’s up every 16s. I use it whenever it’s off cd just to get the swiftness.
SotP is actually 12s. it gives you 4x 3s pulses. at 9s, you get the last pulse, which gives u an additional 3s. traited, my SotP is up very often. it really feels like my ranger is on adrenaline while popping that with QZ. very fun playstyle.
^I looked forward to a build like that, in fact I tested it for a number of hours last night. I found the damage and survivability quite underwhelming. SB broke my heart…it’s so bad (compared to a/d s/t). my favourite condi build so far was that same trait layout, but with 2 traps. survivability is a bit shaky, but huge damage.
and then there’s also the 0/0/6/6/6 regen condi BM bunker…I looked forward to this one the most. I feel it’s kinda dead in the current state of the game because it just doesn’t do enough damage and regen + SoW is quite underwhelming when the damage is so high. even with all the prot and weakness we have now. I will likely go back to it and try to improve my play.
my favourite build by far is the one Heim laid out, and its variations. still have to check out zerky LB/GS, but I think 6/0/6/0/6 brings way more to the table with the right stats, compared to 6/6/6/0/0 and 6/0/6/6/0, which really don’t have enough utility
to my surprise, BW seems to synergize way better with hard-hitting power builds than with condi builds.
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thieves are getting asploded left right and centre. thieves who i remember being very, very good before patch. it’s really rough for them right now.
it’s really interesting actually. we all cried when we saw thief and engie spec changes, yet theyre the ones struggling the most in this new age. they just cant live long enough =(
I just wonder Game designers feel free to post in Engineer thread, and totally ignoring Rangers. Why you made this class then heh?
grouch isn’t a game designer.
im very curious about spirits. haven’t tested them yet.
Remorseless doesn’t have any internal cooldown, so each time u proc it by getting fury, u get a crit and damage bonus. now u just gotta figure out how you can get as many fury procs as possible.
i like using 3 shouts and 2 survival skills with this build. but for zerging id probably slot more signets. QZ is too good though.
the only nerf that’s really really bad is the bonfire radius nerf. makes torch really underwhelming. it was a totally unnecessary change.
^YES. maybe a mix of valk and cavalier? it would really good for zerging if u go gs/s/a, or even just roaming with gs/lb. I think heim posted his wvw build +stats somewhere. I cant recommend enough running 2-3 shouts and QZ.
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don’t nerf the damage, it’s good. just keep an eye out on outlier builds. so far, I haven’t run into one. well, I did get dunked for 16k damage on 2k toughness by a zerker warrior but that was my bad.
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yeah ranger condi builds are pretty tanky and dish out a ton of damage.
^well im using Resounding Timbre atm to spam WHaO and SotP. SotP on a 48s CD proccing remorseless and stuff is pretty deadly. BW can turn fights as well. oh and my bear crit someone for 3k tonight, found that interesting.
to my huuuge surprise, BM seems to be synergizing way better with power LB/GS than it does with condi builds and weapons. I found that kinda weird, but it’s true =\
33% seemed really OP considering we can easily stack 17 bleeds or so.
Regardless of what you think about power ranger, it has never been a competent enough build to compete at higher tier PvP levels or competitive tournaments.
power rangers didn’t need much. just a little push in the right direction.
Hey I’m just stating facts lol. There’s been a grand total of 1 ranger to ever play power on a top team, and was subsequently dropped from that team for a thief because the thief made it a better team comp (it really was entirely a team composition decision).
I’m not saying that this patch hasn’t done anything for the build, because it definitely has. But I was making more of a direct response to the completely and totally L2P issues presented in this thread whereas a person stated something was OP in a completely anecdotal, opinion based format and is clearly misinformed as to the effectiveness of power ranger.
I mean, if it’s so OP, we would see one on every top team going and winning money on the weekly ESLs, the monthly Go4 cups, and going to the WTS tournament, right?
yeah I see your argument. agreed, lb/gs never was op. now if anything it MIGHT be competitive. Eura is probably creaming his pants.
another poster, blitzkrieg I think, posted in another thread. hes using wurm runes and valk stats. I tried it for kittens and giggles and ive been wrecking people all night. 26k HP, 8k mauls, etc. cant seem to die. make sure to try that one as well if u haven’t already. id say it probably emphasizes GS play more, if that’s your thing. but that’s not really on topic. I haven’t yet tried NM line on LB/GS.
nice. Remorseless + RaO is godly. PW and barkskin were that missing piece we needed so badly defensively.
I really like having Beastly Warden for the utility and defense, and traited shouts so I can spam HaO and RaO as often as possible. possibly i’ll eventually switch over to NM line.
surprisingly I reaaally overestimated Quickdraw. I don’t find it too useful at all, at least not yet. I thought it was gonna be the new hotness but not so.
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Run the valkyrie amulet with wurm rune (26.6k hp / 1,150 ferocity) with gs/longbow and sigil of intelligence on GS with remorseless and SOTF .. with the fury generation you’re getting tons of crits … it hits like a truck and massive HP .. build around that base and you should have a good power build.
Also run bird pets … Their f2 + your GS or longbow burst is insane…. It’s really a huge amount of dmg w/ remorseless up. Make sure to run taunt so you’re interrupting them as well.
this is such a fun build. super tanky, tons of utility with BW. I tried MoC as well for that 3s stun, which pretty much guarantees the kill.
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SB is really underwhelming. im really sad about that.
it’s gonna be Aspects dudes.
2k Power
3.8k Armor
231% Crit Damage
Perma Swiftness & Regen, Bulk healing
I think im gonna roll with this for frontline zerging. looks really good. I tested Remorseless in mists, and maul hits very hard. and often.
Regardless of what you think about power ranger, it has never been a competent enough build to compete at higher tier PvP levels or competitive tournaments.
power rangers didn’t need much. just a little push in the right direction.
I think things are very interesting now. but there are a few builds that I can see getting out of hand. this spec revamp has been a great move, and it will only get better in the coming months, if devs nip the OP builds in the bud quickly. for example, might stacking on cele builds is still pretty much insane. but I think there are worse things coming.
overall, im liking the changes as a ranger.
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Did hell just freeze over? Someone actually asked for a nerf to necromancer?
necros are extremely strong right now. at least the onces ive faced today.
I think post patch all the good LB/GS rangers will be running tanky. it’s possible and it hurts still. not a one-trick pony.
You need to relax man. I said I played in their bracket, not that I repeatedly killed them (except for caed but thieves are still getting used to things. That’s not even a bragging point). Somebody was saying I used traps against bad players when in fact I faced nothing but skilled players today.
Traps give an incredible condi spike and cc that are pretty difficult to dodge when on point. Those who are adamantly against traps can wallow in their badness, I don’t really care.
So you say that everyone keeps walking into you, so that you can get a triple kill?
My general rotation is I leap into them lay on some offhand condis, and starting laying down the two traps underneath. They notice this and starting moving away but then I taunt and it’s over.
The multi kills come from chaining taunt into spike trap into entangle usually on point.
the bonfire range nerf was too much. please bring it back to 240, same as the traps.
theorycrafting on paper accomplishes what? you asked if rangers would become viable in sPvP… how do you expect to answer that ON PAPER?
jcbroe will always try =) bless his heart.
but honestly Apoc I feel you want all the answers without any effort or work on your part. another thing u can do is just wait for people to start releasing guides in a few weeks/months, if u don’t want to test things yourself.
im getting about 7k with zerker ammy and no might stacks. it could be the lack of damage mods accounting for a small decrease. I definitely do feel a small decrease. but I don’t think RF itself was touched.
right now im running BW with traps actually. u can potentially hard-CC a bunch of people for 4 seconds with the knockdown and taunt. they stunbreak, do Entangle and profit.
Then you don’t seem to play against very experienced opponents.
been playing against/with caed, phanta, etc. all day. I think im in the right general bracket?
traps are incredibly strong. I can literally nuke a point in seconds, been getting triple kills.
thanks! /15 char
ah thanks. still rough =(
necros are so beastly right now. like, so hot.
im perfectly calm and im not degrading you. im simply “suggesting” you go test some things out yourself before condemning an entire trait line. im also “sharing” with you that it’s been pretty effective on my end. make of that what you will.
who thought of this thing lol? at a certain health, the necro will transfer a bunch of condis back automatically. nerf passive play.
ran into a couple of trap rangers today, they were pretty effective. spike trap knockdown is OP. you just need to play around with it some. you can go very tanky with traps, wildnerness knowledge, quickdraw and rabid stats.
really? been winning plenty of 2v1’s today running 0/0/6/6/6. beastly warden is probably the best thing that happened to us since release. I think my bird died like once to a medi guard but then I just got the other one out and killed him.
my experience, in the bracket im at right now anyway, is that most zerkers have been just feeding in every game. they explode. I think people are still getting the feel for it. regardless, they’ve been dying just from collateral burns and poison mostly.
also, id refrain from giving such general and misled advice. youre obviously struggling and your play needs improvement. you feel vulnerable and youre lashing out. I don’t think youre looking for help, youre basically just venting. this was apparent from your first post. again my suggestion to you is to spend some time with the different builds.
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when people say “good ranger” it usually implies pvp. and yes, it was useless compared to Entangle, which has been the only reasonable choice since spirits got nerfed.