Guild Wars 2

Trigger.1963:

When do these changes take place??

Probably around September.

Bryzy.2719:

Yeah it’ll be interesting to see what additions, if any, we get to our survivability considering zerker rangers go down faster than a Malaysian airliner.

…ouch.

Keep wiping those tears fellow rangers, soon they will be tattooed under our eyes…

Well guys, this preview seemmed… /wipes tear amazing.

So for those who missed it, some goodies to come:
- Signet actives are now baseline for ranger as well
- Longbow auto damagefurther increased on AA
- Read the wind now increases attack speed as well
- Rapid fire cast time reduced
- Entangle cooldown reduced to 60 seconds
- Maul now hits 5 people
- Swoop now has evade before it hits
- Strider’s defence has now 20% block chance
- BM traits like rending barb or stability training are not linked to a family of pets
- New Grandmaster trait in MM, deal extra damage to targets with hindered movement (cripple, chill, immob)

…do let me know in case I missed something.

jcbroe.4329:

Traits:
Marksmanship:

• Read the Wind: Current functionality becomes baseline functionality for the weapons it currently effects. New Effect: “Deal 5% more damage to moving foes while wielding a bow. Critical Hits on a moving foe cause 5 seconds of Cripple. 15 second ICD.”

I thought you were of the oppinion that read the wind is a good grandmaster trait, and rangers should make choices, and shouldn’t have all the lonbgow traits available at any one time. And now you propose +100% arrow speed as base line functionality. What happened?

Longbow:

• Hunter’s Shot: Additional Effect: “Also applies a 2 second immobilize to the target.The pet is also stealthed.”

I think this is relly overpowered. A skill with a 12 second cooldown adds stealth to both you and your pet, gives pet swiftness and 2 seconds of immobilize on target. This is too much for 1 skill. I would like it don’t get me wrong, but it will never happen.

They mostly discussed how the ranger should be. little was added (and even that was not what was said during the CDI)…. as one wold expect.

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/c/4456907 this is from 3 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago there as the first points of inerest where they discussed living story mostly.

Oh I missed the last line. Forget about buffng the pet then.

You mean he balnce philosphy ready up? Don’t think they metioned a complete redesign.

To be honest I don’t really see where you noticed a 2% damage reduction looking at your build. If you hit with 1k-ish auto attacks with your sword thats 20-40 points of damage.

As for your build I’d only put 2 into Marksmanship. Since you have a nice crit chance and you have 15 points into Nature magic I’d put those 2 points into skirmishing. Thats some more precision, 10% crit damage, and you could take Companion’s might. Swap out sigil of force for sigil of strength for on crit might. Get food with on crit might and you will give some pretty darn good might to your pet.

If you’re happy with the amount of condi cleanse you have I’d go with quickening zephir, sic’em or signet of the hunt. If you have enough money for it I’d go for runes of speed, helps a lot with roaming in wvw.

For pets you can take a variety as you need. River drake for camps, wolf is pretty useful, but you could take felines or birds as well. Not sure whether you’d want spiders. They hit hard, but don’t attack that often, and they are mostly for cc. And you seem to be a melee build?!

I’d swap torch for axe, since you’re a power build. Not sure what the playstyle is, axe mainhand seems strange. I’d take that as a short range kiting weapon, but you are not a condi build, sooo…. what’s the deal there?

This is what I ran with s/wh.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNIQNBlYDbkRlOWbZxfFuWDkIUsCg3RRwOzuX3UIqTY1hNG-TFTDwAMeAA9U6N5IAwSHwTlBvU/pyBBAkmBMXAAFKBBY653+DBAOAY6AhAYPBA-w

Some 1v1 pvp duels with commentary against other profs or even against rangers would be much appreciated by all I am sure.

As much as I can understand your viewes on some forum commenters on the ranger forums, I think you guys could help other rangers become better with some nice tutorial vids. A few good videos can go a long way. I understand that its usually on the player to have the drive to become better. Even though its not what you guys set out to do, some video tutorials would be great help to the community I feel. I understand that its exponentionally more work compared to the current podcast, but since you don’t have much to discuss (and I think Season 2 launch will only add 1-2 more instanced content where you can discuss how much pets suck) this might be something helpful. Even if its 5-10 min vids every two/four weeks, it would be something.

Ropechef.6192:

I would put rangers in a solid third, if not tied with Mesmer for second.

(does the sword AA help or hinder this i am actually curious.)

It is not effective. You can try in wvw to attack a rabbit and spam autoattack, as the 2nd hit is a leap. Unfortunately the range is not that great, there is an aftercast, and it only lasts for 1 second or so. If you want to use it on mobs you will be in combat. You are bette off running with 25% speed increase.

You are right. I shouldn’t comment on the forums before 8 am it seems.

Well that seems interesting. Opening strikes gained from stealth is 6 deep in skirmishing (crit chance and damage), while piercing arrows is 4 deep into marksmanship (power, con.damage). Soooo, how was he tanky? Did he have high toughness, hp, heals? I cannot for the life of me imagine a tanky ranger dealing good damage with longbow. Or did you mean that he was elisive?

Our AoE IS poor. Barrage is a channeled skill that does damage over time and has a long cooldown. For it to deal good damage you have to be a true glass cannon, and you don’t want to stand in one place channeling barrage in most situations if you are. It can also be countered pretty easily by getting protection or just leaving the circle.

Some tips:

1 – Skill points can be refunded anytime free of charge whenever you are out of combat. This is amazing! Experiment around.
2 – Both greatsword and longbow have nice utility to keep you alive. With LB #3 you can get stealth to give you some breathing room and reposition, while GS 4 is one of the best skills in game. At range it is a 3 second block, at melee it will block and you will counter attack for good damage, and when you block you can throw it to inflict cripple and deal damage.
3 – Your main sources of damage are autoattack and maul on GS and the autoattack at 1000+ range on LB. These weapons are best used in power based builds, so you should look for gear with stats in Power as a primary stat. You can then add precision and ferocity, or toughness and vitality if you need to be meatier.
4 – GS #3 skill swoop lets you travel around the map quicker. If you don’t have a targe selected you will run in the direction you are facing.
5 – If you run around mobs with GS auto-attack you will get hit much less. The last attack on the auto attack chain gives you evade, whice means you don’t get hit by anything, and some mobs turn rather slowly anyways.
6 – For leveling your best buddy when you go melee is a Feline pet (one of the cats), or a bird pet (Owl, Raven, Eagle, Hawk). If you go ranged you can choose a bear or lizard as they are rather tanky, or go with a dog/wolf or a spider to control your opponents better.

For leveling you don’t actually need a guide/build specifically, as most NPC-s are easy to fight once you get the hang of GW2 fights. I’d suggest getting all power gear and use longbow if that’s your thing. However – and its a pretty big however – when you reach lvl80 and you want to go into wvw, or you want to do dungeons you will find that Longbow is not the best of weapons to have there. Therefore I would suggest getting familiar with sword, warhorn, axe off-hand skills, as these can be very useful in dungeons.

Yeah I miss him too. Maybe he is outraged by ESO skill spam….

+1 for justice!

I’m glad you have success with your lb ranger. I’ve been running into warriors and thieves all day long and 0 kittens were given about my damage. Warrior uses block and just walks up, thief has many ways of teleporting to you too. And everyone who thinks PBS and Rapid fire will kill a decent thief will have a very rude awakening coming. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best pvper around, but I would say I’m not the worst either. I’ve dusted off my PVT armor, kept my zerker trinkets and ran sword/wh, gs instead Today with martial mastery and two-handed mastery. Didn’t play it extensively but it looked like fun. Was pretty survivable, and as expected had lame damage.

I’ve been running full zerker ranger recently, and yesterday I did run Lonbow with 6/6/x specifically. I could hit people for 3k with 2700 power, but never saw 5k. Maybe with air and fire sigils together you can hit for 5k. Or with moment of clarity.

See below the outcome of fights depending on your opponent:
- bad players you will wreck in 5 secods.
- mediocre players will be able to beat if they do not run an optimized build.
- good players will be able to close the gap, know what to dodge, when to block. Wolf fear will be inefficient against them as it will rarely hit, and squishies will have escapes you cannot prevent.

This is a solo perspective. If you have even 1 more player with you who knows what he’s doing, you will perform much better. Zerker longbow ranger is just not a roaming build…. yet.

You can gradually change your zerker pieces to pvt or knights gear and will be a bit more survivable, but your damage will be reduced so far that you will be able to annoy the kitten out of people if you play really good and can stay alive long enough…. and they will run away and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Hey Jebro, nice to see some enthusiasm for rangers.

Some things to consider:
- if you enter a fight with a stowed pet, you get the petswap quickness proc with the first hit, and it has no internal cooldown, which means as soon as it expires you can pet swap. It won’t be as effective on your build however, as you lack high precision, earth runes on shortbow, or high power to really capitalize on it. Dispite what most people let you believe you can hit pretty decent damage with a shortbow and quickness IF you are full zerker.
- if you like burning people you will find that they don’t stay in your triggered traps for long and it won’t apply long burns without traiting into it. You can however take advantage of your shortbow having 3 100% projectile finishers, and your autoattack, which is quite quick and also has 20% chance to be a projectile finisher.
- I would try out rending attacks instead of vigorous training. With shortbow #4 and Lynx F2 and auto you can stack some pretty decent amount of bleeds. It won’t do as much damage as yours since pets don’t share the ranger’s condition damage, but it will scare some people for sure. Lynx F2 also deals pretty good direct damage. And you do seem to have quite a lot of evades/dodges already.

I first thought this was a buff to ranger shortbow. It definately explains why I ate so many eviscerates during the weekend.

Yeah, mesmer vs ranger is a tough matchup for us “survivalists”, especially on shortbow.

I wouldn’t invest traits/sigils into bleeding with such low condition damage. Also, if you use sigil of strength on your shortbow, you could use Pet’s prowess and Companion’s might for some nice pet damage. I pair it with sigil of purity, and I use healing spring instead of TU. As a ranger you cannot have too much condi cleanse.

Here’s the build I run:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/WvW-Skirmisher-build-Zerker-BM/first#post4010085

Lightsbane.9012:

nagymbear.5280:

Lightsbane.9012:

nagymbear.5280:

Lightsbane.9012:

Casey.9687:

Hey now im just saying it needs to be returned to its original speed, i dont need a lecture on the class.

obviously that’s not true if that’s how you want to play it.

How do YOU want to play a shortbow ranger then? I’m listening. Looking for input on all those godly shortbow combo shots….

i don’t want to play a shortbow ranger. retal/confusion>you. 90% of short bow is condi.

Dropping targets all the time by cloning/teleporting/stealthing>retal+confusion.

which the ranger can’t do at all. subject switch so soon? anyway, increasing the sb speed(i honestly haven’t noticed the drop in wvw) would i guess mean bleeds are applied quicker.

The ranger also cannot have retal and confusion unless you mean perplexity runes and axe5. In which case btw its not retal and confusion that will kill you, its the reflect. I thought you meant a mesmer vs ranger matchup, and to be honest I’ve never been killed by retal on my shortbow. Confusion can suck, but you can build to have decent condi removal for that. What I meant was, that on a mesmer I’m more worried about him/her dropping the target all the time, as we don’t have bouncy arrows like thieves, and shortbow is about single target damage.

And when you say you fortunately don’t play a ranger, I know that you put in 0 effort of trying to play it like its meant to be. There have been players recently showing up on the ranger forums who were getting bored of their guard/mesmer/engie/thief and tried ranger. And guess what, some of them actually like it. Its not just 1 spam. That’s where your damage will come from, but its hardly the fault of ranger players. It is so by design.

Well yeah, it sucks that you need an elite to apply proper conditions with traps. Would be nice though with all them fields and such… for single target it actually could be better to use combos instead of planning on kiting opponents in the trap. Give it a try. Something like 0/2/6/0/6 with runes of strength. Your pet will hit pretty hard if you can cc your opponents. In wvw with I can stack 20 might with companion’s might and ghost pepper poppers on my owl. Hits fir 2700*2 with F2. And wolf knockdown on weaponswap (with quickness), followed by its other hard hitting skill…. yeah its something like a 3k crit for each of those.

Lightsbane.9012:

nagymbear.5280:

Lightsbane.9012:

Casey.9687:

Hey now im just saying it needs to be returned to its original speed, i dont need a lecture on the class.

obviously that’s not true if that’s how you want to play it.

How do YOU want to play a shortbow ranger then? I’m listening. Looking for input on all those godly shortbow combo shots….

i don’t want to play a shortbow ranger. retal/confusion>you. 90% of short bow is condi.

Dropping targets all the time by cloning/teleporting/stealthing>retal+confusion.

Lightsbane.9012:

Casey.9687:

Hey now im just saying it needs to be returned to its original speed, i dont need a lecture on the class.

obviously that’s not true if that’s how you want to play it.

How do YOU want to play a shortbow ranger then? I’m listening. Looking for input on all those godly shortbow combo shots….

Carpboy.7145:

And i want to be able to machine gun backstabs! Anet plz

When your backstabs will hit for 1k max on the squishiest of targets, you can have your machinegunbackstabs.

dancingmonkey.4902:

How is "shotgun"ing grenades relevant to “Machine gun”ing a bow?

All the shot gunning of grenades does is use them at close range and cut out travel time because we leave no distance to travel. Bow has less travel time at close range, thus very literally does machine gun the arrows in the same manner that grenades are shot gunned. So your comparison there is irrelevant, because it is inaccurate.

SB machine gunning is also affected by cast time and aftercast, not hust arrow travel time.

Lightsbane.9012:

…lmao all i see in this video is 1oneoneone11111oneone …. part of the major problems rangers face are the fault of the player….

Ranger damage mostly comes from autoattack, apart from some skills like axe #4 and GS #2. Sooo…. whose fault is it that someone wants to play 1111111one11one1oneone1111 on ranger? Its how they work.

I don’t really miss anything in attack speed to be honest. If SB could be traited to give 1200 range with eagle eye, that would be pretty nice though.

solrik.6028:

kiwituatara.6053:

Mayn. I’d like them to bring Zephyr’s Speed back to 5BM instead of the full 30

That would be really OP…

Atm with 30 in BM, we can have 15 seconds of quickness, which can be pretty kitten strong if you can CC your enemy.

This… Y U no run quickness on petswap community?!

Did they extend shortbow evade? It seems a bit longer now on my charr. Previously the evade lasted only until I landed after the shot-jump, now my charr evades a bit longer.

Keep in mind though that it works limited the other way around (you having direct damage, pet having condi damage). While some pets can apply bleeds condition damage and healing power all 0 for pets. They can be traited to be 350 higher, but that’s about it.

Here’s a build I’v been running mostly since the patch. I find it really fun, and have pretty good results actually. Its sort of a berzerker beastmaster with lots of condi clear. You can stack might on the pet really fast at the beginning of the fight by entering combat with shotbow and a stowed pet. When you enter combat your pet is summoned giving you 3 seconds of quicness straight away. With owl it means it will get off its animation for the swiftness quicker, and by the time it gets to its target it will have close to 20 might stacks in the day, and you will be slowing your targets with chill during the night. This is as close to kiting as you can get IMO. Anyways nothing new under the sun probably, but give it a try if you have zerker gear layin around. All gear should be pretty cheap. Have fun!

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNIQNBlYDbkRlOWbZxfFuWDkIUsCg3RRwOzuX3UIqTY1hNG-TFTDwAMeAA9U6N5IAwSHwTlBvU/pyBBAkmBMXAAFKBBY653+DBAOAY6AhAYPBA-w

Keep the rampager gear, cultural armor isn’t exactly cheap. Luckily for you shortbow could be very much of use to you. If you run a hybrid stat build you will benefit from Might a lot. And with sigil of strength you can keep 10 stacks of might on you with a shortbow. What build/traits to use doesn’t matter much while you are leveling, but I would play around with food that gives might on crit, companion’s might and fortifying bond. See how you like that type of gameplay. I think a rampager ranger buffing itself with might and its pet as well can be good, but you will be made of paper mostly. Ghost pepper poppers are you kind of food when you hit 80, with might or chill (no internal cooldown!!!!!!) on crit.

RashanDale.3609:

nagymbear.5280:

In my experience it looks reaaaally squishy even with pvt/knights gear. No condi clear aside from healing spring is a death sentence in wvw. But do try it out, pvt armor should be pretty accessible (for Ascalonian tears for example). If you find your damage lacking mix in more zerker as you learn to play. If you can get hunter’s shot and rapid fire to hit and sic’em after that, you might have good damage, but you need your pet to actually hit for that. I’d avoid using 2 kittys outside dungeons though, get another pet for control (spider or canine). Icy pounc is nice, but canine knockdown is better IMO.

well, thanks. but what else can i bring for condition removal? should i take evasive purity or do i have to use a bear as my second pet? i dont really want to use the stuff that transfers the conditions to my pet.

If you don’t want to transfer conditions to your pet you could invest 30 into nature magic to get the new GM trait for condi removal. Or you could add a sigil of purity to your longbow. Other than that not much come to mind which doesn’t kill the pet (aside from maybe Signet of Renewal passive). This means sacrifices.

Tragic Positive.9356:

nagymbear.5280:

I mostly run jungle spider/wolf with zerker gear recently. The ranged attack on the spider hits pretty reliably. It can score 1k normal attacks with 30 in BM.
…

You probably are right… But there’s one condition. Rampage as one is weak as spider (low attack speed). If you want a Ranged pet – I suggest going for Devourers. They even have a knockback and their single attack count as two sources of damage – giving double might in comparison to Spiders.

Plus I found Zerker gear not so efficient with Pet damage. It doesn’t scale at all and it leaves both of you very vulnerable. If you want Zerker Gear – you’d be better off with standard Ranger DMG output build probably with Skirmishing traits for better Pet Crits and pet might on crit. There – you need neither the healing power from Beast Mastery nor you loose might on pet swapping.

You need to factor in the burrow as well, which will mean your devourer is not attacking for a good 2-3 seconds. I find spiders better, with poison and immobilize you get a lot of utility. And I don’t run rampage as one for stacking might on myself, I run it for the stability and swiftness.

RashanDale.3609:

noob ranger here, having the same issue. would something like this work?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQNBjYD7kRFaF0WWwiF4axABTxhS07RsUf79HQVGLtStI-zECBYfAYgRmyIQEBwpmFRjtoqIasalYaYER1BAQACb2mBDdoDdoDdodzbezbezbGA-w

not sure where to put the last 5(1) traitpoints. not sure about the adept major in nature magic either.

In my experience it looks reaaaally squishy even with pvt/knights gear. No condi clear aside from healing spring is a death sentence in wvw. But do try it out, pvt armor should be pretty accessible (for Ascalonian tears for example). If you find your damage lacking mix in more zerker as you learn to play. If you can get hunter’s shot and rapid fire to hit and sic’em after that, you might have good damage, but you need your pet to actually hit for that. I’d avoid using 2 kittys outside dungeons though, get another pet for control (spider or canine). Icy pounc is nice, but canine knockdown is better IMO.

I mostly run jungle spider/wolf with zerker gear recently. The ranged attack on the spider hits pretty reliably. It can score 1k normal attacks with 30 in BM. I tried a build Today (1/4/0/3/6) with ghost pepper poppers and sigil of strength together with fortifying bond and companion’s might with a shorbow. I hit most people for 600-700 crits something like twice a second with petswap quickness. It was pretty fun and had a good chance against most players 1v1 even in zerker gear. You will have a hard time dealing high pet dps against good players with melee pets though (birds included). I wish we had a UI where I can see boons and conditions on pets, but I easily could hold up 10-15 might stacks on the pet just with autoattack.

For pets try jungle spider. It has decent damag (at range too, which means more reliable hits) and lots of immobilize. Pair it with wolf for the fear. For gear, if you have laurels get berserker amulet and rings (just mind that you cannot use 2 of a kind, so they need different slots), and get berserker ruby earrings. You can get full rabid armor for karma. You can use runes of speed, which will allow you to run 3 actual utilities. Here is what I run currently http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMIQNBMhVakRlOWbZxfFuWEIbBMFHSi8ekesnI6P4fpsiosED-zEzAYrAiwgoMQkHASEYOsIasFzioxqXwUlJV5KI7NSqPALAwBATHIFAMzBA-w.

When you enter combat you could take full advantage of your longbow with quickness. Stow pet before combat. Call of the wild > switch to LB > Long range shot (you get quickness for entering combat as it is sort of a pet swap) > after 3 seconds pet swap. You basically have 6 seconds of quickness with LB which is enough time to get off rapid fire and barrage. I wouldn’t start with Hunter’s call. Since you don’t run off-hand training its rather short range and probably not that great damage. You can apply more pressure with LB at the beginning of the fight.

Autoattack that cannot be reflected? While tht would be fun, why would reflect be a thing then?

I just noticed that Zephyr’s speed triggers on entering combat if you have your pet stowed, and doesn’t have an ICD, so you can swap when quickness is off for another 3 secs. Might not been news to others though.

I have been quite critical on Read the Wind, and I just tried it out in wvw roaming. Results have been mixed due to yolo warriors and my not so uber skills. However Longbow does feel awesome with Read the Wind so it seems I might have been wrong on this. I run it with eagle eye, and didn’t seem to miss piercing arrows yet. I have been running this build for a few hours. It seems pretty good. It turns out that entering combat with a stowed pet does trigger Zephyr’s speed, and it has no ICD. This means you can enter combat, have 3 seconds of quickness, swap pet, and have another 3 seconds. I have Air and Fire sigils in my LB, I might try it out with sigil of rage later.

thefantasticg.3984:

Ha! Me? An elitist? Really? Wow! 1st time I get called that. 1st time for everything I guess. Insult me all you like but that doesn’t change the fact that if you are dying because of the sword auto attack it is your own fault for not getting better through improving your knowledge of the encounters, etc (as I have pointed out already) or because you refuse to turn off auto attack. That’s all on you, Snowflake.

Hey, if you want to whine about it, you go right ahead. Don’t blame me when it gets nerfed because of you people. Just like when they “fixed” the “bug” on the shortbow auto attack.

Its a bug, dodge doesn’t active while you channel. “Learning to play with sword” is a work-around for that bug. When you say its rewarding when you can pull it off you are being ignorant. And your suggestion is that everyone else “learns to play with sword”. Well other people see it for the bug it is I guess. I probably won’t be able to open your eyes, so go ahead and feel a sense of accomplishment for using sword.

Prysin.8542:

Dahkeus.8243:

Silentshoes.1805:

Doesn’t poison prevent 33% of healing? That affects total damage.

I.e., health bar drop.

Yes, but you don’t need a grandmaster trait for that. There are many ways to keep up 100% or near 100% poison duration on your target without such a high cost, such as using shortbow #2 at point blank range.

The 50% damage increase from the trait also has no affect on the heal reduction aspect of poison.

sword + dagger is infinitive better at keeping up poison.

Shortbow in point blank range will get you killed unless your enemy is missing both legs and eyes.

The point is that with +50% damage and 100% upkeep, you will no longer be able to just quietly ignore it as today.

If you want you can keep a 100% uptime Today. +50% damag sounds good, but it is 100 damage per second increase on 1200 condition damage. I would call it insignificant, and to be honest poison should have received some added functionality, not a damage buff.

Every other weapon’s autoattack chain can be overriden by dodge. Longe range shot, axe auto (yeah its a short channel and can be interrupted), and even greatsword autoattack Hell, you can dodge mid evade on AA3 on GS. All your post does is show you as an elitist, ignorant, condescending man. Please stop talking about the bug on sword auto like its a feature, and everyone complaining is a noob.

thefantasticg.3984:

Fairytayl.1035:

TLDR : sword “problems” only applies to a niche of players.

Yes. This we can agree on.

Dodge should override attack chain IMO. I don’t see any argument for the opposite. It just doesn’t make sense. We are not the only ones though, Thief shortbow auto aftercast prevents instant evade as well.