Guild Wars 2

SiR.7156:

Hi, just a quick question: I cannot afford the Apothecary set, anyway I could buy a full set of Cleric’s. Is this build still viable in Cleric’s? I have always wondered why everyone states that Cleric’s does not work with ranger.

You’re fine. Buy the Apothecary you can afford. Fill the rest with “of the Shaman”. Try and get your toughness above 1400, or as close to it as possible. You can use a peice or two of Clerics, but I wouldn’t use more than that. In this build you are all about staying alive via passive healing while your pet kills people anyway. Most of this build’s damage will come from a pet.

I would actually recommend mixing in a healthy dose of “Shaman” gear to anyone trying this out. Macing out on Apoth will give you a ridiculous amount of toughness, but with all the people out there running condition builds, you would do well to put your HP up around 22k -ish

TL;DR -

Make sure every piece has healing
Get toughness up to 1400 minimum
“of the Shaman” everything else.

EDIT for those who HAVE to try it, this build does work with power instead of condition damage. It just isn’t quite as effective due to synergy.

It is neck and neck… I’ll give ya that.

Rok.5260:

Are we really the most hated profession?

By other classes in small skirmish WvW?

Yup.

Reasoning? My signature.

Faeyd.5094:

Fun vid.. do you ever go in with D/D first?

I love seeing 23-25 stacks on them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LTCaT7vpf4

I had been running P/D & SB. I will switch it up and run P/D & D/D and give this a try. I won’t be using caltrops as in a fight where I would need the extra bleeds, the person I’m fighting isn’t dumb enough to stand in it. However, starting a fight with a couple death Blossoms looks like fun…

In the case of the warrior or the ranger, it wasn’t dagger storm that messed them up. It was them shooting. They killed themselves. Daggerstorm reflects all projectiles. Had the warrior or ranger not range attacked me, it wouldn’t have done too much.

Apologies to PvErs. I only WvW with lots of small skirmish roaming.

Thief tears make me so happy I could giggle.

Keep those “nerfs” coming.

I play a thief….

/hugs

About a month ago I switched to a thief because I hate dying in PvP situations. I put together a little bit of the footage, so you guys could pick it apart and give me pointers and whatnot…

Nothing fancy, no music, no flashy commentary, just footage. Take a look at it, and give me some tips and tricks so that I may improve myself. In many of the cases (especially at the beginning) I am not trying to accomplish anything, but just messing around giggling at the numbers. =)

Thanks guys!

Allow me to apologize to all you PvE thieves. I always get caught up in these discussions.

Let me state, for the record….I only play in WvW. I don’t PvE, and therefore do not care about skill rotations.

I agree…thief PvE is painful in dungeons at time.

With that said…allow me to ammend my initial statement…

PvPing thief tears make me happy.

I care what no one says.

In zerg fights, large scale WvW type of massive battles:

30/20/20 full zerker with a splash of Valk and a longbow worked just fine…

Humorless.1573:

ski.4927:

I wish they would leave it as 4sec. 4 sec is fine.

I wish they would lessen spike damage a tad.

I play a Thief.

mmmmmm… tears

And what does 4s change instead of 3s? Other than making P/D damage even worse.

It makes thieves cry.
Thieves crying makes me happy.

I main a thief.

I wish they would leave it as 4sec. 4 sec is fine.

I wish they would lessen spike damage a tad.

I play a Thief.

mmmmmm… tears

WvW roaming:

condition focused BM Bunker

Get Apothecary gear until your toughness is at about 1300-1400 (counting traits)
Get Shaman everything else.
Dwayna Runes

Hope the topic title gave enough info.

If you are the following, look us up:

1. On Henge of Denravi
2. Focus mostly on WvW
3. Play the late shift (2200-1000 PT) -ish
4. Are online Friday and Saturday nights

I know this is a very small number of people, but….we’re here for ya!

La Migra [RUN]
Deporting red names since before we were born

Step 1. Acquire seige blueprints (perhaps have a mesmer port you to the top of the EB JP?)

Step 2. Double click the seige blueprints in your inventory so that you are holding it in your hands.

Step 3. Button 1 will place it for building. Button 2 will put it back in your inventory. Swapping weapons will place the blueprints on the ground for someone else to pick up and use. Already confirmed by Anet to be working as intended.

I can only imagine the tears of joy that would stain the cheeks of the Ranger community if they were to make spirits viable. Even though I have (temporarily?) retired Turkish, I’ve got my fingers crossed for Rangers.

Aragorn was a Ranger.

/thread <—-?

I don’t like sPvP because it is too confining for me. The arenas are too small for my liking.

I thus enjoy WvW over the rest because it gives me the opportunity to meet another player in 1v1 single combat. I will take a player on player fight over a scripted PvE fight every day of the week.

Naming a tiny, tech-y Asura after a tiny particle. Fantastic! I likes it! 9.5/10!

I started GW2 by playing a Norn Ranger, then a Norn Mesmer, yadda yadda. I got tired of having to deal with thieves in WvW and not being able to hit them. I was always whining, moaning, and generally complaining about it. I figured, if ya can’t beat ’em…join ’em

Introducing my current main:

Level 80 tiny Asura Thief…

Crybaby Peepeepants

Open world, castle seige, PvP/RvR goodness.

Oolune.4357:

Great stuff, Xsorus. After watching one of your videos, I guess my question is really how much do you think Pain Inverter does for your build? Is the build worth it without it? No doubt that retaliation and confusion helps a lot. =P

I don’t think otherwise, mind. Just wondering your thoughts on it.

You can check out a couple of my videos on youtube or somewhere buried in these forums. Turkish Krul is my Ranger. I ran the same condition BM bunker build, but Turkish is a Norn. So, when I ran in and caught someone in roots, I would still drop a bonfire on their face, but instead of being able to use PI I would use Sick ‘Em and watch murder ensue. Seeing my Jag hit someone for 6k almost makes me feel bad seeing as how they can’t run from it…

Sebrent.3625:

A good thief can (and will) reset the fight every time they start to lose … until they kill you or get bored/tired/frustrated with trying to kill you.

I hope you don’t mind terrible…but this is going to be my new forums sig. Thanks! edit* [I had to reword it due to size restrictions =(.]

Thief tears taste delicious.

Can I now switch to my Thief as my main for my WvW exploits and not feel bad for being OP? Seriously… Thieving in WvW has felt like cheating thus far and I will be glad when I can own people and not feel bad about it.

I have a feeling that many thieves will quit, roll a different class, then realize that “Oh…we were OP as balls. I guess that nerf wasn’t the end of the world. Back to the thief”

Give them time… the wounds will heal.

Lol…..troll post? Hell with the rest of you crybaby thieves I just can’t tell…

So, the video starts by showing that a thief can act like a complete kitten running around like a chicken with its head cut off, hitting random buttons and tabbing through targets.

Then the video shows how thieves are over powered because they hit like trucks and only get downed when they make a mistake or over-extend themselves?

I can only hope this is all serious. After spending my first few months WvWing as a Ranger…thief tears are delicious when nerfs happen. I now play a (P/D) thief, and I say keep the nerfs comin!

Working toward that reality would be great in theory…but ANet sure seems to LOVE them some zerging. The zergier the better. They will probably take this a step furhter away from your idea and find new and exciting ways for people to zerg even harder…

Linkisdead.9647:

I have run 0/0/30/10/30 for awhile now. Full melee GS with sword n torch. Apothecary w/ dwayna runes. Corruption sigil and energy sigil, thid can be w/e. I use the fern for regen and wolf for fear, both have the insanely useful knockdowns.

Tips:

Torchs 5 most people will dodge out of after a second. Always use your sword 2 skill after you lay this down because the leap will give you fire aura. For very skilled players sometimes I do the 2 skill on sword, then use campfire on myself befoe I leap back at them. This means no matter where they run to you will get fire aura.

I usually open the fight with sword 3 because it gives me an instant advantage putting me right behind them. Campfire right after that then 2 on sword.

Stack healing power with regen signet…watch players run away when they realize your health just won’t go down.

I took the 10 points out of the vitality tree and put them in the precision tree for 30% bigger crits on the cat. I find that is where most of my burst comes from is the Jaguar. Also, I almost ONLY ever use Torch 5 after I catch someone in Entangling roots. I have found entangling roots allows my bonfire to hit, and allows my cat to hit = dead person. I also found swapping from sword torch to shortbow to have more utility than GS, mostly because I am still landing 110 bleed ticks with it while comeone is running or kiting.

I used to use the spirit in a full bunker build.

If you are traited for the spirit to move, it will follow you like a pet, otherwise it will spawn where you cast it and stay there.

The spirit is basically a really powerful Heal over Time. I dont remember how much it used to tick for, but it was quite a bit, and was AoE.

The /use ability is a PBAoE revive/cure that will fire where the spirit is when you activate it.

WvW skirmish sword/torch build, you say? That’s just my bag…

0/10/30/0/30

BM Bunker condition spec. Not as good as it once was, but still quite viable in skirmish I’ve found.

Gear: healthy mix of Apoth and Shaman. Get up to about 1350-1400 toughness and then stack vitality. Rune them with Dwayna.

Use whichever heal suits you best, the speed signet, and the rejuv signet.

Eat Mango pie and condition damage crystals.

Use Jaguar and Fernhound.

Questions?

Durzlla.6295:

ski.4927:

People are misunderstanding the situation. Allow me to explain…

If you are saying that compared to other classes, Rangers are not up to par in small fights, you are correct. We’re not. We’re below average in comparison.

However, in large group zerg fights? angers are fine. Yeah, I said it. We’re fine. Hell, I could even go full berserker longbow and be fine in a zerg. It’s a zerg. You could run naked and be fine in a zerg. Stop crying and go zerg. Zerger Zergiepants…

I am talking about a player versus a player. PvP. Which is what I spend my time doing in WvW. And in this scenario. 1 class vs 1 other class….Ranger is the only class I have never lost to on any of the toons I have played. If you find yourself uncaring about the situation I am describing, then go discuss something else.

Um…. Rangers EXCEL at 1v1s and become less useful in zergs…. For skirmishing rangers are one of the best profs, second to thieves (who are -supposed- to be “best” for 1v1s)

Being the best 1v1er in WvW is like being the best in the special Olympics, it’s not that big of an accomplishment when you look at some of the crazy kitten you can do by inflating your stats to an ungodly high.

Go to sPvP if you want “oh well I’ve won X 1v1s on Y prof and haven’t lost!” To even carry weight.

But….but…..

I prefer the feel of roaming in open world, not the same little boxes over and over again.

I like fighting people who have optimized their character, leveled up through 80 levels of practice, and are fighting at peak levels, not people who created a new character, are level 3, and running “BGs” over and over again because they have ADHD.

I have sPvPed before, rarely, if ever, did I get to experience a 1v1 before someone else (good or bad) came along to help. I have, however, had many good 1v1s while roaming out in open WvW. I am an RvR junkie from back in the days of DAoC. I am not a WoW battleground humper.

Also, I know what Rangers can do in a 1v1. I’ve done it myself. My point is, I have never lost to one. Across all of my characters, expecially is Rangers are indeed good in 1v1s, why is it that I have lost to every class, even if only once, but never lost to a ranger? That’s all I’m trying to figure out.

That is correct.

That would be fantastic!

They could call it:

“Kill THAT mother kitten!”

/signed.

Unfortunately, with the recent quickness nerf, the pet swapping stomp usually ends up getting interrupted now.

With that said, and I know it is not optimal AT ALL, I took a little comfort in Shared Anguish (III in the Wilderness Survival tree). I know I know, it’s only once every 90 seconds and many times it gets used up in combat. But, when this actually eats an interrupt and allows a stomp, it has to make ya giggle a little bit.

Sadly to say, since the quickness nerf, successful first attempt stomps are hard to come by.

People are misunderstanding the situation. Allow me to explain…

If you are saying that compared to other classes, Rangers are not up to par in small fights, you are correct. We’re not. We’re below average in comparison.

However, in large group zerg fights? angers are fine. Yeah, I said it. We’re fine. Hell, I could even go full berserker longbow and be fine in a zerg. It’s a zerg. You could run naked and be fine in a zerg. Stop crying and go zerg. Zerger Zergiepants…

I am talking about a player versus a player. PvP. Which is what I spend my time doing in WvW. And in this scenario. 1 class vs 1 other class….Ranger is the only class I have never lost to on any of the toons I have played. If you find yourself uncaring about the situation I am describing, then go discuss something else.

Shiren.9532:

ski.4927:

I have spent my entire GW2 life, outside of leveling the characters and farming money for gear, roaming WvW.

I avoid zerging and look for the small skirmish fights. 1v1s 1v2s and such.

I have over 3,000 kills. No zerging.

I have experienced a great deal of success as my:
-Ranger, Turkish Krul
-Mesmer, Phorin Krul
-Guardian, Inquisitor Krul, OR
-Thief, Crybaby Peepeepants. (Toon created because Anet obviously thinks thieves are working as intended and I got tired of whining about it. I was going to name him Nerf Thieves but the name was taken.

Now the reason I went through all of that was so that the following made any kind of sense.

I win fights WAAY more than I lose. I hate to die, or even get downed. You can watch a couple videos I put up of Turkish roaming.

At one point or another, I have either had my butt handed to me, or lost a fight to EVERY class in the game…. Except Ranger.

On any character, I have never lost a 1v1 to a Ranger. Ever. I HAVE lost to everything else, even if only once or twice.

What can that tell me about Rangers?

Have you fought many tanky beast master rangers? Most rangers in WvW build for ranged damage, zerg warfare or supply camp flipping. Roaming rangers are far less common than most professions because the best builds for it (imo the tanky beast master build) don’t translate well to other elements of the game. A glass cannon crit damage mesmer is going to do well in a zerg, a dungeon or while roaming. A beast master ranger is still going to have a dead pet in a zerg and in a dungeon, only this time they won’t be able to do much damage themselves.

The ranger is in a unique position where their class mechanic is viable in one element of the game (sPvP) but it’s terrible in another (dungeons). Stealth, attunement swapping, adrenaline, death shroud, clones and the tool belt all work fine in dungeons so build which support them don’t suffer dramatically. Pets don’t work fine in zergs and they don’t work fine in dungeons so many rangers don’t build them (it’s wasted trait points and often armour sets if you choose to run clerics) because you are building for a very niche area of the game. The tanky BM rangers I have seen videos of make very effective use of the self healing (BM 30 point trait, Signet of the Wild, Healing Spring plus two regen traits), the great DPS a pet can provide in 1 v 1 combat (remember that most content in GW2 favours AoE whereas almost every pet does single target damage) and the somewhat tankyness of having high toughness and vitality (and sometimes even Barkskin) combined with high healing power. Most classes would hit like a wet noodle when built like this, but many rangers can build like this to tank their opponent and still do decent DPS via their pet and condition damage.

It’s possible you just never faced off against a proper roaming ranger build.

On Turkish, I AM a proper roaming ranger build. I preferred my BM bunker to be condition vs. power, but I know myway around a ranger. Of course I have come across some of them. They, too, have not taken me down. Remember, I don’t zerg. Most Rangers I have come across were not GC specced, but some other spec. I have seen trap rangers and BM bunkers. Been killed by everything else, but never by a ranger. Ever. In any form.

You can watch a coupe of my videos on youtube regarding bm bunker range roaming. Name’s Turkish Krul, I have a couple of video threads up ni the ranger forums somewhere…

I have spent my entire GW2 life, outside of leveling the characters and farming money for gear, roaming WvW.

I avoid zerging and look for the small skirmish fights. 1v1s 1v2s and such.

I have over 3,000 kills. No zerging.

I have experienced a great deal of success as my:
-Ranger, Turkish Krul
-Mesmer, Phorin Krul
-Guardian, Inquisitor Krul, OR
-Thief, Crybaby Peepeepants. (Toon created because Anet obviously thinks thieves are working as intended and I got tired of whining about it. I was going to name him Nerf Thieves but the name was taken.

Now the reason I went through all of that was so that the following made any kind of sense.

I win fights WAAY more than I lose. I hate to die, or even get downed. You can watch a couple videos I put up of Turkish roaming.

At one point or another, I have either had my butt handed to me, or lost a fight to EVERY class in the game…. Except Ranger.

On any character, I have never lost a 1v1 to a Ranger. Ever. I HAVE lost to everything else, even if only once or twice.

What can that tell me about Rangers?

In small scale player v players fights, thieves are terribly OP.

I play a thief.

In small scale player v player fights I am terribly OP.

I have much experience tooling around in WvW.

I have videos up of my ranger Turkish Krul.

I have roamed as a Mesmer.

I have over 3,000 kills and I rarely, if ever, run with a zerg.

I play a thief.

I am terribly, ridiculously, and WAAAAY….over….powered.

I don’t think it could work that way as it could allow thieves to, say, place the traps in front of keep doors, wait for a person to run inside, and then teleport into the keep. There needs to be a way for them to stop us from exploiting it. That kind of thing aside, I do wish it worked that way. Porting across a map onto someone would be fantastic.

@Holy Devastation…

I am confused by what it is you are looking for here. How is a 1v1 fight in sPvP more challenging and skillful that a 1v1 fight in WvW. You said that food buff gives a disadvantage, but the person I’m fighting also has a food buff. So, we are still on equal ground.

What is it you are looking for?

3 things can happen if indeed what happened was that the crit calculation for the pet special abilities was changed:

1. They acknowledge it was intentional
2. They acknowledge it was unintentional, and “plan” to fix it.
3. They don’t acknowledge this, that, or any other thing we scream about on these forums. (For example, the changes promised in November that we still haven’t seen).

I really can’t see a scenario where Anet catches onto something this minor to them and fixes it soon.

This could spell the end to a powerful bunker BM. Sad Turkish…. =(

So it isn’t all of the damage, it is the crit calculation on Maul for the Jaguar (and perhaps other pet special abilities) ?

We need to find out if this is broken or intentional. This could be the end of me running Bunker BM. =(

I have a couple of videos up on these forums in which you can see some 4k, 5k, and 6k + crits from the Jaguar in WvW. 2 mornings of testing that now since the patch and I have not been able to achieve these numbers anymore. I have changed nothing.

And you folks that tested this and saw NO change from before are all BM specced?

My concern is that they may not have changed base pet values, but somehow tweaked the benefits from a full 30 points of the BM trait line.

I wouldn’t exactly hold my breath on this one.

I think it will play out as a bunch of us testing, seeing that the damage has been reduced, protesting, being ignored, and moving on further into anonononimity…

So worried about this. All I do is WvW roam and BM Bunker is the only way that has been really successful. As a straight bunker it takes like 8 minutes to kill anyone, and as glass cannon running solo is almost always death.

Oh noes…..

Gigantic.8042:

edit:-
added another shot

A bandana.

win.

I have been a BM bunker/CD build for awhile now. I have loved every minute of it.

This morning, post-patch, I went out for my usual WvW romp, and definately noticed my pet dying more than it used to. (I think they also buffed the mobs that attack the frogs in EB). But, after the play this morning, I am now considering moving away from Empathic Bond as what it seems inherently good for now is getting my pet killed. I may have to keep it as it is my only form of CD removal, but it is quite a bit weaker than it was when it was “broken”.

That is my concern. I am worried that , while they may not have nerfed the inherent damage of pets, maybe they nerfed the damage added by a BM build?

My cat’s damage directly after the patch was noticabley lower than pre-patch. I need all BM Rangers to check this out.

Wouldn’t that just be the icing on the Ranger-hate cake?

Also, regarding pets seemingly chasing after a thief that hasn’t come out of stealth yet…

The pet is not doing this. What the pet is doing is chasing the thief that HAS come out of stealth, and has just not rendered to the player yet. I have seen this happen many times on my adventures in WvW. The thief will stealth, my pet will return to my side for a second and then run off in a particular direction. That is because the game mechanics of the pet can “see” the thief again. Call it culling, call it whatever you want, it is what it is. You can watch many many thief videos where the thief sees himself come out of stealth, but the person he is fighting acts like he can’t see the thief. It’s because he can’t. The thief hasn’t rendered yet.

Hey peoples….

Turkish here.

Do some tests for me, but after this patch, I was out recording footage all morning this morning in WvW, and something didn’t quite feel right. Before this patch, I regularly recorded hits from my Jaguar topping 3k, 4k, 5k, and sometimes even 6k. I mean, I hit like a wet noodle, as I am BM bunker spec, and my playstyle is all about staying alive while the pet tries to kill things. So this type of damage, I figured, was what it should be.

However, this morning, I went back through all the post-patch footage I recorded and in all the fights, even against people who were leveled up to 80, I never saw a hit from my pet even top 3K. I believe 2800 was the highest hit I saw, and that was only once.

I am worried. Very worried.

Was this just a bad morning // fluke, or did the jaguar (or our pets in general) get their damage stealth nerfed?!

Hey peoples….

Turkish here.

Do some tests for me, but after this patch, I was out recording footage all morning this morning in WvW, and something didn’t quite feel right. Before this patch, I regularly recorded hits from my Jaguar topping 3k, 4k, 5k, and sometimes even 6k. I mean, I hit like a wet noodle, as I am BM bunker spec, and my playstyle is all about staying alive while the pet tries to kill things. So this type of damage, I figured, was what it should be.

However, this morning, I went back through all the post-patch footage I recorded and in all the fights, even against people who were leveled up to 80, I never saw a hit from my pet even top 3K. I believe 2800 was the highest hit I saw, and that was only once.

I am worried. Very worried.

Was this just a bad morning // fluke, or did the jaguar (or our pets in general) get their damage stealth nerfed?!

Fraps…

http://www.fraps.com/