Curse

lord of shadow · Jun 13, 2006, 09:09 PM // 21:09

as i havent been able to find a gvg r-spike build anywhere and i've been wondering for a while i decided to post.

so far i've noticed
r/me with drain enchant/ possibly hexbreaker
r/w with sheilds up/watch yourself/charge
r/mo with i have no idea
r/n with rend enchants *rare

any crucial skills i'm missing here?
i've never really played with rangers so its hard to know what i'm up against although in general the lower ranked spikes prove fairly easy to disrupt or catch

an entire build would be great- but if not just the key things to watch out for would be nice

kryshnysh · Jun 13, 2006, 10:28 PM // 22:28

I realize you're asking about GvG, and these are slightly more geared towards HA, but a beginning:

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Team_-_Ranger_Spike

http://gwshack.us/7d053

While I don't know what is commonly run in GvG, I believe air magic is probably swapped out on the R/E (no major need for windborne). And the secondary profession possibly changed. I believe some of the spirits are changed out, in particular symbiosis and fertile season from the wiki build make no sense to me. I believe corpse control tends to be less in GvG as well, so consume corpse may or may not be used there.

DieInBasra · Jun 13, 2006, 10:59 PM // 22:59

/mo is usually martyr or hard rez.

Patrograd · Jun 13, 2006, 11:18 PM // 23:18

/n would want to have rigor mortis

Farin · Jun 14, 2006, 05:46 AM // 05:46

As far as it comes to Elite skills you probably one or two copies of "Charge!" and one of Crippling Shot, the other one can be Punishing shot. Mobility plays a big role when it comes to Spike builds so i'd probably go with two copies of Charge, one Crippling shot and Perhaps one Shatter Storm if you don't have anything better to use in its place.

Patrograd · Jun 14, 2006, 07:03 AM // 07:03

Different teams run different things

[DeeR] I think last season at least used to run two charges and two drain enchantments, others run hex breaker as well. I would think in the current meta that hex breaker would be pretty important.

When I played this a while ago we had

R/N - crippling shot, rend, rigor
R/E - gale and windborne with punishing as the elite
R/W - Charge, shields up, watch yourself
R/Me - Drain enchantment with punishing as the elite

I think it depends on how you intend to play it. Some teams play it very static, but for me mobility is the only chance you have of beating a good team. I would go with the two charge guys, as you can bet you will spend alot of time running in circles. I would then go with one guy with gale and crippling for snares and one guy with rigor, as having a spare copy is very, very useful imo. However, if you cant fit martyr in to your backline build then you have a hard choice to make somewhere, as cleaning your rangers of blind will be a key part of your play. We used to run draw on both our monks for this who would spend the spike countdown on cleaning duties, but I think we would have been stronger with martyr somewhere.

Skuld · Jun 14, 2006, 07:40 AM // 07:40

BiP on R/N sometimes

Boofhead · Jun 14, 2006, 11:21 PM // 23:21

rigor mortis sucks, dodge/zojun's haste > windborne, crippling shot... maybe.
saw an r/mo using empathic removal once.

Patrograd · Jun 15, 2006, 07:16 AM // 07:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boofhead

rigor mortis sucks, .

How?

If I was looking to counter ranger spike I would be looking at skills like Shields Up, Aegis, distortion and other similar skills. If a ranger spike team has two copies of rigor they dont need to worry about these counters - you can spike through them as if they werent there. if you bring enchant removal in its place then you can only cope with about 50% of the counters (Aegis and guardian), shields up will simply stop your spikes dead (and most GvG teams bring at least one shields up) and you will never be able to kill a decent mesmer with distortion, and good mesmers will put up distortion during every spike in my experience, whether they are the target or not.

While the cooldown is poor, the skill helps a physical spike so much that in my opinion a ranger spike without it seems very easy to counter.

As for windborne, you have dodge on the same character for his own speed boost. Windborne is there for boosting either the person carrying the flag, or monks while everyone else is dodging, or the orders necro if your build has such. No point in all your rangers using dodge to shoot off into the distance leaving the flag runner exposed and the monks trailing behind, imo.

lord of shadow · Jun 15, 2006, 09:26 AM // 09:26

although this was originally just to know more about an unfamiliar build (i've faced and played the HA version and it would get flattened in gvg by and team with a half mobile player), ranger spike is looking more interesting- still wondering on build, but i'm thinking two charges and then dodge on every ranger

as for martyr on one of the spikers- isnt that counter productive as one spiker will still be blinded/weakened/both? i suppose you could draw the martyr afterwards but i'd probably prefer to have n/mo martyring.

as for sheilds up stopping ranger spikes- the +50 armour doesnt help as much as you'd think with so much damage coming from buffs, and although the 50% chance is a big bonus- it's still not too hard to spike through.

Patrograd · Jun 15, 2006, 10:24 AM // 10:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord of shadow

as for sheilds up stopping ranger spikes- the +50 armour doesnt help as much as you'd think with so much damage coming from buffs, and although the 50% chance is a big bonus- it's still not too hard to spike through.

Its not the +armour, its the 50% block. This means that on each spike, instead of hitting with 4x3 arrows for somewhere around 650-750 damage, you are hitting with 4x3x0.5 arrows, and the actual arrow damage is negated effectively by the extra armour, meaning that the spike only goes through for about 250-300 from the orders/spirits/vamp string etc, which will only kill heavily DP'd opponents. If the target is rigored, the damage is around 500-600, usually enough to kill, although you will probably struggle to kill a warrior or ranger even so as the plus armour on them from the shields up makes them pretty invincible to this unless they are heavily DP'd/stupid.

As for martyr on one of the rangers, yes you use it as you say, at 2 in the count one of the rangers uses martyr and at 1 one of the monks draws the conditions from the r/mo. Given the heavy prevalence of blindbots in GvG this is the only real way to cope. Martyr on a N/Mo is impractical imo for a number of reasons:

1) You want your orders guy to be using orders->rend or orders->rigor or orders->vamp gaze during the countdown, he cant do this AND martyr, there just isnt time
2) In all truth you want this character to be fast casting anyway, although more recent versions of this build I have seen used orders on a bond holding monk/necro rather than a mesmer which is actually pretty effective

lord of shadow · Jun 15, 2006, 10:36 AM // 10:36

point taken about the block, but the common trend for orders in gvg atm seems to be as backline characters- stainding way out of casting range and using support skills (br on the monks and draw conditions, for instance)

FC orders does make for a more powerful and reliable spike, but it also means a fragile frontline character begging to be smashed/interrupted into oblivion. the casting range for rigour/rend would been the orders being possibly even further forward than the rangers

Wolydarg · Jun 15, 2006, 02:31 PM // 14:31

Keep in mind Rigor Mortis has to be put on so that you don't give away the spike with the hex and get it removed and get your target even further enchanted, a R/N can't do that even if he's using dual shot right after casting Rigor Mortis, at least against decent monks or a team that knows to call a rigor mortis when they're facing a rspike...

Patrograd · Jun 15, 2006, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wolydarg

Keep in mind Rigor Mortis has to be put on so that you don't give away the spike with the hex and get it removed and get your target even further enchanted, a R/N can't do that even if he's using dual shot right after casting Rigor Mortis, at least against decent monks or a team that knows to call a rigor mortis when they're facing a rspike...

I used to play in a top 100 ranger spike team that hovered occasionally in the top 50, and i dont think we ever had a rigor removed, and if it isnt removed no amount of prot is going to save the guy as long as the spike is clean. Basically the other team has a total of 2 seconds between the finish of the rigor cast and the arrival of the first arrow to call the rigor and get it removed. It isnt going to happen and my feeling would be that 99% of boon prots would cast reversal in that situation before they tried to remove the hex as that is what monks are trained to do to counter spikes. No?

lord of shadow · Jun 15, 2006, 04:08 PM // 16:08

i really like your thinking actually- rigour is starting to make a lot of sense- expect a mock-up build fairly soon, although i still dislike the principal of FC mesmers

Shortyafter · Jun 15, 2006, 06:44 PM // 18:44

If you're using rigor on a ranger then you should use rigor just before the rest of the dual shots go off then follow up with savage/punishing. Same thing for drains, gales, etc.

Wolydarg · Jun 15, 2006, 07:08 PM // 19:08

Well I see rigor as the Shadow Shroud adrenalin spike that was going around before, after the first few spikes when the other team realizes spikes are going right through because of rigor, their monks would start removing as soon as possible. I mean, it all goes down to player skill in the end, but Rigor doesn't belong on a ranger in my opinion...

lord of shadow · Jun 15, 2006, 07:08 PM // 19:08

i beg to differ- drain/rigor/gale then use your own dual shot- if not you are cutting about 1/6th out fo your spike

Shortyafter · Jun 15, 2006, 07:12 PM // 19:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by lord of shadow

i beg to differ- drain/rigor/gale then use your own dual shot- if not you are cutting about 1/6th out fo your spike

Unless you're playing a dumb team that doesn't communicate that they've been drained, galed, or rigored, then it's guaranteed that your spike will fail.

lord of shadow · Jun 15, 2006, 10:10 PM // 22:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

I used to play in a top 100 ranger spike team that hovered occasionally in the top 50, and i dont think we ever had a rigor removed, and if it isnt removed no amount of prot is going to save the guy as long as the spike is clean. Basically the other team has a total of 2 seconds between the finish of the rigor cast and the arrival of the first arrow to call the rigor and get it removed. It isnt going to happen and my feeling would be that 99% of boon prots would cast reversal in that situation before they tried to remove the hex as that is what monks are trained to do to counter spikes. No?

i would have said somethign along these lines but if you had looked up 5 posts you would already have seen it.