Curse

freak_jay · Jul 25, 2010, 03:43 PM // 15:43

Greetings Rangers!

Perhaps you can give me some advice in order to improve my ranger gameplay. Im pretty new to rangers and want to learn how to play them in HM. Nowadays NM is due to Sab-/Discord/Spiritway so easy that the own build seems to be irrelevant, however in my opinion the player build still plays a major role in HM.

Important for me is that the build should be seen as a ranger build. What I want to highlight is that I dont really like to play my ranger for example as a SoS Rit.

Right now I'm playing these two builds:

Beast Master OgkjYpXYJTzgAZ4GyS8GcG8g0GA

I like the whole Pet idea, specially due to the fact that they take 33% less damage and deal 33% more damage in combat. In this build I'm missing a res, but I tend to use res-scrolls. Pretty sweet is the deep Wound on demand. However, I'm feeling quite passive with this build, cause it fully focus on my pet. Is this effective?! Or am I wasting a char slot in the group?

Glass Arrows OgMSc5MTwgOGnStSvSFHxkyE

This build is more active! I like the dmg! I know I need Asuran Scan or I am the Strongest, but I am working on it right now

I dont like the IAS, it just takes too long to recharge...

It would be great if you experienced guys could help me with your advice to improve these builds or sharing your HM builds with the community.

Thanking you in anticipation

IGN Freak A Ranger

Nijntjuh · Jul 25, 2010, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Can't help you much with your ranger as I never play mine but if you think IAS has to long recharge etc you might wanna take dwarven stability it lengthens the duration of the stance lengthening your IAS and therefore making the downtime less.

Can't really help you further though :/

Ugh · Jul 25, 2010, 05:40 PM // 17:40

Single-Target Damage

Use with a Hornbow; optionals can be Dwarven Stability + Lightning Reflexes or Never Rampage Alone + Comfort Animal

Alternate Single-Target Damage

Use with a Flatbow or a Long/Recurve bow if your targets are moving for some reason; two optionals should be the same as above, the other two can be anything (Save Yourselves, Pain Inverter, etc)

Ranger-y AoE

Use with a bow; refrain from using with H/H unless you're in a very cramped area with lots of targets; if using with H/H, bring Splinter Weapon on a hero and micro it on yourself

Pet-focused builds are usually avoided due to Asuran Scan being > inate 33% damage increase. Also, Triple Shot is usually avoided since it takes up a PvE slot and has a long recharge. Also aslo, don't bother with IAtS; it's just not as good as it looks.

Edit: Daze-Turreting is pretty lulzy in caster-heavy areas if you're pro.

G4ymBoy · Jul 25, 2010, 05:48 PM // 17:48

You are not too far off from what i like to use.

Pet build first: spear of fury and call of protection are not needed. If you want spear of fury bring blazing spear instead of barbed to (semi) justify the adreneline gain. Instead of Call of protection try Otyguh's Cry for +24 armor for your pet and to makehis/her attacks unblockable.

The packhunter build works but going full on BM and bringing another pet attack instead of the spear attacks and bump up expertise+BM.

Glass Arrows: Too expensive. Instead of sundering+penetrating shot try point blank arrow+zojun's shot, yes you have to be a little closer but they have shorter recharge more damage and are in your already high expertise attribute. You already know you should have IAtS and Scan.

Some say the IAS is an optional slot I would say LR is a really good IAS and a 30s cooldown is not sooo bad that it makes a bad optional. Another solid choice as always is Dshot to stop really annoying spells. So the idea is lose penetrating+sundering.

I hope I helped you out a bit.

EDIT: I saw Ugh's post and wanted to comment. I also like prep shot for single target. I use a similar build to the "daze" one. I love Wager so i use it with EBSoH for some party support, i also bring IATS or BuH so my damage is still quite respectable, plus i get to use the high energy bow attacks i love.

Amy Awien · Jul 25, 2010, 07:09 PM // 19:09

Spear + pet.
I see no point in bringing a spear - with or without a pet. HM has high armor, reducing the effect of your weapon's base damage and a faster attack rate doesn't help. Bonus damage is armor ignoring but you'll dind more of that amongst your ranger skills then under spearmastery.
The pet part looks decent, Enraged Lunge feeds Scavenger's and after those (and bow/spear attacks) you'll likely going to be able to use Brutal Strike.
Call of Protection isn't that needed, but if you want your pet to tank way ahead of your crew that and Symbiotic Bond will make it pretty hard to kill

Feral Agression is nice to have in there as is Great Dwarf Weapon (the 33% counts against those as well) and if you have a smiter somewhere, have him cast Strength of Honour on your pet (again +33%)

Glass Arrows.
Unless you run some physical support redirecting some attribute points to a Conjure Fire/Lightning/Frost will pay off nicely. Air Magic also has a cheap Cracked Armor skill which could pay of (but it's a bit of a preparation-burden).

Asuran Scan really helps in there, but you know that. I am the strongest can add some punch too.

The two expertise attacks can be quite devastating when packed with IatS, Glass Arrows and a Conjure. Combined with Triple Shot and the aforementioned buffs they can blow out the candle of most targets.

Skye Marin · Jul 26, 2010, 02:07 AM // 02:07

AoE is the name of the game.

link

In this case, other melee characters will love you for being able to put up EBSoH point-blank in a second with your constant Rampage. You'll need to use very heavy use of Scavenger Strike for it to be maintainable. Double your fun by adding an SoS/Strength of honor to bond:

link

If you can get other members to stack conditions, you'll be ahead of the game. If you have a melee spamming deep wound already, then you can add in another pve skill (like "Save Yourselves!"), or more conditions, or more energy management.

Even better, add in a Rock Candy or an Essence, you can can have a more reliable pet, better energy management, and a more reliable condition by going from Enraged Lunge to Scavenger Strike.

link

Charlotte the Harlot · Jul 26, 2010, 08:51 AM // 08:51

Run asuran scan over brutal or call of protection and take blazing spear instead of barbed. Should boost your DPS a decent amount

Chthon · Jul 27, 2010, 01:43 AM // 01:43

We've basically had this discussion before, though a lot of the Ranger crowd remains in denial.

AoE remains the name of the game in PvE. Accordingly, rangers have not really evolved past the days of barrage/pet teams in Tombs. The best damage build you're going to find is Barrage+EBSoH+Orders (from team)+GDW or Splinter (from team)+IAS+SY! If you doubt that for a minute, go try to beat BLA HM with any other ranger build.

If you insist on trying to get things done with single-target damage, it's either Penetrating/Sundering spam or Point-Blank/Zojun spam. Take your pick. (Despite initial appearances to the contrary, the recharge on Triple Shot is so long it's actually bad for arrow spamming.)

If (and mind you, that's an "if" there) there's something in the zone worth shutting down hard and preemptively, then BHA is golden.

I love pets, I really do, but I've come to grips with the sad reality that they just suck. Even after the last buff, they're still pretty awful. Only reasons to even think about bothering with a pet: (1) Scavenger Strike, (2) Never Rampage Alone, (3) someone in your party can spare an extra copy of SoH and GDW for the pet. Leave pet/spear in RA where it belongs.

Being · Jul 27, 2010, 03:41 PM // 15:41

I basically gave up using a bow when doing HM PvE with my H&H. I just run Wounding Strike alongside a SoH Rt Hero and I get pretty much get anything done. :/

It's pretty depressing.

freak_jay · Jul 27, 2010, 03:54 PM // 15:54

Hey there Rangers,

I would like to thank you guys for the quick responses. All of them helped me really much.

In the meanwhile I managed to get the pve skills and to experiment a bit. I came to my conclusion to avoid pets, cause they takes at least two skill slots for a meatshild and some minimal extra dmg, it's just not worth it.

My concern about Lightning Reflexes could be solved with Dwarven Stability

In respect of single dmg or aoe, now I can understand the controversy. Right now I'm rolling around with barrage + EBSoH + splinter. Most of the time the foes are not balled together and just run around like scared chickens

However, perhaps I just have to learn the barrage playstyle.

Again, thank you very much! Hope to join you guys in game

Freak

G4ymBoy · Jul 27, 2010, 10:12 PM // 22:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

I love pets, I really do, but I've come to grips with the sad reality that they just suck. Even after the last buff, they're still pretty awful. Only reasons to even think about bothering with a pet: (1) Scavenger Strike, (2) Never Rampage Alone, (3) someone in your party can spare an extra copy of SoH and GDW for the pet. Leave pet/spear in RA where it belongs.

This is a disgustingly sad truth. IMO if you have an extra slot on your bar (which can easily happen for a ranger) just toss the pet on there. Seems like a great option to me.

The real question would be why not add an extra body? There are a few cases where another skill compliments the build that much better but in most cases where you have an extra slot the pet is still a solid choice. (throw extra points in BM but do not expect crazy damage).

Unless you focus solely on the pet as your build the damage you get out of it will not be stellar, not to mention the whole AoE factor, sure the per can get some nasty single target DPS (with tons of buffs and a non moving target... >.>) But the only real reason to do this is if you enjoy it. I do. (Looking forward to pets in GW2).

Great Catatafish · Jul 27, 2010, 11:00 PM // 23:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

We've basically had this discussion before, though a lot of the Ranger crowd remains in denial.

AoE remains the name of the game in PvE. Accordingly, rangers have not really evolved past the days of barrage/pet teams in Tombs. The best damage build you're going to find is Barrage+EBSoH+Orders (from team)+GDW or Splinter (from team)+IAS+SY! If you doubt that for a minute, go try to beat BLA HM with any other ranger build.

If you insist on trying to get things done with single-target damage, it's either Penetrating/Sundering spam or Point-Blank/Zojun spam. Take your pick. (Despite initial appearances to the contrary, the recharge on Triple Shot is so long it's actually bad for arrow spamming.)

The majority of the game isnt like BLA like half of it is 6 and 4 man single target damage definitely has a strong place. Triple shot is good for spike dmg inbetween your barrage spams.

Chthon · Jul 28, 2010, 01:36 AM // 01:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Great Catatafish

The majority of the game isnt like BLA like half of it is 6 and 4 man single target damage definitely has a strong place.

Nearly all of the content that matters is 8-man. Single-target damage rarely matters in places that matter.

Quote:

Triple shot is good for spike dmg inbetween your barrage spams.

Triple Shot has strictly worse DPS than Penetrating/Sundering spam or Point-Blank/Zojun's spam. Unless you are (a) stacking enough buffs to maybe actually kill something with your spike, and (b) facing monsters with strong enough healing that spikes matter, and (c) not sensible enough to bring something to shut down the healing, then Triple-Shot remains a bad choice... and an especially bad choice given that it costs a PvE slot.

Amy Awien · Jul 28, 2010, 05:57 AM // 05:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Nearly all of the content that matters is 8-man. Single-target damage rarely matters in places that matter.

All of PvE matters, you can not vanquish/guardian a campaign without doing all of the content.

Most of the groups you encounter are no larger then 6, and those are usually fairly mixed between ranged and melee. If you want to ball these up as a ranger with H&H, you're going to have to go melee yourself.

The only places where ranger AoE matters is when foes come in pre-balled waves.

Quote:

Triple Shot has strictly worse DPS than Penetrating/Sundering spam or Point-Blank/Zojun's spam.

There's no rule that states you cannot bring Triple Shot alongside those.
What skills are better to bring then Triple Shot?

Quote:

... facing monsters with strong enough healing that spikes matter

Those are the groups that are more troublesome to deal with, Shutdown can help considerable, but with a bow it is unreliable (ping has gotten poorer over the last year) and takes more time then hitting hard.

Quote:

... and an especially bad choice given that it costs a PvE slot.

Which would be better filled with what?

WhiteAsIce · Jul 28, 2010, 07:20 AM // 07:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Nearly all of the content that matters is 8-man. Single-target damage rarely matters in places that matter.

Because the Warrior's Godsword build focuses on spamming Dslash on a single target, and is supposedly "PvE Meta"?

Swahnee · Jul 28, 2010, 09:28 AM // 09:28

Well, let's talk about some build which is considered effective in PvE: SoS spirit spamming, Discordway, Physway w/ 4 frontliners, 1 SoS, 1 order, 2 EMos, .. What kind of AoE have they? Only Death Blossom on the latter example if i'm not mistaken (unless the physical are axe, hammer or scythe wielders, but the best choice is an assassin dagger spammer). AoE surely rocks when you have a tank who can properly ball up mobs (Urgoz comes to mind), but in the other cases you can have a ball of 3 or 4 mobs every once in a while, if you have minions or if you have luck, and yes, it can be nice to do that AoE damage when it's possible, but in my experience there are a lot of times when you can't rely on mobs being balled up, expecially if you run H/H. In these cases a single target damage build (like SoS or barbs necro) is also very effective IMHO.

On topic, I'm spending a lot of time now with my ranger, and up to now my favourite build is a variant of the sundering/penetrating spam:

OgATcVMmZ6UyxAyw14tMX8uE5A

In my opinion this is superior to the Point Blank/Zojun w/ Glass Arrows spam (too energy intensive, can't spam night and day maintaining also the PvE skills) and to the Prepared Shot variant (can't spam as much as the MW variant) for the simple reason that with this build you can cycle through all the three attacks without any energy problem, without the need to use a zealous bow, and you can also use asuran scan and EBSoH really on recharge. You obviously use a vampiric hornbow of defense. Serpent's Quickness (maintained thanks to Dwarven's Stability) is your third damage-boost skill, because it allows you to maintain Marksman's Wager, to spam asuran scan and EBSoH more frequently, but mostly to have your powerful attacks recharged quicker. You also don't need an high rank in the delver title to use this build effectively (just pay a little attention on the recharges).

Tenebrae · Jul 28, 2010, 10:40 AM // 10:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

Well, let's talk about some build which is considered effective in PvE: SoS spirit spamming, Discordway, Physway w/ 4 frontliners, 1 SoS, 1 order, 2 EMos, .. What kind of AoE have they? Only Death Blossom on the latter example if i'm not mistaken (unless the physical are axe, hammer or scythe wielders, but the best choice is an assassin dagger spammer). AoE surely rocks when you have a tank who can properly ball up mobs (Urgoz comes to mind), but in the other cases you can have a ball of 3 or 4 mobs every once in a while, if you have minions or if you have luck, and yes, it can be nice to do that AoE damage when it's possible, but in my experience there are a lot of times when you can't rely on mobs being balled up, expecially if you run H/H. In these cases a single target damage build (like SoS or barbs necro) is also very effective IMHO.

+1 . Some ppl is blind with "i need aoe+sy! in every phys build" . Its BS when it comes to rangers and thats it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

On topic, I'm spending a lot of time now with my ranger, and up to now my favourite build is a variant of the sundering/penetrating spam:

OgATcVMmZ6UyxAyw14tMX8uE5A

Well i guess you are using Candy for IAS , if you do, you should take Needling instead of precision. Not good with a hornbow but great with a 2sec Attack Rate bow. With Asuran and Ebsoh deals enough spammy damage. If you are into damage then Keen/Power shot are also good options.

MaaKotka · Jul 28, 2010, 06:24 PM // 18:24

This topic has been discussed before and pretty much nothing relevant has changed since..

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/r...425829p10.html

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/e...t10429946.html

edit: btw hornbow sucks

Swahnee · Jul 28, 2010, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tenebrae

Well i guess you are using Candy for IAS , if you do, you should take Needling instead of precision. Not good with a hornbow but great with a 2sec Attack Rate bow. With Asuran and Ebsoh deals enough spammy damage. If you are into damage then Keen/Power shot are also good options.

Quote:

btw hornbow sucks

Just remembering for anyone that an IAS affects only auto-attacks and attack skills without an activation time. The same is true also for the ineherent attack speed of any weapon.

This means that if sundering attack has an activation time of 3/4sec, it has an activation time of 3/4sec regardless of the IAS and of the kind of bow. (Just test it if you don't believe it).

And this means that the IAS is useless for that build, and that the hornbow is the best kind of weapon possible for that build, because it gives you the advantage of the ineherent 10% AP, without the disadvantage of the low refire rate, because all of your attack skills have a fixed activation time. Try out that build and you'll see that you can spam attacks like crazy, no need for IAS, no downside from the hornbow.

Needling shot is a viable variant. However, I prefer to use precision shot because it's not sure that after one strike of sundering+penetrating the target has fallen under 50%, so i should wait for the recharge of those 2 attacks. With precision, i've got a third attack with a little bonus damage that i can cycle with the other two.

MaaKotka · Jul 28, 2010, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

Just remembering for anyone that an IAS affects only auto-attacks and attack skills without an activation time. The same is true also for the ineherent attack speed of any weapon.

This means that if sundering attack has an activation time of 3/4sec, it has an activation time of 3/4sec regardless of the IAS and of the kind of bow. (Just test it if you don't believe it).

And this means that the IAS is useless for that build, and that the hornbow is the best kind of weapon possible for that build, because it gives you the advantage of the ineherent 10% AP, without the disadvantage of the low refire rate, because all of your attack skills have a fixed activation time. Try out that build and you'll see that you can spam attacks like crazy, no need for IAS, no downside from the hornbow.

Needling shot is a viable variant. However, I prefer to use precision shot because it's not sure that after one strike of sundering+penetrating the target has fallen under 50%, so i should wait for the recharge of those 2 attacks. With precision, i've got a third attack with a little bonus damage that i can cycle with the other two.

Test yourself.. IAS affects also attackskills with activation time, what it doesn't affect is the aftercast that most ranger attack skills with activation time has.

You are right there that bow attack speed doesn't affect speed of attack skills with activation time.

So i can shoot almost 2 arrows with a short/flatbow with ias at the same time you are shooting 1 arrow with a hornbow when not using attackskills with activation time. I'm also shooting those skills with activation time faster than you because of ias. It means that if you are shooting even 1 shot without activation time bonus you are losing somewhere 30-100 worth of damage you need to compensate with 10%ap from hornbow.

You could learn a lot from reading threads I linked.

BTW prescision shot sucks.