Curse

GrimmNinja · Jan 24, 2012, 04:22 PM // 16:22

Hey Guys,

So I have been away from gw for a few months now and I was looking around trying to find a new prof to play. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with my mesmer and assassin but i needed something new.

So i decided with ranger.
Now here are a few builds i have been recommended by friends or made myself.

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Pv...ame=&Go=Submit

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Pv...ame=&Go=Submit

And I was very interested in build 2. But from what i have been told i can either go hard conditions or pure damage with rangers, and for pve its better to go pure damage. Now i tried that with
http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Pv...ame=&Go=Submit

but i find this very 1-2-3 sinspam style and i would really want something with conditions mainly in the bar.

So my questions are..
1) Incendiary Arrows as Elite or Burning arrow
2) Is Poison arrow a decent elite
3) What are the most conditions one can fill a bar with and still be viable in pve..

Cheers,

Grimm

mortenya · Jan 24, 2012, 05:09 PM // 17:09

honestly, i usually play a dagger/pet ranger, are you going for like, pvp or pve?

i never did much pvp, but i never found pure condition spreading to be that great in pve, though if that's what you want, take a pet with feral lunge (bleeding), Burning Arrow [E] (burning), for poison, you can take poisonous bite (pet), or apply poison. toxicity (spirit) will give another -2 degen for poison or disease, or you can run favorable winds, since with all that you'll probably be at or close to the -10 cap (i think the cap is -10 at least) if you want to get there for sure, run a dervish hero with avatar of grenth and some teardown. the last thing you can do, since all that is single target degen, is to take epidemic and get all your degen on one guy, and them spread it to nearby foes.

i won't really share my opinions of degen builds, since that is what you want to try. good luck.

GrimmNinja · Jan 24, 2012, 05:24 PM // 17:24

so for conditions would it be better to run a dervish or a ranger?

mortenya · Jan 24, 2012, 05:59 PM // 17:59

well, i'd say ranger, the dervish comment was to have a hero run the dervish to spread disease for more degen.

KotCR · Jan 24, 2012, 06:35 PM // 18:35

Honestly, in PvE, AoE is king...and Dervish has more AoE than Ranger.
Not that a Ranger can't work, becuase it can, but the Dervish will probably be more 'powerful' overall.

dsielschott · Jan 24, 2012, 08:19 PM // 20:19

I like to place poison arrow on my bar from time to time... along with hunters shot for bleeding, sloth hunter shot, and volley with splinter (of course) sig of infection is a good one to add for condition transfer.

If you want to take burning arrow you can take apply poison hunters shot sig of infection volly splinter.... that is a good amount of degen skills that can be placed on alot of foes.

Not a very conventional build but still its fun and more active to transfer from foe to foe placing degen.

Voodoo Rage · Jan 24, 2012, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by mortenya

honestly, i usually play a dagger/pet ranger

This. And be sure to bring a Smiting Monk hero spec'd to 16 with Strength and Honor cast on both you AND your pet. Of course a 16 Channel Rit casting Splinter Weapon doesn't even need to be said.

Essence Snow · Jan 24, 2012, 09:01 PM // 21:01

I typically run r/me bha epidemic with volley, 3 pve only skills, and 2 optionals when in pve bha provides caster (including bosses) shutdown while the volley (ofc with hero splinter) provides decent aoe dmg. Using the 2 optionals and any 3 pve skills will allow for mass conditons.

MisterB · Jan 24, 2012, 09:12 PM // 21:12

Poison Arrow, Forked Arrow, and "I Am the Strongest!" are bad skills. By bad, I mean superior skills exist for their intended function, or their intended function is inferior to different tactics.

Please use the PvX hosted by Curse. There's a button at the top of this forum that links to the homepage. Many editors have moved away from Wikia, and the builds there are not updated nearly as frequently, or are trolled.

http://www.gwpvx.com/Special:PvXDecode

gremlin · Jan 24, 2012, 10:01 PM // 22:01

I sympathise with the op
Guild wars has turned me away from playing ranger.
The class has been my character of choice in every rpg game and system for many years.

GW2 rangers look brilliant but somehow for me GW1 rangers are average and well just not very interesting to play.
I think the problem with them is they are fairly good at lots of things but not exceptional at any one thing.

Believe me I have tried to make use of them but not only do I just go through the motions with my ranger character but they are never chosen as a hero or henchman addition to my parties.

Wenspire · Jan 25, 2012, 03:40 AM // 03:40

I love ranger heroes, but only when I bring them in multiples. lol

But seriously, if you are running an SoS rit in your party, bringing a Ranger isn't bad if the SoS is equipped with Splinter. The SoS will normally keep Splinter on him if no one else is equipped with a martial weapon in the party.

Voodoo Rage · Jan 25, 2012, 05:12 AM // 05:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wenspire

if no one else is equipped with a martial weapon in the party.

Yeah, no kidding. I was wondering why I wasn't getting constant Splinter cast on me and then realized that 2 of my heroes were carrying spears.

This thread inspired me to dust off my ranger and go with a bow build. Incendiary Arrows is kind of fun as a poor man's barrage because it allows you to bring along a prep (like Ignite Arrows) and see lots of damage packets go flying (kind of like you see against you when you face a bunch of Charr Seekers). The recharge on Incendiary is really crummy however so it's probably still better to just take Barrage (I said it was fun, not optimal).

Otherwise a ranger suffers from not having a great IAS and poor E-management. Lightning Reflexes give you 33% IAS but it's a really long downtime. You can throw in Dwarven Stability to boost it but it will still be down a lot. I think bringing along a pet is a really good option. First of all, you get a nice skill in Never Rampage Alone (Sunspear skill) which gives 25% maintainable IAS. That is also a skill, not a stance, so you can still use a stance if you want (Drunken Master could boost your attack speed to the max, Serpent's Quickness could increase improve recharge). You also get the ability to bring Scavenger Strike which even with a fairly reasonable investment in Beast Mastery can give you a decent boost of energy every 10 seconds.

http://pvx.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Pv...Submit+Q uery

I also think I like using a Shortbow. This brings me a bit in front of my casters but still keeping them in range of the Ebon Battle ward.

depeche · Jan 25, 2012, 08:10 AM // 08:10

Speaking from a PvP-side looking at the ranger, i find it one of he the most versatile and fun characters i have.

My ranger is my main and back in the day when i used to do some PvE i enjoyed him there to and i have my GWAMM on him and 50/50 Hom.

I always played kinda similar builds in PvE, only changing the elite depending on the area i was.
Mainly i played smething like this (remember this was when there were no pve-only skills so add ur pve-only skills cause i never used them) :
* Natural stride
* Apply poison
* [Elite] depending on area, either burning arrow or melandru's shot
* Distracting shot
* Savage shot
* Lightning reflexes
* Free Slot
* Rezzz

Free slot could be filled up with hunters shot (if ur using burning arrow) or concussion shot.

KotCR · Jan 25, 2012, 01:06 PM // 13:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

Otherwise a ranger suffers from not having a great IAS and poor E-management.

Well, Never Rampage Alone is a great IaS, but granted, as it's a PvE only skill, so it doesn't really count.

But poor energy management? Why would a Ranger need energy management with Expertise? 3 pips of energy regen is more than enough when all your skills only cost 2 energy, and there's Body Shot for a very nice return (2 energy for 9~ish) every 8 seconds if somebody in your team is using cracked armour too (and somebody in your team really should be).

I'd hardly consider Ranger as being a class with energy problems.

Voodoo Rage · Jan 25, 2012, 03:31 PM // 15:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by KotCR

But poor energy management? Why would a Ranger need energy management with Expertise? 3 pips of energy regen is more than enough when all your skills only cost 2 energy, and there's Body Shot for a very nice return (2 energy for 9~ish) every 8 seconds if somebody in your team is using cracked armour too (and somebody in your team really should be).

I'd hardly consider Ranger as being a class with energy problems.

Expertise is limited to specifically attack skills and spirits (a lot of rangers run melee or spirits). So a lot of the PvE skills don't fall under this umbrella so even bringing a single skills like Ebon Battle Standard of Honor will get you into energy problems without something else thrown in there. So you are a bit limited on how creative you can get with your builds.

I'll give Body Shot a try, thanks.