WvW Core Ranger?

So I am a Warrior main who is slowly going through all of the classes and getting some playtime on them to have some fun, learn, and hopefully improve my odds against the better players while on my Warriors.

I used a level 80 boost on a shiny new Ranger, mostly to save my tome's for extra Spirit Shards. I should be crafting heavy legendary armor soon.

So I ended up with this default build from the boost:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAtCiVsAusActgh9gabiA4s/Oocfa+CC4RoCmOB-jFCBwAHV+lT9nJKBhu/gCzfBeCAAuEAq0FAA-w

So I played this build for the first night, I managed to actually score some kills, but it was mostly in small group play skirmishing around the edges of fights. At one point I teamed up with another core ranger and we attacked a group of enemies hitting our Garrison, we were doing well against the teefs in the group but then some Scourges showed up and we melted.

I dont think I won a single 1v1 though, I had a teef and revenant super close to down state but could not seal the deal, otherwise I just got melted.

Now I know for a fact I have melted new players on this same build while on one of my Warriors, so now I kind of understand the situation.

I checked this forum for the first few pages, and metabattle, there was one post on this subject a few months ago with no replies. I am looking for some advice on a reasonable core Ranger build for smaller scale/roaming.

I want to keep the LB/GS for now, but other than that I am willing to change pretty much everything.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjEqQDL2yCmsAXLGmEqOAe8J4DiL4j9JvCy8TEnppB-jFTBwAFVydT9jIKB1cFAQpLQh5gdqgcc/hHPAAEm8SqcAwhAgUAqu1C-w

This would most likely be a build i would dare to set a foot out of spawn when i'm solo. If you don't value movementspeed as much you can change the rune for Durability.Iboga may also be changed with Bristle or Jacaranda.The build in general offers great condi removal thanks to Wilderness Survival (triggers on heal thanks to Soften the Fall + on pet swap through Zephyr's speed and Evasive purity).You have high Protection uptime and will thus be quite beefy on the direct damage side aw (perm prot with Dura rune).You gotta watch out for reflects though, as this build does not offer any unblockable. When you have the balls to run without SoS you can use Dura Rune + Signet of the hunt for perm prot, movement speed and at least a little bit of Unblockable.

LB/GS is the standard for Ranger core atm in WvW - you will definitely want to go with AT LEAST one other person while roaming or in general. The theory is that while you are in the back shooting away your partner stacks some slows/immobi/condis/ damage of their own allowing the single target to do one of two things A) Condi cleanse and run away or B) Focus one of you guys. So if they focus you - swap to GS and pet swap to make sure your pet is within melee range. Your best combo is the maul-hilt bash-maul then #4 to buy time on your heal CD/Pet swap CD/Knockdown for a #3 to get some distance. Then youd want to swap to LB again and probably get a stealth shot off to re-position and evaluate. Now what I just described is the most ideal of situations, whats probably going to happen is that you will encounter holosmiths, deadeyes, daredevils, core thieves, core mesmers, core warriors, mirages, and Dragonhunters. They all carry anti projectile to counter LB #2 and to close the gap on you while you pew pew. They also have better tools available to deal with your burst having already mentioned LB #2 reflect, Maul combo can be hard to land since Hilt Bash is pretty terrible atm. In order to secure that combo you have to be right on them which is not want you want at all as a core ranger, risking a lot of damage to you. However, core ranger has had some great improvements since launch and its really fun when you run with someone that isnt a Ranger as well. You need someone like a warrior, holosmith, or DH who can support you and take the enemies focus off you and on them allowing you to shoot from far while keeping them in root/knocked down/ etc.

IMO your key to being a good Ranger is your pets; you want to make sure they stay alive most importantly and that they are also landing their abilities. Some pets have a bigger popularity because of their ease to use, some are 'meta', some are niche, and some are not that great most scenarios. Tiger is great for fury and dmg but its very frail, Bear is good to have for condi cleanse (since you mentioned you have issues with Scourges), Smokescale is pretty dominant and 90% of rangers carry this pet, Jacaranda is good for rooting and sustain damage from range, Bristleback has the highest burst capability with its F2 and quickness and has some nice ranged damage as well, Gazelle acts like a nuclear warhead when it lands its hits, and the Iboga is a good range pet for condi users.

This is a good build that I would suggest for you that can help you not only get a handle with the class better but also produce better results in damage and survivability - also experiment with pets! I still to this day find myself constantly swapping out a pet or two every month or so because I find that ranger has the highest ceiling in terms of build diversity.

build ---> http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRjUqQDLWyCusAXLG2DqtJCgz+jjj4p7YoHGiTeWamA-jlCEQBmTTgLfAAQ4QA4P1f2oSQ4t/AAuAAP4IA0BdAOU5HZA0HDA-w

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYDbkQFaZxSWwhF4axQiQ5n+q36fAkszcXBj+TfBTHrA-jlCBwABeAA51MA4CAUbBBJKBxp+TKdAY3PwoyvEm/AA-wMaybe change shoulder, gloves and legs to crusaider. Go marauder instead of berserker if it makes you uncomfortable. Abuse petswap and dodgerolls.Thank me later.

Thanks for the ideas on builds, I will start trying some things out.

Made up this different variant - if you can craft guardian runes more viableMight be with grove (Protection buff first)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAtCi1CCmsActghJhqDgHfC8KfWz8PIugP+Emm2JA-jFCBQBqQXQAeCA9b/hEY+TiK/AwlAIIq/oOlgAA-w

Better with guardian runes if you can make but grove works. Protection uptime first.

build is about near permanent AOE vigor swiftness fury regen plus significant uptime on protection. Did a non ideal cheap gear set you don't have to craft yourself but should function. More a small group than solo work shout build.

Swapping pets grants self quickness + Superspeed plus AOE vigor and Fury and removes 2 conditionsShouts - you carry 4 generate base (AOE regen and swiftness) - plus whatever base they doHeal - also creates AOE muddy terrain and removes 2 conditions.

Quickening Zephyr used more to escape reposition let regens heal up than for DPS also to drop 2 additional conditions.

Pet Swap quickness good for the stomp brief superspeed.

Use your speed to keep scourges at range while pet gets them into danger zone.

@"sneakytails.5629" said:So I am a Warrior main who is slowly going through all of the classes and getting some playtime on them to have some fun, learn, and hopefully improve my odds against the better players while on my Warriors.

I used a level 80 boost on a shiny new Ranger, mostly to save my tome's for extra Spirit Shards. I should be crafting heavy legendary armor soon.

So I ended up with this default build from the boost:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAtCiVsAusActgh9gabiA4s/Oocfa+CC4RoCmOB-jFCBwAHV+lT9nJKBhu/gCzfBeCAAuEAq0FAA-w

So I played this build for the first night, I managed to actually score some kills, but it was mostly in small group play skirmishing around the edges of fights. At one point I teamed up with another core ranger and we attacked a group of enemies hitting our Garrison, we were doing well against the teefs in the group but then some Scourges showed up and we melted.

I dont think I won a single 1v1 though, I had a teef and revenant super close to down state but could not seal the deal, otherwise I just got melted.

Now I know for a fact I have melted new players on this same build while on one of my Warriors, so now I kind of understand the situation.

I checked this forum for the first few pages, and metabattle, there was one post on this subject a few months ago with no replies. I am looking for some advice on a reasonable core Ranger build for smaller scale/roaming.

I want to keep the LB/GS for now, but other than that I am willing to change pretty much everything.

@"sneakytails.5629" said:So I am a Warrior main who is slowly going through all of the classes and getting some playtime on them to have some fun, learn, and hopefully improve my odds against the better players while on my Warriors.

I used a level 80 boost on a shiny new Ranger, mostly to save my tome's for extra Spirit Shards. I should be crafting heavy legendary armor soon.

So I ended up with this default build from the boost:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAtCiVsAusActgh9gabiA4s/Oocfa+CC4RoCmOB-jFCBwAHV+lT9nJKBhu/gCzfBeCAAuEAq0FAA-w

So I played this build for the first night, I managed to actually score some kills, but it was mostly in small group play skirmishing around the edges of fights. At one point I teamed up with another core ranger and we attacked a group of enemies hitting our Garrison, we were doing well against the teefs in the group but then some Scourges showed up and we melted.

I dont think I won a single 1v1 though, I had a teef and revenant super close to down state but could not seal the deal, otherwise I just got melted.

Now I know for a fact I have melted new players on this same build while on one of my Warriors, so now I kind of understand the situation.

I checked this forum for the first few pages, and metabattle, there was one post on this subject a few months ago with no replies. I am looking for some advice on a reasonable core Ranger build for smaller scale/roaming.

I want to keep the LB/GS for now, but other than that I am willing to change pretty much everything.

I run core 90% of the time, it is by far best IMHO

I'd recommend this.

This stat combo is fairly easy to acquire, though much better builds exist once you have access to the expansion stats. Once you make that transition, I can help you out again.

Also, greatsword is actually fairly difficult to use properly. Many inexperienced rangers make a lot of mistakes with the weapon, thus making themselves extremely easy to kill, whilst being unable to pressure in return.

I would recommend starting off with sword/dagger so you can get a feel for evading on this class. Once you get the hang of it and want to use greatsword... swap it out for sword/dagger and run Two-Handed Training in Beastmastery.

how high risk do you want to go? I run full marauder with survival skills and SoS solo roaming all the time in wvw and score a lot of kills . I like LB/GS for the damage and utility of LB and the burst and utility of GS. Sw/d is a nice melee set but you lose out on some of the mobility of GS.

Just to chime in, as I only WvW on my Ranger. You can keep pretty much the same build, weapons and playstyle with Soulbeast. I rarely roam solo, so I tend to run merged with Owl to provide swiftness + AoE heal to my group, and when I'm alone, I like the Gazelle for DPS boost in melee when people get up in my jammy. (and I haven't bothered to tame the Smokescale yet lol).

I'm not an expert by any means, but once I unlocked SB, I never thought twice of going back to using core. I know getting those HP in HoT can be a pain, but aside from the HP trains you can also spend WvW currency to unlock HPs.

So far so good on core Ranger. The class is fun to play and effective.

Had a really good fight against a teef at a camp he was trying to take, I hit my GS block perfectly twice to win the fight. The tracking on LB Rapid Fire is also very nice against teefs.

I just keep getting wrecked by Druids for some reason. It just seems like they have more of everything. They have long enough stealth for skills to come off cooldown.Then I just get nuked.

So i guess I have to avoid Druids for now when I am on my Core Ranger.

Melee core Ranger ... the only true way to play ranger !

Basically the reason many Core rangers still exist is because of the choice of third trait line. The choice of the third trait line was specifically for slotted weapon choices to create a greater damage choice. You go Druid or even Soulbeast, you lose that traitline for damage choices, which is meant to give you greater damage depending on weapon type. Sword/dagger. Longsword/Axe. Druids have a greater healing ability, while pumping out damage slowly and over time. They don't kill quickly, but you leave them up long enough, they will grind you down. Soulbeast, pretty much gives you the option to take the Pet out of the equation, and give you the abilities of your pet. You have your Offensive skills, your Support Skills, and then Soulbeast gives you a third set of skills to engage an enemy. But the core Ranger is still viable solo. It's viable roaming. It's even viable on the edge of a zerg battle. If you have three Rangers, of any phenotype, they can literally burn a single target to the ground with either #2 Longbow, or #5 on grouped targets. However ranger has been given a bad rap for quite a bit of time in WvW, and it's hard to find a cadre of rangers that can make an effective ranger team. But when ranger teams do converge, they can do some severe damage to single targets. Traited properly, they can rip through up to 5 targets in narrow corridors, where there's not a lot of places for an enemy to find cover.

I always wondered why I dont see more specialized groups of rangers doing that in WvW, if there were enough groups of rangers doing that perhaps perceptions would change about the class.

@sneakytails.5629 said:I always wondered why I dont see more specialized groups of rangers doing that in WvW, if there were enough groups of rangers doing that perhaps perceptions would change about the class.

No it wouldnt change because it's easy to counter and offer little actual pressure against a larger group. Mobile classes (mesmers, thieves) will be up in the rangers face in no time. Not to say they cant be effective at killing stuff 3v1 at the edge of a zerg and does serve some minor purpose in very specific scenarios but if you have to be 3v1 to focus someone... others dont. And they can secure the stomp instead of staying at 1500 range pewpewing while the enemies res whoever you downed.

I think there was a zerg year 1 or 2 in WvW that had like 15-20 rangers, and they were all running Hyena pets. Lets just say....actual target #'s increased by x3. Hyena skill summoned a second Hyena...from what I heard it was like a rabid pack of land piranha that tore entire groups apart. The constant #4 knockback from multiple rangers caused a pinball effect on enemy players who were unable to get their bearings after being knocked around so much. Then again the old days used to have a lot of Hammer Warriors, and Longsword Mesmers that had a good control of the battlefield with quite a bit of CC. Unfortunately not a lot of players use a lot of CC anymore....at least on my server. They don't like it when you knock something back, and it's automatically the "ranger's fault". They don't even notice the warrior holding the hammer, or Mesmer holding the Longsword.

Still group up a bunch of core rangers, and it's like chain Vulcan machine guns. Too bad anet took out the first year speed of Shortbows, those things put out a lot of arrows per second continuously they almost acted like Tommy guns. It was fun in those days to run LB/SB for core rangers. Not so much anymore. We were too Op...so they slowed the rate of fire for SB #1. :( Saddens me to this day.

@"KeyOrion.9506" said:I think there was a zerg year 1 or 2 in WvW that had like 15-20 rangers, and they were all running Hyena pets. Lets just say....actual target #'s increased by x3. Hyena skill summoned a second Hyena...from what I heard it was like a rabid pack of land piranha that tore entire groups apart. The constant #4 knockback from multiple rangers caused a pinball effect on enemy players who were unable to get their bearings after being knocked around so much. Then again the old days used to have a lot of Hammer Warriors, and Longsword Mesmers that had a good control of the battlefield with quite a bit of CC. Unfortunately not a lot of players use a lot of CC anymore....at least on my server. They don't like it when you knock something back, and it's automatically the "ranger's fault". They don't even notice the warrior holding the hammer, or Mesmer holding the Longsword.

Still group up a bunch of core rangers, and it's like chain Vulcan machine guns. Too bad anet took out the first year speed of Shortbows, those things put out a lot of arrows per second continuously they almost acted like Tommy guns. It was fun in those days to run LB/SB for core rangers. Not so much anymore. We were too Op...so they slowed the rate of fire for SB #1. :( Saddens me to this day.

This doesnt really say anything about the strenght of core ranger in WvW... we ran with a core engineer raid once and absolutely crushed the enemy using only supply drop and flamethrowers. Entire 50 man zergs all died on the spot in seconds... at about 3 fps. For about an hour, until they learned how to easily bait and counter it so they could kill us with ease. Core engie isnt really that good for zerging.

In your case, everyone would just equip reflects and missile destroying fields, then walk all over your ranger zerg.

Anyway, the problem with core ranger is that it doesnt really have anything to exploit. Druids are insane for sustain and kiting, while soulbeast have immortal pets and lots of damage.

@Dawdler.8521 said:

This doesnt really say anything about the strenght of core ranger in WvW... we ran with a core engineer raid once and absolutely crushed the enemy using only supply drop and flamethrowers. Entire 50 man zergs all died on the spot in seconds... at about 3 fps. For about an hour, until they learned how to easily bait and counter it so they could kill us with ease. Core engie isnt really that good for zerging.

In your case, everyone would just equip reflects and missile destroying fields, then walk all over your ranger zerg.

Anyway, the problem with core ranger is that it doesnt really have anything to exploit. Druids are insane for sustain and kiting, while soulbeast have immortal pets and lots of damage.

Yes it does. Core ranger has the best Synergy as far as trait-lines. After the big pre-PoF Patch NM/BM/WS has amazing Synergy. Now with the newest changes, the Survival Skills have 5 seconds off their CDs. I stopped playing Druid about Feb of last year and went back to core. It was rough as a full melee ranger, but I made it work, and as soon as the changes came in August, I could feel a HUGE improvement. All that being said, I still prefer SoulBeast. I find it way more fun. And after adjusting how it plays and making SoulB work with my play-style, my SoulB started to be less clunky, and have just as much flow as my Core Ranger does. I go back to core once in a while, and duel a lot with it.

There is great information in this thread, especially the variations with the builds. Ive bee running SB in WvW to varying degrees of success. I may try the core ranger profession. Swapping in and out of beastmode can be a bit aggravating at times.

@sneakytails.5629 said:I always wondered why I dont see more specialized groups of rangers doing that in WvW, if there were enough groups of rangers doing that perhaps perceptions would change about the class.

There is a Ranger guild formed based out of SBI if anyone is interested. Core Power Rangers, Condi Rangers, Bunker druids, Unblockable Double Bow Rangers, DPS soulbeasts, Boonbeasts...there are many possibilities for roaming/havoc comps!