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Ranger, the new Warrior?


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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:Boonbeast is very very good rn. Beats many classes like fire weaver 1v1, while still having much better mobility and team support than most other side noders

No

In no way does any Ranger build out brawl Fire Weaver, especially Boonbeast like setups that have lower damage output. There is this huge misconception that modern Ranger builds somehow have amazing condi cleanse, which is simply not true at all. They have moderate to low or in some situations no cleanse at all if they are full DPS. Your best bet against a Fire Weaver is to go at it with glass cannon DPS and hope you can land the 2-3 consecutive strikes through evades to down it immediately. If you can't do that you immediately lose the node and have to run. And no, longbow is ineffective against Fire Weaver. Too many reflects & evades.

U don’t really need extra condi cleanse the resistance from owl and revenant runes are enough. Because weavers condition are very burst the more resistance the better and there enough condi clear to get rid of cover condis. I feel if you make ur rotations correctly on boonbeast your dps can heavily out way s fire weaver, but if u make a mistake u could possibly insta die, which is why I’m not saying boonbeast is the best 1v1 er just that it is very strong and has better mobility and team support or any 1v1er rn

Eh I dunno man. I'm not seeing anyone use any such configuration.

Here are reasons why that wouldn't work past a bottom plat 1 level:
  1. Owl is too low of health. It gets shrekt immediately when on node with any competent player. If you set it to retreat so it survives, they you're losing pet DPS and certainly pet CC utilities, and its pet skills are bad in general. So on a Core Ranger even, this pet is pretty useless right now.
  2. You would have to be a Soulbeast to use that merge skill for resistance. Why would I want a 3s resistance on a 40s CD with a bunch of other low damage skills with no CC, when I could be in Smokescale with Smoke Assault on a 20s CD that evades for just as long as the resistance as it deals damage and chases at the same time, while also having a 2s KD skill on the bar?

You seem to be very specifically talking about.. boonbeasts.. so I dunno man. All I can say is that Soulbeast RIGHT NOW is much much better optimized as high mobility DPS with longbow/greatsword. If you seriously are wanting to still play boonbeast setups "the idea of something tanky that brawls on node" you need to discover core ranger. Core Ranger right now is a better boonbeast than a boonbeast.

I disagree I picked up boon beast this season(though I was a plat3 Druid back when) and have maintained top 10 - around plat3 solo q on it. I can make the same argument about the core build, it lacks resistance and take gs for mobility, which is approaching meme territory for me and doesn’t even use plasma, which actually makes it surprising weak against mesmers etc. the core build probably survives well enough but it is incredibly lacking in areas, like I can argue that core symbol guard is better than firebrand just becuz it has some crazy match ups, but it just isn’t superior which is why no one plays and that’s also why no one will consider the core ranger build to be meta atm.

You know what Dan, I actually went and experimented with some weird build structures after reading what you had said, to give it the benefit of a doubt.

I ended up settling on this:

  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Boy oh boy did I rethink defending Ranger tbh. Now when we are talking glass cannon specs, I feel the high risk high reward is balanced. As much as these gold division players want to complain about DPS Soulbeast, you can kill it in 2 hits just as easy as it can kill you in 2 hits. But when I seriously started messing around with Mender sustain variants... I dunno man, something feels very very off with the numbers. I think it is possible that we are experiencing a bug somewhere in Ranger damage when it is running low damage amulets, and this may be where people are launching complaint that needs to be paid attention to.

Simply put: That Mender variant I was using that didn't even have Sic Em, was easily dealing at least half of the damage output of my Berserker Sic Em variant "no joke" and sometimes it felt more like 3/4ths the damage output of the Berserker Sic Em, but has like 6x to 8x the sustain factor. I mean I land 8k-12k Mauls on the Berserker Sic Em as an average output, then this Mender running full sustain outside of the damage mods on Soulbeast, is landing 6k - 7k Mauls, like what? And then the Axe #5 spin to win is seriously landing like 12k - 17k damage in team fights. Just... what? Something is not right there. When I have a Berserker Amulet on and am running Marks or Skirm along with Beast Mastery, the extra power & prec & feroc along with random vuln & various other damage mods, it should be jacking the damage output up way higher than what the Mender build with sustain lines is capable of.

Something is not right there ^ Either the full sustain setups are somehow dealing more damage than they should be, or full dps setups have undergone some kind of hidden nerf that is restricting high level damage output. Either way, when you sit down and start actually comparing the damage outputs between high sustain low dmg vs. high damage low sustain on Ranger, it doesn't add up. The high sustain builds are dealing a lot more damage than they should be.

lol for anyone who doesn't believe this, come 1v1 me on NA if you're online tonight. This build is ridiculous. I actually haven't lost a 1v1 yet, even to legend division players. Like... you can't kill this build 1v1. Note that I'm not saying "how amazing I am" I am stating that, you can't kill this build 1v1 if the player is competent at all. Like it will survive and eventually kill you when you mess up.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Aww man you just revealed The Super Secret Unbeatable Soulbeast™©® build.

Jokes aside, I am like the worst ranger player this game has ever seen (I was dying to everything with boonbeast when it wasn't nerfed) and I'll try this.

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@Tayga.3192 said:

  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Aww man you just revealed The Super Secret Unbeatable Soulbeast™©® build.

Jokes aside, I am like the worst ranger player this game has ever seen (I was dying to everything with boonbeast when it wasn't nerfed) and I'll try this.

You just need to understand how to toggle between:

  1. Smokeassault on Smokescale, the F2
  2. GS 3 evade
  3. GS 4 block
  4. Stone Sig
  5. And then the sources of weakness & CC you have.

Between all of that, you can stop up a burst pretty much on demand any time you need, and the enormous passive sustain will put you full health like all of the time. If there was a weakness to this build, it is being 2v1'd, which is the only reason I am not swiftly changing to main this build.This build is like a FIre Weaver, it just wins 1v1s, but it lacks the kind of disengage that more mobile Ranger builds have to survive 2v1, when you're talking being head hunted by 2x 1600+ players who are running DPS. <- In that case, more mobile builds with more disengage and burst just end up being better in higher tiers for the most part. But this build I mentioned here, is abusive in 1v1 situations and I can see how it would appear as juggernautish into bottom plat levels, or any build like it for that matter.

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I think a lot of the loud voices complaining truly do not know that rangers can't be a boonbeast and a sic em sniper at the same time, nor can they run Gazelle, Siamoth/plasma, and Smokescale at the same time. They just call out every feature that annoys them. Between knowing what type of ranger you're facing, some condi pressure, dodging GS bursts (Maul is the easiest animation to dodge in this game, it has the most obvious sound cue), and not running headfirst into a LB burst or sitting your ass tight on a point and eating LB fire, there are obvious ins to deal with ranger. Mainly condi. Are any classes that pack moderate toheavy condi complaining about ranger? Don't think so.

Ranger is one of the worst, if not the worst, cleansing class. How the heck are you comparing it to Warrior?

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:Boonbeast is very very good rn. Beats many classes like fire weaver 1v1, while still having much better mobility and team support than most other side noders

No

In no way does any Ranger build out brawl Fire Weaver, especially Boonbeast like setups that have lower damage output. There is this huge misconception that modern Ranger builds somehow have amazing condi cleanse, which is simply not true at all. They have moderate to low or in some situations no cleanse at all if they are full DPS. Your best bet against a Fire Weaver is to go at it with glass cannon DPS and hope you can land the 2-3 consecutive strikes through evades to down it immediately. If you can't do that you immediately lose the node and have to run. And no, longbow is ineffective against Fire Weaver. Too many reflects & evades.

U don’t really need extra condi cleanse the resistance from owl and revenant runes are enough. Because weavers condition are very burst the more resistance the better and there enough condi clear to get rid of cover condis. I feel if you make ur rotations correctly on boonbeast your dps can heavily out way s fire weaver, but if u make a mistake u could possibly insta die, which is why I’m not saying boonbeast is the best 1v1 er just that it is very strong and has better mobility and team support or any 1v1er rn

Eh I dunno man. I'm not seeing anyone use any such configuration.

Here are reasons why that wouldn't work past a bottom plat 1 level:
  1. Owl is too low of health. It gets shrekt immediately when on node with any competent player. If you set it to retreat so it survives, they you're losing pet DPS and certainly pet CC utilities, and its pet skills are bad in general. So on a Core Ranger even, this pet is pretty useless right now.
  2. You would have to be a Soulbeast to use that merge skill for resistance. Why would I want a 3s resistance on a 40s CD with a bunch of other low damage skills with no CC, when I could be in Smokescale with Smoke Assault on a 20s CD that evades for just as long as the resistance as it deals damage and chases at the same time, while also having a 2s KD skill on the bar?

You seem to be very specifically talking about.. boonbeasts.. so I dunno man. All I can say is that Soulbeast RIGHT NOW is much much better optimized as high mobility DPS with longbow/greatsword. If you seriously are wanting to still play boonbeast setups "the idea of something tanky that brawls on node" you need to discover core ranger. Core Ranger right now is a better boonbeast than a boonbeast.

I disagree I picked up boon beast this season(though I was a plat3 Druid back when) and have maintained top 10 - around plat3 solo q on it. I can make the same argument about the core build, it lacks resistance and take gs for mobility, which is approaching meme territory for me and doesn’t even use plasma, which actually makes it surprising weak against mesmers etc. the core build probably survives well enough but it is incredibly lacking in areas, like I can argue that core symbol guard is better than firebrand just becuz it has some crazy match ups, but it just isn’t superior which is why no one plays and that’s also why no one will consider the core ranger build to be meta atm.

You know what Dan, I actually went and experimented with some weird build structures after reading what you had said, to give it the benefit of a doubt.

I ended up settling on this:
  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Boy oh boy did I rethink defending Ranger tbh. Now when we are talking glass cannon specs, I feel the high risk high reward is balanced. As much as these gold division players want to complain about DPS Soulbeast, you can kill it in 2 hits just as easy as it can kill you in 2 hits. But when I seriously started messing around with Mender sustain variants... I dunno man, something feels very very off with the numbers. I think it is possible that we are experiencing a bug somewhere in Ranger damage when it is running low damage amulets, and this may be where people are launching complaint that needs to be paid attention to.

Simply put: That Mender variant I was using that didn't even have Sic Em, was easily dealing at least half of the damage output of my Berserker Sic Em variant "no joke" and sometimes it felt more like 3/4ths the damage output of the Berserker Sic Em, but has like 6x to 8x the sustain factor. I mean I land 8k-12k Mauls on the Berserker Sic Em as an average output, then this Mender running full sustain outside of the damage mods on Soulbeast, is landing 6k - 7k Mauls, like what? And then the Axe #5 spin to win is seriously landing like 12k - 17k damage in team fights. Just... what? Something is not right there. When I have a Berserker Amulet on and am running Marks or Skirm along with Beast Mastery, the extra power & prec & feroc along with random vuln & various other damage mods, it should be jacking the damage output up way higher than what the Mender build with sustain lines is capable of.

Something is not right there ^ Either the full sustain setups are somehow dealing more damage than they should be, or full dps setups have undergone some kind of hidden nerf that is restricting high level damage output. Either way, when you sit down and start actually comparing the damage outputs between high sustain low dmg vs. high damage low sustain on Ranger, it doesn't add up. The high sustain builds are dealing a lot more damage than they should be.

lol for anyone who doesn't believe this, come 1v1 me on NA if you're online tonight. This build is ridiculous. I actually haven't lost a 1v1 yet, even to legend division players. Like... you can't kill this build 1v1. Note that I'm not saying "how amazing I am" I am stating that, you can't kill this build 1v1 if the player is competent at all. Like it will survive and eventually kill you when you mess up.

Why eagle though

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@"Tycura.1982"

It grants the precision you need to get a solid high crit chance in conjunction with fury, something like a 70+%. Then it grants extra ferocity which Mender lacks, and that feroc + the feroc from axe trait and soulbeast traits, pretty much is the equivalent of wearing a marauder/demo amulet. And then that 10% damage bonus it gets vs. targets bellow 50% health is actually kind of messed up with all the other damage modifiers from Soulbeast. You know, how it stacks multiplicatively instead of additively: It's just the best option. I tested variants with Thief, Altruism, Leadership, ect ect. In the case of this build, Eagle just happens to be optimized.

  • Furious Strength - You deal more damage while you have fury 7%
  • Twice as Vicious - Disabling a foe increases your damage 5%
  • Oppressive Superiority - Deal increased damage to foes at a lower health percentage than you 10%
  • While in merge form - +10% damage to Greatsword trait
  • While in merge form - Pack Alpha - Your pet's attributes are improved and pet skills gain recharge reduction +150 attributes
  • While in merge form - Loud Whistle - While your health is above the threshold +10%
  • While in merge form - Pet's Prowess - Your pet moves faster and deals more damage on critical hits +300 feroc to the Soulbeast
  • While in merge form - the usual pet stat block added to you, +200 power +100 prec or w/e it is
  • And then +10% damage from Eagle Rune while opponent is under 50% health, as well as +250 feroc.

So while wearing mender.... you're getting +700 or +550 feroc "depending on if pack alpha adds that +150 to feroc", while wearing Eagle Rune. The crit chance with fury on is above 70%, and then you get all those misc damage mods + the 10% off Eagle. It's like you get to wear Berserker stat while wearing Mender. It's kind of messed up man.

When laying it out like this, I see why a Berserker variant is needless. the large bulk of the damage is simply coming from Soulbeast itself. the small amount of extra power and feroc from using Serk isn't advantageous next to the ridiculous amount of sustain gained from Mender, in conjunction with all the rando passive sustain Ranger has.

This does prove why Core Ranger is kind of eeeeh a monthly meme thing imo. Soulbeast is just a lot stronger in the hands of older Ranger players. People are only running Core Ranger right now due to Gazelle use and Marks modifiers for gimmicky 2HKO builds, where they land a Hilt Bash into a Maul/Gazelle F2 at the same time. It's easier for less experienced Ranger players to figure out.

Due to that experimentation though, I did find a way to make Druid work again. Trying it out tonight.

I would like to also point out that the suggested build that I posted in here doesn't even use a longbow. The pew pew isn't even noteworthy next to how stupid brawly and over powered this mender build is when you actually try to get on a node with it.

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The main issue is that damage output is far too high for HP and toughness for it to be anything meanful.

It's a burst or be burst gameplay.

It's a L2P issue? Not all builds have fart for invaluable/boons/stunbreak/remove/heals skills.

HiDE BeHiND a TrEe, yeah because rangers are super slow and easy to stun/cc during their faceroll on the keyboard.

The main problem is that the damage output across the classes (not just rangers) which is far too high for what the classes are design to take.

Anet either needs to redesign the classes (give nerco some easy fart for invaluable/boons/stunbreak/remove/heals/block/fly/beams out of their eyes) or bring down damage output on all.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:Boonbeast is very very good rn. Beats many classes like fire weaver 1v1, while still having much better mobility and team support than most other side noders

No

In no way does any Ranger build out brawl Fire Weaver, especially Boonbeast like setups that have lower damage output. There is this huge misconception that modern Ranger builds somehow have amazing condi cleanse, which is simply not true at all. They have moderate to low or in some situations no cleanse at all if they are full DPS. Your best bet against a Fire Weaver is to go at it with glass cannon DPS and hope you can land the 2-3 consecutive strikes through evades to down it immediately. If you can't do that you immediately lose the node and have to run. And no, longbow is ineffective against Fire Weaver. Too many reflects & evades.

U don’t really need extra condi cleanse the resistance from owl and revenant runes are enough. Because weavers condition are very burst the more resistance the better and there enough condi clear to get rid of cover condis. I feel if you make ur rotations correctly on boonbeast your dps can heavily out way s fire weaver, but if u make a mistake u could possibly insta die, which is why I’m not saying boonbeast is the best 1v1 er just that it is very strong and has better mobility and team support or any 1v1er rn

Eh I dunno man. I'm not seeing anyone use any such configuration.

Here are reasons why that wouldn't work past a bottom plat 1 level:
  1. Owl is too low of health. It gets shrekt immediately when on node with any competent player. If you set it to retreat so it survives, they you're losing pet DPS and certainly pet CC utilities, and its pet skills are bad in general. So on a Core Ranger even, this pet is pretty useless right now.
  2. You would have to be a Soulbeast to use that merge skill for resistance. Why would I want a 3s resistance on a 40s CD with a bunch of other low damage skills with no CC, when I could be in Smokescale with Smoke Assault on a 20s CD that evades for just as long as the resistance as it deals damage and chases at the same time, while also having a 2s KD skill on the bar?

You seem to be very specifically talking about.. boonbeasts.. so I dunno man. All I can say is that Soulbeast RIGHT NOW is much much better optimized as high mobility DPS with longbow/greatsword. If you seriously are wanting to still play boonbeast setups "the idea of something tanky that brawls on node" you need to discover core ranger. Core Ranger right now is a better boonbeast than a boonbeast.

I disagree I picked up boon beast this season(though I was a plat3 Druid back when) and have maintained top 10 - around plat3 solo q on it. I can make the same argument about the core build, it lacks resistance and take gs for mobility, which is approaching meme territory for me and doesn’t even use plasma, which actually makes it surprising weak against mesmers etc. the core build probably survives well enough but it is incredibly lacking in areas, like I can argue that core symbol guard is better than firebrand just becuz it has some crazy match ups, but it just isn’t superior which is why no one plays and that’s also why no one will consider the core ranger build to be meta atm.

You know what Dan, I actually went and experimented with some weird build structures after reading what you had said, to give it the benefit of a doubt.

I ended up settling on this:
  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Boy oh boy did I rethink defending Ranger tbh. Now when we are talking glass cannon specs, I feel the high risk high reward is balanced. As much as these gold division players want to complain about DPS Soulbeast, you can kill it in 2 hits just as easy as it can kill you in 2 hits. But when I seriously started messing around with Mender sustain variants... I dunno man, something feels very very off with the numbers. I think it is possible that we are experiencing a bug somewhere in Ranger damage when it is running low damage amulets, and this may be where people are launching complaint that needs to be paid attention to.

Simply put: That Mender variant I was using that didn't even have Sic Em, was easily dealing at least half of the damage output of my Berserker Sic Em variant "no joke" and sometimes it felt more like 3/4ths the damage output of the Berserker Sic Em, but has like 6x to 8x the sustain factor. I mean I land 8k-12k Mauls on the Berserker Sic Em as an average output, then this Mender running full sustain outside of the damage mods on Soulbeast, is landing 6k - 7k Mauls, like what? And then the Axe #5 spin to win is seriously landing like 12k - 17k damage in team fights. Just... what? Something is not right there. When I have a Berserker Amulet on and am running Marks or Skirm along with Beast Mastery, the extra power & prec & feroc along with random vuln & various other damage mods, it should be jacking the damage output up way higher than what the Mender build with sustain lines is capable of.

Something is not right there ^ Either the full sustain setups are somehow dealing more damage than they should be, or full dps setups have undergone some kind of hidden nerf that is restricting high level damage output. Either way, when you sit down and start actually comparing the damage outputs between high sustain low dmg vs. high damage low sustain on Ranger, it doesn't add up. The high sustain builds are dealing a lot more damage than they should be.

lol for anyone who doesn't believe this, come 1v1 me on NA if you're online tonight. This build is ridiculous. I actually haven't lost a 1v1 yet, even to legend division players. Like... you can't kill this build 1v1. Note that I'm not saying "how amazing I am" I am stating that, you can't kill this build 1v1 if the player is competent at all. Like it will survive and eventually kill you when you mess up.

Yeah I’ve tried something like that too. I honestly think menders in general was completely over looked on boonbeast, probably because at the time it was one of the best 1v1 builds with just demo or paladins. Honestly ppl probably thought menders wasn’t viable after what were basically nerfs to Druid, but if you look at it with the crazy boon generation which can even be doubled on demand with pet merge(which also makes sure your pet is alive plus other benefits) your dps will probably be even higher than what Druid was at the time because of damage modifiers from nature magic can be like perma +10% damage or something even wilder when taking beastmastery. Also the amount of protection can be bigger so we are potentially talking higher damage and better healing at least when outside of celeform. W.e it is I’m just thinking that ranger is defined underrated for me it’s been enough to maintain top 10-20 solo q and I even win matches against known duos when my team is just random plat players. Hopefully ppl will find 1 boonbeast build soon to be a meta contender

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

I’m of the belief that viable can be pretty much anything with an appropriate set of traits utilities and gear/stats, but meta is the most effective build available. Sometimes can be what are ppl stacking or hyped about for tournaments or it could just be an iconic or top build per class. I honestly think the reworks to ranger during pof have turned ranger to a boon stacking class as far as what’s meta atm

If I stick to your definition of meta "being amongst the best at X" then yes it makes sense but that would also underplay the possibilities it offers. This is a balanced build (offense / defense) that still performs well vs average players and also gives a good amount of possibilities to adapt to different situations (perfect for solo queue).

I seem to be able to find like 10 different soulbeast ,that can vary from viable to optimal depending on ranked comps, alone. I’m not surprised there is a good core ranger build especially something that takes advantage of gazelle burst etc. it’s just I much prefer the feel of soul Beast and think it’s very superior in general, so if I wanna play something like the core ranger build I could just do it on soulbeast, which actually I’m seeing most ranger on NA starting to replace the core build with.I totally believe you it’s just I still probably wouldn’t play core

I can understand that you prefer soulbeast especially if you want to be more specialized.

Hopefully ppl will find 1 boonbeast build soon to be a meta contenderAs long as I can punish lazy boonbeasts standing on points I am fine with that.

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@Dantheman.3589 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:Boonbeast is very very good rn. Beats many classes like fire weaver 1v1, while still having much better mobility and team support than most other side noders

No

In no way does any Ranger build out brawl Fire Weaver, especially Boonbeast like setups that have lower damage output. There is this huge misconception that modern Ranger builds somehow have amazing condi cleanse, which is simply not true at all. They have moderate to low or in some situations no cleanse at all if they are full DPS. Your best bet against a Fire Weaver is to go at it with glass cannon DPS and hope you can land the 2-3 consecutive strikes through evades to down it immediately. If you can't do that you immediately lose the node and have to run. And no, longbow is ineffective against Fire Weaver. Too many reflects & evades.

U don’t really need extra condi cleanse the resistance from owl and revenant runes are enough. Because weavers condition are very burst the more resistance the better and there enough condi clear to get rid of cover condis. I feel if you make ur rotations correctly on boonbeast your dps can heavily out way s fire weaver, but if u make a mistake u could possibly insta die, which is why I’m not saying boonbeast is the best 1v1 er just that it is very strong and has better mobility and team support or any 1v1er rn

Eh I dunno man. I'm not seeing anyone use any such configuration.

Here are reasons why that wouldn't work past a bottom plat 1 level:
  1. Owl is too low of health. It gets shrekt immediately when on node with any competent player. If you set it to retreat so it survives, they you're losing pet DPS and certainly pet CC utilities, and its pet skills are bad in general. So on a Core Ranger even, this pet is pretty useless right now.
  2. You would have to be a Soulbeast to use that merge skill for resistance. Why would I want a 3s resistance on a 40s CD with a bunch of other low damage skills with no CC, when I could be in Smokescale with Smoke Assault on a 20s CD that evades for just as long as the resistance as it deals damage and chases at the same time, while also having a 2s KD skill on the bar?

You seem to be very specifically talking about.. boonbeasts.. so I dunno man. All I can say is that Soulbeast RIGHT NOW is much much better optimized as high mobility DPS with longbow/greatsword. If you seriously are wanting to still play boonbeast setups "the idea of something tanky that brawls on node" you need to discover core ranger. Core Ranger right now is a better boonbeast than a boonbeast.

I disagree I picked up boon beast this season(though I was a plat3 Druid back when) and have maintained top 10 - around plat3 solo q on it. I can make the same argument about the core build, it lacks resistance and take gs for mobility, which is approaching meme territory for me and doesn’t even use plasma, which actually makes it surprising weak against mesmers etc. the core build probably survives well enough but it is incredibly lacking in areas, like I can argue that core symbol guard is better than firebrand just becuz it has some crazy match ups, but it just isn’t superior which is why no one plays and that’s also why no one will consider the core ranger build to be meta atm.

You know what Dan, I actually went and experimented with some weird build structures after reading what you had said, to give it the benefit of a doubt.

I ended up settling on this:
  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Boy oh boy did I rethink defending Ranger tbh. Now when we are talking glass cannon specs, I feel the high risk high reward is balanced. As much as these gold division players want to complain about DPS Soulbeast, you can kill it in 2 hits just as easy as it can kill you in 2 hits. But when I seriously started messing around with Mender sustain variants... I dunno man, something feels very very off with the numbers. I think it is possible that we are experiencing a bug somewhere in Ranger damage when it is running low damage amulets, and this may be where people are launching complaint that needs to be paid attention to.

Simply put: That Mender variant I was using that didn't even have Sic Em, was easily dealing at least half of the damage output of my Berserker Sic Em variant "no joke" and sometimes it felt more like 3/4ths the damage output of the Berserker Sic Em, but has like 6x to 8x the sustain factor. I mean I land 8k-12k Mauls on the Berserker Sic Em as an average output, then this Mender running full sustain outside of the damage mods on Soulbeast, is landing 6k - 7k Mauls, like what? And then the Axe #5 spin to win is seriously landing like 12k - 17k damage in team fights. Just... what? Something is not right there. When I have a Berserker Amulet on and am running Marks or Skirm along with Beast Mastery, the extra power & prec & feroc along with random vuln & various other damage mods, it should be jacking the damage output up way higher than what the Mender build with sustain lines is capable of.

Something is not right there ^ Either the full sustain setups are somehow dealing more damage than they should be, or full dps setups have undergone some kind of hidden nerf that is restricting high level damage output. Either way, when you sit down and start actually comparing the damage outputs between high sustain low dmg vs. high damage low sustain on Ranger, it doesn't add up. The high sustain builds are dealing a lot more damage than they should be.

lol for anyone who doesn't believe this, come 1v1 me on NA if you're online tonight. This build is ridiculous. I actually haven't lost a 1v1 yet, even to legend division players. Like... you can't kill this build 1v1. Note that I'm not saying "how amazing I am" I am stating that, you can't kill this build 1v1 if the player is competent at all. Like it will survive and eventually kill you when you mess up.

Yeah I’ve tried something like that too. I honestly think menders in general was completely over looked on boonbeast, probably because at the time it was one of the best 1v1 builds with just demo or paladins. Honestly ppl probably thought menders wasn’t viable after what were basically nerfs to Druid, but if you look at it with the crazy boon generation which can even be doubled on demand with pet merge(which also makes sure your pet is alive plus other benefits) your dps will probably be even higher than what Druid was at the time because of damage modifiers from nature magic can be like perma +10% damage or something even wilder when taking beastmastery. Also the amount of protection can be bigger so we are potentially talking higher damage and better healing at least when outside of celeform. W.e it is I’m just thinking that ranger is defined underrated for me it’s been enough to maintain top 10-20 solo q and I even win matches against known duos when my team is just random plat players. Hopefully ppl will find 1 boonbeast build soon to be a meta contender

I distinctly remember testing such sustain heavy setups during the boonbeast meta, and deciding that: "I felt like it really wasn't dealing much damage, not much more than Druid, which is why I kept playing Druid." But now, I dunno man. It's dealing a lot of damage. I hadn't kept my eye on certain patch notes I guess, but maybe the original boonbeast phase had overlooked these things because certain traits originally were not working on the Ranger during merge form. I remember that loud whistle as example, was not originally granting that damage bonus to the Soulbeast in merge. Some of the other traits that are now granting large damage modifiers from pet merge have not been active during that patching. That would probably explain why people weren't rocking straight up sustain.

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:Boonbeast is very very good rn. Beats many classes like fire weaver 1v1, while still having much better mobility and team support than most other side noders

No

In no way does any Ranger build out brawl Fire Weaver, especially Boonbeast like setups that have lower damage output. There is this huge misconception that modern Ranger builds somehow have amazing condi cleanse, which is simply not true at all. They have moderate to low or in some situations no cleanse at all if they are full DPS. Your best bet against a Fire Weaver is to go at it with glass cannon DPS and hope you can land the 2-3 consecutive strikes through evades to down it immediately. If you can't do that you immediately lose the node and have to run. And no, longbow is ineffective against Fire Weaver. Too many reflects & evades.

U don’t really need extra condi cleanse the resistance from owl and revenant runes are enough. Because weavers condition are very burst the more resistance the better and there enough condi clear to get rid of cover condis. I feel if you make ur rotations correctly on boonbeast your dps can heavily out way s fire weaver, but if u make a mistake u could possibly insta die, which is why I’m not saying boonbeast is the best 1v1 er just that it is very strong and has better mobility and team support or any 1v1er rn

Eh I dunno man. I'm not seeing anyone use any such configuration.

Here are reasons why that wouldn't work past a bottom plat 1 level:
  1. Owl is too low of health. It gets shrekt immediately when on node with any competent player. If you set it to retreat so it survives, they you're losing pet DPS and certainly pet CC utilities, and its pet skills are bad in general. So on a Core Ranger even, this pet is pretty useless right now.
  2. You would have to be a Soulbeast to use that merge skill for resistance. Why would I want a 3s resistance on a 40s CD with a bunch of other low damage skills with no CC, when I could be in Smokescale with Smoke Assault on a 20s CD that evades for just as long as the resistance as it deals damage and chases at the same time, while also having a 2s KD skill on the bar?

You seem to be very specifically talking about.. boonbeasts.. so I dunno man. All I can say is that Soulbeast RIGHT NOW is much much better optimized as high mobility DPS with longbow/greatsword. If you seriously are wanting to still play boonbeast setups "the idea of something tanky that brawls on node" you need to discover core ranger. Core Ranger right now is a better boonbeast than a boonbeast.

I disagree I picked up boon beast this season(though I was a plat3 Druid back when) and have maintained top 10 - around plat3 solo q on it. I can make the same argument about the core build, it lacks resistance and take gs for mobility, which is approaching meme territory for me and doesn’t even use plasma, which actually makes it surprising weak against mesmers etc. the core build probably survives well enough but it is incredibly lacking in areas, like I can argue that core symbol guard is better than firebrand just becuz it has some crazy match ups, but it just isn’t superior which is why no one plays and that’s also why no one will consider the core ranger build to be meta atm.

You know what Dan, I actually went and experimented with some weird build structures after reading what you had said, to give it the benefit of a doubt.

I ended up settling on this:
  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Boy oh boy did I rethink defending Ranger tbh. Now when we are talking glass cannon specs, I feel the high risk high reward is balanced. As much as these gold division players want to complain about DPS Soulbeast, you can kill it in 2 hits just as easy as it can kill you in 2 hits. But when I seriously started messing around with Mender sustain variants... I dunno man, something feels very very off with the numbers. I think it is possible that we are experiencing a bug somewhere in Ranger damage when it is running low damage amulets, and this may be where people are launching complaint that needs to be paid attention to.

Simply put: That Mender variant I was using that didn't even have Sic Em, was easily dealing at least half of the damage output of my Berserker Sic Em variant "no joke" and sometimes it felt more like 3/4ths the damage output of the Berserker Sic Em, but has like 6x to 8x the sustain factor. I mean I land 8k-12k Mauls on the Berserker Sic Em as an average output, then this Mender running full sustain outside of the damage mods on Soulbeast, is landing 6k - 7k Mauls, like what? And then the Axe #5 spin to win is seriously landing like 12k - 17k damage in team fights. Just... what? Something is not right there. When I have a Berserker Amulet on and am running Marks or Skirm along with Beast Mastery, the extra power & prec & feroc along with random vuln & various other damage mods, it should be jacking the damage output up way higher than what the Mender build with sustain lines is capable of.

Something is not right there ^ Either the full sustain setups are somehow dealing more damage than they should be, or full dps setups have undergone some kind of hidden nerf that is restricting high level damage output. Either way, when you sit down and start actually comparing the damage outputs between high sustain low dmg vs. high damage low sustain on Ranger, it doesn't add up. The high sustain builds are dealing a lot more damage than they should be.

lol for anyone who doesn't believe this, come 1v1 me on NA if you're online tonight. This build is ridiculous. I actually haven't lost a 1v1 yet, even to legend division players. Like... you can't kill this build 1v1. Note that I'm not saying "how amazing I am" I am stating that, you can't kill this build 1v1 if the player is competent at all. Like it will survive and eventually kill you when you mess up.

Yeah I’ve tried something like that too. I honestly think menders in general was completely over looked on boonbeast, probably because at the time it was one of the best 1v1 builds with just demo or paladins. Honestly ppl probably thought menders wasn’t viable after what were basically nerfs to Druid, but if you look at it with the crazy boon generation which can even be doubled on demand with pet merge(which also makes sure your pet is alive plus other benefits) your dps will probably be even higher than what Druid was at the time because of damage modifiers from nature magic can be like perma +10% damage or something even wilder when taking beastmastery. Also the amount of protection can be bigger so we are potentially talking higher damage and better healing at least when outside of celeform. W.e it is I’m just thinking that ranger is defined underrated for me it’s been enough to maintain top 10-20 solo q and I even win matches against known duos when my team is just random plat players. Hopefully ppl will find 1 boonbeast build soon to be a meta contender

I distinctly remember testing such sustain heavy setups during the boonbeast meta, and deciding that: "I felt like it really wasn't dealing much damage, not much more than Druid, which is why I kept playing Druid." But now, I dunno man. It's dealing a lot of damage. I hadn't kept my eye on certain patch notes I guess, but maybe the original boonbeast phase had overlooked these things because certain traits originally were not working on the Ranger during merge form. I remember that loud whistle as example, was not originally granting that damage bonus to the Soulbeast in merge. Some of the other traits that are now granting large damage modifiers from pet merge have not been active during that patching. That would probably explain why people weren't rocking straight up sustain.

Might be that. As far as the beast mastery spec, which I run with stances and commands menders and revenant rune(most of the time) - the damage is super nice for a 1v1er, might be at least war level sometimes more, it’s also one of the most fun builds I’ve played recently. I’m not sure if I’d play it in every match as I feel it’s a little to weak when plussed but it’s totally great at 1v1s and most likely one of the better team fighters since it has sustain and damage

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@"Avatar.3568" said:I really want to see this build guys, are you on na or eu? (I am on eu)

I think ranger has the best ways to go non meta

Hey I’ve been playing on NA and this account has been(including last time I checked) top 10-20 pretty much all season that I’ve done entirely solo q.I’ll give you my 3 most common setups though obviously some parts changed based on comp- such as how I usually use revenant runes on all 3, but if you go against full power comps you should probably change that:Beastmastery- http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwAceFlFwiYeMRGKeSX7v6SW0BA-z5AfKZqAiWI0tIIfJgQHAMenders boonbeast(can also be avatars amulet and/or with more stances)- http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POAFc8EbYZBsImHDjhin0U7LvEHWE-z5AfKZKC6VIEtCodJgQHAPaladins boonbeast - http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POAFc8EbYZBsHmHLiZin0U7rsEHWE-z5QfKZKC6VIEtCodJgQHAI hope that helps you but feel free to pick and choice find a specific setup of a build that you enjoy to play- cuz that’s the most importantEdit: also the beast mastery version seems to have a lot of working amulets: menders, avatars or even harrier for sustainy setup you could even try more dps ones like seekers and different pets. I choose most of these becuz it’s better for 1v1ing but there are other roles like team fighting I can try

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@kiritsugu emeya.3962 said:i feel like this is a gold 3- discussion,if we are talking about 1v1s. between plat 2-3 war, fb, weaver, holo, and Condi mirage can all beat ranger and that's facts.

however yes as others have recommended the class needs nerfs especially with gazelle.hopefully, in the next balance patch, everything gets fixed and by everything I mean other classes aswell

Playing a single class hardly justify anybody to be considered an expert in game designing

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Dantheman.3589 said:Boonbeast is very very good rn. Beats many classes like fire weaver 1v1, while still having much better mobility and team support than most other side noders

No

In no way does any Ranger build out brawl Fire Weaver, especially Boonbeast like setups that have lower damage output. There is this huge misconception that modern Ranger builds somehow have amazing condi cleanse, which is simply not true at all. They have moderate to low or in some situations no cleanse at all if they are full DPS. Your best bet against a Fire Weaver is to go at it with glass cannon DPS and hope you can land the 2-3 consecutive strikes through evades to down it immediately. If you can't do that you immediately lose the node and have to run. And no, longbow is ineffective against Fire Weaver. Too many reflects & evades.

U don’t really need extra condi cleanse the resistance from owl and revenant runes are enough. Because weavers condition are very burst the more resistance the better and there enough condi clear to get rid of cover condis. I feel if you make ur rotations correctly on boonbeast your dps can heavily out way s fire weaver, but if u make a mistake u could possibly insta die, which is why I’m not saying boonbeast is the best 1v1 er just that it is very strong and has better mobility and team support or any 1v1er rn

Eh I dunno man. I'm not seeing anyone use any such configuration.

Here are reasons why that wouldn't work past a bottom plat 1 level:
  1. Owl is too low of health. It gets shrekt immediately when on node with any competent player. If you set it to retreat so it survives, they you're losing pet DPS and certainly pet CC utilities, and its pet skills are bad in general. So on a Core Ranger even, this pet is pretty useless right now.
  2. You would have to be a Soulbeast to use that merge skill for resistance. Why would I want a 3s resistance on a 40s CD with a bunch of other low damage skills with no CC, when I could be in Smokescale with Smoke Assault on a 20s CD that evades for just as long as the resistance as it deals damage and chases at the same time, while also having a 2s KD skill on the bar?

You seem to be very specifically talking about.. boonbeasts.. so I dunno man. All I can say is that Soulbeast RIGHT NOW is much much better optimized as high mobility DPS with longbow/greatsword. If you seriously are wanting to still play boonbeast setups "the idea of something tanky that brawls on node" you need to discover core ranger. Core Ranger right now is a better boonbeast than a boonbeast.

I disagree I picked up boon beast this season(though I was a plat3 Druid back when) and have maintained top 10 - around plat3 solo q on it. I can make the same argument about the core build, it lacks resistance and take gs for mobility, which is approaching meme territory for me and doesn’t even use plasma, which actually makes it surprising weak against mesmers etc. the core build probably survives well enough but it is incredibly lacking in areas, like I can argue that core symbol guard is better than firebrand just becuz it has some crazy match ups, but it just isn’t superior which is why no one plays and that’s also why no one will consider the core ranger build to be meta atm.

You know what Dan, I actually went and experimented with some weird build structures after reading what you had said, to give it the benefit of a doubt.

I ended up settling on this:
  • Wilderness/Beast/Soulbeast
  • Mender with Eagle Rune
  • Axe/Axe Energy Courge - GS Energy Agility
  • Smoke/Gazelle
  • Troll/Zephyr/Stone Sig/Light Ref/SOP

Boy oh boy did I rethink defending Ranger tbh. Now when we are talking glass cannon specs, I feel the high risk high reward is balanced. As much as these gold division players want to complain about DPS Soulbeast, you can kill it in 2 hits just as easy as it can kill you in 2 hits. But when I seriously started messing around with Mender sustain variants... I dunno man, something feels very very off with the numbers. I think it is possible that we are experiencing a bug somewhere in Ranger damage when it is running low damage amulets, and this may be where people are launching complaint that needs to be paid attention to.

Simply put: That Mender variant I was using that didn't even have Sic Em, was easily dealing at least half of the damage output of my Berserker Sic Em variant "no joke" and sometimes it felt more like 3/4ths the damage output of the Berserker Sic Em, but has like 6x to 8x the sustain factor. I mean I land 8k-12k Mauls on the Berserker Sic Em as an average output, then this Mender running full sustain outside of the damage mods on Soulbeast, is landing 6k - 7k Mauls, like what? And then the Axe #5 spin to win is seriously landing like 12k - 17k damage in team fights. Just... what? Something is not right there. When I have a Berserker Amulet on and am running Marks or Skirm along with Beast Mastery, the extra power & prec & feroc along with random vuln & various other damage mods, it should be jacking the damage output up way higher than what the Mender build with sustain lines is capable of.

Something is not right there ^ Either the full sustain setups are somehow dealing more damage than they should be, or full dps setups have undergone some kind of hidden nerf that is restricting high level damage output. Either way, when you sit down and start actually comparing the damage outputs between high sustain low dmg vs. high damage low sustain on Ranger, it doesn't add up. The high sustain builds are dealing a lot more damage than they should be.

lol for anyone who doesn't believe this, come 1v1 me on NA if you're online tonight. This build is ridiculous. I actually haven't lost a 1v1 yet, even to legend division players. Like... you can't kill this build 1v1. Note that I'm not saying "how amazing I am" I am stating that, you can't kill this build 1v1 if the player is competent at all. Like it will survive and eventually kill you when you mess up.

You are not all knowing as I told you......you don't lose 1v1....such surprise..., maybe you want to share your --original build --buld with all the "pro" gs/lb gazellites who like to run their mouth on the forum

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@Trevor Boyer.6524 said:@"Tycura.1982"

It grants the precision you need to get a solid high crit chance in conjunction with fury, something like a 70+%. Then it grants extra ferocity which Mender lacks, and that feroc + the feroc from axe trait and soulbeast traits, pretty much is the equivalent of wearing a marauder/demo amulet. And then that 10% damage bonus it gets vs. targets bellow 50% health is actually kind of messed up with all the other damage modifiers from Soulbeast. You know, how it stacks multiplicatively instead of additively: It's just the best option. I tested variants with Thief, Altruism, Leadership, ect ect. In the case of this build, Eagle just happens to be optimized.

  • Furious Strength - You deal more damage while you have fury 7%
  • Twice as Vicious - Disabling a foe increases your damage 5%
  • Oppressive Superiority - Deal increased damage to foes at a lower health percentage than you 10%
  • While in merge form - +10% damage to Greatsword trait
  • While in merge form - Pack Alpha - Your pet's attributes are improved and pet skills gain recharge reduction +150 attributes
  • While in merge form - Loud Whistle - While your health is above the threshold +10%
  • While in merge form - Pet's Prowess - Your pet moves faster and deals more damage on critical hits +300 feroc to the Soulbeast
  • While in merge form - the usual pet stat block added to you, +200 power +100 prec or w/e it is
  • And then +10% damage from Eagle Rune while opponent is under 50% health, as well as +250 feroc.

So while wearing mender.... you're getting +700 or +550 feroc "depending on if pack alpha adds that +150 to feroc", while wearing Eagle Rune. The crit chance with fury on is above 70%, and then you get all those misc damage mods + the 10% off Eagle. It's like you get to wear Berserker stat while wearing Mender. It's kind of messed up man.

When laying it out like this, I see why a Berserker variant is needless. the large bulk of the damage is simply coming from Soulbeast itself. the small amount of extra power and feroc from using Serk isn't advantageous next to the ridiculous amount of sustain gained from Mender, in conjunction with all the rando passive sustain Ranger has.

This does prove why Core Ranger is kind of eeeeh a monthly meme thing imo. Soulbeast is just a lot stronger in the hands of older Ranger players. People are only running Core Ranger right now due to Gazelle use and Marks modifiers for gimmicky 2HKO builds, where they land a Hilt Bash into a Maul/Gazelle F2 at the same time. It's easier for less experienced Ranger players to figure out.

Due to that experimentation though, I did find a way to make Druid work again. Trying it out tonight.

I would like to also point out that the suggested build that I posted in here doesn't even use a longbow. The pew pew isn't even noteworthy next to how stupid brawly and over powered this mender build is when you actually try to get on a node with it.

I'm trying this tomorrow, I've been looking to bolster my PvP experience on soulbeast.

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