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Ranger build for open world survival


jackowskig.3905

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Hello,

I leveled with my gf our rangers all the way to 80 and we started living stories seasons. I was using longbow beastmastery build from meta battle for leveling (gs/lb beastmastery, marksmanship, skirmishing) and started building berserk stats on my equipment but i have some issues with it. I started to die a lot more than before hitting 80 and i feel very helpless vs hard condi or some more powerful attacks than from trash mobs. I use mainly gs and lb for harder fights and im usually walking with brown bear/marsh drake/lynx. Im looking for some tips for open world/casual gaming and i will be very grateful for very specific core ranger build with all things in it. I was enjoying very much my ranger with his cool pets, but now im just annoyed about this situation. In future im planning to unlock soulbeast so i if anyone could post a kind of open world soulbeast build too it will be great!

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Since you are already using metabattle, a good skeleton to build upon, for your own open world builds, is the WvW section. While anything works for core open world, HoT is known to "punish" glass canon builds so I wouldn't touch anything from raids or fractals section. WvW roaming builds tend to be tankier and make for a good foundation to make your own, with a few adjustments here and there.

If you find yourself getting downed a lot, then don't go full zerker. Mixing some soldier's or valkyrie's in would improve your survivability.

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@jackowskig.3905 said:I see build in WvW section with marauder stats (sic'em roamer) with gs and lb that i like but its for soulbeast. Can i take sth like marksmanship or sth for exchange and it will be good? And maybe some pet suggestions would be great :).

Swap marksmanship for wilderness survival, use Troll Urgent as your heal, and Quickening Zephyr utility. Use the wilderness trait that removes conditions when using survival skills. Also use the trait that makes you take less fall dmg. Now you have both protection boons and condition removals and you should be fine.

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It looks like you're good for future Power Soulbeast action. If you want to switch it up at some point and try condi, give this guy a look. Vampiric SoulbeastThis is high on the "don't die" side of things but it has a decent amount of wiggle room depending on how much damage you want and how tanky you need to be.The core of the build is Windborne Notes + Oakheart Salve, poison application + Predator's Cunning, and stacking lifesteal effects. As long as you have a balance of Power, Healing Power, and Condi damage; the rest is up to personal preference.I ran this build in Apothecary's for a good bit. It can out-lifesteal lifesteal champs.

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Updated:Im sticking to metabattle longbow beastmastery gs+lb build right now with berserker stats and scholar. I have problems with fighting more than 2 mobs or with champs in Hot maps. They kill me after one hit. Im using active defense and consumables but im still squishy af. I dont know what is going on. This build has such a great rating but i have troubles all the time. I was using before some eq with soldier stats but i was convinced that sooner i will wear berserker sooner i will learn about a gamę. Please some advices.

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@"jackowskig.3905" said:Updated:Im sticking to metabattle longbow beastmastery gs+lb build right now with berserker stats and scholar. I have problems with fighting more than 2 mobs or with champs in Hot maps. They kill me after one hit. Im using active defense and consumables but im still squishy af. I dont know what is going on. This build has such a great rating but i have troubles all the time. I was using before some eq with soldier stats but i was convinced that sooner i will wear berserker sooner i will learn about a gamę. Please some advices.

The trick lies exactly in the specializations and not in the gear (in this case atleast).

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJARTnUqAN8id8CmsActglJBzJyVBycNBgGwEIP3GcPulcuEA-jxRGQB6c/BAp+T5eCAkRXgUUCOElfA4SAAA-e

This build is pretty much boonbeast but with WS and NM for more cleanse, health regen, dmg mitigation and ultimate boon stacking.

Use all utilities, use heal skill, merge with pet (raven preferably) swoop in, pull, go ham.

Also fantastically paired with sword/Axe for more AoE.

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@InsaneQR.7412 said:

@"jackowskig.3905" said:Updated:Im sticking to metabattle longbow beastmastery gs+lb build right now with berserker stats and scholar. I have problems with fighting more than 2 mobs or with champs in Hot maps. They kill me after one hit. Im using active defense and consumables but im still squishy af. I dont know what is going on. This build has such a great rating but i have troubles all the time. I was using before some eq with soldier stats but i was convinced that sooner i will wear berserker sooner i will learn about a gamę. Please some advices.

The trick lies exactly in the specializations and not in the gear (in this case atleast).

This build is pretty much boonbeast but with WS and NM for more cleanse, health regen, dmg mitigation and ultimate boon stacking.

Use all utilities, use heal skill, merge with pet (raven preferably) swoop in, pull, go ham.

Also fantastically paired with sword/Axe for more AoE.

Which sigils for sword/axe?

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There are already good suggestions here. I can only add some generic perspective for you to consider.

First, HoT maps are known to be harsh for newcomers, so you don't need to worry if you get constantly downed right after leaving waypoint - been there, done that, and even nowadays HoT maps catch me red handed on new toons. The great trick in HoT maps is very much up to know your enemy. Whenever you get better knowing how pocket raptors, mordrem snipers, mushrooms, frogs and all those work, the easier your life comes, and you start to prefer more offensive builds.

Second, you should understand that fractal & raid builds are aimed for certain purpose: efficiently killing fractal/raid mobs & bosses with certain team composition played by experienced enough players. Remember that fractal & raid encounters are always the same, there are always same mobs with same health and same attack pattern. Any of these holds not true for you when you are wandering at new frontiers alone on open world maps. If using metabattle, look the open world section, and take also look to PvP & WvW roaming builds, they give you some ideas how to get sustain when you don't exactly know what you are facing next.

Third, no matter what build you are using, you need some basic knowledge from where the sustain comes. For example, Wilderness Survival is usually traited so that it adds sustain certain ways: first, survival skills are traited to remove conditions, which can be a problem in HoT maps, second, (for PvP/WvW) it is usually traited so that (1) dodge roll gives protection, plus (2) protection from any source heals, so (3) dodge roll gives protection and heals you. You can then slot survival skills to skillbar (e.g. troll urguent as heal, quickening zephyr, root elite) to remove condis, and you can augment your dodging by looking for sources for Vigor (traits, sigils etc).

Another trait line you may want to consider is Beastmastery. It has Resounding Timber, which augments your shouts, and if you slot "We Heal As One" as heal and e.g. "Protect Me!" as stun break, you get regeneration. Furthermore, Beastmastery is usually traited to augment GS and Axe weapons, so with Beastmastery most common weapon combination is GS + x/Axe (where x is either Sword or Axe). If you play Soulbeast, you almost always choose Beastmastery with that, because then all the agumentations to your pet are transferred to yourself!

Basically close all tankier builds choose three of following four: Wilderness Survival, Nature's Magic, Beastmastery and Skirmishing. Nature's Magic gives you some passive sustain, condi cleanse on evade or boosted warhorn, and it is commonly paired with Beastmastery because it augments your pet. Nowadays pets are not as strong as they used to be, so NM + BM combination is not as popular as it once were for bunker builds. Skirmishing is many times traited 2-2-1, when it gives Vigor when evading attack (which is why it pairs well with WS and/or NM, if NM is traited to remove condis on evade), it aguments swords (e.g. if you run GS + Sword/Warhorn or Sword/Axe combo). The last, Quick Draw needs practicing to be used correctly, but in general it gives you "double use" of best skills in weapon sets. It is very handy in many builds.

Greatsword is good defensive and offensive weapon, giving you (1) AoE damage (which is always good to have in open world), (2) evade frame in autoattack, (3) block, (4) hardhitting Maul, and (5) CC. It is very, very hard to bypass GS as a ranger. x/Axe combo gives you good AoE and projectile defense. It pairs well with Sword (which has two good skills to avoid damage), but can be combined with mainhand Axe to get some ranged attacks for rare situations where you have problems to reach the mob.

Then the gears. Most of players go towards more and more offensive builds as their experience from class and mobs increase. But it really, really helps at the beginning, if you are not downed right when fight starts, because you are not yet familiar with content. So, my suggestion is, that you have some "swap" pieces, e.g. Soldier, which give you passive protection to start with. Don't go extremes with these: something like 2500 armor and 20k health is enough for close any open world content, the more will not anymore help you (if you are dying with 20k + 2500, you will be also dying with 25k + 3000), but instead it starts to make things harder because you can't get mobs down (and thus you start running out of your cooldowns). One cheap way could be slotting Dolyak runes.

Note, that Scholar runes are expensive, and to get the benefit, you should be able to keep your health above 90%, which is hardly the case when you are first times roaming in open world PvE. Fractal frequenters of course use these in open world, so they don't need to have swap set.

There are several sigils you might like. Accuracy sigils are quite cheap and they can fill the gap in crit rate if you have slotted Soldier pieces. If you trust on evades, sigils that give you vigor on swap are nice. If you want more condi cleanses, there are few ones with those (triggering either on weapon swap or crit hit). If you have high enough crit, you can get some small passive heals from sigil of blood or sigil of water (water will also heal your pet), although in general they are more useful for druids to gain CA power. For many sigils, try to keep your crit rate high enough to trigger them often enough (and look for Fury sources).

Tip: There is special forces training area in Lion's Arch Archedome. You can access it by creating a squad where you are the only member. Go in, go to console, and turn on the damage field. Then respawn a golem and go hitting it. This way you can practise and experiment self-sustaining builds to certain level. It is not perfect, as some of the sustain comes from active sources, but anyways it is one place to make somewhat controlled experiments.

I hope this helps a bit.

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@"TamX.1870" said:There are already good suggestions here. I can only add some generic perspective for you to consider.

First, HoT maps are known to be harsh for newcomers, so you don't need to worry if you get constantly downed right after leaving waypoint - been there, done that, and even nowadays HoT maps catch me red handed on new toons. The great trick in HoT maps is very much up to know your enemy. Whenever you get better knowing how pocket raptors, mordrem snipers, mushrooms, frogs and all those work, the easier your life comes, and you start to prefer more offensive builds.

Second, you should understand that fractal & raid builds are aimed for certain purpose: efficiently killing fractal/raid mobs & bosses with certain team composition played by experienced enough players. Remember that fractal & raid encounters are always the same, there are always same mobs with same health and same attack pattern. Any of these holds not true for you when you are wandering at new frontiers alone on open world maps. If using metabattle, look the open world section, and take also look to PvP & WvW roaming builds, they give you some ideas how to get sustain when you don't exactly know what you are facing next.

Third, no matter what build you are using, you need some basic knowledge from where the sustain comes. For example, Wilderness Survival is usually traited so that it adds sustain certain ways: first, survival skills are traited to remove conditions, which can be a problem in HoT maps, second, (for PvP/WvW) it is usually traited so that (1) dodge roll gives protection, plus (2) protection from any source heals, so (3) dodge roll gives protection and heals you. You can then slot survival skills to skillbar (e.g. troll urguent as heal, quickening zephyr, root elite) to remove condis, and you can augment your dodging by looking for sources for Vigor (traits, sigils etc).

Another trait line you may want to consider is Beastmastery. It has Resounding Timber, which augments your shouts, and if you slot "We Heal As One" as heal and e.g. "Protect Me!" as stun break, you get regeneration. Furthermore, Beastmastery is usually traited to augment GS and Axe weapons, so with Beastmastery most common weapon combination is GS + x/Axe (where x is either Sword or Axe). If you play Soulbeast, you almost always choose Beastmastery with that, because then all the agumentations to your pet are transferred to yourself!

Basically close all tankier builds choose three of following four: Wilderness Survival, Nature's Magic, Beastmastery and Skirmishing. Nature's Magic gives you some passive sustain, condi cleanse on evade or boosted warhorn, and it is commonly paired with Beastmastery because it augments your pet. Nowadays pets are not as strong as they used to be, so NM + BM combination is not as popular as it once were for bunker builds. Skirmishing is many times traited 2-2-1, when it gives Vigor when evading attack (which is why it pairs well with WS and/or NM, if NM is traited to remove condis on evade), it aguments swords (e.g. if you run GS + Sword/Warhorn or Sword/Axe combo). The last, Quick Draw needs practicing to be used correctly, but in general it gives you "double use" of best skills in weapon sets. It is very handy in many builds.

Greatsword is good defensive and offensive weapon, giving you (1) AoE damage (which is always good to have in open world), (2) evade frame in autoattack, (3) block, (4) hardhitting Maul, and (5) CC. It is very, very hard to bypass GS as a ranger. x/Axe combo gives you good AoE and projectile defense. It pairs well with Sword (which has two good skills to avoid damage), but can be combined with mainhand Axe to get some ranged attacks for rare situations where you have problems to reach the mob.

Then the gears. Most of players go towards more and more offensive builds as their experience from class and mobs increase. But it really, really helps at the beginning, if you are not downed right when fight starts, because you are not yet familiar with content. So, my suggestion is, that you have some "swap" pieces, e.g. Soldier, which give you passive protection to start with. Don't go extremes with these: something like 2500 armor and 20k health is enough for close any open world content, the more will not anymore help you (if you are dying with 20k + 2500, you will be also dying with 25k + 3000), but instead it starts to make things harder because you can't get mobs down (and thus you start running out of your cooldowns). One cheap way could be slotting Dolyak runes.

Note, that Scholar runes are expensive, and to get the benefit, you should be able to keep your health above 90%, which is hardly the case when you are first times roaming in open world PvE. Fractal frequenters of course use these in open world, so they don't need to have swap set.

There are several sigils you might like. Accuracy sigils are quite cheap and they can fill the gap in crit rate if you have slotted Soldier pieces. If you trust on evades, sigils that give you vigor on swap are nice. If you want more condi cleanses, there are few ones with those (triggering either on weapon swap or crit hit). If you have high enough crit, you can get some small passive heals from sigil of blood or sigil of water (water will also heal your pet), although in general they are more useful for druids to gain CA power. For many sigils, try to keep your crit rate high enough to trigger them often enough (and look for Fury sources).

Tip: There is special forces training area in Lion's Arch Archedome. You can access it by creating a squad where you are the only member. Go in, go to console, and turn on the damage field. Then respawn a golem and go hitting it. This way you can practise and experiment self-sustaining builds to certain level. It is not perfect, as some of the sustain comes from active sources, but anyways it is one place to make somewhat controlled experiments.

I hope this helps a bit.

Thanks for advice. Now im using build from @InsaneQR.7412 GS+LB, WS/NM/Soulbeast with zerk+fireworks runes and sigils of agility+strength. This build has huge survivability and ok dmg. But i think about maybe for replacing something with BS for GS/merging dmg boost or changing some utilities/runes for more effective playstyle. Any specific tips? I saw boon berserker soulbeast on metabattle but will it be ok for me? My main target now is hot/pof maps. Eventually i got Jacaranda which dmg is great and i have now even more fun with ranger than before. I kinda dont like sword + axe, maybe dagger + wh will be better for more boons and quickness.

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@jackowskig.3905 said:Thanks for advice. Now im using build from @"InsaneQR.7412" GS+LB, WS/NM/Soulbeast with zerk+fireworks runes and sigils of agility+strength. This build has huge survivability and ok dmg. But i think about maybe for replacing something with BS for GS/merging dmg boost or changing some utilities/runes for more effective playstyle. Any specific tips? I saw boon berserker soulbeast on metabattle but will it be ok for me? My main target now is hot/pof maps. Eventually i got Jacaranda which dmg is great and i have now even more fun with ranger than before. I kinda dont like sword + axe, maybe dagger + wh will be better for more boons and quickness.

At the moment, there is two popular PvP/WvW side Soulbeast builds: so called boonbeast, and so called sic'em roamer. Links to WvW variants (you may also peek corresponding PvP side builds for ideas):

Boonbeast: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Dual_Axe_Roamer - SB + WS + NM with sw/wh + axe/axeSic'em Roamer: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-Sic%27Em_Roamer - SB + WS + BM with GS + LB

Boonbeast utilizes the synergy between NM and warhorn, and stacks boons to increase damage and survivability. Sic'Em Roamer utilizes synergy between BM and shouts and GS. As far as I know, they are both viable builds for open world PvE, at least with some tuning. PvP/WvW builds in general have lots of CC and anti-CC (too much at PvE side), they need gap closers and gap makers (mobility), it does not hurt if you can kite, and you should have counters against kiting. You are fighting against moving (relatively) low health enemy, which has strong sustain, and that's the difference to PvE mobs: they don't usually heal, and they are not actively trying to avoid you, or kite you, or perma-CC you. Also, PvE mobs seldomly cure their condis, so you don't need as frequent sources for them (if you trust on them).

That's why you can tailor PvP/WvW side builds a bit:

  • You can give up Wilderness Survival if you don't need that much condi cleanses and/or protection heals. Taking Sic'Em roamer and replacing WS with Marksmanship makes it close to regular fractal SB build.
  • Sic'Em roamer can use x/Axe instead of LB as its fractal counterpart does. While LB is iconic ranger weapon, its main use is to put ranged pressure when kiting or against kiting. It has not that much utility at PvE side, and especially if you are Soulbeast when you don't usually have loose pet taking aggro instead of you. But if you like, of course you can go with LB.
  • You might like to try hybrid NM + BM + SB, which probably was already introduced here. To get "everything" out of it, you might consider GS + Axe/Wh setup, although it is not mandatory. Depending on your weapon choices you can trait it bit differently.
  • Mainhand Sword in these builds give you defensive skills (sw #2 and #3), and sword autoattack is AoE, which is really nice at open world side. You need to get used to sword skills, and I understand that it is not as appealing to newer players.
  • Mainhand Axe is semi-ranged option if you replace LB.
  • I don't recall playing mainhand dagger much, but I cant remember the reason. Maybe I should try it. So far I have used either mainhand sword or axe.

EDIT: Ah, one thing. Even power DPS WvW/PvP builds regularly choose ways to apply poison. Remember, it is against heals, as it reduces the heal efficiency. That has seldomly any value at PvE side.

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