Sylvari Still Best Ranger Race?

[Mic.1897]

7 hours ago, Duglaive.5236 said:

Neither Sylvan Hound - nor any other racial for any race/class - has been meta since I started playing. But then, that's only about 3 years now.

 

 

Yeah so people are correct when they say ANet designed the racials to never be best in slot in order to keep races balanced. What's important to realize is that there have been times where this has failed, and it usually lands on Ranger.

 

Back when Condi was king the issue actually started with Take Root. ANet did respond to this and nerfed it, but Sylvan Hound just took its place. Surprisingly, ANet never nerfed the Hound but the issue still went away for now as Power Soulbeast is on top. If a new Ranger had to pick a race today though, Sylvari may be safest bet in case Rangers meta shifts back towards condi.

 

Other issues also came up with Human Thief w/ Melandru, and Sylvari Mesmer. For a little bit people were asking racials to be banned in instanced content.

[Duglaive.5236]

5 minutes ago, Mic.1897 said:

 

Yeah so people are correct when they say ANet designed the racials to never be best in slot in order to keep races balanced. What's important to realize is that there have been times where this has failed, and it usually lands on Ranger.

 

Back when Condi was king the issue actually started with Take Root. ANet did respond to this and nerfed it, but Sylvan Hound just took its place. Surprisingly, ANet never nerfed the Hound but the issue still went away for now as Power Soulbeast is on top. If a new Ranger had to pick a race today though, Sylvari may be safest bet in case Rangers meta shifts back towards condi.

 

Other issues also came up with Human Thief w/ Melandru, and Sylvari Mesmer. For a little bit people were asking racials to be banned in instanced content.

Interesting info, thanks.

I read about some of what you reference here in a reddit thread from 2017, and watched a youtube vid from the same period showing the benchmarks. Differences were smallish, but the differences existed. Perhaps I'm fortunate that one of my 2 Rangers is Sylvari, and I only play him as a Druid or core. My other is a Charr Untamed due to 3 years of Soulbeast, and I think the theme fits the race 

[Abyssisis.3971]

1 hour ago, Mic.1897 said:

 

The thread is not talking about present day meta builds

 

Regardless, I did receive my answer elsewhere. Should condi or core Ranger rise again Sylvari will still be the best race, as Hound still benchmarks higher than Entangle.

Have a good day everyone. 

If it’s not about meta, then why are you talking about benchmarks? Why are you concerned with dps, when core ranger isn’t a dps option. Like I said in my first comment, racial skills are for role playing and meme builds, nothing more.

[Mic.1897]

3 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

If it’s not about meta, then why are you talking about benchmarks? Why are you concerned with dps, when core ranger isn’t a dps option. Like I said in my first comment, racial skills are for role playing and meme builds, nothing more.

The current Meta.

 

If some day in the future condi becomes king again, so will Sylvari if the balance between elites isn't changed.

 

I was initially asking if this was the case, but can now confirm that it is.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Mic.1897

[Abyssisis.3971]

5 hours ago, Mic.1897 said:

The current Meta.

 

If some day in the future condi becomes king again, so will Sylvari if the balance between elites isn't changed.

 

I was initially asking if this was the case, but can now confirm that it is.

No it won’t because you still won’t be a dps option on core ranger… 🤦‍♂️

[Mic.1897]

2 hours ago, Abyssisis.3971 said:

No it won’t because you still won’t be a dps option on core ranger… 🤦‍♂️

 

 

Sylvan has outbenched OOP for Soulbeast before as well.

 

The reality is that it has been meta before and has a potential to be meta again some day.

[Sirius.4510]

On 8/19/2022 at 4:07 PM, Mic.1897 said:

Sylvan has outbenched OOP for Soulbeast before as well.

Going to need a source for this because I don't believe it for a second.

[BatelGeuce.3591]

This was never a meta, there were like two reddit posts claiming that Sylvan Hound performs better than any other elite skill at the time and the difference in provided numbers was like 900.

 

It might have outperformed other elite skills in initial burst but I refuse to believe it was sustainable with 3 minute cooldown which it always had.

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

Sylvari can use its racial skills to ignore Harvest Temple CM greens. So in this case the race is OP, as other races need to rely on either doing them (which imo should be mandatory, I do not like "exploiting" mechanics) or playing one of the few profession that have a profession skill that allows the to ignore them.

[Mic.1897]

5 hours ago, Sirius.4510 said:

Going to need a source for this because I don't believe it for a second.

You have all the tools you need to log in and go benchmark it for yourself

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

26 minutes ago, Mic.1897 said:

You have all the tools you need to log in and go benchmark it for yourself

Nobody wants to make a specific race character just to bench it for when it could potentially be worse. Burden of proof. Show us the bench.

[Levetty.1279]

I'm surprised by how few Rangers know how often racial skills have been outright better then Ranger skills especially in terms of DPS. Not been the case for utilities for long time now but it still happens with Elite skills. 

 

To answer OP I remember hearing that Sylvari is better since the OWP nerf but not by much.

[TheLadyOfTheRings.9148]

Well, I have 4 Rangers in total, one per each race (except Human, which I find boring), and my main is the Sylvari 🙂 

I think both Sylvari and Norn are the most obvious choices for Ranger. Next I'd say would be Human and Charr. The humans have Melandru as a deity, and the Charr tame a variety of pets like skelk and devourers. The least obvious choice for a Ranger would be Asura, but on the other hand that only makes it even more interesting.  

PS: Just realized OP is talking about racial skills? No idea which race has the best racial skills...

Edited August 28, 2022 by TheLadyOfTheRings.9148

[ASP.8093]

Norn is the best ranger race because you can troll people with gigantic Become the Bear one-shots in World vs. World. Beyond that, the racial skills don't matter at all.

[jalisco.4037]

I think @Mic.1897 has convinced himself that Sylvari ranger core is Meta, or at worse, could some day be. So, he can't lose either way! Who knows, maybe some day it will be 😄

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

On 8/26/2022 at 12:20 PM, ArjukKagrim.6049 said:

Sylvari can use its racial skills to ignore Harvest Temple CM greens. So in this case the race is OP, as other races need to rely on either doing them (which imo should be mandatory, I do not like "exploiting" mechanics) or playing one of the few profession that have a profession skill that allows the to ignore them.

 

As some seem to not understand why Sylvari is the best race: This strat here for example only works cause of the Sylvari Elite... but not only for ranger but in general

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

2 hours ago, ArjukKagrim.6049 said:

 

As some seem to not understand why Sylvari is the best race: This strat here for example only works cause of the Sylvari Elite... but not only for ranger but in general

Almost nobody is going to make a new toon just for this.

[Levetty.1279]

1 hour ago, RainbowTurtle.3542 said:

Almost nobody is going to make a new toon just for this.

It would take 5-10 minutes to make and gear up a new level 80 sylvari for the kind of people interested regularly running CMs.

[Sirius.4510]

Almost nobody makes serious attempts at clearing HT CM, that said. If you are serious about it, this becomes a consideration. But I don't know whether Rangers feature in minmaxed HT CM comps anyway. They get used for sure, but what I've been hearing suggests there might be better options.

And yeah, regarding the benchmark stuff, if Sylvan Hound were really that good it would actually get used by the pros for benchmarks. It doesn't, most likely because you can use it a grand total of once before the golem is dead, and OWP (as bad as it is now) pops 3 times in the fight so you just get more out of it.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Sirius.4510

[Logos.3042]

On 8/17/2022 at 9:57 PM, Mic.1897 said:

Hello all.

 

Coming back after a few years and starting fresh on a new toon. Was wondering if Sylvari was still the strongest race for Ranger with the occasional Sylvan Hound use.

 

Yes, I know the difference is extremely minor and don't need the "play what looks good" stuff.

 

Thanks in advance!

I do remember a time that Sylvan Hound elite racia was BiS; but I recall that after 6 months there was a nerf to it.

PS, you are not losing your mind. Also, seem to recall that it was the poison application combined with Vipers states that boosted it.

let me see if I can find patch notes on the wiki.

[Opopanax.1803]

9 minutes ago, Logos.3042 said:

I do remember a time that Sylvan Hound elite racia was BiS; but I recall that after 6 months there was a nerf to it.

PS, you are not losing your mind. Also, seem to recall that it was the poison application combined with Vipers states that boosted it.

let me see if I can find patch notes on the wiki.

• https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Talk:Summon_Sylvan_Hound
• Part of the issue is that they are immune to condis, so they stay up a lot longer than most.
• 5 seconds poison and bleeding per attack, so for full condi build with full condi duration, this is good with a 60 second uptime.