Ranger still has some of the best Solo OW Builds

[Mell.4873]

I was just playing around with the top DPS build for Untamed involving cycling Path of Scars with Fervent Force trait. You can roughly CC once every 5-7 seconds.
This pared with Enhancing Impact + Shared Anguish pretty much gives you permeant stability (I know you supposed to unleash yourself at points to get quickness but the APM is high enough without adding this)

I also use healing Trap for open world so with all of this combined it essentially lets me stand at the feet of any Elite or Champion with 10k+ DPS. I don't even need any CC break skills since I have so much stability.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Myrdreon.7398]

You can go a lot further if you want to push the cooldown reduction/boon uptime mix. Something along the lines of http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POgEcEWmBTlhwSYuYpP1FrGxbA-zxIY1oh/MqQBkuEwjHEBoeM2ABfmeEA-e

 

Celestial setup which combines Spirit (alacrity) with your elite skill (Forest Fortrification) and some CC. The elite gives 20sec of stability (100% boon duration) on a 62 sec base cooldown when you include the built-in cooldown reduction.

In doing any build with 2 CC's (im doing call of the wild and exploding spores) thats 1 CC every 6 seconds; 10 seconds recharge for every 6 that pass. Means in practice its roughly 20 sec stability on <30 cooldown. Trough heal skills (heal as one or perilous gift) you can push it to 24-26 sec stability on <30 cooldown if you have to.

 

In practice you got basically 100% uptime on full stack 25 might, fury, swiftness, regeneration, protection, alacrity and even quickness (2x 6sec on 2x 20sec cooldown, which after Ferfent Force means 12sec cooldown so fully covered) . And as bonus like 80-90% uptime on resistance/stability/resolution/vigor trough your elite. All those for both you and your pet ofcourse, but also note the set of 100% uptime boons are all group based besides quickness. If you do OW content with random others joining in performance will escalate further.

 

For those with a keen eye, its also like 95-99% uptime on full 25 stack vulnerability (might want sigil of malice/peril instead of sigil of force to be 100% comfortably), chill, weakness as well and 4 breakbar skills since the pet isnt just a few extra vuln stacks but also brings 2 cc's of its own.

 

 

You're like a walking breathing full fledged party. Both buffing and debuffing like you're a group running dungeons/fractals, but doing it permanently and solo, anywhere any time any place. Also bringing 5 cc's (4 AOE-based) and 4 defiance breaks between you and pet on very low cooldown. Great tools for easy OW boss/event soloing, storyline, achievement hunting... but if others randomly join in you you will scale their performance to no end.

 

 

Rotation is whack-a-mole. Autoattack#1. If 3/4/5/7/8/9/0 can be pushed, push it. Switching unleashes is not even needed, can permanently camp in ranger unleashed state if you find those 7 buttons more than enough button pressing. Use heal when you want/need to. Pet F1/F2 on autocast... just make sure that pet's F3 isnt on autocast, can do weird things if used when in melee range so save it for the few fights you need a bar broken.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Myrdreon.7398

[Mell.4873]

9 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

In practice you got basically 100% uptime on full stack 25 might, fury, swiftness, regeneration, protection, alacrity and even quickness (2x 6sec on 2x 20sec cooldown, which after Fervent Force means 12sec cooldown so fully covered) . And as bonus like 80-90% uptime on resistance/stability/resolution/vigor trough your elite. All those for both you and your pet ofcourse, but also note the set of 100% uptime boons are all group based besides quickness. If you do OW content with random others joining in performance will escalate further.

Right before posting this i noticed Snowcrow switched all its builds to this one.

Once I get my Legendary Armor I will play around, I also want to see if I can create a fast ramp-up poison build with 100% poison/bleed duration.

[Gorem.8104]

Yeah, open world we fine, even if you could just play mechanist and have no idea how to play the game and out survive and out dps us, its still a fine class to play 

[Mell.4873]

47 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Yeah, open world we fine, even if you could just play mechanist and have no idea how to play the game and out survive and out dps us, its still a fine class to play 

That will not be the reality forever, also it doesn't always apply. I mean ranged DPS especially during something like bounties is not always the greatest idea. 

[Myrdreon.7398]

9 hours ago, Gorem.8104 said:

Yeah, open world we fine, even if you could just play mechanist and have no idea how to play the game and out survive and out dps us, its still a fine class to play 

On dedicated group play, where boons are covered, true. Other classes/specs can do better (tough snowcrows #9 build is mechanist highest dps, where ranger has dps ranks #1 and #7)

 

But when talking solo? OW?

Its kinda hard to out-dps a setup that has perma 25 might+fury+quickness+alac along with 25 vuln, and so tanky it can ignore mechanics. Mechanist can push 15 might and perma fury/alac on the right setup, but after that it gets tricky. If you want high quickness uptime you gotta sacrifice on the signet front (jade dynamo vs jade drive), and vulnerability is more like 5-stack. If you want a shot at decent to high vulnerability stacks, then you are looking at much lower might stack (impact drivers vs jade cannons). Defensively perma stability isnt happening, things like resistance/resolution arent even optional. Perma protection means specific traits+shield use, which will naturally impact the dps you can expect.

 

That difference in boons on performance is really significant when you arent guaranteed them all from a support/healer role in the party. Likewise when a random party appears during an OW event, buffing them all trough the roof (ranger) vs solo setup (mech) is the difference between 100% gold succes, and the occasionally silver/bronze/fail.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Myrdreon.7398

[Levetty.1279]

7 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

Its kinda hard to out-dps a setup that has perma

Unless you are Mech then you just turn up and auto attack with Rifle to out DPS it no matter what boons you have.

 

7 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

jade dynamo vs jade drive

Dynamo is already the higher damage trait without taking quickness into account.

[Myrdreon.7398]

You seem to forget that untamed, fully buffed, is the #1 dps currently. Mech is #9 fully buffed.

 

So in this storymode/OW scenario, where solo-adjusted untamed still has all boons and mech doesnt anymore? What makes you so sure Untamed Ranger is suddenly wayy worse?

[Levetty.1279]

4 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

You seem to forget that untamed, fully buffed, is the #1 dps currently. Mech is #9 fully buffed.

 

So in this storymode/OW scenario, where solo-adjusted untamed still has all boons and mech doesnt anymore? What makes you so sure Untamed Ranger is suddenly wayy worse?

You seem to forget that we are not comparing snowcrow builds in organised groups attacking a golem. We are comparing overworld capabilities of a pretty self sufficient dps build Mechanist vs an Untamed build that has made compromises in weapons, stats and whole trait lines to try and stack said boons.

[Gotejjeken.1267]

13 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

On dedicated group play, where boons are covered, true. Other classes/specs can do better (tough snowcrows #9 build is mechanist highest dps, where ranger has dps ranks #1 and #7)

 

But when talking solo? OW?

Its kinda hard to out-dps a setup that has perma 25 might+fury+quickness+alac along with 25 vuln, and so tanky it can ignore mechanics. Mechanist can push 15 might and perma fury/alac on the right setup, but after that it gets tricky. If you want high quickness uptime you gotta sacrifice on the signet front (jade dynamo vs jade drive), and vulnerability is more like 5-stack. If you want a shot at decent to high vulnerability stacks, then you are looking at much lower might stack (impact drivers vs jade cannons). Defensively perma stability isnt happening, things like resistance/resolution arent even optional. Perma protection means specific traits+shield use, which will naturally impact the dps you can expect.

 

That difference in boons on performance is really significant when you arent guaranteed them all from a support/healer role in the party. Likewise when a random party appears during an OW event, buffing them all trough the roof (ranger) vs solo setup (mech) is the difference between 100% gold succes, and the occasionally silver/bronze/fail.

 

Can out-DPS it in OW on soulbeast, guaranteed--even with the OWP nerf.  

[Zyreva.1078]

22 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

That will not be the reality forever, also it doesn't always apply. I mean ranged DPS especially during something like bounties is not always the greatest idea. 

There is no downside to ranged dmg in PvE, because you can still attack from close range if you need/want to. But it doesn't work the other way arround for melee builds, which makes them generally weaker in actual combat.

Also with jade bot protocols there is not much need to worry about self buffs for most open world content anymore. Just go full dmg and everything melts ...

Edited August 23, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Ashen.2907]

1 hour ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

There is no downside to ranged dmg in PvE

Projectile hate. Reflection in particular. Ive seen entire groups of rifle mechs kill themselves and others around them during boss blitz.

Not much of a downside, but it does exist.

 

Edit: and I fully admit that the example I gave was hilarious and really made it feel like even less of a downside in that moment.

Edited August 23, 2022 by Ashen.2907

[Mell.4873]

3 hours ago, UmbraNoctis.1907 said:

There is no downside to ranged dmg in PvE, because you can still attack from close range if you need/want to. But it doesn't work the other way arround for melee builds, which makes them generally weaker in actual combat.

Also with jade bot protocols there is not much need to worry about self buffs for most open world content anymore. Just go full dmg and everything melts ...

I feel like Mechanist just discovered what Ranger and in particular Soulbeast has had for years.

Soulbeast right from the start was able to share/extend boons on itself. Which was amazing for any OW and even more amazing now with the EoD buffs. 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

10 hours ago, Myrdreon.7398 said:

You seem to forget that untamed, fully buffed, is the #1 dps currently. Mech is #9 fully buffed.

 

So in this storymode/OW scenario, where solo-adjusted untamed still has all boons and mech doesnt anymore? What makes you so sure Untamed Ranger is suddenly wayy worse?

Untamed also has a 100 APM rotation.

 

Mech has insane utility and all you need to do is auto to do well on DPS.

[Gorem.8104]

12 hours ago, Ashen.2907 said:

Projectile hate. Reflection in particular. Ive seen entire groups of rifle mechs kill themselves and others around them during boss blitz.

Not much of a downside, but it does exist.

 

Edit: and I fully admit that the example I gave was hilarious and really made it feel like even less of a downside in that moment.

TBH that sounds totally worth the watch if there's a recording of Engie's killing themselves and others during a pve encounter that uses reflect 

[Gorem.8104]

9 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

I feel like Mechanist just discovered what Ranger and in particular Soulbeast has had for years.

Soulbeast right from the start was able to share/extend boons on itself. Which was amazing for any OW and even more amazing now with the EoD buffs. 

I feel like its just easy to compare the 2 because Mechanist is what Untamed should have been. The best pet class in the game that is not difficult at all to play (seriously, who cares about the dps Untamed can do, why would anyone actually want to play that class) Ended up being Engie, we are the best when we remove our pet. Or rather, play a spec that can remove it. I still don't get why the pet is nerfed when we play Druid. But at least we do have Soulbeast to fall back on. 

[RainbowTurtle.3542]

58 minutes ago, Gorem.8104 said:

I feel like its just easy to compare the 2 because Mechanist is what Untamed should have been. The best pet class in the game that is not difficult at all to play (seriously, who cares about the dps Untamed can do, why would anyone actually want to play that class) Ended up being Engie, we are the best when we remove our pet. Or rather, play a spec that can remove it. I still don't get why the pet is nerfed when we play Druid. But at least we do have Soulbeast to fall back on. 

Druid's pet is nerfed specifically so they can check off the supposed box that says 'Tradeoff' next to it.

 

That's it. They want specs to have tradeoffs- soulbeast's lack of pet swap was explicitly stated to be a tradeoff. So was reaper's LF consumption.

[anduriell.6280]

I am sorry, did path of scars got reworked?

I mean to be able to land that skill on moving targets you must become nothing of sort of a rocket engineer and a nuclear physicist. At the same time. 
 

also that skill does 0 damage on any other competitive mode and is a dps loss in raids and strikes. But hey don’t mind me, keep grasping straws for a functional build with the unplayed aberration. 

[Mell.4873]

On 8/30/2022 at 7:35 AM, anduriell.6280 said:

I am sorry, did path of scars got reworked?

I mean to be able to land that skill on moving targets you must become nothing of sort of a rocket engineer and a nuclear physicist. At the same time. 
 

also that skill does 0 damage on any other competitive mode and is a dps loss in raids and strikes. But hey don’t mind me, keep grasping straws for a functional build with the unplayed aberration. 

No one uses it in competitive modes because other Weapons become more important like Warhorn(Power) or Torch(Condition). People still run Fervent Force though, especially condition builds.

Also I don't think you understand why people use Path of Scars.

Edited August 30, 2022 by Mell.4873

[Mell.4873]

Rather than making another post i will add hit here but i discovered another insane build for Untamed.

Power Hammer with only Cantrips, you can get roughly the same DPS in an Open World setting.
The huge advantage is the Standard hammer 5 (one stun) and 3 (two stuns) can used back to back with Exploding spores to take Perilous Gift and Forest's Fortification off-cooldown right away. This essentially means you cant die or be stunned. Not to mention the amount of barrier you can produce.

Edited September 1, 2022 by Mell.4873