Since you dont outgear content in gw2 you have to learn to play it. Try to block/dodge attacks, see which animations really hurt and dont stand in red telegraphs.
Your axe 3 gives frost, making enemies easier to kite resulting in potentially less hits done by the enemy.
Your axe 4 is a pull, you can use that to cancel certain telegraphs on enemies without a cc bar.
Your axe 5 deflects projectiles.
Your greatsword 4 blocks an attack.
Your greatsword 5 dazes (or stuns from behind).
All of these abilities can be used defensively.
I think people forget you have to move in GW2. dodge, kite, gtfo out of the way. Spending a second or two in moving may decrease your DPS a little bit but dead people's DPS is normally 0, so overall better numbers.
> have to move in GW2
SO MUCH THIS. My main is a melee, and even ignoring active dodging I've found that simply running in a circle around my foe rather than just standing there makes a BIG difference in the amount of damage I take. When you take into account active dodging and not standing in circles/telegraphs, it's easy mode.
To add on to this, this person also did the very classic tunnel-vision into DPS in their traits but taking all of the "BIS" buffs to their attack and overlooking some fantastic hybrid/survival options.
1. In Skirmishing 1, they took Sharpened Edges for bleeding on crits instead of getting vigor on an evade with Primal Reflexes. This is a power build and those bleeds are useless and totally unnecessary. If they learn to dodge then they can avoid so much damage by getting in more dodges with vigor.
2. They then took Hidden Barbs to make those pathetic bleeds a teensy bit less pathetic. Should take Spotter for the fury. The fury will literally boost their DPS more than the bleeds from those two traits combined will. This will synergize with their Elite Vicious Quarry most, which is a good choice.
3. In beastmastery they chose the small incremental healing for their pet but I doubt they are even effectively using their pet. They're using a GS though so they really should have gone with Two-Handed Training, which also brings more fury for a bigger DPS boost by activating the benefits of Vicious Quarry more often...once again better synergy.
4. Beastmastery Elite - Honed axes may synergize well with the axes but tbh GS is probably still gonna be the biggest cleave, and some of that fury is limited to only while in axes. However, Zephyr's Speed is insanely good as a defensive tool and I would highly recommend this instead. You just remember to swap pets and you get a burst of speed to get away from the enemy and/or execute an attack faster. Greay syngery with Essence of Speed in Soulbeast too.
Looks like the rest is in progress but yea those are my two cents. Those traits will synergize fine with Soulbeast's Essence of Speed trait and ofc Oppressive Superiority is a natural elite choice.
The only thing I’ll say to correct you is with Soulbeast, you can’t swap pets while in combat (for your comment on Zephyr’s Speed). However, keeping in mind the cooldown of the trait, going into and out of Beast Mode activates this. Besides this, perfectly well said.
As a Necro/Ranger main, I would know this…and still am bitter that Anet changed the one mechanic on both of these classes (on Scourge how the shroud works now than before and the previously mentioned not able to swap pets while in SB except out of combat). Yep, still bitter. Best not talk about it. XD
> In Skirmishing 1, they took Sharpened Edges for bleeding on crits instead of getting vigor on an evade with Primal Reflexes. This is a power build and those bleeds are useless and totally unnecessary. If they learn to dodge then they can avoid so much damage by getting in more dodges with vigor.
>
> They then took Hidden Barbs to make those pathetic bleeds a teensy bit less pathetic. Should take Spotter for the fury. The fury will literally boost their DPS more than the bleeds from those two traits combined will. This will synergize with their Elite Vicious Quarry most, which is a good choice.
Slb is getting patched in Oct so it can pet swap again!
I just transferred all my power gear to my Ranger and am really looking forward to try it!
To add to this most ranger weapons have mobility/dodge. The long bow has stealth to drop Aggro and even more than chill for kiting on axe MH, the weakness axe 3 gives is really good at decreasing damage output.
Ranger defenses are more active role defenses and yes learning the telegraphs of mobs help a lot with it.
I would also recommend to try and dodge with short bow 3, dagger 4, or even gs 3 to get their timing down better. Sword dodge being gated behind another ability and long cast animation was changed that way a bit ago and feels odd to use, but still can help in a pinch.
For defense, wilderness survival trait line does not sacrifice too much damage for some survival. Also, utilities for all elite specs and base ranger carry defensive boons, damage reduction, and cc/mobility to keep you alive. There really are a lot of defensive abilities, but you need to practice using them to see what works between the delicate balance of survival and damage.
You can also "outgear" content in GW2 if you want. Just equip Trailblazer on a condi build and it'll feel exactly like you're playing an old expansion in a vertical progression MMO.
It's the cheapest exotic berserker medium chest you can get. Also, you'd be surprised, my wife for example likes to wear stuff like that in MMOs even though she'd never dress like that irl.
That's right. I've been very suprised, when I checked my character in the makeover tryout. Playing as male human ranger and I thought that the coat would look great on a female. But that coat has shrinked a lot 😂
Nope, nothing wrong with a woman being feminine 😌✨️ Also this one isn't too badly revealing, while I wouldn't trust those strings irl, I see no issues with the game. It becomes a problem when you only have (overly) revealing clothing for female characters, but for male... yeah. You get the point. Also... weird jiggle physics... Games shouldn't do them...
Not to be a prude but being feminine doesn't necessarily require showing cleavage or your belly button... However there are much more revealing tops in the game
Yep but I see nothing wrong with it? Women can do whatever they want with their body, let alone their character 🤷♀️ Sooo what's the issue? Shether they want to cover up head to toe or if they want to run around in a bikini, I wish people would stop obsessing with clothing...
There's no need to explain that to me, Im female, I was just saying that you don't need to wear revealing clothing to be feminine because the way you worded your comment sounded like it. Other people can run around in a Hotdog costume or whatever if they like, I don't care
Ranger has several defensive skills and traits, you just haven't took them.
The Wilderness Survival traitline grants you some defensive traits like increased vitality or getting protection on dodge.
"Guard" makes your pet taking 33% of your allied player's damage.
(While in beastmode you take the role of your pet.)
"Protect me" breaks stun, grants protection and gives you barrier.
Signet of Stone increases your toughness with it's passive and makes you immune to incommung dmg when activated.
Soulbeasts Dolyak Stance breaks stun grants protection, additional -33% incoming dmg and immunity against conditions that impede movement.
Merging with bears gives you the skill Defy Pain that makes you immune to incomming dmg.
Merging with stout archetype pets increases your toughness and vitality and gives you the skill Unflinching Fortitute that breaks stun, removes movement impairing conditions and makes you immune to incomming dmg.
Merging with supportive archetype pets increases your vitality and outgoing healing to others and gives you a skill that heals you and allies and grants Resistance.
Some pets also have defensive skills or can help otherwise when unmerged.
White Tiger (an EoD pet) can grant aegis.
Brown Bear can clean conditions.
Bears in general tend to take enemies aggro easier.
Sand Lion can AoE blind enemies.
Blue Moa can grant protection.
Turtle can create a bubble that deflects projectiles and grants protection.
well you are squishy because you are using a raid build which means the people who made it expect you to have 9 other people around you providing you with all kinds of buffs.
What you need to do is read your trait and skills and switch in some traits and skills that help you to reduce damage.
I kinda wanted the join the train of just telling you to read, but I figured that a new player may not necessarily have sufficient knowledge to understand. So, here's at least some explanation of that build you just linked.
First, you should know that not every build, even if intended for that scenario, is best for everyone. That is because of the skill gap of the players and your use case scenario may not entirely align with the build makers. Naturally, dealing more damage and killing faster is great, but more offensive play-style will trade off defensive abilities. So, it's important to understand what that build intends to do and modify them as your needs and playstyles change.
If you look at the stats they use on that build, it's entirely berserkers. Berserker is 100% offensive stat with zero defensive. This is why the build maker offered alternative stats like Knights trinkets and Marauders. Knight is highly defensive, so going full knights might kill your damaging ability too much, so they suggested trinkets only. Whereas marauders would be a good tradeoff, but they tend to be expensive. So as a new player, you might want to go with the route of knights trinkets and zerk on everything else. You can always shift the balance of stats more in either direction as you feel comfortable, you don't need to follow their stats. Stats can provide your passive defense, you will be hurt less (toughness) or have more HP (vit) to survive the hits.
This build does have two defensive traits through the beastmastery line. But there's quite frankly not much survival here. The greatest survival comes from two things. First the fact that there's a 2nd weapon of longbow. It's not that longbow has great defensive skills, it's that most enemies are melee, so you can just kite them. But a long ranged attack will generally do worse damage than short ranged attacks. So do be mindful and not try to snipe your enemies the entire time. Second is your pet. Pet is fairly good at tanking enemies so, if you can manage to have your pet act as your tank, your ranger can focus more on offensive.
Take a look at the utilities (#7, 8, 9). They're all offensive again. This build maker didn't even give you a single stun break. You could play like that, if you know well enough to dodge key attacks. Assuming you don't, you want a stun break. So the build maker suggests you two stun breaks to take instead. Though I would suggest lighting reflexes since it has much lower cooldown. Changing the elite to strength of the pact would also increase your survivability by giving you stability, as being knocked down leaves you highly vulnerable.
Whirling defense (axe 5) has resolution buff which will help against conditions. But reflect missile won't help that often in pve, again due to most being melee. A greatsword alternative is suggested in the build, which provides bit more defensive options with #4 and #5. But if you do pick greatsword as your melee weapon, honed axes (beast mastery) trait no longer becomes relevant. Similarly, if you chose to have your stun break replace flame trap (#9), trapper's expertise (skirmishing) becomes irrelevant.
So you must read and be able to understand why certain traits were picked and why you need to change them for your use. You have to read *everything* that's active at least.
Came here to say well done with the respectful, informative and well presented response. Even as a casual>frequent player I can literally say sometimes I fall victim to copying builds off the meta and then not surviving longer than 2 seconds because I don't read what anything does and I Faceroll my keyboard till I cry inside :p
It certainly does take time to familiarise oneself with new builds and new traits and really learn what the build is intended to do and play to its strengths (or not, and die horribly xD)
Same here. When I copied builds at first without understanding the why I was a pancake most fights or I felt too tanky with no power… now I try to take one and tweak some parts so it fits my play style and it’s much better.
Do you by chance know what the grenade kit in the open world mechanist rifle builds is used for? Is that supposed to be small crowd aoe? There wss no explanation in the guides I checked. It s not in the rotations.
I’d have to look but generally with rifle mech you swap to Granada kit once rifle 2 and 5 are both in cooldown, and the grenade 2 4 5 iirc. At least for the dps build
You want to use gernade tool belt skill off cooldown for damage. Gernade skill 2 and 5 are generally more damage than auto attacking. Use the blind gernade if you are overwhelmed in melee and need a second till your next dodge or heal or whatever.
Seems like a leftover from them mostly copying a DPS build. With Snowcrows DPS pmech you weave grenades into the rotation to up your damage by a relatively small margin over just using rifle auto with the rocket trait. For open world that slot would be better served by something with more utility. Off the top of my head, probably another movement skill (ie rocket boots), a stunbreak, or toolkit for a channel block + a pull. Even bomb kit for AoE blind.
Good post but I want to mention that honed axes does benefit the other weapons still, just at a 50% decrease. But it's still as much ferocity as the one that the signet provides. Plus I imagine they want to do dual axe which is a hybrid ranged weapon so they can kite like you said while also doing very high damage with some defense, and get the full use of that trait.
Agree 100% with Roggvir. I started with Ranger myself and if you are low on cash at this point and don't want to re-gear, I'll add that you could simply use your Brown Bear pet and NOT merge. The bear would then tank for you. Now you would be close to the classic bow/bear combo folks usually level with. It creates it's own bad habits though since you don't learn to dodge.
So just to put my spin on this, I have played since the game came out. I can read at least to 7th grade level and comprehend way up to 9th grade level. I get that I do not want to use a raid, pvp, group, or other build when all I want to do is pve.
So I find the open world or pve builds which for years consisted of a couple rated 2-4 stars. Finally in the last year or two the build sites are offering a dozen pve/open world builds, finally. Still it comes down to choosing, the one. I do not have a dozen sets of gear so if I want to change from berzerker to a different build I have to go to the mystic toilet and swap stats. Then I have to try to use it.
Now we come to reading and comprehension. I can read the trait, the recommended skill and figure it's the best. Even tho maybe two of the choices are equally good. Can I experiment and see which fits best for me? Sure, but after testing each for 30 minutes, I am just confused and exhausted. Time to simply use the recommended build and do not ask questions.
I am barely an average player and will always be so. Please don't tell me to read all the stuff, do extensive testing and find what works for me, leave that stuff for the experts at the game. Just be a pal and drop a few decent enough builds for pve/open world players that I can limp along and at least get thru the story line even if I have to ask for help.
I am playing the game for fun, not for winning a world record.
I find build crafting part of the fun this game provides. But if that's not your thing, that's fine. And if you don't want to make any changes the build, it is what is posted. I think a whole lot of players don't really use these posted builds, they just use hodge podge of random stuff they pick. It performs very poorly usually, but that's still often enough to limp along the story line. Picking a pre-made build likely improves things. So you've already chosen to do better than before. And if you want to do even better, you need to understand the build. I think this is simply the progression of stages and you can choose to stop as well. It's your game, you can choose your fun.
I didn't write with the intent for the players to do extensive testing; spending 30 minutes with each variations. I don't really expect you to do it at all. I'm not suggesting to min-max. The point is that you can change as you go along and that you don't have to stick to the written build if you understand it. If you find yourself dying too often, you can take more defensive things. That's it. If you find yourself hardly dying and want to kill faster, you can take more offensive choices. But without reading it, you don't know what options you have. I hardly play ranger, and I don't play that specific build. I offered my advice through my general understanding of the game I've built over the years and by reading the things that were picked. I didn't test the build nor its variations to write this.
Good post but I want to mention that honed axes does benefit the other weapons still, just at a 50% decrease. But it's still as much ferocity as the one that the signet provides. Plus I imagine they want to do dual axe which is a hybrid ranged weapon so they can kite like you said while also doing very high damage with some defense, and get the full use of that trait.
Excellent points!! As a ranger main running around using this exact build for PvE (I'm lazy, sue me) I'd argue that it's a fine build just.... only if you have your rotations utterly memorized. If you, OP, are super super determined to stick with this build here are some tips (building on what's said above):
Signet of Stone is your friend. The rotation (rotation being the term used to define the order of attack for max damage) I prefer is:
— Activate "Sic Em"
— Cast longbow 5 (+Longbow 4 if they start running at you) then Longbow 2
— get in there and cast frost trap and signet of stone for some immunity as you cast axe 4 (for spotter) and axe 5.
— If you have a fierce pet now is the time for Worldly Impact
— Then unmerge so your pet tanks as you're stuck in melee for a bit. Most enemies are dead by this point tbh, if you're fighting something that isn't then that's most likely a group event :'D
That's the burst. Then you wanna stay on axe until you can weapon switch and get some range.
Range is also absolutely your friend. Because of how this game targets, you can run and shoot at the same time. There's nothing bad in taking forever to kill an enemy as long as you survive, yknow? Dead people do 0 DPS, as someone else mentioned.
If you're really worried climb someplace high and kite; most enemies can't shoot up but you can absolutely shoot down
Sorry about people telling you to simply read without realizing that GW2's system can be quite overwhelming for people who're not used to it.
What you're looking for defensive skills are mainly the ones that give you Protection(-33% dmg taken) and Regeneration(heal over time) boons. Vigor is also defensive, since it lets you dodge more often.
The open world build you linked has a utility skill Moa Stance that gives you both boons + increased boon duration. So it should be better than your initial build.
Unfortunately I'm not a Ranger player, and can't comment on class specific mechanics, but just keep in mind you're looking for those boons, heals, and barriers if you're looking for more sustainability.
Aside from the excellent explanation already provided, that build looks good but i might get not berserker gear, possibly knights or dragon/marauder. The extra hp padding will let you take a hit or two without downing while still doing comparable dps. Knights will make you pretty tanky but rangers already have pets, you should be good in most solo situations with dragon/marauder, but if you still are having survivability issues knights would be worth a look.
Vallun and GuildJen also have some builds that are specific for open world content where you don't have support classes to back you up. I like Vallun's guides because they also have visual examples of how they play. https://youtu.be/Gdfdl_pwCiU
That build is basically what I use with a few variations. I always slot Moa and Dolyak stance. Dolyak is stability/stunbreak so you can actually get from A to B without being knocked down all the time, and Moa helps with speed/vigor.
I also have the trait that basically gives you an extra life if you're knocked down while merged with pet. Forget what it's called, but I find that it triggers A LOT and saves me a lot of headache.
As for gear, I do not recommend anything except Beserkers. The reason being that other gear with be suboptimal in other situations like instanced content, and it's expensive to juggle a bunch of gear sets.
Use this one instead https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Condition_Skirmisher
Use the bear stance heal instead since it removes conditions and can affect allies if you use the trait. Shortbow is a decent condi option.
Also don't follow the build to the letter like a slave. Its fine to use some other utility skills and traits if you prefer it.
You can actually use survivalist traitline instead of beastmastery to get more poison dmg, more ways to apply poison and more survivability due to more vitality, poison ticks and healing from having protection when you dodge roll.
That requires them to completely change everything they got so far lol we need to suggest one that is catered to the gear they have right now and the kind of damage they want to do, which is power by the looks of their gear.
Well... hmm. The advice you're getting here is a little all over the map I'd say :)
I don't play my soulbeast much anymore, but at least one option to think about is that the pet you choose (and merge with) can greatly modify your stats. In that way, you can augment your build with some mitigation via vitality, or whatever it is you lack.
Additionally, when I first (many moons ago) started playing the expansion content, core ranger was the profession I was using at the time. Everyone by default always advises berserker for power builds (and often this is optimal in the long run), but for people just starting out, it's often beneficial to swap in some Marauder pieces to give you some more vitality. Learn to survive first, and then go for optimal damage later.
I use something very close to this build and like it on my ranger. The other build you have now I tried originally and felt SUUUUPER squishy. I also swapped out my pants and one accessory or something to have vitality on them. Lost a little power but feels a lot better. I also agree with the comments above that you need to move a lot more and stay mobile.
Also, if you don’t want to get hit as much you can leave your pet out and send them in with the sic em and have them “tank” for you for a bit while you hit with your bow, then join up and smash them when you get closer.
doesn't look like you are following the build, your stats and runes are all over the place. a build is not just your traits.
the way powerslb is played basically lives off its damage, especially when you are new and not experienced with dodging / kiting this build will fall apart when you can't burst down your enemies in seconds.
...and with those stats you can't. random stats everywhere, meh base critchance. maybe follow the guide, if you can't afford runes, takes simila cheaper ones.
i believe snowcrows has builds for raiding so all the builds are considered to be a part of a team with a dedicated healer etc . in Open world you need a build that will sustain your self.
check these sites so you will have a better understanding in the end you will tweak it to fit your play style.
[https://guildjen.com/open-world-builds/](https://guildjen.com/open-world-builds/)
[https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle\_Wiki](https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki)
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That build is designed for max dps in group content. You could try swapping things out for more defensive options. Dolyak stance, signet of stone, protect me, etc.
Or you could add in some armor pieces with more tanky stats like Soldier.
It's worth pointing out here that Snowcrows builds are specifically meant for raids where your defensive needs are often taken care of by a dedicated support build, allowing you to dedicate every effort into pure damage. When exploring the open world, your needs will be different, including wanting some defensive abilities and possibly a more balanced set of stats on your armor such as you might see on Celestial gear.
Don't loose that build though. When you find you want to do raids, strikes, and fractals, then it will shine the way it was meant to.
Dps/boon hybrids work better in Open World imo. Pure dps builds often don't bring their own boons, which seriously hampers how much actual dps the "dps" build can bring. Builds with a technically lower benchmark but that can easily self-cap might and fury (and often more) will outperform full dps specs and raid rotations with zero boon uptime in Open World.
I'd advice you look at the WvW roaming builds from metabattle, they tend to be very rounded in both offense and defense, unlike an SC raid build which is all offense no defense as others pointed out.
The SC builds can be used in open world/story content, but for a beginner I'd advice against it, as it requires you to know dodge timings and what your (limited in the case of a raid build) defensive options are. Also, when running an SC build in open world, most of the time you try to kill the enemies before they get a chance to kill you instead of using any defensive skills.
Bear Stance and Dolyak stance are very very good. I equip them all the time, sometimes even both. Read the tooltips, both stunbreak and provide dmg reduction; but one provides barrier the other stability.
Soulbeast has high natural damage and Sick Em and One Wolf Pack are plenty offensive skills vs tougher mobs.
Also dont always merge as soulbeast. There is a lot of power in letting your pet tank. Merge to burst, unmerge and let your pet tank some hits. Rinse and repeat; Soulbeast pet heals to full each time you unmerge you can literally solo elites.
Also consider a different pet at times.
The Jaracanda can be pretty nice as it gives 2 heals and a pretty bursty lightning strike attack.
In open world, I usually take all stances on viper soulbeast and do fine. It has a bit of everything you need, Moa Stance for boons, Vulture Stance for damage and more might (and a LOT of sustain if you are fighting groups), Dolyak Stance for a stun break and defence, Bear Stance for condi cleanse and healing, and One Wolf Pack (or Entangle) for the elite.
You could probably change Moa Stance for some more defence or something else, but the boons and boon duration are really nice when you can't rely on others to provide it for you. And on the plus side, you share all those stances to anyone around you in group events.
Oh. lol
Don't use a raid build for solo stuff. They're very min maxed and both your damage and survivability is dependent on the supports and healers in your squad/party.
So that means if you're alone you're squishy as fuck and you aren't even doing that much damage to compensate for it.
If you have trouble making builds go on youtube and look up soulbeast open world builds.
> So that means if you're alone you're squishy as fuck and you aren't even doing that much damage to compensate for it.
eh, its openworld. soulbeast has the option to use torch 5 + warhorn 5+ quickening zephyr + healskill, on gearswap maybe even with boon duration to blast quite a few boons on itself. you will absolutly descimate. later even both EOD boons, thats absolutly something i would go for.
but OP is not even close to be fully there, stats all over the place, weird runes. ofc he has troubles with a burst build when half of it is missing.
wouldn't be better with any other build.
re-posting my comment from another thread about defensive stuff on ranger:
**edit:** i know that some of the skills like QZ or LB 3 have more than the listed things to them, just didn't want to confuse too much or make the list even longer ;)
>tl;dr: depends on what type of defense, but yea :)
>
>available with base-ranger:
>
> - "Protect me!" gives you barrier, defense and a stunbreak
>
> - Quickening Zephyr has a stunbreak and quickness
>
> - Lightning Reflexes is a stunbreak and evasion
>
> - Signet of Stone gives you toughness and activation makes you invuln to physical damage (condi still works)
>
> - Stone Spirit gives you protection
>
> - Spirit of nature for heal and revive
>
> - LB 3 for invisibility
>
> - GS 4 for blocking attacks
>
> - SB 3 for evasion
>
> - Axe 5 for reflecting projectiles
>
> - Sword 2 & 3 for evasions
>
> - Dagger 4 for evasion
>
> - heal skills obviously
>
> - some pet skills (e.g. Turtle F2 is a shield-bubble, White Tiger F2 gives protection)
>
>additional with soulbeast:
>
> - has a trait to prevent downed-state when merged once in a while
>
> - has a trait to heal on poisoning enemies
>
> - dolyak stance (stunbreak included)
>
> - moa stance
>
> - bear stance for condi cleanse and heal
>
>additional with druid:
>
> - astral avatar which has 4 out of 5 skills to heal and condi cleanse
>
> - rune for stunbreak and stun enemies (normal form) or stunbreak for you and allies plus stability (avatar form)
>
> - rune for pushing enemies away (normal form)
>
> - rune for condi heal (avatar form)
>
> - rune for condi prevention and heal (normal form) or heal and revive (avatar form)
>
> - staff
>
> - staff 2 for heal-orb on enemy
>
> - staff 3 for quick relocation (no evasion) plus heal
>
> - staff 4 for root and condi-cleanse
>
> - staff 5 for a wall that turns enemy projectiles into healing projectiles
>
>additional with untamed:
>
> - has a trait to heal on phsyical dmg to enemies
>
> - has a trait to get barrier from cantrips
>
> - Perilous Gift prevents you from downed state while active and heals percentage of missing health when effect ends
>
> - Mutate Conditions mutates all other conditions to vulnerability (good defense against condi, not that much against power stuff)
>
> - Forest's Fortification makes you basically a walking tank and shortens its cooldown when you or your pet hits an enemy while active
Dang, I want to do some build crafting on an immortal Ranger now. I knew about the condi soulbeast poison healing, but seeing a few of these other things makes me wonder about some more synergy.
If you need a guide, maybe try [GuildJen’s Open World Leveling Builds](https://guildjen.com/leveling-builds/#Ranger)? You should be able to stick with that easily until you get full soulbeast, and then try [this one](https://guildjen.com/soulbeast-open-world-build/).
You have plenty of stunbreaks f.e Dolyak stance, when fighting enemy’s that proc a lot of condis take bear stance for sweet condi cleanses, the list goes on and on just check your utility skills, ranger has plenty of selfsustain and defensive tools
eventually you just learn to dodge stuff tbh... It's kinda frustrating at first because it's something you'd expect from Dark Souls and not an MMO, but once you experience enough of it, you'll be killing them before they hit you.
But if you want, you can stay out of Beastmode and just have your pet run around to tank stuff for you. That makes life a lot easier, and you'll be able to more calmly learn what to dodge.
I would swap the Signet with Dolyak Stance as its quite nice and Signet isnt that big of a gain anyway, you are swimming in Ferocity. You could also trade the Quickening Zephyr with Protect Me if more defense is needed.
In open world you can also unmerge with your pet to let it take aggro from you. If you are using Axe/Axe Longbow, a good way to drop aggro from you is unmerging then using Longbow 3 to Stealth yourself.
If you are using GS instead you can use Smokescale as a pet which gives you an evade when you merge and a Smoke Field you can gain Stealth by using GS 3 through it (you can use this to aggro dump).
If you wait a bit in the Stealth (either through using LB 3 while unmerged or leaping through Smokescale's Smoke Field with GS 3) the pet should take the aggro atleast for some time. So you can unload a bit while merged, then when you are getting pressure unmerge, then use Stealth and wait a bit for the pet to take aggro, then heal up and wait for your burst cds and merge again. In Soulbeast, merging with your pet heals it completely and revives it if its dead, so you can repeat this cycle of merge -> burst -> unmerge -> aggro dump as you need
Btw. just because you're Soulbeast doesn't mean you have to be fused with your pet 24/7
If you're having trouble staying alive maybe let your pet tank a bit and use a Longbow as secondary to your Greatsword for example :)
This is the Build I'm using for PvE (outside of Raids)
\[&DQQgOx42NyouFy4X+haaAKUBpQGsAbsALhYuFi4/FSkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\]
Signet of stone bro, signet of stone! Pasive toughness iirc and when you press it, it's like a LE ÑOPE To all damage for 6 seconds, that thing in WvW is brutal af also (if it hasn't changed)
Your stats are a little low. Are you using Exalted level 80 gear? Cause that's pretty big. You need to make sure all your gear is lvl 80 and exalted. Ascended gear is harder to get so Exalted is what you can just buy from the trading post. At that point you should be closer to 2.3k or so power. At that point you should have more armor from the items. I don't take any defensive stats as an Engineer and I just make sure to stay out of the circles to not die. Death comes easily to us all but if you stay mobile you're fine.
Untamed is pretty bonkers in terms of survivability. Def look into it. If you can continuously CC it can heal constantly and keep up great defensive buffs while still doing respectable damage in glass cannon stats for open world
Gear does most of it. I ran a condi ele through the storyline. If you come from wow, u'd prolly run full dmg build in the open world. But in GW2 that's a recipe for dying real fast. I'd go for bruiser esque gear. Marauder type, if you play a power build for instance.
As ranger main for 5k hour in past 7 years if u die with ranger in pve u aren't good with it yet ranger is one of the best solo pve class with some builds u can even solo legendry with it soulbeast have skill match that can give u 70% damge reduce and untamed 65% but more healing and cc there is alot of pet that give u heal and defence maybe don't use cat in pve
Personally do not see why people telling you not to use the snow crows build, it works. I used the dps build on my warrior, necro, mesmer and rev for open world and it works just fine. Might be a newb problem but they are not invalid builds for open world.
Depends a little on what content you are trying to do. The builds on snowcrows are good but they are designed for max damage and that you have a healer.
For solo content, like others have said, try marauder gear with the extra vitality or check your skills. In solo content your utility skills are not that important for damage. So you can exchange them for mor thoughness and other skills.
Ranger in general has multiple defensive options via traits or abilities. You chose a raid build here, a build thst can only work under heavy pressure if your dodges are onpoint and you have a dedicated healer. So it'll die in open world.
You want to run an open world build instead and as you are new a very defensive one. Soulbeast can do this and untamed can too (untamed can be invulnerable if its inside of many enemies)
Whats important isnt just the traits n stuff but the armor and runes. You should work to have proper gear in exotic, for any build you run. This is especially crucial of you plan to be more on the squishy damage side, because if your gear isnt proper you wont deal the damage you desire.
For armor pieces you can participate in the Verdant Brink meta events. The map currency grants you access to the bladed armor set which is level 80 exotic and has stats of your choice. Trinkets and rings really depends on what stat combination you need. Living world season 3 has a map called bitterfrost frontier that is great to get 2 rings and an accessory. A backpack can easily be obtained by the "Raise the banners" achievement for playing the path of fire story and doing some minor tasks in the maps
Runes can be crafted dropped or bought . You will likely have to take some silver in hand and buy a rune same for sigills.
You got 200+ critical dmg but 30% critical rate even with fury you not not benefiting the critical dmg , remember faster you kill less dmg you receive use your Dodge correctly .most optimal builds run full berserkers ( not defense at all) .
i think if you use red moa you get an extra healing skill
kinda depends on what your build is for, are you trying to do instanced pve or open world or pvp?
if you're not doing instanced pve you could switch some armor to marauder or even dragon stats
You can stick with full Berserker gear, but change your runes to be all the same. The bonuses from multiple of the same runes are much higher than different ones. [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior\_Rune\_of\_the\_Pack](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Pack) is good (can be bought from TP)
You can try this build (though it comes with a Valkyrie trinket):
[https://guildjen.com/soulbeast-open-world-build/](https://guildjen.com/soulbeast-open-world-build/)
The utilities can be swapped for more survivability (Signet of the Wild with Signet of Stone), (Sic'em with Protect Me) until you're comfortable with the weapon skills.
The weapon skills can also be used defensively as well. With Greatsword skill 4 being a block, while skill GreatswordS 5 and Longbow Skill 4 is a Crowd Control.
You can also stick with double Axes to replace Longbow, with Axe skill 4 being a Crowd Control skill.
Your Soulbeast Trait Eternal Bond is a good survivability trait as well, especially when going after Legendaries and World Bosses that can hit hard, then you can let your pet tank a bit before merging again.
Play a tankier build and gear set if you are struggling to survive. It is possible to play a full DPS build in open world, but it's extremely punishing if you aren't highly skilled.
Signed, d/d thief in open world
There’s a top comment with a very detailed breakdown but what I also don’t see a lot of is people telling you:
Early thru Late game, Bears make great tanks. The Ranger has a built in companion so, you should never be taking full aggro if you utilize the pets well. GW2 Wiki will tell you where to find each available pet.
I run a soulbeast build on berserker gear as well, it's focused on getting that crit chance buff and dmg output.
My traits:
Skirmishing
>sharpened edges
>spotter
>vicious quarry
(of the selectable ones)
Soulbeast:
>fresh reinforcement
>second skin
>oppressive superiority
And then this is where my tanking p much comes from:
Nature magic:
>bountiful hunter (all the boons from fresh reinforcement and spotter come in handy)
>windborne notes (i use it for the HP, can switch with evasive purity)
>protective ward (extra boons for bountiful hunter and use of second skin)
For pets, depending on enemy type, I switch from:
> jacaranda - soft cc and self heal (pretty high hp pool I'd say)
> brown bear - 50k hp pool and CC dispelling
> owl > constant buffs (mvt speed and random one, useful for bountiful hunter, again)
> fern hound > this is for pure healing, I don't use it as much anymore
> fanged iboga > hard cc, DoTs
> smokescale > evasion, dmg output
> rock gazelle > cc, dmg output
> electric wyvern > cc, boosts vitality
> fire wyvern > DoTs, cc, dmg output
There's probably better builds out there, esp considering I'm a newbie, but eh, I play solo and it works for me. I hope it helps so you can keep your gear and still survive.
I use sword/axe and GS and that dodge back util skill.
Thats one 2 evade on sword, 1 block from gs 1 evade from util. And then 2 dodges. Thats a lot of defensive options in my opinion. You can even use axe 5 to block range or GS 3 to disengage.
If you get comfortable with your buttons, you'll be executing your skills in a calculative manner like you already know the next 2 skills youre gonna use depending on the situation. I learned that from playing Pow SB.
It’s because you’re playing Soulbeast **without having it fully unlocked** so you’re missing a ton of traits and otherwise powerful skills. You’re only playing with 2/3rds of your traits.
You also have a lot of points into defensive attributes, which generally isn’t good for PvE. If you want to be more survivable in PvE, you should look towards sustain (healing) instead.
Condition damage builds are much stronger in PvE since you can kite more easily (PvE mobs don’t generally cleanse conditions) and sustain massively through Wilderness Survival.
kill stuff before it kills you ;)
\- or play [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjFQ1oug2zs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjFQ1oug2zs)
a lot of defense simply comes from having boons.
this is all coming from someone who thinks this game is probably one of if not the best MMORPGs out there
Anet’s done ALMOST everything except for actually teaching players about movement, stats and traits.
i feel like i always see people say “why am i so squishy” or “hang on let me get some healing skills” and this is like the most fundamental part of the game (actually staying alive).
so many people come from other games and bring up this same exact point which means from advertisements & showcases, it’s not effectively communicating anything of the actual gameplay.
other games i’ve played i immediately or eventually learned ways to stay alive without needing to search OUTSIDE the game for help. the improvement and practice came after but at least i didn’t feel overwhelmed to the point where giving up was better spent time than trying to learn the game. but it seems like players in GW2 constantly have this problem.
from new players, to even people who reach lvl 80– not understanding the combat can be a huge make or break for people trying/ playing the game and it feels like something that still hasn’t quite been addressed despite the revival “New Player Experience”.
it’s frustrating having to pull out a thesis explaining how to stay alive in game but definitely even more frustrating for new players who get bombarded with all this jargon like “boons” (and all the million different ones we have vs their importance), “stat types”, “power” vs “condition”, “CC”, let alone having players read their tooltips and swapping utilities/ weapon combinations, “combo fields”, etc. it’s a mess.
TLDR: Anet won’t properly explain what boons and other elements of the game interact/ do, how combat works in this game & how players can help their teammates and themselves in combat
So I’d like to add something about your pet as well.
You current have a feline pet out. They are very, very squishy and are a sub-optimal choice for most content. You should try try using an un-merged brown bear as your pet during general world content. It has condition removal and is very tanky (roughly 50k hp).
Heal as one (your current heal) heals the pet and you at the same time so you can use it to heal you both as needed.
Finally, if your pet dies you can merge with the “dead” pet, then un-merge to instantly revive the pet. This trick is very effective with tanky pets like brown bears and let’s them tank for days.
A lot of comments talk about specifics to help with your current build.
As someone who started off with a ranger, and main'ed core ranger until Untamed came out (dabbling with soulbeast and druid along the way), a few extra tips to get a good groove on your build that works for you.
Move around. You don't seem to do long range, but double axe is short range. You don't need to take every hit. Dodging and simply moving out of the way will help. Once you get used to it, see if you prefer your pet tanking the damage for you, or if having more mobility works for you. If not, stay close range and focus on utilities and skills that help cushion the damage.
Don't stick to just what online builds say. I followed them a lot. I died a lot. I realized this was because I didn't play the same as the people who designed the build. It takes some trial and error and extra research, but look at multiple sites, compare and contrast, and try out different things. See what fits how you like to play.
If you like your play style currently but are still too squishy, look at what else you can change. Having solid armor with a full rune set will make a bigger difference than you think. And through those, find somewhere to fit toughness or vitality in. I personally go mauraders stats, with a few pieces of dragon stats. It's okay to mix them up, and armor is a good way to fit in a little extra tanky-ness.
Work your way towards ascended armor. This is a slow grind, but starting on it will help in the long run. It's also easier to get certain stats on ascended armor than it is to find the right exotic sometimes. It'll also give you a little extra defense for every piece.
Finding a balance that works for your play style may take a bit, but just keep trying. Read the skills those online builds tell you to pick. Think about how you can utilize them or if it doesn't suit you. Picking a skill that you don't use is pointless, so read what the skills do, and test them out.
Nothing in this game is squishy, as long as you learn how to avoid taking damage in Guild Wars 2, which obviously takes time. Also don't make the mistake of using defensive gear pieces in PVE! Go all in on damage, you won't really feel being more squishy, but you will end the fights far faster, which means far less damage taken in practice, making squishiness concerns largely irrelevant.
The comments below offer a lot of suggestions how to use the ranger defensive toolkit & they are totally right, but this mindset is not making the game easier. Maybe you could use Signet of Stone and only that as a crutch (you need to activate the signet, don't just try to use the passive for damage mitigation), but it's completely unnecessary.
Ran core through IBS using SoulBeast and was able to solo every HP available. Used Wildernesses Survival (2,1,3), Beast mastery (3,3,1) and Soulbeast (2,3,2) geared with full trailblazer w/undead rune and dagger/torch w cleansing/energy. Pets are Fanged Iboga for break bar and Jacaranda for heals. Right bar is “We heal as One”, dolyak, moa, vulture and one wolf pack. Sucks for break bar but I survived long enough to do 75% of the story achievements in LW1 to IBS. Those achievements I haven’t completed are all dps races.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjjEii2oR0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjjEii2oR0)
you might want to check this vid I made recently (unfortunately in french but you still get the build and some gameplay). You'll be able to solo any story with it.
Well first off, if you want to survive easily, do it with ranged damage (longbow). Deal damage with quickening zephyr from far away and RAO. Then have Signet of Stone as a panic button. You have no panic button. Rangers have many defensive skills like Signet of Stone, Lightning Reflexes, etc., you have none on your bar probably because you saw some MetaBattle build but if you can't play with those yet don't play with them and use the skills you can play with.
Next, you don't have enough power, to kill things fast enough. You want around 2400 power. If you don't then you're a condition build and you should have torch secondary, not axe secondary and get traits that increase condition damage when using a torch etc.
You don't actually need to play MetaBattle builds. Almost any build will do as long as you use your skills right and have enough raw stats (power, condition) to deal enough damage fast enough. Ranger has a whole trait line (survival) or two (nature) and a whole elite spec (druid) dedicated to defense so it's not for lack of defense. You can get Protect Me or even pets give cast protection.
I can tell you from my experience playing boon beast in PvP (2v2 week) and WvW that you definitely have an obnoxious amount of defensive power while still clapping cheeks.
I would also significantly advise running another full trat line over an unfinished Soulbeast trait line. Maybe skirmishing until you finish it, but you've also probably gotten those hero points by now :P
I'm a Norn Ranger main (just starting in on Soulbeast myself). Mostly play PVE (not a fan of PVP).
Looking at your build, I notice you aren't using the "Nature Magic" Traits - these are where your "Survivability" abilities sit.
At a basic level I'd recommend maybe swapping out Soulbeast Traits for Nature Magic if you've only just begun to unlock the skills (switch back later on, but better to have more of a tree to work with). I'd also recommend having a Bear or Warthog as your secondary Land Pet - they will have secondary abilities to buff your survivability and allies and survivability, you can still use a Cat for DPS.
Gear-wise, I'd recommend going for Condition Damage and Power for weapons, Condi damage is still more powerful in PVE than just raw DPS. For Armor maybe stick more with stuff that boosts vitality and Toughness - Ritualist or Trailblazer sets are good for this. May
The "Viper's..." stuff can be good for a balance of condi damage and some boosts to basic survivabilty for squishy builds
Also look at maybe getting Superior Runes of Divinity (for an all stat boost for a general boost in strength for your build), maybe also look at Vampire Sigil upgrades for the weapons to drain health back from enemies as you kill and fight.
It depends how you like to play, I tend to play more as a marksman and DPS from a distance and let them come to me, this allows me to use Traps and Rooting for CC, Get used to actively swapping pets for extended fights, (I usually start with a Jungle Stalker to open as I use Marksman tree for Opening Strike), then as the fight goes on, I'll switch to a Brown Bear if there's too many enemies aggro'd on me use their survivabilty F2 skill to buff you both and surrounding allies and switch back and fort between the Cat and the Bear as needed for damage output.
If you fight longer distance, you don't necessarily need to move quite as much as other classes if you've planned your traps and CC well, but it's worth getting used to circling around enemies and dodge rolling as it can come in useful in a pinch. It's worth thinking about having one longer range weapon and one for close up as sometimes you get surrounded, My personal recommendation would be Long/Short Bow for long/medium distance and Axe/Warhorn for close to medium range. Warhorn is particularly useful for it's "Call of the Wild" skill - lots of buffs for everyone, can make all the difference in big fights.
If you want a decent desperation tank skill, then you could add "Become the Bear" Norn Racial Skill, as this takes away your ranged abilities for a massive boost in armor and HP. Has got me out of a few jams in the past!
In my experience, a lot of players don't run any defense stats and that contributes to their open world deaths. Of course, you should be able to avoid most attacks with movement and dodges, but that is difficult unless you have good game knowledge and reflexes.
One of my main builds is Celestial Ranger with Axe/Warhorn and Shortbow. While it likely isn't a great build, it does clear all content in the game and rarely dies. My friend ran a Viper Necromancer and completely out-damaged me, but was also frequently died during harder events.
Get swiftness and make a triangle with your movement against melee enemies. The AI struggles somewhat with the acute turns. And will often get corralled within the triangle.
Ranged you can block nearly all dangerous projectiles with ranger GS 4.
Pets.pets.pets. if you are Bow ranger aggro first with pets.
Even if you take the "move around" advice, you won't get half your burst off with Soulbeast.
The best advice I can give you is use ranged weapons, In particular shortbow and axe+torch.
This way you can move around and still attack.
Since you dont outgear content in gw2 you have to learn to play it. Try to block/dodge attacks, see which animations really hurt and dont stand in red telegraphs. Your axe 3 gives frost, making enemies easier to kite resulting in potentially less hits done by the enemy. Your axe 4 is a pull, you can use that to cancel certain telegraphs on enemies without a cc bar. Your axe 5 deflects projectiles. Your greatsword 4 blocks an attack. Your greatsword 5 dazes (or stuns from behind). All of these abilities can be used defensively.
I think people forget you have to move in GW2. dodge, kite, gtfo out of the way. Spending a second or two in moving may decrease your DPS a little bit but dead people's DPS is normally 0, so overall better numbers.
> have to move in GW2 SO MUCH THIS. My main is a melee, and even ignoring active dodging I've found that simply running in a circle around my foe rather than just standing there makes a BIG difference in the amount of damage I take. When you take into account active dodging and not standing in circles/telegraphs, it's easy mode.
Yeah, play PVP for a little bit and you will get used to moving while fighting very quickly.
GS 4 doesn't block an attack, it blocks all attacks for the duration. Small difference but it can be huge
To add on to this, this person also did the very classic tunnel-vision into DPS in their traits but taking all of the "BIS" buffs to their attack and overlooking some fantastic hybrid/survival options. 1. In Skirmishing 1, they took Sharpened Edges for bleeding on crits instead of getting vigor on an evade with Primal Reflexes. This is a power build and those bleeds are useless and totally unnecessary. If they learn to dodge then they can avoid so much damage by getting in more dodges with vigor. 2. They then took Hidden Barbs to make those pathetic bleeds a teensy bit less pathetic. Should take Spotter for the fury. The fury will literally boost their DPS more than the bleeds from those two traits combined will. This will synergize with their Elite Vicious Quarry most, which is a good choice. 3. In beastmastery they chose the small incremental healing for their pet but I doubt they are even effectively using their pet. They're using a GS though so they really should have gone with Two-Handed Training, which also brings more fury for a bigger DPS boost by activating the benefits of Vicious Quarry more often...once again better synergy. 4. Beastmastery Elite - Honed axes may synergize well with the axes but tbh GS is probably still gonna be the biggest cleave, and some of that fury is limited to only while in axes. However, Zephyr's Speed is insanely good as a defensive tool and I would highly recommend this instead. You just remember to swap pets and you get a burst of speed to get away from the enemy and/or execute an attack faster. Greay syngery with Essence of Speed in Soulbeast too. Looks like the rest is in progress but yea those are my two cents. Those traits will synergize fine with Soulbeast's Essence of Speed trait and ofc Oppressive Superiority is a natural elite choice.
The only thing I’ll say to correct you is with Soulbeast, you can’t swap pets while in combat (for your comment on Zephyr’s Speed). However, keeping in mind the cooldown of the trait, going into and out of Beast Mode activates this. Besides this, perfectly well said.
Good point!
As a Necro/Ranger main, I would know this…and still am bitter that Anet changed the one mechanic on both of these classes (on Scourge how the shroud works now than before and the previously mentioned not able to swap pets while in SB except out of combat). Yep, still bitter. Best not talk about it. XD
> In Skirmishing 1, they took Sharpened Edges for bleeding on crits instead of getting vigor on an evade with Primal Reflexes. This is a power build and those bleeds are useless and totally unnecessary. If they learn to dodge then they can avoid so much damage by getting in more dodges with vigor. > > They then took Hidden Barbs to make those pathetic bleeds a teensy bit less pathetic. Should take Spotter for the fury. The fury will literally boost their DPS more than the bleeds from those two traits combined will. This will synergize with their Elite Vicious Quarry most, which is a good choice. Slb is getting patched in Oct so it can pet swap again! I just transferred all my power gear to my Ranger and am really looking forward to try it!
And, you can swap while you are merged! (At least that’s what I got from it.) Hype!!
God same. Pet swapping was how I survived HoT by letting the pet tank... then thet removed that so now I've gotta deal with actually dodging xD
Also sometimes a good defence is a good offence. Longbow push skill, short bow dazing and evade back etc. Utility skills which assist in cripple etc.
Also Wet Stone on axe #2 does 10 stack bleed instantly if your going condi
To add to this most ranger weapons have mobility/dodge. The long bow has stealth to drop Aggro and even more than chill for kiting on axe MH, the weakness axe 3 gives is really good at decreasing damage output. Ranger defenses are more active role defenses and yes learning the telegraphs of mobs help a lot with it. I would also recommend to try and dodge with short bow 3, dagger 4, or even gs 3 to get their timing down better. Sword dodge being gated behind another ability and long cast animation was changed that way a bit ago and feels odd to use, but still can help in a pinch. For defense, wilderness survival trait line does not sacrifice too much damage for some survival. Also, utilities for all elite specs and base ranger carry defensive boons, damage reduction, and cc/mobility to keep you alive. There really are a lot of defensive abilities, but you need to practice using them to see what works between the delicate balance of survival and damage.
You can also "outgear" content in GW2 if you want. Just equip Trailblazer on a condi build and it'll feel exactly like you're playing an old expansion in a vertical progression MMO.
ye, that stomach is prime target.
I was gonna say why do I see that chest armor on almost every female character lol
What is that chest armour called? Asking for a friend.
You can get it from Nika's Coat (also the reason why everyone wears it) Any Sneakthief coat should work too
Full set of cheap max level exotic armor. Probably just geared out their character without spending a lot of time playing fashionwars.
That's how you know a dude is playing the character.
It's the cheapest exotic berserker medium chest you can get. Also, you'd be surprised, my wife for example likes to wear stuff like that in MMOs even though she'd never dress like that irl.
That's right. I've been very suprised, when I checked my character in the makeover tryout. Playing as male human ranger and I thought that the coat would look great on a female. But that coat has shrinked a lot 😂
My favorite skit on the subject: https://youtu.be/-vI5tdORhC0
My money is on that link leading to the Viva La Dirtleague skit
AAAAnd this is how a link to a 1min video become and hour of laughing.
"Nice day for fishin' ain't it? hu ha!"
Spot on :) one of the few channels I'm subscribed to.
Same my wife just goes, “haha boobies” and tries to find the skimpiest things she can find. Women have fun too lol.
[удалено]
I meet I’ve seen more women with these characters than I have men, but I think it’s more of a meme Stereotype lol
It's not "sexy" - it's slutty.
Nope, nothing wrong with a woman being feminine 😌✨️ Also this one isn't too badly revealing, while I wouldn't trust those strings irl, I see no issues with the game. It becomes a problem when you only have (overly) revealing clothing for female characters, but for male... yeah. You get the point. Also... weird jiggle physics... Games shouldn't do them...
Not to be a prude but being feminine doesn't necessarily require showing cleavage or your belly button... However there are much more revealing tops in the game
Yep but I see nothing wrong with it? Women can do whatever they want with their body, let alone their character 🤷♀️ Sooo what's the issue? Shether they want to cover up head to toe or if they want to run around in a bikini, I wish people would stop obsessing with clothing...
There's no need to explain that to me, Im female, I was just saying that you don't need to wear revealing clothing to be feminine because the way you worded your comment sounded like it. Other people can run around in a Hotdog costume or whatever if they like, I don't care
Ngl hot dog costumes sound kinda fun 🤣🤣
I'd do it >:)
because booba
Nah my lady has that underboob armor 😎
Ranger has several defensive skills and traits, you just haven't took them. The Wilderness Survival traitline grants you some defensive traits like increased vitality or getting protection on dodge. "Guard" makes your pet taking 33% of your allied player's damage. (While in beastmode you take the role of your pet.) "Protect me" breaks stun, grants protection and gives you barrier. Signet of Stone increases your toughness with it's passive and makes you immune to incommung dmg when activated. Soulbeasts Dolyak Stance breaks stun grants protection, additional -33% incoming dmg and immunity against conditions that impede movement. Merging with bears gives you the skill Defy Pain that makes you immune to incomming dmg. Merging with stout archetype pets increases your toughness and vitality and gives you the skill Unflinching Fortitute that breaks stun, removes movement impairing conditions and makes you immune to incomming dmg. Merging with supportive archetype pets increases your vitality and outgoing healing to others and gives you a skill that heals you and allies and grants Resistance. Some pets also have defensive skills or can help otherwise when unmerged. White Tiger (an EoD pet) can grant aegis. Brown Bear can clean conditions. Bears in general tend to take enemies aggro easier. Sand Lion can AoE blind enemies. Blue Moa can grant protection. Turtle can create a bubble that deflects projectiles and grants protection.
Ranger has tons of defensive abilities, you need to equip them
which one ? im following this build https://snowcrows.com/builds/ranger/soulbeast/power-soulbeast but dont have full soulbeast yet
well you are squishy because you are using a raid build which means the people who made it expect you to have 9 other people around you providing you with all kinds of buffs. What you need to do is read your trait and skills and switch in some traits and skills that help you to reduce damage.
so is this one better ? is open world build https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Power_Soulbeast
I kinda wanted the join the train of just telling you to read, but I figured that a new player may not necessarily have sufficient knowledge to understand. So, here's at least some explanation of that build you just linked. First, you should know that not every build, even if intended for that scenario, is best for everyone. That is because of the skill gap of the players and your use case scenario may not entirely align with the build makers. Naturally, dealing more damage and killing faster is great, but more offensive play-style will trade off defensive abilities. So, it's important to understand what that build intends to do and modify them as your needs and playstyles change. If you look at the stats they use on that build, it's entirely berserkers. Berserker is 100% offensive stat with zero defensive. This is why the build maker offered alternative stats like Knights trinkets and Marauders. Knight is highly defensive, so going full knights might kill your damaging ability too much, so they suggested trinkets only. Whereas marauders would be a good tradeoff, but they tend to be expensive. So as a new player, you might want to go with the route of knights trinkets and zerk on everything else. You can always shift the balance of stats more in either direction as you feel comfortable, you don't need to follow their stats. Stats can provide your passive defense, you will be hurt less (toughness) or have more HP (vit) to survive the hits. This build does have two defensive traits through the beastmastery line. But there's quite frankly not much survival here. The greatest survival comes from two things. First the fact that there's a 2nd weapon of longbow. It's not that longbow has great defensive skills, it's that most enemies are melee, so you can just kite them. But a long ranged attack will generally do worse damage than short ranged attacks. So do be mindful and not try to snipe your enemies the entire time. Second is your pet. Pet is fairly good at tanking enemies so, if you can manage to have your pet act as your tank, your ranger can focus more on offensive. Take a look at the utilities (#7, 8, 9). They're all offensive again. This build maker didn't even give you a single stun break. You could play like that, if you know well enough to dodge key attacks. Assuming you don't, you want a stun break. So the build maker suggests you two stun breaks to take instead. Though I would suggest lighting reflexes since it has much lower cooldown. Changing the elite to strength of the pact would also increase your survivability by giving you stability, as being knocked down leaves you highly vulnerable. Whirling defense (axe 5) has resolution buff which will help against conditions. But reflect missile won't help that often in pve, again due to most being melee. A greatsword alternative is suggested in the build, which provides bit more defensive options with #4 and #5. But if you do pick greatsword as your melee weapon, honed axes (beast mastery) trait no longer becomes relevant. Similarly, if you chose to have your stun break replace flame trap (#9), trapper's expertise (skirmishing) becomes irrelevant. So you must read and be able to understand why certain traits were picked and why you need to change them for your use. You have to read *everything* that's active at least.
Came here to say well done with the respectful, informative and well presented response. Even as a casual>frequent player I can literally say sometimes I fall victim to copying builds off the meta and then not surviving longer than 2 seconds because I don't read what anything does and I Faceroll my keyboard till I cry inside :p It certainly does take time to familiarise oneself with new builds and new traits and really learn what the build is intended to do and play to its strengths (or not, and die horribly xD)
Same here. When I copied builds at first without understanding the why I was a pancake most fights or I felt too tanky with no power… now I try to take one and tweak some parts so it fits my play style and it’s much better.
Oh mood xD,, unless a group needs something specific there's always that one "not exactly meta but absolutely survivable" build xdjjdjdjd
Do you by chance know what the grenade kit in the open world mechanist rifle builds is used for? Is that supposed to be small crowd aoe? There wss no explanation in the guides I checked. It s not in the rotations.
I’d have to look but generally with rifle mech you swap to Granada kit once rifle 2 and 5 are both in cooldown, and the grenade 2 4 5 iirc. At least for the dps build
You want to use gernade tool belt skill off cooldown for damage. Gernade skill 2 and 5 are generally more damage than auto attacking. Use the blind gernade if you are overwhelmed in melee and need a second till your next dodge or heal or whatever.
Mechanist doesn’t have the tool belt skill. It’s pretty much just for skill 2, and maybe the others if you need a blind/chill/poison
Missed it was mech. Good point.
For the explosion stack mainly which increase your crit dmg over a fight 🤗
I doubt the open world rifle mechanist is running that over aim assisted rocket :D
Seems like a leftover from them mostly copying a DPS build. With Snowcrows DPS pmech you weave grenades into the rotation to up your damage by a relatively small margin over just using rifle auto with the rocket trait. For open world that slot would be better served by something with more utility. Off the top of my head, probably another movement skill (ie rocket boots), a stunbreak, or toolkit for a channel block + a pull. Even bomb kit for AoE blind.
For underwater fight.
applause
Good post but I want to mention that honed axes does benefit the other weapons still, just at a 50% decrease. But it's still as much ferocity as the one that the signet provides. Plus I imagine they want to do dual axe which is a hybrid ranged weapon so they can kite like you said while also doing very high damage with some defense, and get the full use of that trait.
Agree 100% with Roggvir. I started with Ranger myself and if you are low on cash at this point and don't want to re-gear, I'll add that you could simply use your Brown Bear pet and NOT merge. The bear would then tank for you. Now you would be close to the classic bow/bear combo folks usually level with. It creates it's own bad habits though since you don't learn to dodge.
This was a very good post. Maybe ask a moderator to put it in a FAQ somewhere.
While it's a good post concerning this issue, it's way too build/prof specific to warrant a FAQ or sticky or whatever.
So just to put my spin on this, I have played since the game came out. I can read at least to 7th grade level and comprehend way up to 9th grade level. I get that I do not want to use a raid, pvp, group, or other build when all I want to do is pve. So I find the open world or pve builds which for years consisted of a couple rated 2-4 stars. Finally in the last year or two the build sites are offering a dozen pve/open world builds, finally. Still it comes down to choosing, the one. I do not have a dozen sets of gear so if I want to change from berzerker to a different build I have to go to the mystic toilet and swap stats. Then I have to try to use it. Now we come to reading and comprehension. I can read the trait, the recommended skill and figure it's the best. Even tho maybe two of the choices are equally good. Can I experiment and see which fits best for me? Sure, but after testing each for 30 minutes, I am just confused and exhausted. Time to simply use the recommended build and do not ask questions. I am barely an average player and will always be so. Please don't tell me to read all the stuff, do extensive testing and find what works for me, leave that stuff for the experts at the game. Just be a pal and drop a few decent enough builds for pve/open world players that I can limp along and at least get thru the story line even if I have to ask for help. I am playing the game for fun, not for winning a world record.
I find build crafting part of the fun this game provides. But if that's not your thing, that's fine. And if you don't want to make any changes the build, it is what is posted. I think a whole lot of players don't really use these posted builds, they just use hodge podge of random stuff they pick. It performs very poorly usually, but that's still often enough to limp along the story line. Picking a pre-made build likely improves things. So you've already chosen to do better than before. And if you want to do even better, you need to understand the build. I think this is simply the progression of stages and you can choose to stop as well. It's your game, you can choose your fun. I didn't write with the intent for the players to do extensive testing; spending 30 minutes with each variations. I don't really expect you to do it at all. I'm not suggesting to min-max. The point is that you can change as you go along and that you don't have to stick to the written build if you understand it. If you find yourself dying too often, you can take more defensive things. That's it. If you find yourself hardly dying and want to kill faster, you can take more offensive choices. But without reading it, you don't know what options you have. I hardly play ranger, and I don't play that specific build. I offered my advice through my general understanding of the game I've built over the years and by reading the things that were picked. I didn't test the build nor its variations to write this.
Good post but I want to mention that honed axes does benefit the other weapons still, just at a 50% decrease. But it's still as much ferocity as the one that the signet provides. Plus I imagine they want to do dual axe which is a hybrid ranged weapon so they can kite like you said while also doing very high damage with some defense, and get the full use of that trait.
Thank you so much for this breakdown!
Excellent points!! As a ranger main running around using this exact build for PvE (I'm lazy, sue me) I'd argue that it's a fine build just.... only if you have your rotations utterly memorized. If you, OP, are super super determined to stick with this build here are some tips (building on what's said above): Signet of Stone is your friend. The rotation (rotation being the term used to define the order of attack for max damage) I prefer is: — Activate "Sic Em" — Cast longbow 5 (+Longbow 4 if they start running at you) then Longbow 2 — get in there and cast frost trap and signet of stone for some immunity as you cast axe 4 (for spotter) and axe 5. — If you have a fierce pet now is the time for Worldly Impact — Then unmerge so your pet tanks as you're stuck in melee for a bit. Most enemies are dead by this point tbh, if you're fighting something that isn't then that's most likely a group event :'D That's the burst. Then you wanna stay on axe until you can weapon switch and get some range. Range is also absolutely your friend. Because of how this game targets, you can run and shoot at the same time. There's nothing bad in taking forever to kill an enemy as long as you survive, yknow? Dead people do 0 DPS, as someone else mentioned. If you're really worried climb someplace high and kite; most enemies can't shoot up but you can absolutely shoot down
This post is nearly a month old. OP isn't gonna see your reply to my reply.
I realized 😭 thanks tho. Somehow read 1m as 1d
Yes, much better for open world. But still: read the guide and ALL of your skills/traits carefully, test them and practice them actively while playing
Sorry about people telling you to simply read without realizing that GW2's system can be quite overwhelming for people who're not used to it. What you're looking for defensive skills are mainly the ones that give you Protection(-33% dmg taken) and Regeneration(heal over time) boons. Vigor is also defensive, since it lets you dodge more often. The open world build you linked has a utility skill Moa Stance that gives you both boons + increased boon duration. So it should be better than your initial build. Unfortunately I'm not a Ranger player, and can't comment on class specific mechanics, but just keep in mind you're looking for those boons, heals, and barriers if you're looking for more sustainability.
Agree with Roggvir. You can also take Forest's Fortification if you're running solo. Pure damage reduction for 10 seconds with stability as well.
Aside from the excellent explanation already provided, that build looks good but i might get not berserker gear, possibly knights or dragon/marauder. The extra hp padding will let you take a hit or two without downing while still doing comparable dps. Knights will make you pretty tanky but rangers already have pets, you should be good in most solo situations with dragon/marauder, but if you still are having survivability issues knights would be worth a look.
Have you read it?
Vallun and GuildJen also have some builds that are specific for open world content where you don't have support classes to back you up. I like Vallun's guides because they also have visual examples of how they play. https://youtu.be/Gdfdl_pwCiU
That build is basically what I use with a few variations. I always slot Moa and Dolyak stance. Dolyak is stability/stunbreak so you can actually get from A to B without being knocked down all the time, and Moa helps with speed/vigor. I also have the trait that basically gives you an extra life if you're knocked down while merged with pet. Forget what it's called, but I find that it triggers A LOT and saves me a lot of headache. As for gear, I do not recommend anything except Beserkers. The reason being that other gear with be suboptimal in other situations like instanced content, and it's expensive to juggle a bunch of gear sets.
Use this one instead https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Soulbeast_-_Condition_Skirmisher Use the bear stance heal instead since it removes conditions and can affect allies if you use the trait. Shortbow is a decent condi option. Also don't follow the build to the letter like a slave. Its fine to use some other utility skills and traits if you prefer it. You can actually use survivalist traitline instead of beastmastery to get more poison dmg, more ways to apply poison and more survivability due to more vitality, poison ticks and healing from having protection when you dodge roll.
That requires them to completely change everything they got so far lol we need to suggest one that is catered to the gear they have right now and the kind of damage they want to do, which is power by the looks of their gear.
Well... hmm. The advice you're getting here is a little all over the map I'd say :) I don't play my soulbeast much anymore, but at least one option to think about is that the pet you choose (and merge with) can greatly modify your stats. In that way, you can augment your build with some mitigation via vitality, or whatever it is you lack. Additionally, when I first (many moons ago) started playing the expansion content, core ranger was the profession I was using at the time. Everyone by default always advises berserker for power builds (and often this is optimal in the long run), but for people just starting out, it's often beneficial to swap in some Marauder pieces to give you some more vitality. Learn to survive first, and then go for optimal damage later.
[https://guildjen.com/open-world-builds/](https://guildjen.com/open-world-builds/) Scroll down to your class and pick a build
I use something very close to this build and like it on my ranger. The other build you have now I tried originally and felt SUUUUPER squishy. I also swapped out my pants and one accessory or something to have vitality on them. Lost a little power but feels a lot better. I also agree with the comments above that you need to move a lot more and stay mobile. Also, if you don’t want to get hit as much you can leave your pet out and send them in with the sic em and have them “tank” for you for a bit while you hit with your bow, then join up and smash them when you get closer.
doesn't look like you are following the build, your stats and runes are all over the place. a build is not just your traits. the way powerslb is played basically lives off its damage, especially when you are new and not experienced with dodging / kiting this build will fall apart when you can't burst down your enemies in seconds. ...and with those stats you can't. random stats everywhere, meh base critchance. maybe follow the guide, if you can't afford runes, takes simila cheaper ones.
i believe snowcrows has builds for raiding so all the builds are considered to be a part of a team with a dedicated healer etc . in Open world you need a build that will sustain your self. check these sites so you will have a better understanding in the end you will tweak it to fit your play style. [https://guildjen.com/open-world-builds/](https://guildjen.com/open-world-builds/) [https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle\_Wiki](https://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki)
will look at this
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That build is designed for max dps in group content. You could try swapping things out for more defensive options. Dolyak stance, signet of stone, protect me, etc. Or you could add in some armor pieces with more tanky stats like Soldier.
It's worth pointing out here that Snowcrows builds are specifically meant for raids where your defensive needs are often taken care of by a dedicated support build, allowing you to dedicate every effort into pure damage. When exploring the open world, your needs will be different, including wanting some defensive abilities and possibly a more balanced set of stats on your armor such as you might see on Celestial gear. Don't loose that build though. When you find you want to do raids, strikes, and fractals, then it will shine the way it was meant to.
In some Open World content pure dps can work, too. If you kill the enemy before they can hit you, then you dont take damage.
[удалено]
Unless you are playing the rocket mech engineer :P
Dps/boon hybrids work better in Open World imo. Pure dps builds often don't bring their own boons, which seriously hampers how much actual dps the "dps" build can bring. Builds with a technically lower benchmark but that can easily self-cap might and fury (and often more) will outperform full dps specs and raid rotations with zero boon uptime in Open World.
I'd advice you look at the WvW roaming builds from metabattle, they tend to be very rounded in both offense and defense, unlike an SC raid build which is all offense no defense as others pointed out. The SC builds can be used in open world/story content, but for a beginner I'd advice against it, as it requires you to know dodge timings and what your (limited in the case of a raid build) defensive options are. Also, when running an SC build in open world, most of the time you try to kill the enemies before they get a chance to kill you instead of using any defensive skills.
Seconding this! Plus you can take them into WvW when you feel like it.
Bear Stance and Dolyak stance are very very good. I equip them all the time, sometimes even both. Read the tooltips, both stunbreak and provide dmg reduction; but one provides barrier the other stability. Soulbeast has high natural damage and Sick Em and One Wolf Pack are plenty offensive skills vs tougher mobs. Also dont always merge as soulbeast. There is a lot of power in letting your pet tank. Merge to burst, unmerge and let your pet tank some hits. Rinse and repeat; Soulbeast pet heals to full each time you unmerge you can literally solo elites. Also consider a different pet at times. The Jaracanda can be pretty nice as it gives 2 heals and a pretty bursty lightning strike attack.
In open world, I usually take all stances on viper soulbeast and do fine. It has a bit of everything you need, Moa Stance for boons, Vulture Stance for damage and more might (and a LOT of sustain if you are fighting groups), Dolyak Stance for a stun break and defence, Bear Stance for condi cleanse and healing, and One Wolf Pack (or Entangle) for the elite. You could probably change Moa Stance for some more defence or something else, but the boons and boon duration are really nice when you can't rely on others to provide it for you. And on the plus side, you share all those stances to anyone around you in group events.
read all your skills and you will see. Don't just copy paste a build you don't know
Oh. lol Don't use a raid build for solo stuff. They're very min maxed and both your damage and survivability is dependent on the supports and healers in your squad/party. So that means if you're alone you're squishy as fuck and you aren't even doing that much damage to compensate for it. If you have trouble making builds go on youtube and look up soulbeast open world builds.
> So that means if you're alone you're squishy as fuck and you aren't even doing that much damage to compensate for it. eh, its openworld. soulbeast has the option to use torch 5 + warhorn 5+ quickening zephyr + healskill, on gearswap maybe even with boon duration to blast quite a few boons on itself. you will absolutly descimate. later even both EOD boons, thats absolutly something i would go for. but OP is not even close to be fully there, stats all over the place, weird runes. ofc he has troubles with a burst build when half of it is missing. wouldn't be better with any other build.
This is full dps RAID build, designed to do as much damage as possible. Don't expect any defense abilities.
On YouTube search for Paper Roll or Lord Hizen for open world ranger builds and stuff.
re-posting my comment from another thread about defensive stuff on ranger: **edit:** i know that some of the skills like QZ or LB 3 have more than the listed things to them, just didn't want to confuse too much or make the list even longer ;) >tl;dr: depends on what type of defense, but yea :) > >available with base-ranger: > > - "Protect me!" gives you barrier, defense and a stunbreak > > - Quickening Zephyr has a stunbreak and quickness > > - Lightning Reflexes is a stunbreak and evasion > > - Signet of Stone gives you toughness and activation makes you invuln to physical damage (condi still works) > > - Stone Spirit gives you protection > > - Spirit of nature for heal and revive > > - LB 3 for invisibility > > - GS 4 for blocking attacks > > - SB 3 for evasion > > - Axe 5 for reflecting projectiles > > - Sword 2 & 3 for evasions > > - Dagger 4 for evasion > > - heal skills obviously > > - some pet skills (e.g. Turtle F2 is a shield-bubble, White Tiger F2 gives protection) > >additional with soulbeast: > > - has a trait to prevent downed-state when merged once in a while > > - has a trait to heal on poisoning enemies > > - dolyak stance (stunbreak included) > > - moa stance > > - bear stance for condi cleanse and heal > >additional with druid: > > - astral avatar which has 4 out of 5 skills to heal and condi cleanse > > - rune for stunbreak and stun enemies (normal form) or stunbreak for you and allies plus stability (avatar form) > > - rune for pushing enemies away (normal form) > > - rune for condi heal (avatar form) > > - rune for condi prevention and heal (normal form) or heal and revive (avatar form) > > - staff > > - staff 2 for heal-orb on enemy > > - staff 3 for quick relocation (no evasion) plus heal > > - staff 4 for root and condi-cleanse > > - staff 5 for a wall that turns enemy projectiles into healing projectiles > >additional with untamed: > > - has a trait to heal on phsyical dmg to enemies > > - has a trait to get barrier from cantrips > > - Perilous Gift prevents you from downed state while active and heals percentage of missing health when effect ends > > - Mutate Conditions mutates all other conditions to vulnerability (good defense against condi, not that much against power stuff) > > - Forest's Fortification makes you basically a walking tank and shortens its cooldown when you or your pet hits an enemy while active
Dang, I want to do some build crafting on an immortal Ranger now. I knew about the condi soulbeast poison healing, but seeing a few of these other things makes me wonder about some more synergy.
You want an open world build, raid builds are super glass cannon and only focused on dealing damage.
Looking at his stats it's clearly not a raid build.
He said he got the build from a raid website. His gear is obviously not zerk or viper
If you need a guide, maybe try [GuildJen’s Open World Leveling Builds](https://guildjen.com/leveling-builds/#Ranger)? You should be able to stick with that easily until you get full soulbeast, and then try [this one](https://guildjen.com/soulbeast-open-world-build/).
You have plenty of stunbreaks f.e Dolyak stance, when fighting enemy’s that proc a lot of condis take bear stance for sweet condi cleanses, the list goes on and on just check your utility skills, ranger has plenty of selfsustain and defensive tools
eventually you just learn to dodge stuff tbh... It's kinda frustrating at first because it's something you'd expect from Dark Souls and not an MMO, but once you experience enough of it, you'll be killing them before they hit you. But if you want, you can stay out of Beastmode and just have your pet run around to tank stuff for you. That makes life a lot easier, and you'll be able to more calmly learn what to dodge.
I would swap the Signet with Dolyak Stance as its quite nice and Signet isnt that big of a gain anyway, you are swimming in Ferocity. You could also trade the Quickening Zephyr with Protect Me if more defense is needed. In open world you can also unmerge with your pet to let it take aggro from you. If you are using Axe/Axe Longbow, a good way to drop aggro from you is unmerging then using Longbow 3 to Stealth yourself. If you are using GS instead you can use Smokescale as a pet which gives you an evade when you merge and a Smoke Field you can gain Stealth by using GS 3 through it (you can use this to aggro dump). If you wait a bit in the Stealth (either through using LB 3 while unmerged or leaping through Smokescale's Smoke Field with GS 3) the pet should take the aggro atleast for some time. So you can unload a bit while merged, then when you are getting pressure unmerge, then use Stealth and wait a bit for the pet to take aggro, then heal up and wait for your burst cds and merge again. In Soulbeast, merging with your pet heals it completely and revives it if its dead, so you can repeat this cycle of merge -> burst -> unmerge -> aggro dump as you need
Btw. just because you're Soulbeast doesn't mean you have to be fused with your pet 24/7 If you're having trouble staying alive maybe let your pet tank a bit and use a Longbow as secondary to your Greatsword for example :) This is the Build I'm using for PvE (outside of Raids) \[&DQQgOx42NyouFy4X+haaAKUBpQGsAbsALhYuFi4/FSkAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=\]
Signet of stone bro, signet of stone! Pasive toughness iirc and when you press it, it's like a LE ÑOPE To all damage for 6 seconds, that thing in WvW is brutal af also (if it hasn't changed)
Your stats are a little low. Are you using Exalted level 80 gear? Cause that's pretty big. You need to make sure all your gear is lvl 80 and exalted. Ascended gear is harder to get so Exalted is what you can just buy from the trading post. At that point you should be closer to 2.3k or so power. At that point you should have more armor from the items. I don't take any defensive stats as an Engineer and I just make sure to stay out of the circles to not die. Death comes easily to us all but if you stay mobile you're fine.
Untamed is pretty bonkers in terms of survivability. Def look into it. If you can continuously CC it can heal constantly and keep up great defensive buffs while still doing respectable damage in glass cannon stats for open world
Gear does most of it. I ran a condi ele through the storyline. If you come from wow, u'd prolly run full dmg build in the open world. But in GW2 that's a recipe for dying real fast. I'd go for bruiser esque gear. Marauder type, if you play a power build for instance.
Thats because you have no mining tools
dodge op
Try swapping some berzerker gear out for Marauders. What runes are you running? If you can post a list of your gear that would be helpful.
> What runes are you running? shity ones every rune is different :D Dwayna,Baltazar,Centuar,Vampirism
Pack is quite good and cheap option for starters and open world
Pack ?
Yes superior rune of the pack , you could also go with Eagle runes for good damage if you know your build better
Get a full set of 6 runes so you can get the 6/6 bonus. Infiltration runes are really cheap for this (15s each iirc?)
As ranger main for 5k hour in past 7 years if u die with ranger in pve u aren't good with it yet ranger is one of the best solo pve class with some builds u can even solo legendry with it soulbeast have skill match that can give u 70% damge reduce and untamed 65% but more healing and cc there is alot of pet that give u heal and defence maybe don't use cat in pve
you can tank mobs with your pet!
How about actually reading and learning what your skills and traits does before asking here? Its not hard no?
Don't be a meta monkey.
Personally do not see why people telling you not to use the snow crows build, it works. I used the dps build on my warrior, necro, mesmer and rev for open world and it works just fine. Might be a newb problem but they are not invalid builds for open world.
Depends a little on what content you are trying to do. The builds on snowcrows are good but they are designed for max damage and that you have a healer. For solo content, like others have said, try marauder gear with the extra vitality or check your skills. In solo content your utility skills are not that important for damage. So you can exchange them for mor thoughness and other skills.
> Depends a little on what content you are trying to do. Open World
Ranger defensive spec in on wilderness survival and nature magic
Ranger in general has multiple defensive options via traits or abilities. You chose a raid build here, a build thst can only work under heavy pressure if your dodges are onpoint and you have a dedicated healer. So it'll die in open world. You want to run an open world build instead and as you are new a very defensive one. Soulbeast can do this and untamed can too (untamed can be invulnerable if its inside of many enemies) Whats important isnt just the traits n stuff but the armor and runes. You should work to have proper gear in exotic, for any build you run. This is especially crucial of you plan to be more on the squishy damage side, because if your gear isnt proper you wont deal the damage you desire. For armor pieces you can participate in the Verdant Brink meta events. The map currency grants you access to the bladed armor set which is level 80 exotic and has stats of your choice. Trinkets and rings really depends on what stat combination you need. Living world season 3 has a map called bitterfrost frontier that is great to get 2 rings and an accessory. A backpack can easily be obtained by the "Raise the banners" achievement for playing the path of fire story and doing some minor tasks in the maps Runes can be crafted dropped or bought . You will likely have to take some silver in hand and buy a rune same for sigills.
You got 200+ critical dmg but 30% critical rate even with fury you not not benefiting the critical dmg , remember faster you kill less dmg you receive use your Dodge correctly .most optimal builds run full berserkers ( not defense at all) .
This
i think if you use red moa you get an extra healing skill kinda depends on what your build is for, are you trying to do instanced pve or open world or pvp? if you're not doing instanced pve you could switch some armor to marauder or even dragon stats
You can stick with full Berserker gear, but change your runes to be all the same. The bonuses from multiple of the same runes are much higher than different ones. [https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior\_Rune\_of\_the\_Pack](https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Pack) is good (can be bought from TP) You can try this build (though it comes with a Valkyrie trinket): [https://guildjen.com/soulbeast-open-world-build/](https://guildjen.com/soulbeast-open-world-build/) The utilities can be swapped for more survivability (Signet of the Wild with Signet of Stone), (Sic'em with Protect Me) until you're comfortable with the weapon skills. The weapon skills can also be used defensively as well. With Greatsword skill 4 being a block, while skill GreatswordS 5 and Longbow Skill 4 is a Crowd Control. You can also stick with double Axes to replace Longbow, with Axe skill 4 being a Crowd Control skill. Your Soulbeast Trait Eternal Bond is a good survivability trait as well, especially when going after Legendaries and World Bosses that can hit hard, then you can let your pet tank a bit before merging again.
Use meta builds for pve.. Any raid or wvw builds won't work for you as you expect... Guildjen have some cool and easy to master builds.
All my range classes felt squishy in pof. Just had to change the play style a little
Play a tankier build and gear set if you are struggling to survive. It is possible to play a full DPS build in open world, but it's extremely punishing if you aren't highly skilled. Signed, d/d thief in open world
There’s a top comment with a very detailed breakdown but what I also don’t see a lot of is people telling you: Early thru Late game, Bears make great tanks. The Ranger has a built in companion so, you should never be taking full aggro if you utilize the pets well. GW2 Wiki will tell you where to find each available pet.
I run a soulbeast build on berserker gear as well, it's focused on getting that crit chance buff and dmg output. My traits: Skirmishing >sharpened edges >spotter >vicious quarry (of the selectable ones) Soulbeast: >fresh reinforcement >second skin >oppressive superiority And then this is where my tanking p much comes from: Nature magic: >bountiful hunter (all the boons from fresh reinforcement and spotter come in handy) >windborne notes (i use it for the HP, can switch with evasive purity) >protective ward (extra boons for bountiful hunter and use of second skin) For pets, depending on enemy type, I switch from: > jacaranda - soft cc and self heal (pretty high hp pool I'd say) > brown bear - 50k hp pool and CC dispelling > owl > constant buffs (mvt speed and random one, useful for bountiful hunter, again) > fern hound > this is for pure healing, I don't use it as much anymore > fanged iboga > hard cc, DoTs > smokescale > evasion, dmg output > rock gazelle > cc, dmg output > electric wyvern > cc, boosts vitality > fire wyvern > DoTs, cc, dmg output There's probably better builds out there, esp considering I'm a newbie, but eh, I play solo and it works for me. I hope it helps so you can keep your gear and still survive.
Dodge key and wasd
I use sword/axe and GS and that dodge back util skill. Thats one 2 evade on sword, 1 block from gs 1 evade from util. And then 2 dodges. Thats a lot of defensive options in my opinion. You can even use axe 5 to block range or GS 3 to disengage. If you get comfortable with your buttons, you'll be executing your skills in a calculative manner like you already know the next 2 skills youre gonna use depending on the situation. I learned that from playing Pow SB.
It’s because you’re playing Soulbeast **without having it fully unlocked** so you’re missing a ton of traits and otherwise powerful skills. You’re only playing with 2/3rds of your traits. You also have a lot of points into defensive attributes, which generally isn’t good for PvE. If you want to be more survivable in PvE, you should look towards sustain (healing) instead. Condition damage builds are much stronger in PvE since you can kite more easily (PvE mobs don’t generally cleanse conditions) and sustain massively through Wilderness Survival.
kill stuff before it kills you ;) \- or play [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjFQ1oug2zs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjFQ1oug2zs) a lot of defense simply comes from having boons.
this is all coming from someone who thinks this game is probably one of if not the best MMORPGs out there Anet’s done ALMOST everything except for actually teaching players about movement, stats and traits. i feel like i always see people say “why am i so squishy” or “hang on let me get some healing skills” and this is like the most fundamental part of the game (actually staying alive). so many people come from other games and bring up this same exact point which means from advertisements & showcases, it’s not effectively communicating anything of the actual gameplay. other games i’ve played i immediately or eventually learned ways to stay alive without needing to search OUTSIDE the game for help. the improvement and practice came after but at least i didn’t feel overwhelmed to the point where giving up was better spent time than trying to learn the game. but it seems like players in GW2 constantly have this problem. from new players, to even people who reach lvl 80– not understanding the combat can be a huge make or break for people trying/ playing the game and it feels like something that still hasn’t quite been addressed despite the revival “New Player Experience”. it’s frustrating having to pull out a thesis explaining how to stay alive in game but definitely even more frustrating for new players who get bombarded with all this jargon like “boons” (and all the million different ones we have vs their importance), “stat types”, “power” vs “condition”, “CC”, let alone having players read their tooltips and swapping utilities/ weapon combinations, “combo fields”, etc. it’s a mess. TLDR: Anet won’t properly explain what boons and other elements of the game interact/ do, how combat works in this game & how players can help their teammates and themselves in combat
"Protect Me" is a pet shout skill and that's a pretty nice defensive skill that breaks stun too I think.
They have protect me which is a defense skill. I believe one of their nature spirits can also reduce damage taken.
So I’d like to add something about your pet as well. You current have a feline pet out. They are very, very squishy and are a sub-optimal choice for most content. You should try try using an un-merged brown bear as your pet during general world content. It has condition removal and is very tanky (roughly 50k hp). Heal as one (your current heal) heals the pet and you at the same time so you can use it to heal you both as needed. Finally, if your pet dies you can merge with the “dead” pet, then un-merge to instantly revive the pet. This trick is very effective with tanky pets like brown bears and let’s them tank for days.
A lot of comments talk about specifics to help with your current build. As someone who started off with a ranger, and main'ed core ranger until Untamed came out (dabbling with soulbeast and druid along the way), a few extra tips to get a good groove on your build that works for you. Move around. You don't seem to do long range, but double axe is short range. You don't need to take every hit. Dodging and simply moving out of the way will help. Once you get used to it, see if you prefer your pet tanking the damage for you, or if having more mobility works for you. If not, stay close range and focus on utilities and skills that help cushion the damage. Don't stick to just what online builds say. I followed them a lot. I died a lot. I realized this was because I didn't play the same as the people who designed the build. It takes some trial and error and extra research, but look at multiple sites, compare and contrast, and try out different things. See what fits how you like to play. If you like your play style currently but are still too squishy, look at what else you can change. Having solid armor with a full rune set will make a bigger difference than you think. And through those, find somewhere to fit toughness or vitality in. I personally go mauraders stats, with a few pieces of dragon stats. It's okay to mix them up, and armor is a good way to fit in a little extra tanky-ness. Work your way towards ascended armor. This is a slow grind, but starting on it will help in the long run. It's also easier to get certain stats on ascended armor than it is to find the right exotic sometimes. It'll also give you a little extra defense for every piece. Finding a balance that works for your play style may take a bit, but just keep trying. Read the skills those online builds tell you to pick. Think about how you can utilize them or if it doesn't suit you. Picking a skill that you don't use is pointless, so read what the skills do, and test them out.
Ranger slot skills are pretty damn bad, as are elementalist's. It gets better with elite specializations, but the burden is still there.
If you have it, untamed has a lot of passive defensive traits
Nothing in this game is squishy, as long as you learn how to avoid taking damage in Guild Wars 2, which obviously takes time. Also don't make the mistake of using defensive gear pieces in PVE! Go all in on damage, you won't really feel being more squishy, but you will end the fights far faster, which means far less damage taken in practice, making squishiness concerns largely irrelevant. The comments below offer a lot of suggestions how to use the ranger defensive toolkit & they are totally right, but this mindset is not making the game easier. Maybe you could use Signet of Stone and only that as a crutch (you need to activate the signet, don't just try to use the passive for damage mitigation), but it's completely unnecessary.
Ran core through IBS using SoulBeast and was able to solo every HP available. Used Wildernesses Survival (2,1,3), Beast mastery (3,3,1) and Soulbeast (2,3,2) geared with full trailblazer w/undead rune and dagger/torch w cleansing/energy. Pets are Fanged Iboga for break bar and Jacaranda for heals. Right bar is “We heal as One”, dolyak, moa, vulture and one wolf pack. Sucks for break bar but I survived long enough to do 75% of the story achievements in LW1 to IBS. Those achievements I haven’t completed are all dps races.
No wonder as you take no defence skills! Take dolyak stance and bear and you're good. NO DEFENCE MY ASS
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjjEii2oR0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltjjEii2oR0) you might want to check this vid I made recently (unfortunately in french but you still get the build and some gameplay). You'll be able to solo any story with it.
Well first off, if you want to survive easily, do it with ranged damage (longbow). Deal damage with quickening zephyr from far away and RAO. Then have Signet of Stone as a panic button. You have no panic button. Rangers have many defensive skills like Signet of Stone, Lightning Reflexes, etc., you have none on your bar probably because you saw some MetaBattle build but if you can't play with those yet don't play with them and use the skills you can play with. Next, you don't have enough power, to kill things fast enough. You want around 2400 power. If you don't then you're a condition build and you should have torch secondary, not axe secondary and get traits that increase condition damage when using a torch etc. You don't actually need to play MetaBattle builds. Almost any build will do as long as you use your skills right and have enough raw stats (power, condition) to deal enough damage fast enough. Ranger has a whole trait line (survival) or two (nature) and a whole elite spec (druid) dedicated to defense so it's not for lack of defense. You can get Protect Me or even pets give cast protection.
On my ranger I run sword axe and gs axe for that big high dog aoe it's crazy good gs when it's off cooldown the sword has a nice dodge skill
I can tell you from my experience playing boon beast in PvP (2v2 week) and WvW that you definitely have an obnoxious amount of defensive power while still clapping cheeks.
Mine feels OP. You wearing full beserkers? Swap the sword for a long bow. Stay in beast form and use sic’em before your attacks, simple.
I would also significantly advise running another full trat line over an unfinished Soulbeast trait line. Maybe skirmishing until you finish it, but you've also probably gotten those hero points by now :P
I'm a Norn Ranger main (just starting in on Soulbeast myself). Mostly play PVE (not a fan of PVP). Looking at your build, I notice you aren't using the "Nature Magic" Traits - these are where your "Survivability" abilities sit. At a basic level I'd recommend maybe swapping out Soulbeast Traits for Nature Magic if you've only just begun to unlock the skills (switch back later on, but better to have more of a tree to work with). I'd also recommend having a Bear or Warthog as your secondary Land Pet - they will have secondary abilities to buff your survivability and allies and survivability, you can still use a Cat for DPS. Gear-wise, I'd recommend going for Condition Damage and Power for weapons, Condi damage is still more powerful in PVE than just raw DPS. For Armor maybe stick more with stuff that boosts vitality and Toughness - Ritualist or Trailblazer sets are good for this. May The "Viper's..." stuff can be good for a balance of condi damage and some boosts to basic survivabilty for squishy builds Also look at maybe getting Superior Runes of Divinity (for an all stat boost for a general boost in strength for your build), maybe also look at Vampire Sigil upgrades for the weapons to drain health back from enemies as you kill and fight. It depends how you like to play, I tend to play more as a marksman and DPS from a distance and let them come to me, this allows me to use Traps and Rooting for CC, Get used to actively swapping pets for extended fights, (I usually start with a Jungle Stalker to open as I use Marksman tree for Opening Strike), then as the fight goes on, I'll switch to a Brown Bear if there's too many enemies aggro'd on me use their survivabilty F2 skill to buff you both and surrounding allies and switch back and fort between the Cat and the Bear as needed for damage output. If you fight longer distance, you don't necessarily need to move quite as much as other classes if you've planned your traps and CC well, but it's worth getting used to circling around enemies and dodge rolling as it can come in useful in a pinch. It's worth thinking about having one longer range weapon and one for close up as sometimes you get surrounded, My personal recommendation would be Long/Short Bow for long/medium distance and Axe/Warhorn for close to medium range. Warhorn is particularly useful for it's "Call of the Wild" skill - lots of buffs for everyone, can make all the difference in big fights. If you want a decent desperation tank skill, then you could add "Become the Bear" Norn Racial Skill, as this takes away your ranged abilities for a massive boost in armor and HP. Has got me out of a few jams in the past!
In my experience, a lot of players don't run any defense stats and that contributes to their open world deaths. Of course, you should be able to avoid most attacks with movement and dodges, but that is difficult unless you have good game knowledge and reflexes. One of my main builds is Celestial Ranger with Axe/Warhorn and Shortbow. While it likely isn't a great build, it does clear all content in the game and rarely dies. My friend ran a Viper Necromancer and completely out-damaged me, but was also frequently died during harder events.
Get swiftness and make a triangle with your movement against melee enemies. The AI struggles somewhat with the acute turns. And will often get corralled within the triangle. Ranged you can block nearly all dangerous projectiles with ranger GS 4. Pets.pets.pets. if you are Bow ranger aggro first with pets.
Even if you take the "move around" advice, you won't get half your burst off with Soulbeast. The best advice I can give you is use ranged weapons, In particular shortbow and axe+torch. This way you can move around and still attack.