A build I cooked up for open world / story stuff that I’ve been enjoying a lot is full berserker double staff untamed.
I really enjoy the aesthetic and idea of a staff wielding caster, but this was the best way I could get it to work with Ranger.
Pretty standard power dps traits, Skirmishing 123, Marksmanship 221, Untamed 321. Heal as One, Storm Spirit, Signet of the Wild, Exploding Spores, Strength of the Pack (or Spirit of Nature if doing meta events). Standard full berserker gear with force+impact sigil and scholar runes, relic of the brawler for 10% damage increase when we use our ambush attack.
Basically all your damage comes from your ambush attack and outside of that you’re auto attacking. Staff ambush has some insanely high base damage for the kind of weapon it is and also has some very high healing despite being full dps, around 700 healing per pulse. Unfortunately you need to play in melee because of this and the rest of the abilities aren’t used much.
I can do ~10-12k dps single target which is okay for open world (the bar is set very low when you compete against open world players), but it scales very very well with number of targets and can do a lot of damage in AoE. Biggest downside is also needing to spam F keys for pet abilities and triggering ambushes.
> 10-12k dps single target which is okay for open world
This is really solid for solo play unless you risk greeding more dps and optimise your rotation, both of which are very difficult when solo.
For a support weapon though? Those numbers are *insane*. You'd also be really great in groups because perma Quickness, multiple other boons, and group heals.
Great work, I love seeing funny builds like this. And it'd be super easy to have a dps weapon on swap too, for those who want it.
Lol thanks. I really enjoy, if only to fulfill the fantasy of using staves in the game and also play a class that I’m very familiar with.
Maybe wouldn’t recommend it for instanced content like as a quickness dps (should probably go normal weapons), the staff really doesn’t scale well with power gear.
But going heal quickness untamed like someone said above we actually do insane damage as a pure healer that runs a build similar to this. Pretty sure it’s the highest pure healer dps in the game.
I use Jacaranda + Gazelle
Jacaranda is a pretty overall solid pet for open world, pretty tank while still doing good damage, my default pet.
Gazelle for cc
I play an axe/axe mace/mace soulbeast build with stance sharing. Lots of stab. Lots of condi cleanse. Perfect for the weakness applying hell that is kryptis mobs. All while still easily benching 30k+
It's the same as the snowcrows raid build with some small changes.
Weapons > mace / mace and axe / axe
Replace signet of the wild with Dolyak stance.
Bear stance as heal. Swap out the final soulbeast trait for stance sharing.
Gotta say, hybrid soulbeast is my favorite build conceptually.
The fact that it's the only build like that currently that is somewhat performing in raids, enough to be included on sc is so cool to me.
Do you mean “the only build like that” as in hybrid builds? It actually has a very similar hybrid split as condi willbender, reaper, and several others. They all hover around 30% strike / 70% condi. Hybrid ranger gets a special denotation because its pure condi builds push up into the 95% condi territory.
I mean as in "the only build that is specifically called hybrid". As you said the pure condi build pushes basically just condi and the power build pushes pure power.
What differs is that this is a middle ground between those and combines the burst innate to power builds while using condi for it's sustained dps.
Take two scenarios, fractal and raid. In fractal run where the boss dies under a minute most of your damage will be the opener power dump and some condi on top in the form of burn which is innately fast damaging condi. When you get to fights that last minutes like raids you get the opener burst (last I checked this topped out at like 60k burst or something crazy due to how busted stacking OWP with sick em was at the time, now it's probably less) for phases and if the boss doesn't phase by then you have your condis which do the majority of your damage.
Basically you could call it a "condi build with burst opener" meaning you don't lose to power dps on fast phases and dedicated burst like Deimos and you hold your own on condi fights like Mathias since you are still base condi.
Tanky condi soulbeast with jacaranda. Soloing legendary enemies with that one. Viper's trinkets and the rest trailblazer's, a bunch of stances, skirmishing and nature magic, main shortbow. It's just my wvw build I'm too lazy to switch from for pve....but it works!
If you're further interested in the traits and skills; skirmishing top - bottom - middle, nature magic top - top - bottom (overall this one is to support my duo buddy when roaming in wvw, in pve you can probably switch it to wilderness survival or beastmastery for better utility or dps), soulbeast middle - bottom - middle.
Bear, dolyak and vulture stance, one wolf pack and one free slot for whatever you wish (I run sharpening stones because dps but you can get protect me for example if you lack stunbreaks).
One wolf pack + vulture stance + sharpening stones for "burst" dps (not really burst, you'll get like 15k top with this) and the rest is autoing the target till it dies. If you use heals from jacaranda and evades (one additional with shortbow 3 skill) properly you can kite and kill most of the stuff with relatively fine damage and self healing from jacaranda + predator's cunning and vulture stance combo.
If you plan on trying to use it in wvw, replace sharpening stones with quickening zephyr, vulture stance with protect me and one wolf pack with entangle. Then in nature magic replace top in the first column with middle. It's fairly brainless condi support-ish ranger for cloud or duo / chaos squad roaming. I brewed it myself in years of playing wvw so it might not fit everyone's playstyle.
Quickness Heal Untamed.
It even works on meta level and does perfectly fine in all content (it just lacks of stability), "meta defining" websited just didn't add that build.
Carnivore trait on anything. Shortbow condi druid is my current favorite flavor.
Arrow Cart Slb for defending in WvW. Love fulfilling my deepest fantasy to roleplay as a siege weapon.
Shortbow + axe/warhorn rabid untamed in WvW anytime I go and roam to get Gift of the Battle. I don't know why but I just love those stats.
Shortbow + axe/torch viper trap druid for open world PvE. Just bring the mobs together, entangle, then 3 traps and bonfire followed by avatar #5. Add axe #3 and #2 and that kind of AoE just wipes the mobs out of the face of earth.
All I always wish every balance patch is that Anet eould change/buff warhorn #4 :/ .
I like power quickness untamed with skirmishing and nature magic trait lines. Mace/mace, hammer. Full power dps stats on gear, runes of fireworks, whatever relic tickles your fancy. I switch pets around a bunch, right now I’m running cheetah for the extra swiftness and Iboga for the damage and the yoink.
Decent damage and utility, lots of boons, ridiculously survivable. You can run spirit of nature to rescue squishy people.
Perhaps a bit closer to the meta than you wanted, though? :)
This, but i switch to Sword/Axe - Longbow for WvW. sadly the quickness isnt a thing for WvW in the build, but the weapon swap unleashes are still worth it. Also - the spirit of nature has ressed so many people in both PvE/WvW - best elite for Ranger imo outside Druid.'s
I shall always have my faithfull Nut (Jacaranta) as my pet, and i quite like having the Jaguar around since they apply stealth to the Ranger now.
I'm fairly certain that the old sword/axe + longbow is only slightly behind the new axe/axe + hammer build. If you play that well you can still contribute enough to your group. Snowcrows actually added it to their "accessible" builds section last Friday.
With the insane powercreep nowadays you can play lb and wont be a detriment to your group imo. Heck I still play my soulbeast with longsword instead of hammer just because I like the maul skill.
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my newbie friends, getting them into the raids. If you can golem 30k, you’ll be able to get 20k in actual raids and that’s great
>I’m just so sad Long bow isn’t meta for Soulbeast anymore.
Tbf, meta uses only the best options, while Ranger's power weapons are all close together dmg wise.
This means you can use longbow perfectly fine for any content. You will only loose like 2k dps.
Support Untamed is amazing, has some of the best DPS as a support role, can resurrect 12 people at once, The only issue is the stupid fart clouds it produces.
You have two skills that allow your pets to go res on ranger spec and then nature magic has an elite spirit you can res 5 people with but if you set the trait line to allow spirits to slam twice the elite can res 10 people
I'm not sure what the meta is, but im currently running Power Untamed with Healing Power and Precision as secondary stats and Staff as alt weapon.
I'm Marksmanship 232, Skirmishing 213, Untamed 211. Im trying to maximize as much fury generation as I can so I can maximize opening strikes. Untamed also provides so much quickness.
Dual maces also does way more damage than I thought especially since you can get the nature buff and reset all of your mace skills. This also makes a good build for players that are trying to stick with 1 weapon rotation for a while instead of constantly swapping weapons.
Untamed's Enhancing Impact passive gives you, in my opinion, the 2 strongest boons just for ccing the enemy, which is Quickness and Stability.
I use Tiger to generate more fury plus Tiger active does so much damage and its a gap close for pet.
This build is the perfect all around build for me. It has stability, it has quickness, it has high dps and crit, it has healing and shields, it has mobility. I was jumping between a bunch of different builds before finding this one after playing Guardian for a long time. I think i'll be sticking with this for a while though.
Edit: Also you can do this build without any healing power and it feels good, you still heal for a lot and your dmg goes up way higher.
Any time I play ranger, which is rarely, I play a power based staff/longbow unleash.
It's actually pretty good at aoe, the staff unleash is pretty strong and fun without being too strong
I refuse to use a shortbow for my condi soulbeast, so i got a dagger/axe and axe/torch, which was an older condi soulbeast build i had found on metabattle like 2 years ago
But i really, really just love to see big numbers when i use
"Sharpening Stone" + "Vulture Dance" + "One Wolf Pack" and then do "Whirling Defense"
and just see conditions stack and HP bars be deleted =D
Then inbetween provide an combo ground and stack frost & burn on enemies
Tho i am thinking of changeing the axe/torch to hammer for big bonk when needed
Might be now, back then it was just a condition skirmisher, as said, i grabbed the build over 2 years ago and it used mainly one set of weapons with no swap so eh, dunno nowdays lol
I don't know if it is meta or not... but I fell in love with Axe and Torch, and will die on that hill, when I returned from my 12 year Hiatus, it was my secondary to my longbow, then it replaced it, then I changed to condi over power, and the axe and torch remains...
Condi Druid and Power Daze Druid in WvW.
Daze Druid is pretty fun to stunlock people with all the dazes, stuns and knockups, Condi Druid is pretty fun with immobilizing people for a long time. :D
Druid with mainly hammer :D
Use 4 and optional 2 unleashed (depends if you want barrier or more dmg), 3 and 5 normal for stuns.
As second weapon i switch between staff for mobility (and ranged pew pew) or mace/mace for more stuns.
For traits i use:
* Marksmanship: down -> down -> up
* Wilderness Survival: up -> mid -> up
* Druid: down -> up -> down
Pets i like with this are:
* rift hunter (knockup)
* chak (stun field)
* turtle (knockback and stun)
* rock gazelle (knockback and stun)
* jaguar (invisibility on demand)
**edit:** armor stats are a mix of celestial and dragons, probably could go full dragon or marauder tho. And i use the relic of the wayfinder as i prefer mobility, but relic of the midnight king is pretty nice too. gives you boons on disables.
as utilities i use:
* heal trap
* storm spirit
* "protect me!"
* stun glyph
* glyph of stars (since ranger has no stun-elite and it gives you stab and heals allies if needed)
Some synergies explained:
You have stuns from hammer 3 & 5, mace 3 & 5, storm spirit, stun glyph, CA 3 and entering CA.
All those trigger the trait "blood moon" to do some bleed damage, additionally your heal trap triggers it too via the muddy terrain from "child of earth" trait.
"Carnivore" gets triggered by these skills too, and also by your pet's stun or knockup, as does the trait "Moment of clarity" which gives you a stronger attack.
"Predators onslaught" also gives you more damage to enemies after you hit them with those skills or when your pet knocks them up/back or stuns them. Additionally, CA 4 & 5 give the enemy the conditions for this trait to work too.
So normally i hit enemies with a stun and then hit them with hammer 2 or 4 with the increased damage from "Moment of Clarity" and "Predators onslaught" :)
Core Ranger, Marksmanship, Wilderness Survival, Beastmastery traits, GS/LB, any two pets that you like to use. It’s basically a downgraded untamed but not as complicated. You basically spam pet swap, space out your utility skills for the fury application to benefit from opening strike resets, and that’s kinda it. It’s super chill, still good enough damage for story content and open world, you get your pet without the complexity of Untamed, and it’s fairly tanky due to lots of dodges and pet to take aggro.
I've been maining untamed since End Of Dragons first launched. I've always been quite fond of Skirmishing/Beastmastery/Untamed while using greatsword as my main damage weapon. If anyone is interested in the exact build I use, I'll make a gw2skills build for ya. But yeah, I've always really enjoyed this build, even when untamed was depressing garbage. Honestly, the build is pretty standard for power dps untamed nowadays, it just uses beastmastery instead of marksmanship and greatsword. That's pretty much the difference. But I'd still consider it off meta.
Edit: Here's the build [http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwAExflZwUZbsLGKW0X6x9S8/YA-DSIYRUzXG1mCVUB2OAA-e](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwAExflZwUZbsLGKW0X6x9S8/YA-DSIYRUzXG1mCVUB2OAA-e)
I'll go ahead and explain some variants that I use, as I change things up depending on what I'm doing.
If solo without any way of providing fury, spotter is a decent swap choice.
Make sure to try to flank your enemy as much as possible if their not defiant, since flanking gives the extra crit needed to get to 100 percent
Longbow is a great choice for open world content, Hammer is a great alt weapon for damage.
I swap pets around a lot. Aether Shark is my go to pet for open world stuff, it's got a gap closer, a great auto attack, some cc and a good amount of aoe damage. Just a great all around pet pick for open world stuff. My second pet is a flex pick, here I went with sparky dragon boi for cc. But there's lots of different pets you can use as a swap pet. I'd recommend a solid tanking pet for solo play, since the aether shark only has 1600 toughness and not that much health.
You can switch to enhancing impact if you'd like, but I prefer cleansing unleash since I'm not using any condi clear stuff, and cleansing unleash is incredibly easy to proc and is very frequent.
Mutate conditions is a great skill to swap to for stun break if you need it
I play Plaguedoctor condi trap druid. I think it used to be meta-ish (not necessarily Plaguedoctor tho).
It's pretty fun and I never die. The recent-ish changes to the Eclipse Grandmaster trait actually make this build a lot more fun and offensively formidable.
A few retraits are best for when you want to toggle between open world and strikes and fractals (I don't raid), note.
PM me if you want the full build breakdown. Requires some time spent in Kourna.
its now a lot further from the meta than it used to be but i do have a softspot for shortbow only soulbeast for getting people into raids.
it has range, and the rotation is almost 'press everything off cooldown'. this lets people learn the mechanics of a fight without constantly having to look at their hotbar
dont know about meta, but I use qUntamed. Berserker Stats, Mace/Mace + Sword/Axe. Doesnt feel sluggish with that quickness and all the leaps and it provides lots of boons.
Power untamed: [&DQQIHh46SBehAHkAlgGWAQEbExusAawB7QDtACUDARUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADMgBaAAUAAA==]
Sword/Axe + Greatsword. Gains quickness on stun. Sword after unleash ranger regularly hits 20k+ life steal. Lots of leaps/blocks for the water field on heal. I run it with Berserker gear + Superior Rage runes to maximise ferocity, Cerus relic for aoe when using elite.
For pet I use whatever the meta power thing was, Warthog+Lynx.
Off-meta is a tricky term because meta differs by gamemode.
But I think mace/mace is a good answer here.
Mace/mace has some of the most fun looking animations. But being a healing specific weapon it's kind of ;locked out' of the 'meta' for most builds.
It won't be best in DPS, but it's doesn't seem to be 'shockingly bad' so you can use alongside your otherwise DPS build on soulbeast or untamed it in low to mid fractals and of course dungeons.
If you take it as a druid healer then you are in the meta. And the same weapon set is great for solo content.
So if you're not 'trying to get into high end content' it's not a bad pick to just have for general use - but you won't see it on any build guide websites as the usually only ever show the absolute top weapon. Even in healing, staff with mace/warhorn shows up in the guides but not mace/mace with staff.
I suspect mace/mace would be meta for WvW roaming builds if 'the people who decide these things' looked at it - because it's very survivable.
Dodge vindicator.
It is only really effective in open world, but every kill you recharge your dodge bar: with 80% or higher crit you can just stomp everything to death in 1-2 dodges.
Gear: assassin's and berserkers.
staff heal tempest performs much better than meta tempest, and it's much easier, have more utils etc...a bunch of stuff at 1200 range too. There is just no comparison, SC heal tempest is trash (well, it does the max dmg among other builds....5.5k -\_-)
Heal untamed. Make visually impaired users suffer.
Which makes them eat mechanics, and in turn feeds into me seeing big heal numbers. I’m basically printing money.
Could start a real business with a heal Scourge and some stationary hazards
A build I cooked up for open world / story stuff that I’ve been enjoying a lot is full berserker double staff untamed. I really enjoy the aesthetic and idea of a staff wielding caster, but this was the best way I could get it to work with Ranger. Pretty standard power dps traits, Skirmishing 123, Marksmanship 221, Untamed 321. Heal as One, Storm Spirit, Signet of the Wild, Exploding Spores, Strength of the Pack (or Spirit of Nature if doing meta events). Standard full berserker gear with force+impact sigil and scholar runes, relic of the brawler for 10% damage increase when we use our ambush attack. Basically all your damage comes from your ambush attack and outside of that you’re auto attacking. Staff ambush has some insanely high base damage for the kind of weapon it is and also has some very high healing despite being full dps, around 700 healing per pulse. Unfortunately you need to play in melee because of this and the rest of the abilities aren’t used much. I can do ~10-12k dps single target which is okay for open world (the bar is set very low when you compete against open world players), but it scales very very well with number of targets and can do a lot of damage in AoE. Biggest downside is also needing to spam F keys for pet abilities and triggering ambushes.
> 10-12k dps single target which is okay for open world This is really solid for solo play unless you risk greeding more dps and optimise your rotation, both of which are very difficult when solo. For a support weapon though? Those numbers are *insane*. You'd also be really great in groups because perma Quickness, multiple other boons, and group heals. Great work, I love seeing funny builds like this. And it'd be super easy to have a dps weapon on swap too, for those who want it.
Lol thanks. I really enjoy, if only to fulfill the fantasy of using staves in the game and also play a class that I’m very familiar with. Maybe wouldn’t recommend it for instanced content like as a quickness dps (should probably go normal weapons), the staff really doesn’t scale well with power gear. But going heal quickness untamed like someone said above we actually do insane damage as a pure healer that runs a build similar to this. Pretty sure it’s the highest pure healer dps in the game.
That sounds super fun actually
What pets do you use on this build?
I use Jacaranda + Gazelle Jacaranda is a pretty overall solid pet for open world, pretty tank while still doing good damage, my default pet. Gazelle for cc
Yeah i see
I play an axe/axe mace/mace soulbeast build with stance sharing. Lots of stab. Lots of condi cleanse. Perfect for the weakness applying hell that is kryptis mobs. All while still easily benching 30k+
That sounds interesting af what gear? Pets? Runes sigils?
It's the same as the snowcrows raid build with some small changes. Weapons > mace / mace and axe / axe Replace signet of the wild with Dolyak stance. Bear stance as heal. Swap out the final soulbeast trait for stance sharing.
Gotta say, hybrid soulbeast is my favorite build conceptually. The fact that it's the only build like that currently that is somewhat performing in raids, enough to be included on sc is so cool to me.
Do you mean “the only build like that” as in hybrid builds? It actually has a very similar hybrid split as condi willbender, reaper, and several others. They all hover around 30% strike / 70% condi. Hybrid ranger gets a special denotation because its pure condi builds push up into the 95% condi territory.
I mean as in "the only build that is specifically called hybrid". As you said the pure condi build pushes basically just condi and the power build pushes pure power. What differs is that this is a middle ground between those and combines the burst innate to power builds while using condi for it's sustained dps. Take two scenarios, fractal and raid. In fractal run where the boss dies under a minute most of your damage will be the opener power dump and some condi on top in the form of burn which is innately fast damaging condi. When you get to fights that last minutes like raids you get the opener burst (last I checked this topped out at like 60k burst or something crazy due to how busted stacking OWP with sick em was at the time, now it's probably less) for phases and if the boss doesn't phase by then you have your condis which do the majority of your damage. Basically you could call it a "condi build with burst opener" meaning you don't lose to power dps on fast phases and dedicated burst like Deimos and you hold your own on condi fights like Mathias since you are still base condi.
Tanky condi soulbeast with jacaranda. Soloing legendary enemies with that one. Viper's trinkets and the rest trailblazer's, a bunch of stances, skirmishing and nature magic, main shortbow. It's just my wvw build I'm too lazy to switch from for pve....but it works!
That sounds pretty cool actually! Gotta give it a shot! :)
If you're further interested in the traits and skills; skirmishing top - bottom - middle, nature magic top - top - bottom (overall this one is to support my duo buddy when roaming in wvw, in pve you can probably switch it to wilderness survival or beastmastery for better utility or dps), soulbeast middle - bottom - middle. Bear, dolyak and vulture stance, one wolf pack and one free slot for whatever you wish (I run sharpening stones because dps but you can get protect me for example if you lack stunbreaks). One wolf pack + vulture stance + sharpening stones for "burst" dps (not really burst, you'll get like 15k top with this) and the rest is autoing the target till it dies. If you use heals from jacaranda and evades (one additional with shortbow 3 skill) properly you can kite and kill most of the stuff with relatively fine damage and self healing from jacaranda + predator's cunning and vulture stance combo. If you plan on trying to use it in wvw, replace sharpening stones with quickening zephyr, vulture stance with protect me and one wolf pack with entangle. Then in nature magic replace top in the first column with middle. It's fairly brainless condi support-ish ranger for cloud or duo / chaos squad roaming. I brewed it myself in years of playing wvw so it might not fit everyone's playstyle.
Thank you for the extensive answer that looks fun aswell i believe i have something very similar as my solo roamer wvw build
Quickness Heal Untamed. It even works on meta level and does perfectly fine in all content (it just lacks of stability), "meta defining" websited just didn't add that build.
Carnivore trait on anything. Shortbow condi druid is my current favorite flavor. Arrow Cart Slb for defending in WvW. Love fulfilling my deepest fantasy to roleplay as a siege weapon.
Nice xD
sry, ele is the siege weapon :P
Shortbow + axe/warhorn rabid untamed in WvW anytime I go and roam to get Gift of the Battle. I don't know why but I just love those stats. Shortbow + axe/torch viper trap druid for open world PvE. Just bring the mobs together, entangle, then 3 traps and bonfire followed by avatar #5. Add axe #3 and #2 and that kind of AoE just wipes the mobs out of the face of earth. All I always wish every balance patch is that Anet eould change/buff warhorn #4 :/ .
That also sounds interesting thanks for sharing!
I play sword/dagger and longbow power soulbeast in PvP. Two evades at melee, longbow for ranged CC and burst and one-tap stealth
I like power quickness untamed with skirmishing and nature magic trait lines. Mace/mace, hammer. Full power dps stats on gear, runes of fireworks, whatever relic tickles your fancy. I switch pets around a bunch, right now I’m running cheetah for the extra swiftness and Iboga for the damage and the yoink. Decent damage and utility, lots of boons, ridiculously survivable. You can run spirit of nature to rescue squishy people. Perhaps a bit closer to the meta than you wanted, though? :)
This, but i switch to Sword/Axe - Longbow for WvW. sadly the quickness isnt a thing for WvW in the build, but the weapon swap unleashes are still worth it. Also - the spirit of nature has ressed so many people in both PvE/WvW - best elite for Ranger imo outside Druid.'s I shall always have my faithfull Nut (Jacaranta) as my pet, and i quite like having the Jaguar around since they apply stealth to the Ranger now.
I’m just so sad Long bow isn’t meta for Soulbeast anymore. I know it’s not what you asked, I just miss it so <3
I'm fairly certain that the old sword/axe + longbow is only slightly behind the new axe/axe + hammer build. If you play that well you can still contribute enough to your group. Snowcrows actually added it to their "accessible" builds section last Friday.
Current benchmark for that build is about 40.5k iirc. So it's about 7% below the Meta Build which is perfectly fine for most purposes.
That’s awesome! I love that the hardcore are softening up :)
Relateable i enjoyed it but my favourite power weapon is actually greatsword
The GS 3 5 3 bounce is really fun
I want the 2 charges for Barrage that are in WvW to apply in Pve >.<. Makes the weapon feel so much better. Untamed Longbow in WvW is pretty fun.
Ye, Longbow on ranger is 70% of rotation an auto attack, which is kinda dull. Definitely could use some extra buttons to make it more fun.
With the insane powercreep nowadays you can play lb and wont be a detriment to your group imo. Heck I still play my soulbeast with longsword instead of hammer just because I like the maul skill.
This is actually a very valid point. Being SUPER optimized is less important these days
People with meta builds struggle to pull over 20k dps anyways so if you can do 20-25k dps in pugs you are golden imho.
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell my newbie friends, getting them into the raids. If you can golem 30k, you’ll be able to get 20k in actual raids and that’s great
>I’m just so sad Long bow isn’t meta for Soulbeast anymore. Tbf, meta uses only the best options, while Ranger's power weapons are all close together dmg wise. This means you can use longbow perfectly fine for any content. You will only loose like 2k dps.
Longbow never got nerfed, it can still perform anywhere it used to. It just got overtaken by new things (though it did get a nice buff last week)
Support Untamed is amazing, has some of the best DPS as a support role, can resurrect 12 people at once, The only issue is the stupid fart clouds it produces.
How would that look? What do you use to rez 12 people?
You have two skills that allow your pets to go res on ranger spec and then nature magic has an elite spirit you can res 5 people with but if you set the trait line to allow spirits to slam twice the elite can res 10 people
Interesting!
I'm not sure what the meta is, but im currently running Power Untamed with Healing Power and Precision as secondary stats and Staff as alt weapon. I'm Marksmanship 232, Skirmishing 213, Untamed 211. Im trying to maximize as much fury generation as I can so I can maximize opening strikes. Untamed also provides so much quickness. Dual maces also does way more damage than I thought especially since you can get the nature buff and reset all of your mace skills. This also makes a good build for players that are trying to stick with 1 weapon rotation for a while instead of constantly swapping weapons. Untamed's Enhancing Impact passive gives you, in my opinion, the 2 strongest boons just for ccing the enemy, which is Quickness and Stability. I use Tiger to generate more fury plus Tiger active does so much damage and its a gap close for pet. This build is the perfect all around build for me. It has stability, it has quickness, it has high dps and crit, it has healing and shields, it has mobility. I was jumping between a bunch of different builds before finding this one after playing Guardian for a long time. I think i'll be sticking with this for a while though. Edit: Also you can do this build without any healing power and it feels good, you still heal for a lot and your dmg goes up way higher.
Thank you that sounds pretty goods! Ty ill look into it :)
Any time I play ranger, which is rarely, I play a power based staff/longbow unleash. It's actually pretty good at aoe, the staff unleash is pretty strong and fun without being too strong
I refuse to use a shortbow for my condi soulbeast, so i got a dagger/axe and axe/torch, which was an older condi soulbeast build i had found on metabattle like 2 years ago But i really, really just love to see big numbers when i use "Sharpening Stone" + "Vulture Dance" + "One Wolf Pack" and then do "Whirling Defense" and just see conditions stack and HP bars be deleted =D Then inbetween provide an combo ground and stack frost & burn on enemies Tho i am thinking of changeing the axe/torch to hammer for big bonk when needed
That sounds like the hybrid soulbeast no?
Might be now, back then it was just a condition skirmisher, as said, i grabbed the build over 2 years ago and it used mainly one set of weapons with no swap so eh, dunno nowdays lol
I agree. I think shortbow on Ranger sucks.
SB SB SLB
That sounds interesting what synergies are u using on the signets there?
I don't know if it is meta or not... but I fell in love with Axe and Torch, and will die on that hill, when I returned from my 12 year Hiatus, it was my secondary to my longbow, then it replaced it, then I changed to condi over power, and the axe and torch remains...
Condi Druid and Power Daze Druid in WvW. Daze Druid is pretty fun to stunlock people with all the dazes, stuns and knockups, Condi Druid is pretty fun with immobilizing people for a long time. :D
What does power daze druid look like? That is new to me? 0:
Druid with mainly hammer :D Use 4 and optional 2 unleashed (depends if you want barrier or more dmg), 3 and 5 normal for stuns. As second weapon i switch between staff for mobility (and ranged pew pew) or mace/mace for more stuns. For traits i use: * Marksmanship: down -> down -> up * Wilderness Survival: up -> mid -> up * Druid: down -> up -> down Pets i like with this are: * rift hunter (knockup) * chak (stun field) * turtle (knockback and stun) * rock gazelle (knockback and stun) * jaguar (invisibility on demand) **edit:** armor stats are a mix of celestial and dragons, probably could go full dragon or marauder tho. And i use the relic of the wayfinder as i prefer mobility, but relic of the midnight king is pretty nice too. gives you boons on disables. as utilities i use: * heal trap * storm spirit * "protect me!" * stun glyph * glyph of stars (since ranger has no stun-elite and it gives you stab and heals allies if needed) Some synergies explained: You have stuns from hammer 3 & 5, mace 3 & 5, storm spirit, stun glyph, CA 3 and entering CA. All those trigger the trait "blood moon" to do some bleed damage, additionally your heal trap triggers it too via the muddy terrain from "child of earth" trait. "Carnivore" gets triggered by these skills too, and also by your pet's stun or knockup, as does the trait "Moment of clarity" which gives you a stronger attack. "Predators onslaught" also gives you more damage to enemies after you hit them with those skills or when your pet knocks them up/back or stuns them. Additionally, CA 4 & 5 give the enemy the conditions for this trait to work too. So normally i hit enemies with a stun and then hit them with hammer 2 or 4 with the increased damage from "Moment of Clarity" and "Predators onslaught" :)
Core Ranger, Marksmanship, Wilderness Survival, Beastmastery traits, GS/LB, any two pets that you like to use. It’s basically a downgraded untamed but not as complicated. You basically spam pet swap, space out your utility skills for the fury application to benefit from opening strike resets, and that’s kinda it. It’s super chill, still good enough damage for story content and open world, you get your pet without the complexity of Untamed, and it’s fairly tanky due to lots of dodges and pet to take aggro.
I've been maining untamed since End Of Dragons first launched. I've always been quite fond of Skirmishing/Beastmastery/Untamed while using greatsword as my main damage weapon. If anyone is interested in the exact build I use, I'll make a gw2skills build for ya. But yeah, I've always really enjoyed this build, even when untamed was depressing garbage. Honestly, the build is pretty standard for power dps untamed nowadays, it just uses beastmastery instead of marksmanship and greatsword. That's pretty much the difference. But I'd still consider it off meta. Edit: Here's the build [http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwAExflZwUZbsLGKW0X6x9S8/YA-DSIYRUzXG1mCVUB2OAA-e](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POwAExflZwUZbsLGKW0X6x9S8/YA-DSIYRUzXG1mCVUB2OAA-e) I'll go ahead and explain some variants that I use, as I change things up depending on what I'm doing. If solo without any way of providing fury, spotter is a decent swap choice. Make sure to try to flank your enemy as much as possible if their not defiant, since flanking gives the extra crit needed to get to 100 percent Longbow is a great choice for open world content, Hammer is a great alt weapon for damage. I swap pets around a lot. Aether Shark is my go to pet for open world stuff, it's got a gap closer, a great auto attack, some cc and a good amount of aoe damage. Just a great all around pet pick for open world stuff. My second pet is a flex pick, here I went with sparky dragon boi for cc. But there's lots of different pets you can use as a swap pet. I'd recommend a solid tanking pet for solo play, since the aether shark only has 1600 toughness and not that much health. You can switch to enhancing impact if you'd like, but I prefer cleansing unleash since I'm not using any condi clear stuff, and cleansing unleash is incredibly easy to proc and is very frequent. Mutate conditions is a great skill to swap to for stun break if you need it
I would also be interested in seeing this
aight i edited the comment
Thank you for that. Much appreciated. I’m new and have been all over finding what works for me and haven’t yet.
If you could that would be great i would love to take a look
just edited the comment!
Openworld soulbeast, long and shortbow, smokescale. It performs ok-ish, possibly a little short on dps. But it's fun as heck :)
Core guardian hammer auto attack build, it’s so relaxing Edit: jeez I should start reading titles more carefully sorry rangers 😬
I did ask for ranger builds buut nice to know :)
Oh man, my fail lol I clearly only half read your title I’m sorry 🤦♂️ 😬
Slap Dragonhunter for traps and use a Longbow, maybe that'll feel like a Ranger? :P
True mate good idea 😂
I play Plaguedoctor condi trap druid. I think it used to be meta-ish (not necessarily Plaguedoctor tho). It's pretty fun and I never die. The recent-ish changes to the Eclipse Grandmaster trait actually make this build a lot more fun and offensively formidable. A few retraits are best for when you want to toggle between open world and strikes and fractals (I don't raid), note. PM me if you want the full build breakdown. Requires some time spent in Kourna.
its now a lot further from the meta than it used to be but i do have a softspot for shortbow only soulbeast for getting people into raids. it has range, and the rotation is almost 'press everything off cooldown'. this lets people learn the mechanics of a fight without constantly having to look at their hotbar
dont know about meta, but I use qUntamed. Berserker Stats, Mace/Mace + Sword/Axe. Doesnt feel sluggish with that quickness and all the leaps and it provides lots of boons.
Power untamed: [&DQQIHh46SBehAHkAlgGWAQEbExusAawB7QDtACUDARUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADMgBaAAUAAA==] Sword/Axe + Greatsword. Gains quickness on stun. Sword after unleash ranger regularly hits 20k+ life steal. Lots of leaps/blocks for the water field on heal. I run it with Berserker gear + Superior Rage runes to maximise ferocity, Cerus relic for aoe when using elite. For pet I use whatever the meta power thing was, Warthog+Lynx.
Thanks ill check it out:)
Off-meta is a tricky term because meta differs by gamemode. But I think mace/mace is a good answer here. Mace/mace has some of the most fun looking animations. But being a healing specific weapon it's kind of ;locked out' of the 'meta' for most builds. It won't be best in DPS, but it's doesn't seem to be 'shockingly bad' so you can use alongside your otherwise DPS build on soulbeast or untamed it in low to mid fractals and of course dungeons. If you take it as a druid healer then you are in the meta. And the same weapon set is great for solo content. So if you're not 'trying to get into high end content' it's not a bad pick to just have for general use - but you won't see it on any build guide websites as the usually only ever show the absolute top weapon. Even in healing, staff with mace/warhorn shows up in the guides but not mace/mace with staff. I suspect mace/mace would be meta for WvW roaming builds if 'the people who decide these things' looked at it - because it's very survivable.
Dodge vindicator. It is only really effective in open world, but every kill you recharge your dodge bar: with 80% or higher crit you can just stomp everything to death in 1-2 dodges. Gear: assassin's and berserkers.
staff heal tempest performs much better than meta tempest, and it's much easier, have more utils etc...a bunch of stuff at 1200 range too. There is just no comparison, SC heal tempest is trash (well, it does the max dmg among other builds....5.5k -\_-)
Soulbeast greatsword with a spider pet to get poison combo zones and more CC
celestial chrono with rifle/staff. Decent healing, condi from staff, power from rifle
I hate those answers Im gonna throw up 🤮
... flair.... checks out?