Ranger/Druid PvP, WvW Tips Needed

[Newage.6970]

I’m new to the Ranger profession. I’ve been watching and reading everything I can get to learn. I’ve tried many different builds but the one that has given me the best balance is this: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/home/leaving?target=http%3A%2F%2Fgw2skills.net%2Feditor%2F%3FvNAQNBjYDbkQFKZx%2BVwhFoaxykgB%2FTLqLVnK3lLz1EAecTgSk%2BcA-jpxHQB%2B7CA4j9HAwRAYklBU2BB4bPAAA

 

I’ve tried core and Soulbeast but I get run over and I feel too open. I’m looking for any tips to playing Druid or ranger in particular. I’m looking to focus on PvP and WvW.

 

- What type of gear to run in WvW?

- I have been going into celestial form to heal my team. I than get burned down. Should I keep that for my own protection?

- Should I be using my signets or keep them for the passive?

- When should I be going into melee? Should I be staying in range with LB as long as possible?

- Am I supposed to be playing more support with this type of build or offensive?

 

Any tips, tricks, or help would be greatly appreciated.

[jcbroe.4329]

There's a lot of depth to the answers of your questions, so I'll start brief with general ideas and we can flesh it out to more of a deep dive if needed as you gather input and responses from people.

* WvW gear is entirely customizable to what you want to do in WvW and how you want to play. Organized group play, you're looking at full Minstrels burst healing support builds. For roaming, you can build anyway you're comfortable with your own damage dealing and survivability. If you're curious as to what I run when I'm not playing with my organized group: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQNBjYD7kQFoWQsfFwhFgqFsMJYOTuLXmD+nWUXqNBgH3EokjlG-jVCFABA8AA0U9HrU+twRAohDCAm6GYf/B/UCSwFAAA-w

* Yes, keep your Celestial Form activation for yourself. You're not a support the way a Tempest or Firebrand is, you rely on positioning and using Celestial Form to react and recover from being focused, and if you're caught without it, short of signet activations and kiting, you're basically a free kill. Which brings us to the next point.

* Yes, use your signets. Renewal, try to save for when you are taking a lot of condi damage and can't cleanse it through Celestial Form before you'd die. Stone you can typically hold onto a bit better until, you're taking way too much physical damage, whether that means eating a full burst from something like a Dragonhunter or Spellbreaker or Herald or multiple enemies with at least one being power damage focused. Basically, these are reactionary skill, get comfortable with using them and that they're there to get you out of tight situations.

* This one is tough. General rule; LB is damage, Sword/Warhorn is defensive. You don't typically want to swap to Sword/Warhorn for damage, your primary reasons for swapping should be to utilize the evades and leaps and to get the boons from warhorn. That being said, Sword does do good damage with it's autoattacks, much better than LB in close range, and going into Sword for melee can be the more aggressive and damaging option. You'll have to take some time to learn what and when to melee by developing a feel and flow of the weapons.

* Druid in general is small scale support and duel oriented, or a "collateral support," which is a category that also includes Scrapper and certain Weaver builds (as a contrast, Ranger is pure duelist, and Soulbeast is a roaming DPS). The only time you should really be looking to support, especially in the learning stage, is when you need to use Celestial Form for yourself. As you get more comfortable with Druid and how to engage and build Astral Force effectively, I don't recommend trying to support with it unless you can recognize emergency situations that you can save by using Celestial Form (dropping heals on and then stealthing a teammate who's being focused and about to drop, or dropping Lunar Impact on a group stomping an ally to interrupt them and then going for the rez and dropping out of Celestial Form to stealth them if they're about to get stomped or to avoid damage pressure, and etc).

 

Ranger even before Druid was always a 1v1 class/king, so my best advice is to practice 1v1s if you can. Focus on getting good at fighting and winning fights and not dying. Even on core Ranger, with the right trait setup, you should be basically unkillable by anything but niche builds designed to kill you, and being able to fight and win is essential to your success at the class and the gamemodes.

 

I recommend this because PvP is it's own mechanical monster to master. You have to learn how and where and when to rotate to and from capture points and a large part of that as a Druid is knowing what you can and can't rotate into and then your success in that rotation can be determined by that fight.

 

Crazy enough, this is the brief version too, but hopefully it's a good starting place.

[Belishine.7493]

wow it looks like need a lot of help so ill start with pvp then do some wvw stuff for you so you get an idea of whats up and how you should think about aprouch to fighting with the ranger.

pvp ranger

i use full zerker gear with scholer runes and wepons are sword axe and longbow. traits are the same as pve so not mutch change i use druid power for when the player gets stuned from pet they intangeled. they way you play ranger is use longbow and do hit and run and try to keep the 2 outside points so its not to hard.

 

wvw will depend on your playstyle and how you like to fight. if you want to say as a healer i would say go with gear like nomade cleric or even magi the best would be to mix some gear for the best play style but that is up to you. now i know you keep geting highly targeted that is mainly becouse your not trying to hide in the group. a tip for this is to not use staff and just use longbow and switch from time to time to staff to make them other 2 team wonder what you are rilly playing or use your sword axe in most fights that might help you out a bit.

 

if you like useing signets i use them only for passive becouse we are not like a thief were we get a boost if you use them.

[Newage.6970]

Thank you both. I’ve been playing a Gaurdian DH in competitive and it was great. I’ll give core Ranger a try. I was trying to support too much and over extending myself. I can always play a bunker but I like a more damage focused style of play. To jcbroe, I stole that build from you and have been following your posts. You have a lot of great info.

[voltaicbore.8012]

For spvp, I highly recommend druid. I've never actually tried core ranger in pvp, but with the condi-heavy meta this season I can't imagine keeping my platinum standing without the easy access to cleanse that comes from druid. Being able to reset fights with Celestial Avatar and repeatedly return to the node for pressure or defense is what helps me turn the tide for my team in most matches.

 

I very rarely spend time in wvw, but when I do, I run the [following build](http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJATRnUqAtCi9CC2CCctgh9gyD+xN53mIAO7POOinukvNH-jlRBQBeU5HKfCAOU9Hqs/AAuEAvUJIA-w "following build").

 

I'm not sure what I forgot to put into the build editor, but with no buffs of any kind I have slightly better stats in the game than what the editor shows. Even at only exotic level gear with no buffs or food, I have 2100 power, 28500 hp, and 54.33% boon uptime - all of which are higher than what the build editor shows.

 

At any rate, what I've found is that when I get the drop on another player, I can usually pressure them enough to run off, or notch a kill. If I'm the one getting jumped, I can immediately stunbreak/GS leap out, pop stability on, and keep running/cleansing if I have to. I feel like this build offers a workable tradeoff between survival and raw killing power, in that what I can't kill or drive off, I can very easily run from. I've been able to seriously challenge deadeyes with little damage to myself, and I can basically kill necros at will.

 

Most of this build's most glaring weaknesses are offensive. There is no opening burst to quickly nuke down an unsuspecting opponent; yes, I can set up a quickness/fury/25 might burst at some point with this, but I have to build up to it. I can elaborate on several other offensive drawbacks, but just suffice it to say for now that few kills come as easily as they would on a bursty soulbeast or a more offensive core build. That's not to say that kills are impractically hard to get; like I mentioned any scourge I can isolate from a group with LB 4 is easy prey for me. However, it's just that much easier to notch a fast kill on other builds that are much less survival oriented, is all.

[Newage.6970]

One quick question. For solo roaming WvW on a Druid I’ve noticed two major gearing strategies. One is around building healing power and another is around vitality/toughness. Is it a difference in mindset? One increasing your personal healing and the other trying to mitigate damage?

[Dragonzhunter.8506]

> @"Newage.6970" said:

> One quick question. For solo roaming WvW on a Druid I’ve noticed two major gearing strategies. One is around building healing power and another is around vitality/toughness. Is it a difference in mindset? One increasing your personal healing and the other trying to mitigate damage?

 

Yes. healing power will increase your amount of heal when you use a healing skill. Vitality - higher vitality is good versus condition damage, and Toughness will mitigate power damage. You must thinking like that ... if you have like 20k HP (due to vitality stats) and 1700 Toughness , 1 hit of condition damage will pass your 1700 Toughness and will "eat" from your 20k HP. If you will be hit by a power damage, the damage will "eat" first from your 1700 Toughness and then from your 20k HP.

So versus condition damage class/build you must have more HP (Scourge, Condi Mesmer, Meitation Guardian etc ... all class who use condi build) and versus power damage class/build you must have more Toughness ( Warrior, Power Ranger, Deadeye, Power Necro etc ...).