Team Build Evaluation

Hi again guys,

Since we're planning on playing together more often now in PvP, we'll need to have teamfighting builds, builds to optimize our damage output and our team survival.

Hence this thread, you can post your theorycrafted builds here, and we can all talk about it and ask question or guide you to better setups.

I already had a small talk with Noz about his ranger build to make it more versitale in teamfights and give it more survival without sacrificing to much damage. But this is a way better way, since here everybody can give his advice.

So if you got a team-oriented build, don't hesitate to post it! Even if it's a build you run for months already (though that's not advised with all the changes) you should post it, so we know what you run and we can use our skills in sync with yours.

I'll kick off with a new team-based fighting build (since we got better dedicated bunkers in our team for home-point than my regen ranger:
I was thinking, let's dump our selfish regen-ranger build and find something more team orientated.

This is what I came up with: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAnf8YjMq0ua3KmrQ1agGhq9GEuXA7AYAKAXtwJr4LNA-TJxGwAAeCASLDQ4kAwZ/BA

Trapper combined with regen.

First off: weapons
- axe + torch as offensive and starting off set. Lots of conditions, less mobility.
- Sword + Dagger as defensive setup. Less conditions, but more raw damage, more mobility and leap finisher for additional heal from Healing Spring.
- Possible change: swap torch for dagger, and dagger on sword for warhorn for the '5' buffs (swiftness, fury and might) and a blast finisher for area heal on Healing Spring with Blast finisher.

Utilities:
- Healing spring, obvious, team support and water field.
- Traps: aoe on point, element fields for extra boons/damage
- entangle: easier to use in big teamfights, high damage, easy burst/spike damage target when entangled.
- Elite substitute: healing spirit as a panic button if need be: revive (all) allies (I've seen a 3 ally revive already, dunno if more is possible though)

Pets:
- Drake: confusion + blast (but tbh, not sure about it. I might take something else, don't know which. Drake has some nice aoe skills too) I might go for the fern hound, though it seems to be nerved ingame since I get way less high numbers then on gw2editor.
- wolf: obvious choice: fear people of point, give breathing room, give a chance to get that last piece for a fullcap on the point, safely res somebody, prevent a stomp,...

Traits:
- Skirmishing: traps ofc. And the spike trap on revival. Nice damage, especially if everybody uses his 'reviving vengeance' skills.
- Wilderness Survival: survival, indeed. The selfish traitline, more vigor, regen and less conditions for me. Though, the longer I survive, the more useful I am to the team.
- Nature magic: increased regen duration for regen applied by me: Healing spring, dwayna rune 6th and potentially fern hound's heal gets boosted.

Gear:
- Dwayna runes: survival for myself + 5s regen for allies when I use my heal (on top of the HS' regen). Might be a swap for rune of mercy though, since that fast ressing might be nice. Or more damage based if we lack damage.
- Settler amulet: survival and condi damage, all I need for this build tbh.
Sigil of water and energy: water to heal allies on hit (5s cd) and energy for the extra free dodge on weapon swap (9s cd)

So, that's the build I gonna try out in our team fights.

looks rly good. Sth else that could be good for teamfights is taking the trait to power up "Guard". It gives permanent regen and swiftness to allies

Should I change it to this? If so, is it possible for me to replace axe+torch with SB?

EDIT: I just realized that axe is ranged xD

Titus Aemilianus wrote:

looks rly good. Sth else that could be good for teamfights is taking the trait to power up "Guard". It gives permanent regen and swiftness to allies

The issue with this is: it's all into nature magic AND shouts aren't really good. Only one to give it perm swiftness and regen is the 'guard' one, and if you do that, it's a pain in the ass to make your pet work correctly (been there, done that, hated it) It was even more micro-management and it wasn't worth it. We can easily get enough regen with 4 people.

Brandon Ironcloud wrote:

Should I change it to this? If so, is it possible for me to replace axe+torch with SB?

EDIT: I just realized that axe is ranged xD

Nope, I advice you to make your own teambuild. Nothing obligatory, this is just what I'm planning on running and finetuning. Besides, 2x flame + poison traps would mean we gotta work together more, so we don't drop them together since they stack in duration, not force. And so if we dropped them together, they can easily be disspelled.

Though, feel free to use the idea or copy it. Though I won't guarantee it's good ingame. But the big-time aoe we'd have in mid and the 2x Healing Spring would have great potential.

You could also run the mindless-pet-zoo-spirit-ranger...

Hey Raven, I tried out the build against Dana and Titus (I owe you guys an apology btw) and it worked pretty well. I did use WH instead of dagger though, but only defensively (and supportively, because of area things like flame and all)

Yeah, I think WH is better then Dagger in a team setup.
Dagger is great if you're duelling, but warhorn give the blast in the combo fields + boons to all allies on it's '5' skill.

Why you owe them an apology? You kicked their asses? xD

After some more testing with titus, and targetted testing of the skills:
- Traps do way to little damage, a regen ranger or any other regen build can just outheal the damage easily (even stacked and with auto-attack)
- Healing spring + combo finishers isn't relyable enough compared to HaO or TU.
- To little condi-cleanse against heavy condi classes (no on demand clean)

Bad build after all. Should stay on the drawing table.

Good luck on the drawing board.. Im still checking out my mesmer builds..

I'm doubting about ranger, we're to much pushed into spirit ranger or regen ranger... To little build variety imo.

But... I managed to hold Dana off for like 2 minutes (would've been longer IF MY FUCKING PC DIDN'T CRASH) and got Titus pretty low with this build :oI like it a lot. I think it goes quite well with roaming

lol that was in my group support build. but dnno rlly what i should do with a build.

Brandon Ironcloud wrote:

But... I managed to hold Dana off for like 2 minutes (would've been longer IF MY FUCKING PC DIDN'T CRASH) and got Titus pretty low with this build :oI like it a lot. I think it goes quite well with roaming

Yet I had no problem what so ever taking you down with my new build. As a ranger. Imagine what a necro or warrior or thief would do to you, or a phantasm mesmer.

True. As you saw, i did change my build to a survival/DPS build

We'll see how that works out when you're used to the rotation.