Guild Wars 2

what is the best weapon for the ranger

shortbow

(don’t expect depletive answers if you pose a question like this.)

Greatsword

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The search function.

I enjoy the axe/torch combo with traps because lets face it even with pets enemies eventually aggro to you anyways. I also use the shortbow so i can cause extra bleeding and poison. But I’m condi built on ranger since it works so well. (considering most of the attacks i have are burning)

Shortbow is all you need

Longbow is good.
I also quite like sword + warhorn.
Atm I am starting to like double axes.

Seriously though… it is a matter of taste and how you like to play. You will get as many different answers from this as the ranger have weapons avaiable.

I love sword-warhorn, with a vit+toughness set and all the free evade from the sword a ranger can often last a surprisingly long time in bad places.

But yea, it’s your playstyle that decides most, I tried maining longbow during BWE, and while it’s great, I found it boring and ended up enjoying fighting with my sword more. Its all a matter of what you like more.

Actually the long bow is because there’s a trait you can unlock that will give you longer range and more damage…

For condition builds you generally want to stat toward your pet for raw damage. Gear with high toughness, healing power and condition damage. And set up your weapons for survivability and constant application of conditions.

Sword, dagger, axe, torch, shortbow are good options here.

For power builds you are still going to want a good bit of toughness to survive in melee range. Generally you stat toward your own damage here and ignore condition damage. Though you can have your pet help with condition damage and things like chill, vulnerability and poison still have useful effects even without damage.

Greatsword, longbow, sword and warhorn are good options here.

Keep in mind that the two of the ranger sword auto attack skills are uninteruptable even by dodge rolling. So while its extra dodges can be pretty reliable as a get out of constant damage flow measure, it can get you killed if you are counting on a split second dodge away from a hard hit.

In leveling my ranger to 80 I tried shortbow/condition damage/traps for ~10 levels. It was fun and reasonably effective, but I determined I would have carpal tunnel in a matter of months if I kept playing that way. I switched to longbow-Axe/warhorn, power-crit build, and am very happy with it. The longbow is the archetypal and best weapon for the ranger. (I actually don’t believe there is a best weapon, but wanted to take a position on he subject for the fun of it.)

I love the longbow, just wish it did more damage. The incredibly slow fire rate makes it one of the lowest DPS weapons in the game, in spite of the bonus damage at maximum range, which nothing ever stays at anyway. You can still use it, but you shoudln’t spec in to it, what you do is spec in to your pet and snipe your pets target at max range.

greatsword for massive PvE dmg,

Shortbow/longbow with Axe/horn in wvw does well.

greatsword and shortbow for spvp.

The one-handed sword just locks your movement which is very bad.

Don’t give up on the sword it’s an awesome weapon just don’t enable auto attack and you actually have 3 skills on attack instead of just one. Normal attack, knock enemy back and jump to enemy. If you mix these skills with the other sword skills you can do some really nice combo’s and avoidance of damage, master the sword and you will feel like a master swordsman. Warrior and guard just play wack a mole with there swords Rangers are sword masters.

For my money, the best combo seems to be longbow and sword/warhorn. Switching between these two sets gives you a good set of skills that allow you to alternate between ranged damage and up close combat.