Guild Wars 2

I’ve been hearing a lot about these Ranger builds as of late. I remember a month or so ago I fought one that was nigh unkillable. He used greatsword, and a pig with the invisibility item that thieves steal from other thieves with pretty high regen uptime and the always great Troll ungüent, but I don’t think that was the most optimal build. This is for sPvP specifically, WvW is a different beast.

Thanks in advance!

oh, is there a build like that? I’d like to know too

Khenzy.9348:

I’ve been hearing a lot about these Ranger builds as of late. I remember a month or so ago I fought one that was nigh unkillable. He used greatsword, and a pig with the invisibility item that thieves steal from other thieves with pretty high regen uptime and the always great Troll ungüent, but I don’t think that was the most optimal build. This is for sPvP specifically, WvW is a different beast.

Thanks in advance!

You run toughness trait line all 30 points, and i think 20 in the traitline with power, and 20 in the traitline with precision in it..

Your best tank runs shortbow (slot 3 evade), and sword + dagger off hand(slot 2 3 4 are all evades)

dodge = using your endurance at the cost of 50% per dodge.

evades = using a skill that says “evade” but acts like a dodge, without using your endurance at all. most skills that evade are as long as a dodge, which can help get out of a lot of damage. thus when you evade with shortbow slot 3, you deal damage while taking no damage durin the animation of the attack. same thing for dagger off hand slot 2 3 4.

you can use toughness runes, or try a healing set up, power runes, precision runes whatever. the dodges themselves make you avoid all damage + evades avoid all damage. that in itself is tanky, and you can also run amulet of the soldier for toughness and extra health. it works pretty good.

for sigils run endurance on shortbow and dagger off hand, then use the sigil that stacks 25 stacks of power or healing or precision, whatever you want basically.

utilities are, slot 6 = troll ugnent, slots 7 8 9 = lightning reflexes, the signnet that takes conditions off you every 10 seconds, and the other one i forget what its called, the picture is of a bear, i think its called save me ro something.

elite skills should probably be rampage as one, 26+ seconds of stability once you are traited the right way.

the traits you can kind of choose how you want to play, but if you wanna go tankier, choose the one that pets remove conditions from you periodically, whcih i think its every 3 seconds it takes a condition. make it so when you roll you get protection and remove poison(helps because when poisoined you heal 33% less).

I use for pets, the birds, juvenile hawk, and the eagle i believe. they deal the highest damage still believe and while you are dodging/evading all your enemies attacks your pet is hitting them which is nice.

This isnt a very tpvp viable build, right now the tanky trap ranger is what you want for tpvp. Just work on your build and you’ll get it down some day.

You can trait to have your pet pull conditions, no need to waste a signet on it, rampage as one can easily be negated by any decent tpvp group with a guardian, necro or mesmer.

Ranger bunker works well 1v1 but thats sadly not the case most of the time in tPvP and a 1v1 bunker does absolutely nothing for your team at all ever.

Nobody good uses the pig. The pig can give you 1 item if you are prepared but is useless in combat. egg heals about 2k, tress removes conditions, elixir of heros is the only good one but 2 seconds on invulnerability is useless pretty much.

A healing bunker build I have tried:
Just stack as much defense and healing power you can and use 0/0/30/20/20. Run a powerful pet so it can actually do damage. Dwayna runes and cleric amulet. Cat+devourer is what I did.

gs and w/e. use healing spring instead of troll since it has condition remove and heals allies.

healing signet, sick em, signit of hunt or lightling reflex.

Dont use healing spring, lol, its worse that well of blood.

healing spring is pretty good from what I can tell. Heals 90% of what troll does and has a front loaded heal. AOE condition remove + regen is great especially for a bunker who can drop one for a teammate and give 300hp per tick.

so healing spring is good for ranger bunkers, because in theory you are fighting in it the whole time, as well as have a whole bunch of other regenerations to ease the pain of the longish cooldown. plus speccing for vigor on heal, it gives you vigor EVERY TICK with healing spring.

that said, similar to what jason said, the best PURE bunker builds that can hold points (ie focussing on simply living, vs being tanky and doing condition damage) use a combination of regen and evades and high vigor uptime / endurance refills on weapon swap.

you usually want 30 WS (pets pull conditions, vigor on heal, and X), and the 10 point nature magic trait natures protection. then you spec for toughness and possibly healing. the regen signet helps here too.

i like sword/dagger and GS, but i suppose shortbow is decent there too (evade vs a 3s block/counter). the playstyle is to dodge constantly, and when you cant dodge, use your weapon evades/blocks. when those are on CD, switch weapons to refill your endurance, and repeat. all the while you have constant regen healing you, you are evading everything, and you have high toughness/protection for the hits you are taking.

ymmv, but i was able to hold of 3 bads for over 3 minutes on a point using this setup. but good people will eventually get their CC in which hurts the rotation a lot. most ‘bunker’ rangers are rabid amulet trap spammers though, that have decent toughness and good CC with traps

just gonna leave this here …
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQRAsY3fjEVJ25V+Vs2Bi2DNZeM9eke23eXhRlyKSQVrA;TwAg2CroAzAmAMLYOwkgt+Y0wWgpHA

Thats not your main Bunker build Battosai, isnt it?
Anyway dont think that 30 Points in Beastmastery are worth it but thanks for sharing it.
Why is everybody using axe with torch. In my opinion crippling the opponent in the fire by using sword is much more powerfull. Also with sword+torch / axe+dagger you have an additional evade on both weapon setups.
And why do you use frost trap and not lightning reflexes. The biggest issue in my opinion is getting stunned outside of rampage as one a additional evade+vigor gives you more survivability in my opinion or do you disagree?

Ones more thanks for sharing it with trait selection and rune selection i fully agree (However i would use energy sigil on both main weapons but thats just me ^^)

it’s actually the build i’m currently playing most of the time. it is more offensive though than some other builds i used to run – currently i’m experimenting around a little and tbh the build i posted works great. i’m running axe/torch due to personal preferrence i guess.

i’m not running lightning reflexes as my vigor uptime is pretty high, it doesn’t break immobilize and frost trap offers another combo field both my pets and i can use. so if people aren’t careful with aoe they stack a lot of chill on them, slowing down leaps and charges and their skill recharge as well. furthermore it helps the pets to catch up to their target and frostrap keeps people assaulting my point snared in bonfire.
i swap the trap according to the enemy setup though – if it’s double guardian i just run vipers nest f.e. as traps are unblockable and i can poison their block heal.

with the build above i’m able to stack 11 stacks of bleeds, burning and poison in a rather short timeframe and long uptime as well as chill and cripple, while having decent burst capabilities with raven and decent cc with wolf.
i’m changing around 1-2 traits though to adapt to the enemy setup or swap runes sometimes as well.

think purie mentioned a little trick i’ve been using since a few months already if i got the time – use siamoth in between fights to get plasma and just swap the pet again.

i have a pretty cheesy bunker build that sustain wise at least outshines even bunker eles currently, but i won’t share it as i regard it as broken and it’s not fun to play imo.
i can share some other builds for roaming purposes or different bunker builds as well if you guys want me to.
and yes double energy sigil is better for bunkering purposes – hydromancy is doing good as well.

I’m impress, it seems my joke is kinda catching up. I’m Murasaki Ryuuk (NA) u might know me, or not xD never mind that. I have been running this back node bunker ranger for a while now, and I came up with few combinations on how to run a regen/protection/hibrid back node ranger, with high survivability in 1v1, and probably 2v1 doing it smartly. by no means I say that u r as good as a guardian/ele with bunker set up, but it’s quite fun to play.

GS – S/D – Pure Regen
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAR8YjEV91JWWWg2Bi2DN1fM9UEr07UMK/XyjGC;TsAgzCmouxcj4G7Nubk3s+Y8xuBA

Pig Pets is underrated, however, I made a post several days ago about PvP pets, and which ones are actually useful. (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/PvP-Pet-Guide)

F2 – Forage (Pig)
Seed Pod – Grant regeneration to yourself and nearby allies.
Egg – Restore health and initiative. 2182 healing
Elixir of Heroes – You become invulnerable (3s)

F2 – Forage (Warthog)
Gunk – Throw gunk at target area to inflict a random condition.
Venom Sac – Cover the area in a poisonous cloud.
Scale – Throw the scale to bleed and poison your foe.

Pig heal is not a joke, specially when u put that water-field down and u see the regen skyrocket, on top of healing-spring as well. Plus, people usually are not looking for the drops or even know that they drops.
And the Warthog, he can put pressure on the node with AoE poison, which can stack up for up to 20-25 seconds xD ridiculous amount, but u can try it for yourself.

And well, since u going for the whole defensive set up, GS over any other weapon any day.

A/T – S/D – Protection
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAnf8YjEV91JWWWg2Bi2DNZeM9UEr07UMK/XxbVA;TwAg2CmoAyAkAI7OOgk7s+Y8xuhpAA

This build is about mitigating damage with hightoughness and loads of protection. I mean LOADS. the 2 seconds protection on dodge last for nearly 4 seconds, and u have so much vigor that u can have protection nearly all t he time up. pet grants even more protection, and wolf is a way to mitigate damage with fear.

weapon set up is to enable the condition damage, and keep people off the node with the massive radius torch 5 has.

SB – S/D – hibrid
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8YjEV91JWWWg2Bi2DNZeM9UEr07UMK/XwkK;TwAg2Cmouxcj4GLQubkAt+Y8xuhpAA

this is a mix, pets are up to preference. any question will be awnsered.