Guild Wars 2

Hello.

I am part of a guild that is just recently getting into explorable mode dungeons. We are not remotely hardcore with generally myself and the guild leader as the only constants, with at least one person not at 80 every time. We are just having fun, experiencing the places as a group and eventually getting through the dungeon.

I am currently running the meta build almost 100%. I don’t run cats, I use drakes. I can’t help it. Generally I can keep the cats alive (when we aren’t wiping anyway) I just don’t like cats. I have my frost spirit, my sword/axe and I have my spotter.

I was wondering if there is any small change that people have seen success with that I could make to have a little more active party support. Maybe small talent changes or using different pets with minimal drop in my damage.

Right now I use Whirling Defense on projectile heavy fights but that is all I have. I went to Guardian for awhile and LOVED everything I was capable of doing for the party between Virtues, Hallowed Ground, Stand Your Ground, Wall of Reflection, and Purging Flames however I just love the Ranger concept too much.

I know I will never have everything the Guardian has but if there are any changes that others have found really useful I would love to hear about it.

Thanks!

You can use Stone Spirit, Jungle Stalker/Red Moa and Warhorn for more party buffs. Other than that, you would need to change your build around for more party support, but its not really needed.

Yeah..kinda what I figured. I just thought I would ask if someone had something. Stone Spirit…maybe. I was mainly looking to help with survivability being that we don’t really have the consistent party/organization to blast fire fields and stack might through encounters.

Warhorn…maybe. I could consider doing sword/axe and sword/warhorn as I do use Whirling Defense with some amount of frequency. I would miss out on the initial vuln and damage from rapid fire and would need to swap the longbow back in for fights I need ranged on.

I could also try warhorn and trade troll’s unguent for Healing Spring and… Signet of the Wild maybe for Flame Trap and use some blasts to help out? Maybe Healing Spring, and sword/torch with drakes for the blast?

I am not trying to re-invent the wheel. The wheel is great. I was just looking to find some middle ground between DPS and helping us survive just a little bit better.

If you’re going drakes don’t miss out on river drake. His lightning breath is a killer if you got 2 enemies as it bounces and may attack same enemy twice. Buffed in pvp it did roughly 2.5k crits for me per hit (it has 5). Double that if it bounces back to original target.

Also as a ranger that’s not stuck with elitist there is another awesome support you can offer to your group – cc.
Don’t underestimate moment of clarity. With boar’s skull drop you get 6 sec fear off the bat. Inwest into condition duration and you may end up with 12 sec fear. Now that’s some serious control. Ofc you don’t always get skull from it’s F2 skill and you have to communicate with your party to make sure boss is stripped of defiance for your fear. But if it hits…it’s a deep, touching scene;)

Spirit of Nature is worth a mention in Fractals and bad Arah/Aetherpath groups. You can pull off some clutch self-rezes or group rezes with it. Rampage as One is mostly useless except for the stability in most groups anyways.

Otherwise, you’d just be trying to do the role of other classes that are better at it.

Ranger’s dont have much active support, mostly passive, ie. stone spirit you can’t control when the protection is applied.

Spirit of Nature is kind of active, since you can control when you cast it to start the regen.

Healing spring is another group regen + condition clear that you can control. And then warhorn blast for an on demand group heal.

Also traited natures voice is another active source of regeneration.

After that its pets.

Blue moa has on demand protection.
Black bear for aoe weakness.
Brown bear group condi clear.
Fern hound heal and regen.

All of those have unreliable casts though.

Yeah, if you are not using Healing Spring, bring that. Blast as has been said, but also leap it with sword 2 if you really need it. I wouldn’t bother with flame trap to blast. If you have a warrior in your group, and you most likely do, get him to run Phalanx Strength for your might stacking.

Thank you for all of the responses. I think I will play around with some of these ideas.

I will make a change to Healing spring, maybe see about using drakes to blast since I like my projectile reflection.

I haven’t really messed with Spirit of Nature tbh. I will play around with it.

I may consider based on incoming damage working in blue moa and fern hound.

Like I said I just wanted to help with some active support survivability wise both for my own entertainment and to help the party as we play around in different instances.

Thanks a ton!

Saulot.7259:

Thank you for all of the responses. I think I will play around with some of these ideas.

I will make a change to Healing spring, maybe see about using drakes to blast since I like my projectile reflection.

I haven’t really messed with Spirit of Nature tbh. I will play around with it.

I may consider based on incoming damage working in blue moa and fern hound.

Like I said I just wanted to help with some active support survivability wise both for my own entertainment and to help the party as we play around in different instances.

Thanks a ton!

Making the drake blast is easy, cast the Field, and swap pet while in the field, and assuming the target is inside the field assuming the skill is off cooldown, the drake will open combat with it’s blast.

Honestly, stick with the drakes, the duration on blue moa’s Prot is not good and ferny has little healing power so the regen doesn’t do much. HS has 20s of regen with 3 in NM and that is usually enough, since you can blast like Xcorp said with the drakes and also warhorn, plus leaps with sword and GS. Don’t forget the Drakes actually also do 5s of AoE weakness with their blast attack, which is helpful too.

I do believe that Rangers wanting more support has been a pretty constant theme of requests for the class. I think that’s what the new Druid specialization is supposed to unlock for the class.

Look at signet of renewal for condi-heavy dungeons. For example the first dredge boss fight in P2 (I think, it’s been a year or so since I’ve run dungeons) stacks near max bleeds on the entire party. You could take it for individual fights even.

As has been mentioned, signet of stone is pretty good in some places. The CoF path 2 assassin part you don’t really need your normal skills, and it’s a very sustain-y type fight, so if your party lacks protection that’s the time to use it.

You can use warhorn situationally as well. Keep your axe for when you like to reflect, and take the WH for if you know you’re going to need that little extra heal.

There is one thing you can do.
It will get on your nerves, but you can do this combination.

You get Torch and drop Bonfire #5
Swap immediately to Warhorn and use Call of the Wild #5
That will allow other blast finishers to be cast for 6 seconds (I believe?) and start up with 20 sec Fury, and 4 bonus might. With a Jungle stalker, make the might 9.

Then you are free to take off hand Axe again and start a fight.