Guild Wars 2

Just looking for some feedback on my current build. PvE and WvWvW. Not really into PvP.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAV8fjEV11JWCWo2Bi2jMJJM9ek+13eXhRVxUVA;T4AZXCukcp6SxF1NmbE3Yvxdj8mlIDR2WA

Armor – Apothecary (H/t/c) (Sigil of Dwayna x6)
Trinkets – Carrion (C/p/t)
Weapons – Apothecary
- Shortbow (Sigil of Battle)
- Sword (Sigil of Battle)
- Torch/Warhorn (Sigil of Fire)

Traits:
0/0/30/10/30
- Shared Anguish, Hide in Plain Sight, Empathic Bond
- Nature’s Bounty
- Mighty Swap, Intimidation Training, Natural Healing

Utility Skills:
They change depending on my situation and mood. Mostly use:
- Healing Spring (never change this out)
- Signet of the Hunt
- Signet of the Wild
- Flame/Spike Trap
- Sick ’Em
- Rage as One/Entangle

Pets:
I normally run with wolf, drakehound, or a feline. This is where I’m at a bit of a loss. I know I need to rely on my pet for the bulk of my damage with this build.

I’m all about critique, so feel free to tear me apart. I came here looking to better myself. I had been a shortbow/axe-warhorn trapper ranger for quite some time. I just recently switched to sword-torch healing/bunker and I’m loving it so far.

My goal is to be able to tank anything (within reason) while letting my pet and condition damage handle a lot of the damage while playing solo. In group play, I’d like to be pure support for my party, without really worrying about direct damage as much. I’d love to be a complete healing machine in dungeons, etc.

Any feedback, similar builds, or success/failure stories would be great!

Personally I went deep into beastmastery to help my pets be more durable so that they could tank and I could go more damage focused(of course this is from a PvE perpective, in wvw I play like anything will kill me if they see me >_>).

If you want to tank though the only suggestion I can make is use the greatsword. The evade on the auto attack will avoid a lot of damage(most of the damage if you take it off auto) plus you have the block and stun to cover important enemy abilities between evades. IMO it’s one of the best tanking weapons in the game.

If you didn’t plan on using this in WvW I’d say to experiment to see if you can get away with less in wilderness survival to pick up one or two of the pet improving major traits in skirmishing/marksmanship. For anything PvP I feel those major traits in the wilderness survival line are vitally important.

Drake for AoE damage, Bird like Raven or Eagle for singe target damage and hounds for knockdown and cripple and bleeding.

I have been experimenting this build with my long time level 80 ranger I find it a lot of fun. I have a full exotic set from the ones you can obtain in the Cursed Shore, along with the rest of my gear, providing me with a really good balance between toughness/power/critical damage.

I fully understand how the pet is your main source of damage with this build, so playing next to it, or sending it to kill ahead of you is very critical. I found that this latest (sending it for the kill first) is extremtly useful when playing in groups. The pet can output such powerful damage so quickly, that you become an efficient ranger by calling targets your pet is bringing down for your friends to hunt down and finish.

Particularly, I use the wolf and the panther (yet to test with more pets). The beauty of the build is that people are not comfortable or are not used to a pet outputting larges amount of damage. Especially thieves (they somehow seem shocked). Using 0/0/30/10/30, sword/whatever off hand weapon, I become an effective shield, popping troll unguent at the beginning of fights to keep both myself and my pet alive. My pet gets fueled via the ‘sick em’ , ‘protect me’ and ‘quickening zephir’ skills, while I use entangle to keep the enemies pinned down for my pet.

So far from all the builds I have tried, this one is the one which helps me kills thief players with the greatest ease (yay!) this is in WvW, meaning fighting against experienced/unexperienced thiefs for argument’s sake.

There are definite weaknesses to the build, but I am still trying to figure them out. One of the main things I have noticed is of course the obvious: without your pet, you can surely die. All that killing power on the pet makes it a bit difficult to coordinate fights involving you versus 2 more players. So learning how to work with the pet efficiently is VERY important. I think I got the hang of it for a while, because I was able to fight a group of 2-3 thiefs (yes I am still shocked by it) and come out victorious.

I think one of the most interesting things to do is using ‘guard me’ skill to send the pet above the castle walls and have it attack people using siege, which turns out to be pretty effective, not to mention it provides the ranger with a pretty unique role in WvW situations. I actually hope that this does not become affected in future patches, because we still have pets that can fly and those should be allowed to fly over castle walls as a trade off.

looks good, but i wouldnt roll with this in wvw. it’s hard to apply conditions in zergs. and u just dont have the range. even though u have a lot of survivability, you’ll get overrun quickly.

Full disclosure: I’ve only been in WvW twice. Once to get my wolf, and once by accident when I clicked the wrong button and was warped there. So, I’m still unsure as to how well this build will stand up there. With that said, I’ve got the itch to try it out and I’m sure I’ll be spending plenty of time there soon enough. Does everyone just run ranged DPS builds?

Also, I’m not dead set on only me tanking. I don’t mind if my pet tanks as well. I’m just looking for extreme survivability and support in a group setting.

Is this for PVE or PvP?

for PVE you can really get away with anything, Though i’d drop Signet of the hunt in Dungeons for Lightning Reflexes

Other then that it’d do fine in PVE, PvP i’d recommend Sharpening Stones over Flame Trap.