Guild Wars 2

Hi guys,

I’ve decided to create a all-around survival build good for PvE, WvW, high-level FotM and other dungeons.

EDIT: Stat combinations should be compatible with ascended gear :)

Thanks for answers.
What stats combinations and weapons would you recommend?

I use a different build for wvw and pve. For pve I max out marksmanship(mainly for trait:active signets affect you on SOS) and wilderness survival for a toughness focused build. For WvW I max out marksmanship and skirmishing to maximize damage potential. In wvw I find that toughness is not needed because if you use GS it’s number 3 ability is more than enough to get out of sticky situations.

BroScientist.9875:

I use a different build for wvw and pve. For pve I max out marksmanship(mainly for trait:active signets affect you on SOS) and wilderness survival for a toughness focused build. For WvW I max out marksmanship and skirmishing to maximize damage potential. In wvw I find that toughness is not needed because if you use GS it’s number 3 ability is more than enough to get out of sticky situations.

Do you use your PvE build in FotM and other dungeons?

Never rely on a single ability to compensate for a passive stat like Toughness.

If you read any guide/blog from any the well-respected, highly-talented Guild Wars 2 PvPers, they will all say one thing: Toughness is king in WvW.

As a WvW Roamer, its easy to spot who’s not running with 1700+ Toughness. In the case of Rangers using Greatsword, I’ve seen many who attempt to use 3. While Greatsword 3 is an amazing ability, its also very easy to recognize. Once the ability has been used the target is easy prey and downed before they can use the ability again.

Do not rely on one single ability to survive in WvW.

With that said, there is no such thing (for a Ranger) that is an All-Around PvE/WvW/high-level Fractal build. While you might be able to use the same build in WvW and PvE, 10+ Fractals require exact traits for your exact role. Fractals and PvE are two different games; Fractals and WvW aren’t even in the same league.

Short answer: there is no One Build; at least, not for Rangers. Warriors, maybe, but not us.

deepwinter.9015:

Never rely on a single ability to compensate for a passive stat like Toughness.

If you read any guide/blog from any the well-respected, highly-talented Guild Wars 2 PvPers, they will all say one thing: Toughness is king in WvW.

As a WvW Roamer, its easy to spot who’s not running with 1700+ Toughness. In the case of Rangers using Greatsword, I’ve seen many who attempt to use 3. While Greatsword 3 is an amazing ability, its also very easy to recognize. Once the ability has been used the target is easy prey and downed before they can use the ability again.

Do not rely on one single ability to survive in WvW.

With that said, there is no such thing (for a Ranger) that is an All-Around PvE/WvW/high-level Fractal build. While you might be able to use the same build in WvW and PvE, 10+ Fractals require exact traits for your exact role. Fractals and PvE are two different games; Fractals and WvW aren’t even in the same league.

Short answer: there is no One Build; at least, not for Rangers. Warriors, maybe, but not us.

So Knight/Soldier/Cleric?

I ask because i want to know what dungeon i should start grinding

Anyway, Knight/Soldier/Cleric has power+toughness, the question is to choose between precision, vitality and healing power.

deepwinter.9015:

Never rely on a single ability to compensate for a passive stat like Toughness.

If you read any guide/blog from any the well-respected, highly-talented Guild Wars 2 PvPers, they will all say one thing: Toughness is king in WvW.

As a WvW Roamer, its easy to spot who’s not running with 1700+ Toughness. In the case of Rangers using Greatsword, I’ve seen many who attempt to use 3. While Greatsword 3 is an amazing ability, its also very easy to recognize. Once the ability has been used the target is easy prey and downed before they can use the ability again.

Do not rely on one single ability to survive in WvW.

With that said, there is no such thing (for a Ranger) that is an All-Around PvE/WvW/high-level Fractal build. While you might be able to use the same build in WvW and PvE, 10+ Fractals require exact traits for your exact role. Fractals and PvE are two different games; Fractals and WvW aren’t even in the same league.

Short answer: there is no One Build; at least, not for Rangers. Warriors, maybe, but not us.

I’m running 1,698 toughness right now while maxing out marksmanship and skirmishing. I usually either run 30/30/5/0/5 or 30/25/10/0/5. The latter my toughness would be a little bit over 1700. I also run SOS so that helps toughness a bit as well. This build works wonders for me in wvw. I used to run max toughness with near 2k but it didn’t really make a different in my opinion. The only time I die is when I get careless around a large group of enemies. No amount of toughness will help you when you’re in that kind of situation.

Axesome.1025:

BroScientist.9875:

I use a different build for wvw and pve. For pve I max out marksmanship(mainly for trait:active signets affect you on SOS) and wilderness survival for a toughness focused build. For WvW I max out marksmanship and skirmishing to maximize damage potential. In wvw I find that toughness is not needed because if you use GS it’s number 3 ability is more than enough to get out of sticky situations.

Do you use your PvE build in FotM and other dungeons?

Yes. I can get away with running my wvw build in most pve areas but when it comes to dungeons and high level fractals, toughness oriented build is a must.

I can’t agree with you.
Toughness maybe is the king in sPVP, but definitely not in WvW, I would even say toughness is fairly useless in WvW.

In WvW, Stealth is the king, Mobility is the queen.

Toughness is king in WvW.

As a ranger ,i believe that 14-15k of toughness and 17-18k HP is good enough for everything but s/tpvp. You can do wonders in any kind of dungeon,fractal or WvW, as long as we speak for defensive stats, you dont “NEED” anything more.

CRrabbit.1284:

I can’t agree with you.
Toughness maybe is the king in sPVP, but definitely not in WvW, I would even say toughness is fairly useless in WvW.

In WvW, Stealth is the king, Mobility is the queen.

Toughness is king in WvW.

I think he probably means stat-wise.

So the power/vitality/toughness seems to be the best all-around stat.

What about runes/sigils/weapons/pets?

Runes: Undead, Pack or Water/Dwayna depending on what you’re doing. Good sigils are Corruption, Bloodlust, Force and Earth.

Depends on which ‘viable’ build you are running.

Trap Rangers use condition damage + physical damage. For this you would use Knight’s gear + Sigil of Earth, Undead Runes and rare pizzas. You could swap the sigil of earth for sigil of corruption. That is a judgement call on your part. I like earth myself since you will pretty much proc it immediately with sb’s fast fire rate.

BM Rangers are tank stars that run Soldier/Cleric gear and typically use Water, Dwayna, Dolyak, Undead, ect. The idea here is to have high healing power for you and your pet.

NOTE: The Ranger does not have any real healing utility other then Signet of the Beastmaster. Thus they can’t take advantage of high healing power as well as a Guardian or Elementalist can. Focusing on Healing to the exclusion of vitality will net you a smaller effective HP then if you try a balanced approach.

One thing ANET tried to do with GW2 is make a game where there was no single best build.

What you’re looking for is one set of traits you can swap gear for to go from defensive to offensive. That’s a great tactic for, say, Arah explorable path 4 where you need defense on giganticus lupicus but ~3100 attack on other bosses like Dwyana Priestess.

Here’s the reality of the wvw and pve situation though: it’s so cheap to retrait that there’s no reason not to. That’s one reason why Master Traitsman stands right at your entrance to wvw.

No matter what you do as ranger you’ll be swapping weapons and gear a lot when out of combat. I do. I consider that part of what makes me successful with ranger. So rather than find one build, you need to master the class and learn what it brings to different scenarios and then adjust accordingly.

Get more weapons and more armor and test more builds. If you can’t afford it, do it in spvp (I know it’s not exact translation but it is closer than most people try to claim).

And beyond that, play!

What makes greater role in survival build – healing power or vitality?

Vitality is arguably one of the least favorable stats. Before the ragers jump on this post, let me explain a few things:

Vitality raises your healthpool but a common misunderstanding is that a larger HP is a counter to burst damage. Any GW2 PvP worth their digital weight in salt will tell you that Toughness is the counter to burst damage (around 1600-1800).

Your HP is static and once its gone its gone. Healing power acts as a sort of “soft healthpool.” Guardians use Healing Power to great effect to counter their profession’s lowest health in the game – and I believe that’s intentional by the developers. Rangers are on average with HP size but we lack the number healing abilities like Guardians or Warriors have.

I would recommend staying away from both Healing Power and Vitality. If you must, put on enough Vitality via gems and runes to get you to around 16,000 or 17,000. Stacking upwards of 20,000 means you’re suffering in your damage output.

With regards to Toughness, as BroScientist mentioned above, 2000 is overkill. I’ve run with that much before and it can be fun but I noticed a significant deficit in my damage output. I keep mine around 1500-1600 while holding a ranged weapon and 1700-1800 while holding melee weapons.

As a Roamer and small team skirmisher on a Tier 2 server, I stand by my statement that Toughness is King in WvW. The zerglings can run with their glass cannon builds while I’m off solo capping supply camps against two thieves.

deepwinter.9015:

Vitality is arguably one of the least favorable stats. Before the ragers jump on this post, let me explain a few things:

Vitality raises your healthpool but a common misunderstanding is that a larger HP is a counter to burst damage. Any GW2 PvP worth their digital weight in salt will tell you that Toughness is the counter to burst damage (around 1600-1800).

Your HP is static and once its gone its gone. Healing power acts as a sort of “soft healthpool.” Guardians use Healing Power to great effect to counter their profession’s lowest health in the game – and I believe that’s intentional by the developers. Rangers are on average with HP size but we lack the number healing abilities like Guardians or Warriors have.

I would recommend staying away from both Healing Power and Vitality. If you must, put on enough Vitality via gems and runes to get you to around 16,000 or 17,000. Stacking upwards of 20,000 means you’re suffering in your damage output.

With regards to Toughness, as BroScientist mentioned above, 2000 is overkill. I’ve run with that much before and it can be fun but I noticed a significant deficit in my damage output. I keep mine around 1500-1600 while holding a ranged weapon and 1700-1800 while holding melee weapons.

As a Roamer and small team skirmisher on a Tier 2 server, I stand by my statement that Toughness is King in WvW. The zerglings can run with their glass cannon builds while I’m off solo capping supply camps against two thieves.

So what stat combination would you recommend? Power + Toughness + ?

Either precision or condition damage, depending on what you want to do.

You either mix Power/Toughness/Precision/Crit% for direct damage or…
You mix Power/Toughness/Condition/Precision for condition damage.

You get the mix by having your armor be primarily one stat (i.e. Knight’s, crafted), your weapons another (i.e. Condition or Berserker for ranged; Knight, Soldier, Condition or Berserker on melee) and your jewelery/back pieces another stat.

I’ve concluded as a ranger I’ll never burst someone down, therefor I want to outlast them. 0/0/30/10/30 with apothecary armor and weapons and new ascended tough/vit/cond. Shortbow and axe/torch. My feline is my damage and my condition damage boosts it. Take nature’s protection so your hard to burst. In short I’m very tough, mobile, have great heals, and can put constant pressure on.

deepwinter.9015:

Either precision or condition damage, depending on what you want to do.

You either mix Power/Toughness/Precision/Crit% for direct damage or…
You mix Power/Toughness/Condition/Precision for condition damage.

You get the mix by having your armor be primarily one stat (i.e. Knight’s, crafted), your weapons another (i.e. Condition or Berserker for ranged; Knight, Soldier, Condition or Berserker on melee) and your jewelery/back pieces another stat.

Is condition damage usable in fractals/dungeons/PvE?

Power/Vitality/Toughness is best imo. A condition spec can work too but limits you more weapon wise.

I think I will grind for Soldier’s gear – Power + Toughness is great for WvW/Dungeons/PvE and Vitality will help you in higher level Fractals.

For weapons I’d say Shortbow + Sword/? or Greatsword.

I run a mixed build: 0/0/20/20/30, Cleric armor with Guardian Stones and Zerker Weapons+Trinkets.

Healing – I did some tests with the healing/life stealing Sigils and was not at all impressed and ended up destroying them and using %5 Crit Sigils.

FYI: The Sigil of Corruption is pretty awesome but it seems that you can only have one ‘stacking’ Sigil active at a time. When having two 1-handed weapons equipped having Corruption +Bloodlust (Axe/horn or Axe/Torch) I never saw the Bloodlust Sigil active, only the Corruption one.

On the Wiki: Healing Spring – Gains 100% benefit from Healing Power.

More healing power = faster healing.

0/0/30/10/30 condition/toughness (BM Bunker, basically) has been working well for me. Like Anat, I’ve also concluded that since in all likelihood I won’t be able to out-damage anyone else, I might as well make it so that both my pet and I are as hardy as possible. There’s a certain satisfaction to shrugging off getting stepped on by things that used to one-shot my power/precision build.

For WvW just go Knight gear with critical damage jewels. Stack some precision so you can use steal health on crit food, that’s all the healing you’ll need. Direct damage through high power and precision/crit damage scales so much better relative to armor value compared to condition damage. Condition damage ignores armor but can be completely cleansed, and that cleansing becomes much more effective in group settings (WvW zergs for example).
With 300 condition damage you will have with 30 points in Wilderness Survival, your burn will do around 400 damage a tick. A full condi Ranger will do an additional burn tick every two of yours (in terms of damage) but you’ll be throwing out 700-800 crossfire crits with your shortbow compared to his 300-400 crits, which adds a superior sustainability to the full power Ranger, this one also gets the healing reduction from poison as well (diregarding the damage, which is not much), and ranger bleeds can be unreliable unless speccing specifically for it.
If those famous tSvP trap rangers could go with berserker amulet damage stats and have 2800 armor and like 2 to 3k more HP, they’d forget about condi. damage altogether, well, you can do that in WvW and have insane HP regen with food.

Will Knight’s gear help you in dungeons?

So far i’m very satisfied with my build.

I run a 15/25/30 traits.

Armor : 2 sets
1) Shaman Reward with power/precision/critical (from COF) with Superior Runes of the Traveler to be used as magic find set for solo farming / easy dungeons
2) Furnace Reward with power/precision/toughness (from Sorrow Embrace) with Superior Rune of the Ogre for pvp/hard dungeons

Weapons:
1) Molten Shortbow with superior bloodlust sigil
2) Molten Greatsword with superior energy sigil
——- for solo farming / pvp
3) Rampagers Axe with superior sigil of stamina
Berserkers Warhorn with superior sigil of energy
——- for dungeons

Utility skills:
> Quickening Zephyr
> Signet of Renewal
> Signet of the Hunt (swapped with either Stone spirit or Signet of the Wild for some dungeons)
> Rampage as One

Haven’t done much pvp yet but pvE wise i never encountered any major problem so far.

Thinking to switch traits to 0/25/30/0/15, but not sure how that will work out.

I run the same utilities as angan. I actually like Lightning Reflexes more than Signet of Renewal but the fact that it only breaks stun but not immobilize kitten me off so hard and killed me every single time when trying to get away.

So far it looks like this

gear – power/vit/toughness
shortbow+greatsword and axe+warhorn
sigils – ?
runes – defensive

deepwinter.9015:

Vitality is arguably one of the least favorable stats. Before the ragers jump on this post, let me explain a few things:

Vitality raises your healthpool but a common misunderstanding is that a larger HP is a counter to burst damage. Any GW2 PvP worth their digital weight in salt will tell you that Toughness is the counter to burst damage (around 1600-1800).

Your HP is static and once its gone its gone. Healing power acts as a sort of “soft healthpool.” Guardians use Healing Power to great effect to counter their profession’s lowest health in the game – and I believe that’s intentional by the developers. Rangers are on average with HP size but we lack the number healing abilities like Guardians or Warriors have.

I would recommend staying away from both Healing Power and Vitality. If you must, put on enough Vitality via gems and runes to get you to around 16,000 or 17,000. Stacking upwards of 20,000 means you’re suffering in your damage output.

With regards to Toughness, as BroScientist mentioned above, 2000 is overkill. I’ve run with that much before and it can be fun but I noticed a significant deficit in my damage output. I keep mine around 1500-1600 while holding a ranged weapon and 1700-1800 while holding melee weapons.

As a Roamer and small team skirmisher on a Tier 2 server, I stand by my statement that Toughness is King in WvW. The zerglings can run with their glass cannon builds while I’m off solo capping supply camps against two thieves.

Interesting, I run a cleric amulet and I’ve been thinking of dropping it (and my power and healing) for higher condition damage and precision with a rabid amulet. My worry was in losing healing though, can you tell me more about why you think we should stay away from healing power?

In the change from a cleric amulet to a rabid, I drop my healing power from 1223 down to 425 but I gain a much higher crit and very high condition damage.

Is soldier’s gear good for Fractals?

LB/SB Spec: Mishmash of PVT/Cleric/Knights has me at 3K attack, 25% Crit (0 Damage) 2K Toughness, 3K Armor, 850 (1100 with Sigil of Life up) healing, 18500 hits, 3 passive regens (Total ~350/sec) and a 0-10-30-0-30 spec with traits for Barkskin, Vigorous Training, Hide in plain sight, Vigor on heal, Compassion training, 30% Pet Crit Damage.

Dwayna Runes/Sigils of Energy on Weapons

Mango Pie and Sharpening Stone

Has Stun break and Condition Removal (SoR/Nature Elite)

Skills: TU/SoTW/SoTH/SoR/Nature Elite (Self Rez is so win)

Simply sharing as I love this build (Originally had more hits/healing but now working in Crit Rate to supplement DPS a touch)

Whereas I see most Rangers using pet to hinder/CC for the Ranger to unload DPS I do the inverse, I cripple and CC my enemies to Facilitate heavy hits with my Owl/Raven..

Sarlack.4096:

LB/SB Spec: Mishmash of PVT/Cleric/Knights has me at 3K attack, 25% Crit (0 Damage) 2K Toughness, 3K Armor, 850 (1100 with Sigil of Life up) healing, 18500 hits, 3 passive regens (Total ~350/sec) and a 0-10-30-0-30 spec with traits for Barkskin, Vigorous Training, Hide in plain sight, Vigor on heal, Compassion training, 30% Pet Crit Damage.

Dwayna Runes/Sigils of Energy on Weapons

Mango Pie and Sharpening Stone

Has Stun break and Condition Removal (SoR/Nature Elite)

Skills: TU/SoTW/SoTH/SoR/Nature Elite (Self Rez is so win)

Simply sharing as I love this build (Originally had more hits/healing but now working in Crit Rate to supplement DPS a touch)

Whereas I see most Rangers using pet to hinder/CC for the Ranger to unload DPS I do the inverse, I cripple and CC my enemies to Facilitate heavy hits with my Owl/Raven..

Where do you use this build? PvP, WvW or PvE?

Axesome.1025:

Sarlack.4096:

LB/SB Spec: Mishmash of PVT/Cleric/Knights has me at 3K attack, 25% Crit (0 Damage) 2K Toughness, 3K Armor, 850 (1100 with Sigil of Life up) healing, 18500 hits, 3 passive regens (Total ~350/sec) and a 0-10-30-0-30 spec with traits for Barkskin, Vigorous Training, Hide in plain sight, Vigor on heal, Compassion training, 30% Pet Crit Damage.

Dwayna Runes/Sigils of Energy on Weapons

Mango Pie and Sharpening Stone

Has Stun break and Condition Removal (SoR/Nature Elite)

Skills: TU/SoTW/SoTH/SoR/Nature Elite (Self Rez is so win)

Simply sharing as I love this build (Originally had more hits/healing but now working in Crit Rate to supplement DPS a touch)

Whereas I see most Rangers using pet to hinder/CC for the Ranger to unload DPS I do the inverse, I cripple and CC my enemies to Facilitate heavy hits with my Owl/Raven..

Where do you use this build? PvP, WvW or PvE?

WvW, I dont PVE (only PVE as a means to an End for gear that is) or SPVP

Axesome.1025:

Sarlack.4096:

LB/SB Spec: Mishmash of PVT/Cleric/Knights has me at 3K attack, 25% Crit (0 Damage) 2K Toughness, 3K Armor, 850 (1100 with Sigil of Life up) healing, 18500 hits, 3 passive regens (Total ~350/sec) and a 0-10-30-0-30 spec with traits for Barkskin, Vigorous Training, Hide in plain sight, Vigor on heal, Compassion training, 30% Pet Crit Damage.

Dwayna Runes/Sigils of Energy on Weapons

Mango Pie and Sharpening Stone

Has Stun break and Condition Removal (SoR/Nature Elite)

Skills: TU/SoTW/SoTH/SoR/Nature Elite (Self Rez is so win)

Simply sharing as I love this build (Originally had more hits/healing but now working in Crit Rate to supplement DPS a touch)

Whereas I see most Rangers using pet to hinder/CC for the Ranger to unload DPS I do the inverse, I cripple and CC my enemies to Facilitate heavy hits with my Owl/Raven..

Where do you use this build? PvP, WvW or PvE?

WvW, I dont PVE (only PVE as a means to an End for gear that is) or SPVP

Also working in GS slowly over LB and will switch when required.