Guild Wars 2

Could someone please point me to a current PVE/dungeon build for a ranger that uses shortbow/longbow or offer comprehensive advice about such a build? Including gear stats, trait points, skills, and what pet to use or any other important advice I am coming back from a long break from the game. Thank you in advance!

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_S/A_LB_Spotter

Could probably just do this and sub out the sword and axe for Shortbow maybe. I mean just stand behind them and stack bleeds for damage right?

Frost Spotter pretty much this, you don’t want to swap out S/A for SB.

Everything including PvE currently sticks to Zerk gear (Power>Prec>Ferocity)

Also… Melee will always be more powerful than Ranged. However, I sometimes find myself sticking to ranged combat kiting around in higher fractals. 1 wrong dodge and I usually end up downed.

If you want a competitive build for PvE – You’ll rarely be able to stick to longbow.

If you are not searching for a competitive one, than you can basically run a Condition tanky Longbow build and no one could say a word. It’s your own way of playing, and you’d be a burden if you don’t want to play a melee frost spotter (that opens fights with LB and swaps for the rest of combat afterwards) regardless of what you choose to play. You might be a slightly smaller burden, but still a burden. Doesn’t really matter.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Frost Spotter pretty much this, you don’t want to swap out S/A for SB.

Sir, you took the wrong trait, Vigorous Spirits is what you aim for in PvE =) (NM line)

So could you point me to a good frost spotter build? Zerk gear with mainly what runes?

Trygg.2475:

So could you point me to a good frost spotter build? Zerk gear with mainly what runes?

Exactly what Heimskar posted. Exactly that, but instead of the Nature’s Protection trait, you should pick Vigorous Spirit for more Party Damage boost.
And you might consider swapping Sick’Em! for Signet of the Wild. That one gives BOTH you and your pet 25% damage boost. It’s more efficient.

Also, you don’t have to run double melee build as ranger. The longbow 5>2 combo is one of the best fight openers you can get. So feel free to swap one of the weapon sets he posted for the longbow you wanted.
The only trick is not to use the Longbow for autoattacks. Sword / GS will beat it. Sword is currently the best DPS weapon we can get, however, if you are new to the mechanics, I’d suggest you playing GS for a while till you get used to melee combat.

EDIT: This is the final meta version you’d like to run.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNIQNAsXTjMqUxarKmsw1ag9gadAEwjO3MoD8VFZ80HviA-T1BFABCcEAAa/BkU+p2JAAgHBQhq/clSQSBExwI-w
But as I said, sword is hard-to get used to if you are new to melee combat. Greatsword is not that far behind in DPS, so feel free yo use it instead of Sword/Axe.

Oops! Yeah, Vig Spirits is the way to go heh!