Guild Wars 2

I’ve picked-up my Ranger after a long lapse and need some kiting tips for a sniping/glass build for WvW and EOTM. I have lightning reflexes slotted, but what else can I use..other than muddy terrain, which I have eschewed in favor of signet of the hunt (speed) and signet of stone (invuln.)?

Swap to greatsword at the first sign of trouble. It’ll do well against melee targets that don’t have minions/pets and the sooner you jump into it, the sooner you can get out and go back to longbow.

Can’t tell you how many Rangers I’ve faught that insist on staying in Longbow until they’re at 10% health and swap to GS only to flee. It has a fair amount of utility to provide beyond that.

Ride out your Hunter’s Shot stealth, use it to hide important abilities that’ll keep you alive.

Listen to Atherakhia. Don’t wait until the last minute to swap to GS.

Jungle Spiders are kiting monsters. And though I haven’t tried it yet, I imagine that a LB slotted with Cripple/Chill sigils is rather annoying.

GS is fine, but I prefer sword dagger for WvW. The mobility is like 500000% times more than a GS, which lends to better kiting. It’s significantly stronger against multiple opponents that GSs single leap.

I always highly recommend the drakehound/wolf pairing.

Also do you have a condi cleanse? Sounds like you’re not running SotF, so I recommend dropping SoS and going for SoR. You’re not going to be doing any kiting if you’re chilled or crippled, and it doubles as a condi comb cleanse, and triples as a stun breaker.

Learn attack patterns of particular builds.

Knowing when to swap GS is the best advice, and depending on how much room you have, just keep kiting. If you’re really fast, you can get off an attack with the longbow and swap during the projectile movement to GS before the damage is registered so your weapon swapping won’t go on cooldown. This usually forces an engage and makes the enemy blow their gap-closers, letting you Swoop away from the fight to regain distance again while using either a pet cripple, immobilize, fear, or KD and throwing GS4 as another attack and cripple before swapping back to longbow for PBS and damage, with Hunter’s Shot and LR acting as a means of backup defense/disengage, further allowing enough time for a swap back to GS if they’re still alive and therefore letting you fight in melee properly.

The thing is, once they get to you, you have to either know they lack stability/blown cooldowns on gap-closers for long enough to let you keep using range/maintain the distance through positioning, or you have to fight with your GS. Depending on what you see for passive effect symbols on your enemies and their weapons, you can also get an inclination as to what their build is like. In some cases, it’s smartest just to let them come to you first (like a signet stab thief) and be ready for a twitch LR out of BV post-CnD/Mug followed by a quick GS4 block parry + pet CC with a follow-up GS5 CC lock + maul and heal to force them on cooldowns/low health, then swap to longbow for PBS while they finish getting up into more CC and unload barrage and RF into their corpse with Hunter’s Shot at the end for a reposition/stomp. The same can be said about other rangers, baiting them into PBS+RF on GS4’s block duration and then being able to swap back to longbow and hit them with your full damage.

Of course, if you really just have to escape or re-gain distance such as if they’re blowing a cooldown or something, de-target and swoop in the opposite direction pre-emptively to waste their skill until you can swap back to the bow again from a safe distance and pew pew at them.

Great advice, ty all.

DeceiverX.8361:

Knowing when to swap GS is the best advice, and depending on how much room you have, just keep kiting. If you’re really fast, you can get off an attack with the longbow and swap during the projectile movement to GS before the damage is registered so your weapon swapping won’t go on cooldown. This usually forces an engage and makes the enemy blow their gap-closers, letting you Swoop away from the fight to regain distance again while using either a pet cripple, immobilize, fear, or KD and throwing GS4 as another attack and cripple before swapping back to longbow for PBS and damage, with Hunter’s Shot and LR acting as a means of backup defense/disengage, further allowing enough time for a swap back to GS if they’re still alive and therefore letting you fight in melee properly.

The thing is, once they get to you, you have to either know they lack stability/blown cooldowns on gap-closers for long enough to let you keep using range/maintain the distance through positioning, or you have to fight with your GS. Depending on what you see for passive effect symbols on your enemies and their weapons, you can also get an inclination as to what their build is like. In some cases, it’s smartest just to let them come to you first (like a signet stab thief) and be ready for a twitch LR out of BV post-CnD/Mug followed by a quick GS4 block parry + pet CC with a follow-up GS5 CC lock + maul and heal to force them on cooldowns/low health, then swap to longbow for PBS while they finish getting up into more CC and unload barrage and RF into their corpse with Hunter’s Shot at the end for a reposition/stomp. The same can be said about other rangers, baiting them into PBS+RF on GS4’s block duration and then being able to swap back to longbow and hit them with your full damage.

Of course, if you really just have to escape or re-gain distance such as if they’re blowing a cooldown or something, de-target and swoop in the opposite direction pre-emptively to waste their skill until you can swap back to the bow again from a safe distance and pew pew at them.

Are you taking apprenticeships applications?

Haha, I am not, however my advice remains free as always

DeceiverX.8361:

Haha, I am not, however my advice remains free as always

Oh that’s too bad…. You sure? I swear I wouldn’t go Mickey Mouse on you and use your magic hat for funnsies and get into trouble.

It’s also vital that your longbow no. 3 doesn’t get blocked or dodged. Your best targets for stealthing off are other ranger pets, mesmer phantasms (clones may die or be replaced before the shot lands, but are still ok targets), necromancer minions, or any other AI (spirit weapons, Ele summons, engineer turrets etc.). If you are playing in WvW, nearby NPC or ambient creatures are perfect targets too.

Be as good with GS as you think you are with longbow. You can become god with the GS and people DO FEAR it. Love seeing thieves run away after the gs comes out and they eat hiltbash/maul and fail heartseeker or cnd cause lol counterattack is OP.

Don’t say “I only use these 3 utilities cause they are the best for me”. I swap out my one signet between the 3 depending on need. +25% for moving across borderlands, wild for pewpew from safe spot and stone for unsafe ground fighting. I dumped sic em (hilarious but unneeded) for fire trap and ofcoarse lf is pretty much stappled to bar atm.

weapon sets are on you. a simple suggestion is not to let go of all that rooting power whatever set you use. it lacks the finesse veteran rangers may have but it should do it’s work. lots of ranger complain about utilities while they have a load of this.

I’ll try not to repeat to much form previous people

Get use to your swap set, whether it is GS or s/x I kill sentry’s and camps mostly with my swap set, I also use my secondary set for moving around the map. To be perfectly honest I spend more time on my swap set.

Both GS and S/D have there pros and cons, so practices them and find out which suits you more.

CC pets, if you are using a glassbow build use durable CC pets, Dogs and spiders. you don’t need a damage pet such as a cat as you are doing plenty of damage your self. Some helpful facts Dogs will always use there knockdown auto attack if it is available so it will be the first skill that they use after you swap to them. I believe same goes for a spiders immobilize, though a don’t use spiders that much so I’m not sure.

You can change you utility if you get to engage fight on your terms. If you know that you are about to fight a thief then swap in sic’em if you know your about to fight a condi build (check food) swap in SoR and healing spring, hambow swap in RaO and SotW. So keep you most versatile always good skills on you bar mostly.

I don’t like SoS in 1v1 and small fights because I believe that you should be finding ways to not get to the point where you need it, if you need it to get to you healing skill of CD then you will proberly die next time you healing skill goes on CD. I only use SoS in zerg fighting when i get out of position and in front of the melee train or to push through a choke.

Ok, quick question: If running two dogs in a power build, what adept trait in skirmishing is “best”…agility training..primal reflexes…companion’s might? They all seem pretty lackluster to me unless you can run a pet w/ high crit%. This is my only trait choice that I’m iffy about.

On canines, I think the Agility training, because dogs apply cripple on their attack, and this will help you kite better.

On kiting, one thing I found useful is to run sword/x with a hydromancy rune beside my longbow. If you know how to do a sword2→lightning reflexes→do a 180→sword2 you will be able to create quite some distance. I recently have been running a 6/2/0/0/6 build with quickness on petswap. As soon as someone comes in melee range I can swap to sword, use serpent’s strike if need be and then start attacking, swap to wolf, press f1. This will result in wolf using his knocdown leap with quickness, and you going off like a blender. When they get up you can still s2→lr→180→s2 to create distance. The best thing about this is that you are evading for seconds while you create distance. I use this quite often, but if someone is built to get you they will be able to close the gap quickly and slow you down still. Or you can delay your LR for when you see a gap close/cripple/immob/chill incoming.

Flintbrow.7985:

Ok, quick question: If running two dogs in a power build, what adept trait in skirmishing is “best”…agility training..primal reflexes…companion’s might? They all seem pretty lackluster to me unless you can run a pet w/ high crit%. This is my only trait choice that I’m iffy about.

primal reflexes is far from lackluster, i think its quite a strong trait.

Skirmishing Adept is a puzzle to me as well. Not really sure what to use, I picked up Sharpened Edges to cause bleeding. Even though I’m power speced, thought the extra damage from bleeding would help max out my damage potential and consistently. This is on a 6/6/0/2/0 build.

I use sharpened edges as well. With high crit chance rapid fire and barrage trigger bleeding reliably. I also use Take Root (love those plants and bleed) + Madking Runes and those hawks hit a lot, although I am not sure if they will proc sharpened edges.