Guild Wars 2

Guide is updated for the May 20 patch.

Disclaimer: I didn’t make any of these build and take no credit for them.

Intro:

Hello, my name is Turtle and this is a beginner’s guide to playing Rangers in Dungeons and Fractals. This guide will go over the basics of the Spotter/Frost Spirit build, and provide some general tips for pets, sword mechanics and spirits. This guide will not discuss fight specific strategies for rangers, but you can ask questions about them. It will also not discuss how to min-max DPS, but instead focus on providing a general overview of the class in dungeons and fractals. This is guide is not meant to be used for leveling, open world, sPvP or WvWvW.

Quick Version:
4/5/0/5/0: Better for long fights. Has option to trait for GS/Spirits/power
6/5/0/3/0: Better for short fights. Better vuln or burst

Abbreviations:

• GS: Greatsword
• WH: Warhorn
• OH: Offhand
• AA: Autoattack
• ICD: Internal Cooldown
• DPS: Damage per second

Why bring a ranger over any other class in PvE?

• You enjoy playing Ranger (Most important reason)
• Spotter and Frost Spirit are unique party DPS boosts that no other class can provide
• Great at providing fury
• Jack of all trades utility (but master of none): reflects, might stacking, fire fields, water field healing, party resurrects, protection, condition removal, pulls. Think of these as bonus reasons instead of definitive reasons to bring a ranger. They also require you to plan on bringing these ahead of time since they require different utilities/weapons.

Gear:

• Berserker gear with Ranger runes
  OR
• Berserker gear with Scholar runes

Recommended gear: Berserker gear with Ranger runes

Weapons:

• Sword: Highest ranger DPS weapon by far. Use when you do not need to max melee range and can safely use the weapon.
• Greatsword: Use for max melee range fights, skipping trash, or when you do want to use sword. GS is ~17% worst DPS than sword.
• Warhorn: Use for blast finishers, might, fury and swiftness. Do not use #4 unless out of melee range.
• Torch: Use for fire fields or when playing with a Lightning Hammer Ele. Use out of combat to provide your own fire field for WH#5.
• OH Axe: Use for extra damage, reflects and pulls.
• Dagger: Use for fights that require extra evades.
• Longbow: Use for ranged encounters and knock backs.

Recommended weapons: Sword/Warhorn + Greatsword

Sigils:
Choose 2 from the following list:

• Force
• Night
• Bloodlust
• Accuracy (Only if you are running Scholar Runes)
• Frailty (Effectiveness decreases the more vuln you have in your party composition)
• Slaying (ie. Undead Slaying)

Recommended Sigils: Force and Night

Traits:
Marksmanship: I VII (XI or XII if 30 pts)
Skirmishing: I, (V or X if ranging)
Nature Magic: IV. (V, VII, or IX if 25 pts)

The core of this build is Spotter and Traited Frost Spirit, as these are the unique contributions that rangers can bring to a party. This build focuses on bringing the minimum amount of group support necessary, then maximizing damage from that point.

Recommended traits: 4/5/0/5/0 with Strength of Spirit as your optional trait because it benefits both GS and Sword. 2H training for low fury groups is an option as well. I use Spirits Unbound for Open World PvE.

Skills:
The only “Mandatory” skills are Healing Spring, and Frost Spirit.

• Healing Spring: Great for providing regen and condition removal to your party. Use GS #3, or WH#5 inside for additional heals to yourself and the party.
• Troll Unguent/Heal as One: More personal heals without having to blast or leap in exchange for less group utility.
• Frost Spirit: Party DPS boost. Try to place in locations where it will survive.
• Quickening Zephyr: Stun breaker and personal DPS boost
• Signet of the Wild: Passive heals and ~25% dmg boost for 8s while active. Great when used with Quickness or Conjured Weapons. Requires Signet of the Beastmaster trait to affect the ranger
• Sic’em: Pet DPS boost
• Rampage as One: General DPS elite. Also great for skipping trash because of stability.
• Spirit of Nature: Provides a healing signet ( passive heal every second) to party members within range. Also a party resurrect.

Recommended skills: Healing Spring, Frost Spirit, Quickening Zephyr, Sic’em, Rampage as One.

Other utility skills are situational and can be swapped in when needed.

Pets:

• Jaguar: Use for single target fights.
• River Drake (Or any other Drake you want): Use for trash and multi target fights or for blast finisher.
• Jungle Stalker: Use for single target fights and when your party is not reaching 25 might stacks
• Red Moa: Use for single target and when your party doesn’t have perma fury.

Recommended pets: Jungle Stalker for single target and might and River Drake on swap for trash.

Keep your pets alive through use of F3 and F4 at the right times.

Sword:
Tips for dealing with the animation locking

1. Don’t get animation locked in the first place. This means not pressing 1 when you know you need to dodge soon. This mostly requires knowledge of the encounter.
2. Dodge earlier or predictively dodge. Basically, account for the delay in your dodges. Not too reliable because sometimes your #2/#3/dodge will fire instantly.
3. Skill/swap cancel. Interrupt yourself with a weapon swap (into GS preferably, not Longbow) or use WH#4 and dodge during the cast time. Here’s a video by GK explaining how to do this:
4. Be aware of your surroundings (cliffs)
5. If you need to, you can turn off the auto attack for more control over your AA chain. This is mostly a matter of personal preference. (ie. I play with the auto attack on, but I turn it off for certain fights). Be careful not to slow your auto attack too much, otherwise you’re better off just swapping to GS briefly.

Spirits:
Every 3s, the spirit will pulse its “buff”. The buff is a 6s “boon” that gives a chance on hit for your attacks to have additional affects. Every spirit except Frost Spirit and Spirit of Nature has an ICD of 10s, meaning you can only proc their additional effect once per 10 seconds, even if you have the “boon” still on you. Frost Spirit has no ICD, so it is an average DPS boost of 7% while you have the 6s “boon” on you. Spirit of Nature does not proc additional effects on hits, but instead provides a passive heal every second to party members within range.

1. Out of combat, you can kill your spirits by swapping the utility skill to something else and back. This will put it on a 20 second CD and allow you to recast it when your party is moving to a different location. You do not need to do this if you take Spirits Unbound.
2. When frost spirit dies, the buff lasts for another 10-15 seconds as long as you remain in the area.
3. If your party has 2 rangers, have one of them remove Nature Magic IV so you get the benefit of 2 Frost Spirits

Alternative Guides:
Brazil [DnT]
Lorek and Cell [rT]

nice guide dude

TurtleDragon.3108:

Birds do identical DPS to felines if you prefer those.

At first glance they do, but a lot of people have tested it out and birds do significantly less damage than cats. It’s the swiftness shout they use, it messes everything up. Also cats are an added source of vulnerability if that is needed.

Maybe someone who has run the tests will post their results.

Fluffball.8307:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Birds do identical DPS to felines if you prefer those.

At first glance they do, but a lot of people have tested it out and birds do significantly less damage than cats. It’s the swiftness shout they use, it messes everything up. Also cats are an added source of vulnerability if that is needed.

Maybe someone who has run the tests will post their results.

I’ll remove that part from my guide since I haven’t actually used birds myself since levelling before the pet nerfs in that one patch.

I dunno if i’d call it “significantly less” since the base stats and auto attacks are mostly the same. The other 2 pet skills + F2 do differ a lot.

I have an excel chart in my inbox showing a hawk does ~only 73% of the damage of a lynx. I didn’t run the tests, so I can’t say much else about it.

I think someone just ran these tests a few weeks ago and made a thread. I’ll see if I can find it when I get back home.

Fluffball.8307:

I have an excel chart in my inbox showing a hawk does ~only 73% of the damage of a lynx. I didn’t run the tests, so I can’t say much else about it.

I think someone just ran these tests a few weeks ago and made a thread. I’ll see if I can find it when I get back home.

Oh, you guys are factoring in condition damage which is skewing your results. Same thing happens when ppl test pets on the target dummies in the mists.

Condition damage is “usually” ignored in PvE theorycraft.

Jaguar is also better if you want a F2 skill that does more DPS.

Condition damage was what inspired the question (birds have a crazy low cool down bleed, which I thought might make up for the screech.) However even without the bleeds, the bird still only does 78% of a cat’s damage.

Mostly irrelevant, but cats do more damage, and vulnerability is better than swiftness.

Fluffball.8307:

Condition damage was what inspired the question (birds have a crazy low cool down bleed, which I thought might make up for the screech.) However even without the bleeds, the bird still only does 78% of a cat’s damage.

Mostly irrelevant, but cats do more damage, and vulnerability is better than swiftness.

Makes sense. Birds have vuln too, although with inferior uptime to felines.

Is recommended after update 15th?

Definitely. It’s just a little slower.

LeonardoClaw.9180:

Is recommended after update 15th?

I can’t answer that for sure until after the patch.

If anything changes, it would probably be runes and sigils. Other than those, the rest of the build is going to stay the same based on what we know so far. It’s more likely for this build to stay the exact same after the patch than it is to not.

Against a stationary target yes felines do more damage. However targets will rarely sit there and let your pet wail on them like a training golem. A feline’s base attack range is only 130 (like most melee pets), birds on the otherhand have an attack range of 300, over twice that of a feline. Worst yet the feline stops while initiating an attack(I kite these guys all the time), birds on the other-hand stick to their target and don’t stop to attack. Also having a small annoying bird animation fly around you tends to be distracting.

Furthermore the Raven’s F2 has the highest raw damage with a free blind dumped on the target. The only advance to having felines trail behind you when fighting other players would be their F2 abilities. The Lynx’s and Leopard’s F2 leap(combo!) has a range of 600-a drastic increase in range from any of the Birds’ F2 abilities which all have a range of 130. Unfortunately long cds on feline F2 skills, dps gone to waste chasing targets and swiping at empty air is a kitten in the ranger dps punch-bowl.

There are ways to make the Felines work in PvP, they’re just not practical unless you want to spec down the Beast-mastery tree for a quickness burst build.

Luckily, this is a PvE guide and targets will often sit there and let your pet wail on them like a training golem. Moving bosses is really only an issue in fractals, and birds have terrible utility (blinds) on bosses.

Now that the patch has settled, I feel it’s time to bump this. Some of the guides I follow are now recommending Ranger Runes instead of scholar and the 4/5/0/5/0 set up as the main trait spread. This is more of a quality of life change than a strict DPS boost (If it even is one). You will crit more often but your crits do slightly less damage than before. This is the alternative to critting slightly harder, but not critting as often.
I’ve gone and made the switch, because it’s fairly difficult to maintain modifiers from full endurance, 90% health AND deal with the sword controls. I also do mostly fractal content nowadays, where the fights are significantly harder to melee than in dungeons.

I also forgot to mention, that you are supposed to make up for the lost power by stacking bloodlust.

Tl;dr: Ranger Runes 4/5/0/5/0 new PvE meta.

Could this build be used for leveling a new Ranger? Also what rotation do you normally use?

No rotation. Just use sword 2 and 3 to avoid the big boss hits or re-position.

Or in Brazil’s latest ranger video, he uses swoop, maul, then swap to sword for best damage.

Paladin Jeff.9210:

Could this build be used for leveling a new Ranger? Also what rotation do you normally use?

Should be fine for levelling, though I wouldn’t put points into Nature Magic.

Rotation is basically to auto attack with sword as much as possible. You’ll want to fit in WH#5 within a fire field if possible.

Example opener: Equip Torch. Torch 5. Equip Warhorn. Warhorn 5. Swap. GS3, GS2. Swap. Sword 1 until dead. ( Blast Fire Field, enter fight with GS, auto with sword)

TurtleDragon.3108:

Paladin Jeff.9210:

Could this build be used for leveling a new Ranger? Also what rotation do you normally use?

Should be fine for levelling, though I wouldn’t put points into Nature Magic.

Rotation is basically to auto attack with sword as much as possible. You’ll want to fit in WH#5 within a fire field if possible.

Example opener: Equip Torch. Torch 5. Equip Warhorn. Warhorn 5. Swap. GS3, GS2. Swap. Sword 1 until dead. ( Blast Fire Field, enter fight with GS, auto with sword)

Is there a quick way to switch torch and warhorn?

Paladin Jeff.9210:

Is there a quick way to switch torch and warhorn?

Have inventory open.

This thread needs to be stickyed

i’ve been using 4/4/0/6/0 after patch so you always have fury up with QZ and the condi removal is handy for running through trash

I would also like to point out the taking evasive purity for TA is really handy

Hey Moon here,

I’d like to point out a few things :

I’m doing math atm moment on runes of the ranger vs scholar runes. From what i’ve calculated which might be wrong and is not complete yet, scholar runes with perception sigils still outputs better dps by 1,5% than ranger runes with bloodlust. However, this is based on full stacks and without stack the dps difference is hugely in favor of ranger runes (~ i estimate that to 5% but i still need to do precise calculation on the matter). So scholar runes are still better in my opinion if you know you’re not gonna loose your stacks, though you have to keep in mind that it is high effort for low reward (1,5%). SO you’re right to recommand your build to the majority of players just pointing this out for min-maxers.

The other thing is completely unrelated and is only a suggestion. You may want to include the 4/5/5/0/0 build as it is really usefull for soloing arah and/or pugging it. It i the build i swap to for lupi and alphard solo (yeah ranger can solo those). It is highly situational, but worst mentioning to make the guide more detailed to cover multiple areas of PvE.

Moon

Fairytayl.1035:

Hey Moon here,

I’d like to point out a few things :

I’m doing math atm moment on runes of the ranger vs scholar runes. From what i’ve calculated which might be wrong and is not complete yet, scholar runes with perception sigils still outputs better dps by 1,5% than ranger runes with bloodlust. However, this is based on full stacks and without stack the dps difference is hugely in favor of ranger runes (~ i estimate that to 5% but i still need to do precise calculation on the matter). So scholar runes are still better in my opinion if you know you’re not gonna loose your stacks, though you have to keep in mind that it is high effort for low reward (1,5%). SO you’re right to recommand your build to the majority of players just pointing this out for min-maxers.

The other thing is completely unrelated and is only a suggestion. You may want to include the 4/5/5/0/0 build as it is really usefull for soloing arah and/or pugging it. It i the build i swap to for lupi and alphard solo (yeah ranger can solo those). It is highly situational, but worst mentioning to make the guide more detailed to cover multiple areas of PvE.

Moon

I also have a small disclaimer about not wanting to go into the details of min-maxing every last % possible :P. I do find Ranger Runes more practical with superior modifier uptime, now that it’s much harder to get 25 stacks of bloodlust/perception due to the double stacking nerf.

I’m not really a fan of that 4/5/5 build, nor do I know much about it. I also wouldn’t recommend it for PUGing unless you badly need reflects.

I opted to only include general use skills and avoid going into detail on utilities, pets and builds that are good in very speciffic and niche scenarios, like your build in Arah. My intent was to dicuss options that will work in a variety of different dungeon and fractal scenarios, instead of listing many options that are only good in one boss fight. For example, I did not want to include Brown Bear in the pet list, even though I use it on Old Tom, but shelf it for 90% of other PvE encounters.

I totally understand your point and i think it’s a great guide for all those new ranger that want to start develloping their sills aswell as veteran PvP/WvWers that don’t know how to handle PvE. Continue the good work !!

And you’re right, I use the 4/5/5/0/0 build when badly needing reflects either cause i’m soloing or we have an mesmer/guardian that’s not familiar with the encounter at all. Swapping traits on the fly was really my favourite part of this update

Two more questions is the 4/5/0/5/0 with the skills good for solo? What changes would you make in skills for solo?

Paladin Jeff.9210:

Two more questions is the 4/5/0/5/0 with the skills good for solo? What changes would you make in skills for solo?

It’s the best PvE build for almost any content, even solo, because its entire focus is having the best possible DPS. I usually take signet of the hunt and flame trap for just tootin’ around the countryside. Even on a berserker, flame trap is a really good aoe with a very short cool down and a firefield for your warhorn.

So no SB or LB builds? curious as those are the weapons my wife likes the best. trying to find her as good a build as possible,

KOPPER.1458:

So no SB or LB builds? curious as those are the weapons my wife likes the best. trying to find her as good a build as possible,

LB/SB are not ideal “main” weapons for builds, but they are slightly less bad in Fractals where it is quite difficult to melee some of the encounters in there.

6/5/0/3/0 would probably be the “best” bow build. You’ll get the option of either Piercing Arrows, or Eagle Eye without gimping your team utility. Never use Read the Wind in dungeons/fractals.

KOPPER.1458:

So no SB or LB builds? curious as those are the weapons my wife likes the best. trying to find her as good a build as possible,

there is no one build to rule them all (though 4/5/0/5/0 is pretty close) . Different situations often require slightly different setups.

The problem with bows in organized party play (dungeons). is that it puts you at a distance from your team mates so you aren’t sharing buff as well as you could. This is even worse in the case of the longbow as it is at its most effective at 1000 ranger and buff are typically shared at much less range.

For open world content (world events, zerging events, etc) bows are practical using a 6/5/0/3/0 type of set up, as you can afford to be a bit more spread out as the are often random people about.

Just remember you can change your trait anywhere for free now.

Thanks for the advice everyone. She is simply not the type of player that will ever switch gear or weapon choices or traits unless I tell her she needs to change things. So I try to look for fun, solid, reliable builds that can keep up as best as possible.

TurtleDragon.3108:

Paladin Jeff.9210:

Could this build be used for leveling a new Ranger? Also what rotation do you normally use?

Should be fine for levelling, though I wouldn’t put points into Nature Magic.

Rotation is basically to auto attack with sword as much as possible. You’ll want to fit in WH#5 within a fire field if possible.

Example opener: Equip Torch. Torch 5. Equip Warhorn. Warhorn 5. Swap. GS3, GS2. Swap. Sword 1 until dead. ( Blast Fire Field, enter fight with GS, auto with sword)

You said you would not put points into Nature Magic. Where can I put the 5 points then?

Masaru.1345:

You said you would not put points into Nature Magic. Where can I put the 5 points then?

The NM points in the meta build are mostly for frost spirit, which is not that great for killing trash in the open world. I’d base your leveling build off the 6 5 0 3 0 build, and then put those extra NM points in to BM and take Master’s Bond. That’s basically an optimal trash-killing damage build. That’s just me though.

Fluffball.8307:

Masaru.1345:

You said you would not put points into Nature Magic. Where can I put the 5 points then?

The NM points in the meta build are mostly for frost spirit, which is not that great for killing trash in the open world. I’d base your leveling build off the 6 5 0 3 0 build, and then put those extra NM points in to BM and take Master’s Bond. That’s basically an optimal trash-killing damage build. That’s just me though.

So basically you recommend a 6 5 0 0 3 build with Master’s Bond for leveling?

i would trait beastmaster for leveling, when i leveled my second ranger i tested a bit and bm is the best tree for low lvl chars the pet dmg is so insane.

KOPPER.1458:

Thanks for the advice everyone. She is simply not the type of player that will ever switch gear or weapon choices or traits unless I tell her she needs to change things. So I try to look for fun, solid, reliable builds that can keep up as best as possible.

Meta builds aren’t essential to completing PvE content. Most PvE content is completable with almost any setup, so unless your wife is a min/maxer thats into dungeon speed clears, or high level fractals, the build is not required. This build, while being the highest DPS build for our class, also leaves little room for error, meaning if she is not careful, she will get downed quickly. If you think she would be comfortable in running a high risk build, and she enjoys fast dungeon clears or high level fractals, this build is highly reccomended. However if she is a bit more of a casual player, id probably reccomend to let her stick to what weapons/setup she is comfortable with. The build can be fun, but also be quite stress enducing in hairy situations especially for less experienced players. Solid would be good to describe this builds damage, but not its survivability.

I have been using this build for a while, and am part of a large guild, some who speed clear and do high level fractals, and others who are much more casual. If I am running with the speed clearers, i will allways opt for this build, it is the best option. If I am helping some of the casuals doing dungeons, I tend to keep the build, but switch to knights armor and keep zerker trinkets or switch to full knights depending on the partys DPS, as knights armor allows me to take more hits. If there Isnt max DPS in the party (full zerker) then the boss will take longer to go down, meaning the boss will do more damage, increasing your chances to go down, hence the swap to knights in a casual group with average dps.

My thing with rangers is that I don’t really know where to sit with them. I main an engineer and everything just seems to click better. I have melee and long range AoE, diverse skills to pick from, etc.

The ranger was fun to level to 80 but once at 80 and putzing around with the traits (stupid new systems forces us to wait to 80 before we can horse around with builds) I noticed I kept getting downed around Orr. Sure, normal mobs went down fast and veterans too, but once surrounded it was bam wham. Not to mention PbAoE flying around killed me by being in the thick of it.

I switched to rabid gear with the bleed and fire trap and a shortbow. No more downed, things die pretty fast but I kinda miss the sword now (and I’m under no illusions that rabid gear is made for group play).

i like turtles.

Best trash killer is 6/2/0/0/6. Remorseless + Zephyr’s Speed burns through stuff really fast.

Pet’s can wind up having higher stats than your ranger, but I still think a more ranger focused damage build is faster. Not only do you cleave, but the attack speed is really important. Many times the mob has been cleaved to death before your pet even gets a chance to attack a single time. ZS helps, but not often enough when you’re wading through trash 100% of the time in the open world.

@filterkat:

Thanks for the reply. She doesn’t have a go to build or weapon set. other than she wants to use Longbow. I don’t really know where to start so I figured taking the meta and adding a little survivability for open world stuff works well. The only dungeon she runs is TA and only because she is working on her Legendary Longbow. Otherwise she doesn’t do dungeons or fractals ever.

She does do world bosses though. Teq, Wurm, and the others.

I do take her into wvw on occasion but it’s fairly rare and in doing so I’d have her bring another class that has lots of AOE’s like her Necro so tagging is easier for her.

KOPPER.1458:

@filterkat:

Thanks for the reply. She doesn’t have a go to build or weapon set. other than she wants to use Longbow. I don’t really know where to start so I figured taking the meta and adding a little survivability for open world stuff works well. The only dungeon she runs is TA and only because she is working on her Legendary Longbow. Otherwise she doesn’t do dungeons or fractals ever.

She does do world bosses though. Teq, Wurm, and the others.

I do take her into wvw on occasion but it’s fairly rare and in doing so I’d have her bring another class that has lots of AOE’s like her Necro so tagging is easier for her.

If she likes longbow ill give you a great longbow build. Does great damage and is very versatile. My personal oppinion is that this is the best longbow build for WvW and can easily be used and modified for PvE.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjMqUyaLLGsw1ag9gadAUAndrhw9WcwtNA-TpRBwAUuAAP3fYxhAQzRAgcZAAPAAA

In PvE conditions arent really an issue so you can take 10 out of WS to put 10 in skirmishing and pick up pets prowess for extra pet damage, but for WvW shell want the condi removal on survival skills. Also, PvE, stuns arent an issue so LR can be substitued for another utility, but its a must have for WvW for survivability (condi cleanse/evade/stun & immob break). GS can also be swapped to S/D depending on preference.

Like in the link I run full zerkers with this in WvW and do pretty well, but i tend to have a death wish, so if you wanted to add a bit of survivability, exchange peices with knights, starting with the armor, keeping zerk trinkets and see how that goes. If she still feels squishy, swap the weapons and trinkets as well. There are a lot of built in suvival abilities with this setup though. LR for evade/stunbreak/condi clear, QZ also clears conditions, Longbow has the knockback and the short stealth, and Greatsword has swoop for disengage and a long block on it.

She will do great damage from 1500 range and will basically allways hit the target even if its moving. Its a great build with some great survival built in while still focusing maximising longbow damage. If she wants to use longbow this is probably the best all round setup.

Updated the guide for the May 20th patch. There is only one significant change and it does not affect this build that much. You can no longer unequip stacking weapons with a sigil on your underwater weapon anymore. If you want to keep your bloodlust stacks, you need to keep the weapon on one of your 2 weapon sets.

Since Rangers do not typically use a weapon swap in their DPS rotations, you can devote 1 weapon set for trash and bloodlust stacking, and 1 for single target boss DPS. I recommended putting Bloodlust on your GS earlier out of laziness, and because the tactic will work even when they nerf Underwater weapons. If you are trying to get stacks off a single target, auto with the sword then swap to GS before killing a mob, though you do not fight single trash mobs often. Alternatively, you can go Sword/Warhorn + /Warhorn (Bloodlust) if you prefer that set up.

Everything else appears to be the same as from what I tested today and yesterday. I am also considering changing the title of this guide to more accurately represent the fact that this is a dungeon and fractal guide. This would likely break any previous links to this thread. I just thought the word "meta’ would attract attention lol.

you will lose your stack even if you equip an other weapon with the same bloodlust sigill….. i liked to have a longbow as 2nd weapon when the stack was full :(

Yep, the whole point now is to not unequip the bloodlust weapon. The stacks appear to be bound to the weapon and not the slot. eg. if you swap a bloodlust warhorn with an offhand Axe with bloodlust, you lose the stacks.

what food do you recommend?

If you’re on a budget, Minotaur steaks, candied dragon rolls and Steak and Asparagus are all great options. Choose according to the situation and dungeon, and then pair it with the appropriate slaying potion. I recommend Skale Venom for fractals and sharpening stones for AC.

If you can afford it, Curry Butternut Squash Soup is the best option.

You can put a bloodlust sigil onto your underwater weapon and then swap your land weapon after getting 25 stacks.

Esplen.3940:

You can put a bloodlust sigil onto your underwater weapon and then swap your land weapon after getting 25 stacks.

That was fixed in the may 20th patch

What are some builds you would recommend for soloing content where your pet is going to be dead the entire time (Lupicus etc)?

Ranger Lupicus solos are fairly rare, but the most common set up used (or atleast recorded) is 4/5/5/0/0 GS + Axe/Axe. (excluding the joke bearbow solos by Obal and others that took like 20+ minutes). You’ll want to to avoid the pet traits in Skirmishing, Sharpened Edges and Honed Axes are good choices.