Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I have been all over the place trying different builds and gear and I just feel like with all of my changing I have lost the idea of what is a solid build.

I am level 61 first off. Secondly I would greatly appreciate a full build help.

Meaning does anyone have a build setup for gear/skills/traits?

My main play time is in PVE, not pvp or wvw.

I greatly appreciate any time that anyone puts into this!

I was thinking something including this:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Max-DPS-Shortbow-Berserker-Build/first#post1629826

Possibly try a beast master build? See if that helps out, I will ask a friend where they leveled their ranger at this eve. I mainly did WvW so not much help to you. Could also do crafting to help with the leveling.

Sorry that I was not of more help.

Thanks for the recommendation, but like I said I need to know what kind of gear/skills/traits that that would include…

For open world PvE you can run with some pet boosting traits and healing + power as stats. You can use a cat and have something a bit tougher in reserve if/when the cat dies. Use either bow with a swap to any melee combo. Keep a trap ready if you want some defense. Maybe use some signets to keep the pet healthy. Rethink the build entirely for dungeons.

I’ve mainly done PvE and you can level easily with lots of builds, but I found either going GC (all power/precision) with a bunker pet (bear), or bunker(ish) w/ a GC pet (cat) to work best. At lower levels, NOTHING you can wear, equip, shoot, or swing will add to your overall damage like the pet though, so if you want to solo Champs with ease (not Group Event Champs, normal ones), I can highly recommend going w/ a BM build (30 in BM, at least10 in Skirmishing for Pet’s Prowess, the rest is personal choice but WS is never a bad idea, SotH, Sick’em, and QZ for skills) and swap between 2 cats, mainly jaguar and lynx. You’ll rip kitten up and level quickly.

Good hunting!

-Thor

Thorson.9218:

I’ve mainly done PvE and you can level easily with lots of builds, but I found either going GC (all power/precision) with a bunker pet (bear), or bunker(ish) w/ a GC pet (cat) to work best. At lower levels, NOTHING you can wear, equip, shoot, or swing will add to your overall damage like the pet though, so if you want to solo Champs with ease (not Group Event Champs, normal ones), I can highly recommend going w/ a BM build (30 in BM, at least10 in Skirmishing for Pet’s Prowess, the rest is personal choice but WS is never a bad idea, SotH, Sick’em, and QZ for skills) and swap between 2 cats, mainly jaguar and lynx. You’ll rip kitten up and level quickly.

Good hunting!

-Thor

I just want to thank you for taking the time to write all that out for me! This is what I have setup right now… http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQNBlODbkoKwOxywC1OQ0KQJWhD9e0K13+MealaTA

I will work on getting the jaguar and lynx instead… What do you think of what I have setup so far? And what kind of item prefix would you go for?

Future I was thinking total 20 in skirmising to get VII and total 20 in wilderness to get VIII.

Again thank you so much for all the help!

Happy to help.

Your build is looking good. Mine will also end up 0,20,20,0,30 when I’m done (not there yet!). What you put in Skirmishing and WS at Master is totally play-style dependent, so VII and VIII there respectively is fine. What I would suggest though is changing up your skills. Even though we’re talking PvE and not PvP (WvW, etc), I’ve still found the info in this post to be invaluable: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Introducing-the-Phantom-Catmaster. If you set up your skills like he did, when you send your jag in to do it’s evil deed (start with Attack my Target, then F2 (stealth), then QZ followed by Sick ‘em…..Sick’em always needs to be last), you won’t even get a shot off w/ your bow before the target dies. Your cat will 2-crit and down goes the mob. The idea here is the same as a GC player build: Kill as quickly as you can. In this case though, the killer is your cat. You’re just there as the witness, LOL. I’m just now starting to practice “catsassination” (my new favorite word btw) in WvW, and in the conditions the author explains (primarily w/ an unsuspecting target), it’s golden if you pull it off right (if the player sees the cat coming you’re screwed, so Jag stealth is a MUST). The same is true for PvE. From long range, Attack, Stealth, QZ, then Sick’em. Boom. Move on.

A word of caution. Where this WON’T work in PvE is in large encounters which Anet seems to LOVE to throw at you, especially in your personal story (where they throw 5-10 mobs at you at once). For those, I highly recommend swapping to a Bear/Dog combo as they are both much more durable, and swap to full-on melee mode w/ GS and/or Sword/Torch, Sword/Dagger, etc. With 20 in WS you’ll have some decent Toughness, and switch in WS X to make your GS more of a beast. You’ll be amazed at how good a melee’er a Ranger is.

One last thing. Swap out Healing Spring for Heal as One unless the encounter is with something that lays on heavy cond damage (frogs, etc). Always remember with a BM build that your pet is your primary damage dealer, not you, so keeping them alive is key to your success.

-Thor

Thorson.9218:

Happy to help.

If you set up your skills like he did, when you send your jag in to do it’s evil deed (start with Attack my Target, then F2 (stealth), then QZ followed by Sick ‘em…..Sick’em always needs to be last), you won’t even get a shot off w/ your bow before the target dies. Your cat will 2-crit and down goes the mob. The idea here is the same as a GC player build: Kill as quickly as you can. In this case though, the killer is your cat. You’re just there as the witness, LOL. I’m just now starting to practice “catsassination” (my new favorite word btw) in WvW, and in the conditions the author explains (primarily w/ an unsuspecting target), it’s golden if you pull it off right (if the player sees the cat coming you’re screwed, so Jag stealth is a MUST). The same is true for PvE. From long range, Attack, Stealth, QZ, then Sick’em. Boom. Move on.

-Thor

Just to clarify.. Are you saying to attack w/ pet first (my F1), then before the pet gets to target F2 to stealth, then QZ before gets to target, then Sick’em before gets to target?

Or…

Would I wait to use QZ/Sick’em till pet has begun attacking?

Zeldastep.5276:

Thorson.9218:

Happy to help.

If you set up your skills like he did, when you send your jag in to do it’s evil deed (start with Attack my Target, then F2 (stealth), then QZ followed by Sick ‘em…..Sick’em always needs to be last), you won’t even get a shot off w/ your bow before the target dies. Your cat will 2-crit and down goes the mob. The idea here is the same as a GC player build: Kill as quickly as you can. In this case though, the killer is your cat. You’re just there as the witness, LOL. I’m just now starting to practice “catsassination” (my new favorite word btw) in WvW, and in the conditions the author explains (primarily w/ an unsuspecting target), it’s golden if you pull it off right (if the player sees the cat coming you’re screwed, so Jag stealth is a MUST). The same is true for PvE. From long range, Attack, Stealth, QZ, then Sick’em. Boom. Move on.

-Thor

Just to clarify.. Are you saying to attack w/ pet first (my F1), then before the pet gets to target F2 to stealth, then QZ before gets to target, then Sick’em before gets to target?

Or…

Would I wait to use QZ/Sick’em till pet has begun attacking?

I F1, wait for him to get close, then F2 -> QZ -> Sick ‘em before his first attack. Note this is for PvE. For PvP I F2, then F1, then QZ -> Sick ’em because I don’t want the player to see the cat coming. NPC’s in PvE don’t know any better (dodge, RUN!, etc), so I just use the F2 to gain the 100% crit rating that it provides.

So with stealth you get 6 sec of 100% crit chance, with QZ the cat’s attacking faster (for 5 sec), and WS I is adding 30% more damage on crit….BOOOM! Note this is in addition to Sick’em which adds another 40% to damage whether it’s a crit or not. For PvP, QZ also helps to keep the cat on the player because if they happen to see it before the cat stealthed, or if they’ve been catsassinated before, they’ll start dodging and running as fast as they can to avoid the burst damage.

What I don’t know, and maybe someone will chime in and clear up, is if WS I is adding 30% to the crit damage, or 30% to normal damage on crit. In other words, if a normal attack does 500 damage and a crit does 2000 damage, is the additional damage 30% of 500 or 30% of 2000??? Either way it’s a lot of damage very fast. :-)

Good hunting!

-Thor

EDIT: One other point I forgot. If you carry a GS (highly recommended for a BM spec), your pet does an extra 50% damage on its next attack with GS 5, whether GS 5 hits anything or not. So for full catsassination effect, just after you hit Sick’em, do GS 5. The first attack the cat does should be HUGE (upwards of 200% of crit damage, depending on how WS I, Sick’em, and GS 5 are calculated).

Sorry to dig up this old post… I just wanted to say thank you first off to the help I got on here I am almost 80 now and I love this setup!

Second… I find I am fumbling around with my keys a lot.

This is my setup: I use a Alienware M14x Laptop with a Razer deathadder (I do not want to change my setup)

Anyone have a good hint on a keybinding setup that works well with those two? I have the 4 buttons to work from on the deathadder… Not sure if I can use shift and ctrl as well to make that 12 buttons… (will have to try this later as I am at work) I just feel like i am going to slow with the 56789 F1 F2 buttons as i have to move my entire hand away from things like dodge!

Any help again is greatly appreciated!!!

(AS A SIDENOTE) I do not want to use the deathaddler as a macro tool… Just as a 1 click setup!!! I know the tos is against macros and I very much want to keep my account

Edit: Should I just make a new post for this since my question is not actually what the title says or just leave it?

I use asdx for movement, qwe for utilities, r for elite, f for heal, shift for F2, z for look backwards, c for about face. Dodge on my extra mouse button and pet swap on on mouse wheel click. If I had four extra mouse buttons to play with, I’d probably assign them to dodge, weapon swap, F1, F3.

EDIT: A and D are of course for strafing, not turning. I turn with the mouse, or occasionally the left and right key for stuff like running with map up or crossing the map on autorun.