Guild Wars 2

Haven’t played for almost a year, have a level 80 ranger and level 80 warrior both with good gear, how’s ranger now? I remember everyone complaining about ranger being kittenty in WvW and useless back then, has the situation improved or is it still warrior > ranger for everything.

And what’s some good builds now?

You’ll have more fun with your warrior tbh

All depends on who you ask around here. Honestly I’ve pretty much quit my Mesmer who I mained since launch to play my Ranger. I do WvW, that’s pretty much it. I don’t pve, I don’t do dungeons, I login and I kill people. I solo 90% of the time and I enjoy the hell out of it on my Ranger. While I can burst down squishies rather easily on my Ranger, Warriors, Condi burst guardians and “some” Mesmers can be a problem. Like any other class it has its issues but I’m enjoying it.

I’d say the power ranger is in a better spot now than what u were used to for a year ago, since we now have better trait synergy options/condi removal. This is from a roaming perspective though, for zerg/group play we are still not that wanted. As for the other specs I cant comment on, though opinions vary on that subject. Many feel trapper builds are a goner after they removed thier throw-range.

I added my zerk variant to if you want to see one way https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/5#post5274856

If you’re more into the group play/synergy, a warrior is a strong choice, which is still also a solid roamer. We have yet to see how the druid plays out though, it is speculated that itll be centered around support.

nacario.9417:

I’d say the power ranger is in a better spot now than what u were used to for a year ago, since we now have better trait synergy options/condi removal. This is from a roaming perspective though, for zerg/group play we are still not that wanted. As for the other specs I cant comment on, though opinions vary on that subject. Many feel trapper builds are a goner after they removed thier throw-range.

I added my zerk variant to if you want to see one way https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Post-Your-Build-Thread/page/5#post5274856

If you’re more into the group play/synergy, a warrior is a strong choice, which is still also a solid roamer. We have yet to see how the druid plays out though, it is speculated that itll be centered around support.

I dislike buffing teammates, there’s enough people to do that so it’s not like I’ll provide massive support with my warrior anyways, I also wont zerg due to FPS, I’m going for roaming & PvP

Power Ranger is utilised loads in Guilds now in WvW so yeah they are good in zergs. Just go full zerk with longbow and plink at back liners and it drives them insane and does a really good job actually.

This is what i think about the new ranger:
- PvE: Nothing to say, every class can do it.
- WvW:
+ Good at roaming (Suvival bleed, Trapper, Hybird longbow, …). You have no problem in flipping camp, tapping keep or killing enemy roamers.
+ Slightly average in zerg (backline pewpew is good, require you to know the
situation to re-position yourself otherwise you are a walking bag aka get in TS3 and listen to the commander, also provide teammate backline permant might, fury, swiftness, regen, even heal which are all valuable; in frontline, your pet cannot survive more than 3s in zerg clash and your only AoE is GS Maul, somehow 1-2 traps, OH Axe #5 is a joke dont use it => not recommend but still playable).
- PvP:
+ At this moment if you are a decent ranger, you can beat almost noobies (except mesmer cuz they dont require brain to be effective). Suvival bleed + poison, Trapper, Bunker regen, hybird longbow, … are all viable. Never ever abandon your pet aka every build should have Beastmaster line.
+ Against other class decent player, you properly lose so be patient and call your teammate for help, don’t play hero cuz you will get zero.
+ In ranked arena, if you have the highest pts in a match, that means your teammate are all noobs and 90% you will lose that match so dont be proud of it (Well sorry for this cuz i got mad after 14 loses in a row while contributing the most pts in the team).

all i can say is , all you people are saying is based on personal Bias .

you can’t treat ranger like a warroir or any other class so compairing them is out of the question , do or die if your good at Pvp great your team loosing has nothing to do with your class or play stye only the poorly played and just because you’ve got the highest score in a team of skillless low MMR people proberly means you’ve been matched with low MMR players so your no better than them in the first place so don’t even bring up that point.

if your good , your good that is that.

WvW rangers have amazing mobility + mobility support perma swiftness+regen both at the same time without sacrificing weapon slots like warroirs do or mesmers do or even Guardains do those classes need certain weapons to manage Swiftness support.

and you don’t need beastmastery to play a good ranger build because of said “Taunt” people value it too much , if you cover your CC base you won’t even need Taunt in the first place.

build correctly and you’ll be fine, high level play is a personal matter not a build matter.

the build you use is created through personal experience not the other way round , the build does not make the player.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

…and you don’t need beastmastery to play a good ranger build because of said “Taunt” people value it too much , if you cover your CC base you won’t even need Taunt in the first place.

build correctly and you’ll be fine, high level play is a personal matter not a build matter.

the build you use is created through personal experience not the other way round , the build does not make the player.

The more CC you have, the better. It creates more opportunities, so one extra every 15s is pretty great.

High level play is as much about the build as it is about the personal skills, otherwise we would not see the same small number of builds in the Metas, not only that, but PvP wise, it is the same few classes with a very small number of builds that are considered effective.

You can really do both, come up with a good build that is effective on paper, then learn to play that. Rather than learning to play, then making a build to suit the way you play, I think that is actually how people ended up with so many utterly useless builds for Ranger before the specialisation changes. Now it is much harder to make something useless.

i can’t speak for PvP

but for PvE, ranger works great, built correctly(due to condition removal and GS evades. plus entangle/spike trap) its more durable than everything except guardian.

for WvW. in zerg its a great contibutor for sieges
for roaming its the 3rd best thing. the only stuff to watch out for are mesmers(if u see one just run. it is NOT kitteng worth fighting mesmers. you’ll probably die and if you somehow win, it will take so long its justnot worth it) and stealth spam thiefs(u know, the pistol/dagger or dagger/pistol ones who spam stealth every other attack) its just not worth bothering fighting them as they’ll outrun you, they’re immpossible to hold down to kill, and it takes so long

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Snip

- Okay sorry for the last opinion cuz i got mad after 14 loses in a row while being the most active player.
- If you want permant swiftness, regen, you go Beastmaster. If you also want permant fury, might, you need both Beastmaster and Nature Magic. The last option is depend on what you need.
- Beastmaster is the best trait line atm for ranger, it support all of your build: condi, bunker, power, support; also make your pet aka ranger mechanic stronger and be more viable. If you say there are builds that dont need Beastmaster, i’d say try to use Beastmaster to these builds, you will see the diffrent.
- I dont compare Ranger to other class. I just build and play my ranger by the style i feel comfortable. And after 200 matchs PvP unranked/ranked + 100 hours WvW zerging/ roaming since 23rd June patch, i feel ranger suck.
- I also dont care Ranger get buff or not. If ranger get buff, they will be nerf in the next patch cuz the GW2 Community hate the ranger more than any other class. In their mind we are walking useless bags that shot them down in 1k5 range which require no brain to play and if we’re somehow strong, it must be a bug and need to be fixed. Ranger was, is and will never be a part of meta.
- Just fix the current bugs (Healing Spring, Off hand range/ radius/ condi dam, pet missing stat, ….) and i’ll be happy playing my ranger till the last second of this game.
- P/S: Cheer me, i just made The Dreamer (i made Kudzu last year). Long live the unicorn.

MadCat.9172:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Snip

- Okay sorry for the last opinion cuz i got mad after 14 loses in a row while being the most active player.
- If you want permant swiftness, regen, you go Beastmaster. If you also want permant fury, might, you need both Beastmaster and Nature Magic. The last option is depend on what you need.
- Beastmaster is the best trait line atm for ranger, it support all of your build: condi, bunker, power, support; also make your pet aka ranger mechanic stronger and be more viable. If you say there are builds that dont need Beastmaster, i’d say try to use Beastmaster to these builds, you will see the diffrent.
- I dont compare Ranger to other class. I just build and play my ranger by the style i feel comfortable. And after 200 matchs PvP unranked/ranked + 100 hours WvW zerging/ roaming since 23rd June patch, i feel ranger suck.
- I also dont care Ranger get buff or not. If ranger get buff, they will be nerf in the next patch cuz the GW2 Community hate the ranger more than any other class. In their mind we are walking useless bags that shot them down in 1k5 range which require no brain to play and if we’re somehow strong, it must be a bug and need to be fixed. Ranger was, is and will never be a part of meta.
- Just fix the current bugs (Healing Spring, Off hand range/ radius/ condi dam, pet missing stat, ….) and i’ll be happy playing my ranger till the last second of this game.
- P/S: Cheer me, i just made The Dreamer (i made Kudzu last year). Long live the unicorn.

never said anything about compairing only Treating Ranger as a Warroir and thats where most of these other class players define the reasoning for hating it because its totaly different to the other classes, there is no cheap stealths , no Running away , no ports or Massive hammer stuns so they compair to that and lable it as bad because its different , which in itself does not mean its bad.

every old meta build was defined by its near instant dashes, leaps ports and stealths for the fastest kills or the most so called Easiest ways to avoid damage and all of those skills can not defend against ranged attacks untill of late no other class used ranged as a source of damage , cele D/D gs mesmers all used close Range near Melee distance to deal the damage they required and its changed lb is no longer strong enough to be reflected 100-20 , even the mirrored dodges don’t do that much damage because of the rangers survival increases.

that makes the class a more acceptable choice for Pvp and its only ruled out because of peoples opinions.

they don’t try to make teams based around a ranger , it is always based around guardains or warroirs or team stealth.

has anyone even tried 3 rangers with fortified bonds and all rangers with Natures Vengence to give all those pets 10secs of might for every spirit pulse across the other 3 rangers .

and since these boons pulse im 100% sure they also Stack with each other but the passives won’t , you could effectively buff a team of Rangers pets with the rangers having there own defined builds as damage/CC/support roles , you won’t need a full bar of spirits anymore only 1 or two or get 3 rangers to share the 5 spirits and two of those take Nature spirit and the damaging ranger takes the battle cry build to fight ontop of Traited healing spring traps or where the 3rd ranger is traited for condis+sun spirit.

i really want to get more tested before throwing rangers under the bridge since most of these so called tests have been done ~Solo.

also your 100 hours in pvp mean nothing with the Inbalance going on right now , so i wouldnt even take anything pvp wise right now Seriously.

was a thief with release , rerolled ranger because i was bored with the thief ( i was decent in spvp with it )
so ranger
pve : i dont do pve that often , some guildmissions, world bosses , world completion
wvw : i like it alot , i find a ranged class more fun in wvw
spvp : i have a thief ( u know that ) a guardian and a ranger
i find guardian more easymode than a ranger imo. u need to kite alot while the guardian is more like " try killing me while i kitten u up ", ranger is more kitting

- http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond
The boon duration is base on the ranger, not the pet my friend, so there are no 10s might from frost spirit buff and i dont think 3 stack of might last 1s is powerful. If you want to stack might to your pet, use main hand Axe #1 or sword #1 or Beastmaster: Companion’s might.
- The only viable spirit in PvP now is sun spirit, place it far away from combat zone and the support is nice for condi build.
- In PvP (I hope you talked about PvP, not PvE), 3 Rangers in the same team is properly not ending well. If you dont believe me, then join with your ranger friends to ranked arena and play some matchs. I did it, we had many funs but often losed.
- The team is based on how cooperative and supportive each member can provide. Ranger surely lacks of this.
- Yeah, i do agree there are so many bugs of the post patch ranger now, they make us become kitty. We have to wait till those bugs are fixed.

MadCat.9172:

- http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond
The boon duration is base on the ranger, not the pet my friend, so there are no 10s might from frost spirit buff and i dont think 3 stack of might last 1s is powerful. If you want to stack might to your pet, use main hand Axe #1 or sword #1 or Beastmaster: Companion’s might….

The Might goes onto the Ranger from the Spirit, then Fortifying Bond puts 10s of Might onto the pet. The pet can also get the might from the spirit if there is not 5 party members in range.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

MadCat.9172:

- http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond
The boon duration is base on the ranger, not the pet my friend, so there are no 10s might from frost spirit buff and i dont think 3 stack of might last 1s is powerful. If you want to stack might to your pet, use main hand Axe #1 or sword #1 or Beastmaster: Companion’s might….

The Might goes onto the Ranger from the Spirit, then Fortifying Bond puts 10s of Might onto the pet. The pet can also get the might from the spirit if there is not 5 party members in range.

the boon pulses stack with each other so you could have two rangers with frost spirits to double the amount of stored might on the pet , if both rangers run Fortifying bond.
there would be no need for main hand axe anymore.

i’d see spirits playing a heavy role in tower defence when the new boarders come out , there will be a lot of ground to place them on hard to reach locations granting entire zergs boons , other rangers with their pets that also run fortifying bond in WvW will gain a huge amount of might if you consider more than one frost spirit in range , pet dies ? no worries the next pet will get up to 25 might in no time , you won’t even need to use stength of the pack for its might gain and can focus on only using it for its stability.

Ranger squads can be highly effective if each ranger took one maybe two if they wanted spirit each leaving room for Survival Utilities and alternate if the rangers a Condi build use Sun spirits instead of frost to apply burning and vigor it maybe 1secs of vigour its still a endurace recovery one in 3 is effectively a 25% endurace increase+ the 25% you’d get base in wilderness.

i want to give this a real try in WvW but the fps server is still lacking any soild Ranger presence not enough co-operation for a ranger raid.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

MadCat.9172:

- http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond
The boon duration is base on the ranger, not the pet my friend, so there are no 10s might from frost spirit buff and i dont think 3 stack of might last 1s is powerful. If you want to stack might to your pet, use main hand Axe #1 or sword #1 or Beastmaster: Companion’s might….

The Might goes onto the Ranger from the Spirit, then Fortifying Bond puts 10s of Might onto the pet. The pet can also get the might from the spirit if there is not 5 party members in range.

the boon pulses stack with each other so you could have two rangers with frost spirits to double the amount of stored might on the pet , if both rangers run Fortifying bond.
there would be no need for main hand axe anymore.

Sounds nice, but you need two rangers, two frost spirits and two GM traits to make it work…

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

MadCat.9172:

- http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond
The boon duration is base on the ranger, not the pet my friend, so there are no 10s might from frost spirit buff and i dont think 3 stack of might last 1s is powerful. If you want to stack might to your pet, use main hand Axe #1 or sword #1 or Beastmaster: Companion’s might….

The Might goes onto the Ranger from the Spirit, then Fortifying Bond puts 10s of Might onto the pet. The pet can also get the might from the spirit if there is not 5 party members in range.

the boon pulses stack with each other so you could have two rangers with frost spirits to double the amount of stored might on the pet , if both rangers run Fortifying bond.
there would be no need for main hand axe anymore.

Sounds nice, but you need two rangers, two frost spirits and two GM traits to make it work…

yes now Scale that up to effected players and pets buffed up , in of 5 rangers only two would need Gm’s to cover 10 people 5 of your party and 5 others for the passives, the boons applied effect every nearby ally if placed behind a wall away from the gate it will effect Every ranger in the zerg that has Fortifying bond the pets in the zerg will scale might up 2x fold for each frost spirit and since the pet does not need to be near the spirit to gain these bonuses only the ranger needs to get the boon to pass it on , it only adds to wall defence or damage while sitting on the back lines.

the coverage may say is poor , but when you consider the use of 2+ or upto 8 spirits spread out over the back line all of the Ranged support , eles, theifs, mesmers and later Dragon hunters and pets fighting in combat will be given a lot of benifits.

the choices for Nature magic GM apart from protective warden which is a lot less effective at Range , which i used only for mid line Melee fighting.

so its not a lot of comprimise at all , 1 gm and 1 spirit per ranger that uses nature magic sees a big increase in back line defence while buffing Pets in combat from a very safe distance.

it just needs trying out the more spirits the better , though at one point it will suffer deminishing returns which i would guess when each type of spirit exceeds 5 on the field spread out to over lap Radius areas and since spirits Sacrifice themselfs when used you don’t have to worry about keeping to that one area , you get zerg pushed Activate , kite Repostion resummon spirits at the newly formed back lines and begin rebuffing pets and any players in the area.

1gm and one spirit to buff any nature magic rangers pets , with a mix of spirits it will increase the survival for many more pets than just the users.

the main reason before spirits were not used in fights was because of the moving spirits dying to a overload of Damage " farming zoo" problem which ment you’d get no benifits from them during the fight.

now you can:

buff the zerg
buff nature magic pets
increase defences and damage of the back lines.

if you include one full trapper per 5 man squad (condi ranger) focus traps between you and the zerg Area deinal between the spirits , any closing targets won’t survive to reach the spirits and you can just Scarifice them .

see them leap or dash a long distance towards your spirits just Destory them problem solved gain a boost and kill the target.

I agree:
- Nature magic + BM give us permant might, fury, regen, some nice heal, all are AoE buff for supporting backline from the pet. I always use this setup in zerg blackline. It’s much harder in frontline cuz the pet will die in a blink of your eyes.

I dont agree:
- Pet can only deal dam in small fight. In zerg, they simply are meatshield, cant live long enough to deal dam. So stack might on pet is meaningless.
- Spirit work well in defending tower/keep/castle, otherwise it’s useless. We have to move alot in zerg fight, that make us often miss the buff from spirit, also 1s of might every 3s is worthless. You can spread out to make the spirit cover larger area but so do the enemy, they will eat you alone. Protect ward is way better, give you more chance to suvive while reduce enemy dps. For me, Protect ward > Nature Vengeance in both roaming and zergling, oh well count PvE in.
- One more thing, just 1 shot from any source can take the spirit down, 1 more shot with Nature Vengeance then. Necro, ele AoE, sigil of fire trigge, etc… Who care risking their life to melee a spirit ?

MadCat.9172:

I agree:
- Nature magic + BM give us permant might, fury, regen, some nice heal, all are AoE buff for supporting backline from the pet. I always use this setup in zerg blackline. It’s much harder in frontline cuz the pet will die in a blink of your eyes.

I dont agree:
- Pet can only deal dam in small fight. In zerg, they simply are meatshield, cant live long enough to deal dam. So stack might on pet is meaningless.
- Spirit work well in defending tower/keep/castle, otherwise it’s useless. We have to move alot in zerg fight, that make us often miss the buff from spirit, also 1s of might every 3s is worthless. You can spread out to make the spirit cover larger area but so do the enemy, they will eat you alone. Protect ward is way better, give you more chance to suvive while reduce enemy dps. For me, Protect ward > Nature Vengeance in both roaming and zergling, oh well count PvE in.
- One more thing, just 1 shot from any source can take the spirit down, 1 more shot with Nature Vengeance then. Necro, ele AoE, sigil of fire trigge, etc… Who care risking their life to melee a spirit ?

all true but again based on small scale and only if one Spirt ranger exsists on the field.
now you go do that 1sec of might x 5-10 frost spirits 10might every 3secs , the major problem isn’t what the spirits do nor the Hp when its only a player or two .

the problem with spirits is If left alone like a banner and simple not protected aka Back line defences sure they will die and they won’t die to a stray shot , only a 1 shot zerk build or a Kill shot could do that or a port thief which if you play properly and cover the defence while you pew the zerg from the back line it shouldn’t even be a issue.

the only issue i can think of is the Stupid little Radius on the spirit so it will only Benifit defenders if they Stack up which is a bad idea when your playing back lines anyway.

two things need to be added.

hp spirit is ok vs 2 people when defended
radius needs to be 900 yards just like the passive 240 is stupid
boon durations are ok vould be slightly extended to 2secs.

stacking the pulsing boons = 4x nature spirits = 4 stacks of stability every 3secs which is great for Small scale fights 10vs10 , each spirit is also effect by onther spirits boons so if you correctly place spirits they should gain all the benifits also.

and moving around is not somthing a ranged spec should be doing much sure they follow but not that close, also if you didnt notice i was talking in future tense in the new boarders there will be many more places to place things safely due to the Multipul floors so you can easly larva portal up plant your spirit combination and port back down or Range from above away from the Zerg fest and that is where it will excel.

on the current map open field , low ground easy access to almost any part of the field apart from tower defence .

its mostly the terrain is more of a culprit that the spirits being " bad " for what most people don’t even thing of them stacking beyond the one Spirit ranger.

also isnt it the job of the Front line to protect against any Zerg pushes to the back , if the larg group of Pug zerg members only have statics and the general gwen CC’s they will push through and all you end up doing is exchanging places unless you bring more than hammers or Statics.

i today was front to Mid to back line zerging ahead of the commander Apply CC immobo bombs before reteating to the mid apply a barrage which pretty much instantly downed half the front line , in this case if people took more effective CC that a daze or stun the back line very well could try and Succed with the stacking of spirits on chokes and tunnels which we will see more of in the newer boarderlands.

Unfortunately pets die faster than they can even be used in most situations in WvW.

IF they actually grew up and had some protection from experience, that would make a difference, but they are weaker than the day we tamed them and never improve.