Guild Wars 2

I picked up Clerics just to play with some builds, but when it comes exotic time, should I err on zerker, knights, and valk in some capacity (or pure zerk if I’m really *overconfident?).

I’m not really up on how stats work and scale, and I find Ranger weapons tricky because they all have conditions on them in some way.

I’m not looking to be a WvW god or glass cannon murderer, I just prefer GS and Sword or Axe with an offhand, and want an armor that would give me enough flex to play around with the trait lines.

*edit ’cause filter

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Video-Exploits-WvW-Melee-BM-Ranger/page/2#post2003694

Check out my build and video here. Porb what you need.

If you are just playing around with trait lines, Knight’s or Soldier’s will be fine options. You are probably going to end up with toughness and protection on dodge roll because the 20% cool down on sword skills is in Wilderness Survival but in WvW you will generally want to build a little more durable. I wouldn’t recommend Berzerker’s. A lot of sword rangers end up running Cleric’s armour with a Beastmastery build but the DPS is pretty low, so unless you know you want to go with that build, Knights or Soldiers is a lot more versatile for a WvW melee build. You have your base durability and can experiement with different runes, traits and accessories.

I run Knights and Signet of Stone, Wild and Hunt. I use Sword/X Greatsword and am 30/30/10. I could use a bit more durability, admittedly, but I’d change my gear befor spec. Can’t bring myself to give up 30/30/10 for Signets and CritDmg+Moment of Clarity.
I find the build has great success especially against rather glassy setups. Tanky setups give me a little bit more trouble but with appropriate timing and correct pet utilization (not to mention utilizing your sword evades correctly). Greatsword 40-50% autoattack evade uptime is great too.
Tip: Use Troll Unguent pre-emptively or swap for Healing Spring with this setup.. I don’t use it pre-emptively enough and it’s the death of me more often than it should be.

Got a prototype build I’m testing that is pretty survivable while dealing fair damage with the GS. Kind of hard to test without going all out in the gear though since it is optimized for stats.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJARVjEVB2FWKWo2Bi1DCt/B1ekJLhJXB/nyrKybMA-j0yAorhoRQgILA0nkl+UWTgCithioxqrxUuER1G8hoZzTtQAjWAA-w

I don’t even have it quite near fully geared atm but my similar spec works well. The build is designed for large zerg wvw play though, so some traits and even skills could be changed for smaller play. For instance, we find stability in zvz classes to be a must, so SotW is entirely required for most of our rangers. Pets can be exchanged but the siamoth is used before an attack for the stealth approach or 10s buff, both of which make a great initiation. The siamoth can also be used as an escape if you get stealth (saved my kitten more than a few times already). Healing spring is another must for group play as well as entangle. The build requires some know-how in order to play well, but it has the mobility to dive in, burst, and get out (what it was designed to do).

Not sure if you want to sue both sword and greatsword in the same build, but if you are planning on that know that I highly discourage the double melee ranger (or double melee anything for that matter) as you can be fairly easily countered.