Guild Wars 2

I’d like to be quite efficient and reliable at taking individuals down, especially 1 on 1. Does anyone have suggestions for high ranger damage builds/tactics?

Edit: Trust me, I’ve been on the forums a while, I too am upset about crossfire and overall damage potential etc etc etc, I know the weaknesses of the class, I’m looking for optimization suggestions. This is my class and I love him.

First, I would like to note that optimization of damage may come with a sacrifice of survivability. Besides that, I think longbow/greatsword is a good dps build, maybe sword/torch as well. With beserkers and power and precision optimized, you can hit a couple thousand on greatsword 2 and 3 and channel over 5k easily on longbow 2, also hitting between 1-2k on longbow and greatsword autoattack when critting(sword could get you 1-1.5k). Also optimize damaging pets, felines and canines I think are best for this. Quickening Zephyr will probably be your most useful utility, others that may be useful are signets, which will give you passive advantages, and, with 30 points in the Marksmanship traitline, nice effects for you and your pet, including invulnerability and enlargement. Elite skill would be Rampage as One. This build could do real damage when mastered, I have tried it, but not extensively.

See that? That is one helpful kitten comment.

roll a thief, or a warrior….sry, but is the truth….i have a ranger full geared, and if you comparewith a warrior or a thief, the ranger is a big shyyt…ranger should have a skill with a nice damage, but only have skills with low damage.

Specifically asked for comments besides that, urdriel. I want what ranger is, not what it isn’t. But thank you.

So canines are good for damage? That’s good to know, I like them.

Othayuni.7369:

Specifically asked for comments besides that, urdriel. I want what ranger is, not what it isn’t. But thank you.

So canines are good for damage? That’s good to know, I like them.

Canines have good power and felines have good crit. Felines have been known to hit the highest, especially jaguar with its stealth that gives it buffs, but canines can also reach 2k in one hit with the right build.

Ignore udriel, ranger is not supposed to be a warrior or a thief. Rangers have plenty of dps, try Quickening Zephyr+Rapid Fire on longbow. Hell, even throw in Rampage as One with a pet. If you have the Grandmaster trait for Marksmanship, you get to become a giant along with your pet. You can rack up damage, just in different ways. Warrior burst is dodgeable, Thief burst is dodgeable. Ranger damage is consistent and you cant dodge it all because it persists. Use dodgerolling to its full extent and you can put out more damage and down your opponent. You can kill both warriors and thiefs by avoiding their initial burst, or taking half their health before they even get in striking range. Practice makes perfect in that department.

You’re playing the wrong class if you want to do damage. Just think of your self as a less useful guardian with a little more dps.

For SPVP I go glass cannon and I don’t have much of a problem. Longbow/short bow. rune for damage. Stay far away. I have 7 slows/stops for melees. Seeing how I never need 7 slows I swap one out for the dodge skill that regens my endurance. When fighting range you really just need to utilize your dodge.

Here is my theory of 1vs1. The person who wins is the person who understand the class they are fighting. I dont worry as much about their build. I pay attention to the weapons they use and the utility skills they use. You need to know all that stuff if you want to do well. You cant expect to just play ranger 24/7 and be awesome. No chance.

If you have 2 players evenly matched and they know their enemy’s skills like they know themselves then victory usually comes down to who uses their dodge roll at the best time. Plain and simple. There is not really the best build for pvp. Just knowledge of the class they fight and dodging at the right time.

Wolf.2891:

You’re playing the wrong class if you want to do damage. Just think of your self as a less useful guardian with a little more dps.

Not gonna lie, we don’t have the OP damage that warriors and thieves have, but we are by no means useless or horrible in DPS. A testament to this is any ranger who has ever beaten these OP damage builds, which is pretty much everyone.

urdriel.8496:

roll a thief, or a warrior….sry, but is the truth….i have a ranger full geared, and if you comparewith a warrior or a thief, the ranger is a big shyyt…ranger should have a skill with a nice damage, but only have skills with low damage.

Stop commenting on every thread saying “reroll blah blah blah”. You simply don’t know how to play a Ranger, so yes YOU should reroll, but not the players that can actually learn to play the class.

Ranger damage potential is split between the Ranger and the Pet and you would need to look at traits that increase damage for both.

Feline and Birds are the ‘highest’ DPS pets but have the lowest survivability of all the pets and you would need to invest at least 15 points into BM though going further is recommended.

Another key trait is the protection for you and pet when you dodge, used at the correct moment is vital to keeping your pet up!

Condition or direct damage you have choices!

I’ll Give you exactly the build you want to deal the highest possible damage.

10/30/20/5/5. Full Berserker gear, divinity sigils in all, ruby earrings/necklace exotics. 5 in nature to help you survive in PVE, upto you if you want it or put more in marksmanship. But you really don’t need more then 10 in marks because all your dmg will be coming from your skirmishing trait

I deal 2.2k per longbow arrow. #2 LB skill gets up to 7-8.5k. #5 skill gets up to around 7.5k. Channel those together and you hit about 14k on mobs. Combine that with a Feline/bird pet and you’re pretty much going ham over time. (These are all crit, ofcourse)

You’ll be at around 91% increase in crit damage, and about 55% crit chance.

Better news? Thats not your strongest weapon. The sword is, which ive tested in the mists (PVP) and it can down a heavy golem with QZ in 4 seconds with just the autoattack. #3 will net around 2.5k+ on crit, #2 skill can net 4k if both hits crit. So with pet’s hitting crit’s aswell you’re pretty much going to rock people! What you use as your secondary is upto you but its pretty much between axe,dagger,horn. I prefer horn in dungeons and axe in PVE. Really strong #4 skill which hits twice and can do 4k+ and 5 that gets up to 6k but can’t move.

Some words of wisdom; You are not a tank so be careful with melee, especially on bosses or dungeon mob. Use it for quick bursts when you don’t have aggro and retreat and use long-range. Then rinse and repeat.

Chain all this with QZ and sick em’ as utilities and your damage bursts will be very very high with your pet. And don’t listen to people who say pets suck and die, they aren’t using them properly. Use long-range pets when necessary and melee when time is right; swap all the time when in dungeons.

^Not the highest damage possible…

I run around with 59% crit chance and 103% crit dmg…

And lol swords and other stuff….

LB/SB

30/30/?/?/?/5
Sword, the cripple helps your damage out put a ton. ROA or Entagle, switch if people know how to kite. gotta take a dog along. When your pet lands a KD, you pop QZ and go to town. or grab the immobilize hound, same concept. Signets working on you trait is very helpful, can use it for 6 seconds of immunity or 6 seconds of rip their face off. Lets see… should get close to 75% crit rate with berserkers amulet, divinity runes and fury so for weapon sigils the on crit steal health or on crit a stack of Might work wonderfully or just on crit do more damage.

The issue with this build, you gotta play it like a burst, you gotta stand toe to toe with warriors, eat their frenzy with signet of stone and dish the damage right back to them.

Rangers highest damage is melee + cat(pve) or dog(pvp), or if you can give up the free knockdown and all utility dogs provide you can grab birds….

Pvp.2758:

urdriel.8496:

roll a thief, or a warrior….sry, but is the truth….i have a ranger full geared, and if you comparewith a warrior or a thief, the ranger is a big shyyt…ranger should have a skill with a nice damage, but only have skills with low damage.

Stop commenting on every thread saying “reroll blah blah blah”. You simply don’t know how to play a Ranger, so yes YOU should reroll, but not the players that can actually learn to play the class.

I played ranger in all MMOs,I WANT TO PLAY AS RANGER ,but THIS ranger, is the worst of all MMORPGS i ever played, sry, but is the truth, i tried to use ranger to deal damage , but you are overdpsed always, you need a really good ranger to beat a normal or bad thief-warrior,, and you cant win against a GOOD thief/warrior the fact is that actually ranger class need a damage buff, and Pet fixes to be able to fight in equal conditions against other classes.

Ranger is underpowered, it is a fact, and this problem is not about good or bad players, perhaps the best ranger build is with traps (really sad we dont have a elite trap skill with high damage).

GreatSword have high damage, but ranger class have too few skills to be able to “escape” from combat so, if you enter into melee you are cannon fodder(you can use SoS , 120 sec cd, 96 traited), the ShortBow have a nice DPS but all other classes need only 1 skill to hit like 7-8 SB autoshots.

Can a Ranger have a High Dps build? yes, ofc, but your build will be always inferior to all other classes, you can say im crying but what i want to say is that Ranger need a balance, need skills with more damage or a better Pet IA.

Pure damage ranger builds should be fairly obvious I would think.

Traits:

30 Marks: I, VII, XII
30 Skirm: II, X, XII
10 Wilderness: III
0 in everything else because no damage.

Armor: Zerker’s hands down.

Runes: 6/6 Runes of Strength (over the Fire and Hoelbrak because 6th one gives +5 damage while under effects of might boon)

Weapons:

Shortbow:
Power/Prec/Crit.D.
Superior Sigil of Strength

Longbow:
Power/Prec/Crit.D.
Superior Sigil of Bloodlust (or get another superior sigil of strength and run with another weapon in your bag to swap to to get 25 stacks then trade it out for the longbow)

Utilities:

Sig of the Hunt – Nothing gets away from you, more damage can be done.
Sharpened Edges – 5 stacks of bleed, free damage.
Quickening Zephyr – Should be obvious why.
Rampage as One – Should also be obvious why.

Pet:

Jungle Stalker – F2 grants 5 stacks of might.

For reference:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJAVTjIVB2RWaWs2Bi1j9s//0KkJ2DDxoFVhTkA;ToAg0CnoyxkjIHbOuck5sgYkB

Edit: Because link is apparently broken I made it smaller: http://tinyurl.com/gw2skillslink

Note: listed stats may not be right on there, I can’t figure out why it won’t let me do PvE accessories instead of just sticking my with a PvP amulet, plus you are missing 70 precision because it doesn’t assume you are in combat (70 precision from marks trait, gives about 3-4% crit chance.)

Pros:

Tons of Might = Tons of damage

Cons:

Nothing because you are doing tons of damage.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but Anet wants our dmg split between us and pets which means you will never have a viable high dmg build per say. Until that mechanic is worked differently it will always be more viable to build around making yourself slightly tankier. The plus of that is you’re harder to kill now the negative is what if you do want to try other options.

ShinraGuardian.8053:

Pure damage ranger builds should be fairly obvious I would think.

)

Utilities:

Sig of the Hunt – Nothing gets away from you, more damage can be done.
Sharpened Edges – 5 stacks of bleed, free damage.
Quickening Zephyr – Should be obvious why.
Rampage as One – Should also be obvious why.

Pros:

Tons of Might = Tons of damage

Cons:

Nothing because you are doing tons of damage.

Is this all theory ? It definetly isn’t in game experience.

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

^Not the highest damage possible…

I run around with 59% crit chance and 103% crit dmg…

And lol swords and other stuff….

LB/SB

You have no idea what you are talking about if you pair up LB/SB for a ranger and trying to deal the highest damage. It’s guys like you that give rangers a bad name and have no idea how to use one properly

If you want highest damage over time, its a sword. If you want to see the biggest “numbers” by using skills, its greatsword.

People feel that the DPS of a ranger is inferior because the ranger CANNOT post up big numbers instantly. It is a damage over time class. You will not see 12k crits or anything like that with a ranger. However, like i said above for example, pairing up the longbows 5 and 2 skills will net you around 13-14k with crits. Plus your pet hitting them with 1-2k each hit will increase your dmg output over time. That is the reality of the ranger.

Forzani.2584:

ShinraGuardian.8053:

Pure damage ranger builds should be fairly obvious I would think.

)

Utilities:

Sig of the Hunt – Nothing gets away from you, more damage can be done.
Sharpened Edges – 5 stacks of bleed, free damage.
Quickening Zephyr – Should be obvious why.
Rampage as One – Should also be obvious why.

Pros:

Tons of Might = Tons of damage

Cons:

Nothing because you are doing tons of damage.

Is this all theory ? It definetly isn’t in my game experience.

I adjusted your statement to reflect a better truth value. Just because you haven’t done it, doesn’t mean it isn’t in the game.

I run this build on my ranger in Zerker’s armor for single target boss fights. It works well, save for a few minor changes between encounters (such as utilities).

To clarify why I use Signet of the Hunt: Since it was buffed I found it allows me to get out of most dangerous AOE’s without having to dodge roll, which allows me to make use of Marksmanship’s trait 1, 10% increased damage when endurance is full.

ShinraGuardian.8053:

Forzani.2584:

ShinraGuardian.8053:

Pure damage ranger builds should be fairly obvious I would think.

)

Utilities:

Sig of the Hunt – Nothing gets away from you, more damage can be done.
Sharpened Edges – 5 stacks of bleed, free damage.
Quickening Zephyr – Should be obvious why.
Rampage as One – Should also be obvious why.

Pros:

Tons of Might = Tons of damage

Cons:

Nothing because you are doing tons of damage.

Is this all theory ? It definetly isn’t in my game experience.

I adjusted your statement to reflect a better truth value. Just because you haven’t done it, doesn’t mean it isn’t in the game.

I run this build on my ranger in Zerker’s armor for single target boss fights. It works well, save for a few minor changes between encounters (such as utilities).

To clarify why I use Signet of the Hunt: Since it was buffed I found it allows me to get out of most dangerous AOE’s without having to dodge roll, which allows me to make use of Marksmanship’s trait 1, 10% increased damage when endurance is full.

1. Apparently you are talking about PvE. The OP comment about “taking people down 1v1” Seems like a PvP or WvW comment. I stand corrected if he was talking about 1v1 PvE encounters. (Although I am not what mobs you need to chase down for the “Nothing gets away from you” comment.)

2. Signet of The Hunt’s speed drops in combat (at least it does in WvW). Apparently it doesn’t in PvE ?

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

^Not the highest damage possible…

I run around with 59% crit chance and 103% crit dmg…

And lol swords and other stuff….

LB/SB

Can you list in detail how you manage this please? :-)

Aupheus.9038:

xxxzavulonxxx.8413:

^Not the highest damage possible…

I run around with 59% crit chance and 103% crit dmg…

And lol swords and other stuff….

LB/SB

Can you list in detail how you manage this please? :-)

He’s trolling, ignore him.

I dont even think fractals gear gets you 103% increase.

Katostrophe.3274:

I dont even think fractals gear gets you 103% increase.

2 Ascended rings gets you to 104% without food IIRC.

More if you run Divinity but the damage is not as good as Scholar.

General word of thanks to everyone who’s contributed to this thread! I have some ideas to try.

For those interested, I’m building with sPvP in mind.

Honestly I can regularly put out some respectable dps but I play a little unorthodoxly. I do like the angry birds spec and love to use the birds for my dps. I use my birds like I would use a weapon attack on my hotkeys. I consider them very big damage and regularly get 4k dmg from then on the F2 attack all the way up to 14k (2 attacks at 7k each) with a full stack of might.

I use shortbow so that I can manage the pets easier. All I have to do is worry about my positioning as best as possible. Other then that I consider my pets bombers. Send in with F2. If I’m lucky they also get off their other high damage attack then I immediatly hit F3 when I see F2 on cooldown.

This style of play allows me two things. The birds have a guaranteed hit. There’s really no way to avoid them as they fly strait at someone instead of following them. Sure they can be avoided but I consider them like arrows. (high damage arrows) I switch them every chance I get so that the F2 is up as much as possible.

It takes a bit of practice doing this. The only time I leave my bird full time on a boss is when under the influence of Rampage as one and Quickening Zephyr. Though this is worrysome and the only time my pet dies against bosses in the game. So far it’s actually working out pretty well. It actually feels pretty powerful when I play it right and stuff just melts.

BM DPS is frequently overlooked, but absolutely awesome. Here’s a build that’s very high dps and tough enough to survive in melee in dungeons:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMPxG2JRFVWGZhVQsWII6H4ErwhePiV6bv/woS4RiNG;TwAg0CnoKyUkoIbRuikFtyYkxWkpIA

(copy and paste the link)

Well, that went well. I cranked some signet and QZ and longbow and berserker stuff and…Thanks, guys. It’s been a fun night in hot join.

pff signet of the hunt… Muddy Terrain fellow rangers, once you learned how/when to use it you really dont want to switch it out ever….
let other ppl have their 25% running speed, juggle your inventory and pop out a warhorn when you engage someone and quickly change it to something else…

-So what if he/she runs away from you, then you just get left in the dust? you didn’t think about that!!!
Why did you let her/him get away in the first place? Unless it’s a D/D ele then you really cant do anything EVEN WITH the signet… because 33% > 25% and ride the lightning & teleport makes them go into warp speed.

You’ve got pets to CC, weapon skills to cripple/chill/stun, utility skills to cripple/root/immobilize, you really dont need the speed…. besides, a fair deal of classes with specific weapon setups can’t even ATTACK when immobilized/rooted… and yes lots of people can break out of it eles, mesmers & warriors in particular always seem to have some “jump-away-from-root-and-unleash-pain-in-your-face-skill” but that’s what dodge is for or… just chain CC the sucker and kill him (just don’t, DO NOT use longbow skill #4 when you have them locked down, you’ll just free them and then all your ranger buddies will giggle and laugh as you get teared a new one….)

Just wanted to point out that the ranger might be the “king of crowd control” and if you put some time and effort and really really emphasise it, the results are quite fun… you might not get the biggest numbers, but you sure as heck won’t die from a bolas-bulls charge-frenzy-hit button 2-then-f-warrior