Guild Wars 2

Hey, i’ve been playing ranger for awhile now and i notice on every build nobody runs s/d. Is it because there is better alternatives? No PvE or PvP Build seems to contain it.

PVE should be sword/axe if you’re running sword. axe OH dps is higher than dagger by quite a bit. pvp dagger is a good choice for evades

sword dagger is used for lb roaming and some pvp. i havent
played gw2 since sep but lb sw/d was my favorite in pvp before the specilizations. not sure howd it fair now

Most people are using druid, which means you want staff, and that means you don’t have many weapon choices. S/D is still as strong as ever, but it doesn’t fit in a druid build that well.

Condi rangers usually take sword and dagger on opposite weapon swaps to split up the evades.

Jooshareno.4518:

Hey, i’ve been playing ranger for awhile now and i notice on every build nobody runs s/d. Is it because there is better alternatives? No PvE or PvP Build seems to contain it.

I will talk about WvW roam perspective.

IMO Sw/D is an amazing weapon set. If youre playing a zerker LB ranger, i prefer Sw/D as second weapon set, instead of GS. It gives you some dmg, alot of survability, as well poison(healing reduce) and cripple(makes easy to kite) application.]

If youre running condi build, then you would want to use Sw/Torch and Axe/Dagger.

Dagger can be used when you know you’re going for the dodge overkill award (Sword 2, Sword 3, Dagger 4, and native dodges from endurance). There are a few places in PvE that can use it, but for the most part you’ll want OH Axe for the higher damage.

I generally run warhorn off hand unless im in a situatuon that calls for axe 5 reflects or the pull on axe 4

Dagger’s just one of the Ranger’s many great off-hand choices and it’s certainly no slouch. It can give potentially 100% poison uptime (never gonna happen in PvP), has a low cooldown evade and a ranged soft CC. It’s very much built for PvP. I’m certain there’s a viable build you could make for Sw/D these days, it always used to be a powerhouse for WvW roaming Rangers pre-HoT. Even if it’s bad, I love mowing people down with sword autos in Zerker/Marauder gear.

I think sword and maybe s/d is our best bet for pvp. It is our only way to mitigate unrelenting assault reliably. Without it we just take too much damage in the current meta. Normally, I would prefer greatsword but the block doesn’t do anything in this meta, talking about pvp of course.

Eurantien.4632:

I think sword and maybe s/d is our best bet for pvp. It is our only way to mitigate unrelenting assault reliably. Without it we just take too much damage in the current meta. Normally, I would prefer greatsword but the block doesn’t do anything in this meta, talking about pvp of course.

Edit 2: I just saw the build you ran yesterday in another thread. The choice of sword makes a lot more sense to me now.

Somehow we’ve completely swapped positions. You used to be the biggest GS fan and me the sword fan. Now, if you’re using staff + sword/dagger, I just don’t see where your damage is coming from. Exclusively your pet pretty much, and maybe rabid (??) (edit: Actually they aren’t removing magi, I intuitively thought they would. All the pure condi amulets left suck though, and none have healing power.) for the poison damage makes sense after the upcoming changes.

Although I do think that could be our role now that eles and mesmers are taking a hit, and especially if shouts pan out, we may be the obvious choice for teamfight anchors.

Fluffball.8307:

Eurantien.4632:

I think sword and maybe s/d is our best bet for pvp. It is our only way to mitigate unrelenting assault reliably. Without it we just take too much damage in the current meta. Normally, I would prefer greatsword but the block doesn’t do anything in this meta, talking about pvp of course.

Somehow we’ve completely swapped positions. You used to be the biggest GS fan and me the sword fan. Now, if you’re using staff + sword/dagger, I just don’t see where your damage is coming from. Exclusively your pet pretty much, and maybe rabid (??) (edit: Actually they aren’t removing magi, I intuitively thought they would. All the pure condi amulets left suck though, and none have healing power.) for the poison damage makes sense after the upcoming changes.

Although I do think that could be our role now that eles and mesmers are taking a hit, and especially if shouts pan out, we may be the obvious choice for teamfight anchors.

Its just that Unrelenting assault, rev staff 5, necro marks, mesmer clones, all break the greatsword block (+ all the unblockable stuff out there). I would use marauder or zerker ammy (or whatever the equivalent is) or probably the new power/precision/healing power/vit one. Greatsword might work? But I think in the current meta with the way other classes do damage s/d just has an advantage. To be perfectly honest though, I don’t really know. There is just so much fighting uphill in the current meta its hard to figure anything out.