Guild Wars 2

I know soon there will be a hundred people posting that GS sucks on ranger, but the truth is I do not care. I made my Ranger because I liked the idea of mixing the cosmetic looks of leather armor with a GS. I have an amazing look planned out.
CM chest and legs; SE shoulders, hands and feet; head TBD. Work with Ghastly sword till I get Twilight. My dyes are a mixture of Midnight Fire and Ice.

I have the cosmetics worked out but I need to work on the kitten build. To maximize GS effectiveness, I have been using a 0/0/30/25/15 build.

Wilderness Survival
-lower survival skill cool downs
-GS cool downs
-GM trait- either

Nature Magic
-Longer regen
-GS damage

Beastmastery
-Might for pet

Utilities- Healing Spring, Quickening Zephyr, Lightning Reflexes, Signet as and when needed, Entangle/Rampage As One

With my GS, I use axe/warhorn on the side, I like the warhorn for the swiftness, but I don’t want switching this out. I have been working on full Soldier Gear to make this guy have huge with 3000+ attack and mega defense/health. I used to rely on quickness for damage bursts with frequent pet switching and the occasional quickening zephyr on bosses(though I mainly use zephyr when rallying). Lightning Reflexes for stun break or when I’m low on health and need the vigor for extra dodging.

However with the Quickness nerf I feel the build has lost some of its ‘zazzle’ to the point that I don’t feel like playing it much, anyone got ideas how I could bring back the fun to the build or make GS ranger actually work.

After some tinkering I have come up with an alternate idea. I was contemplating condition damage, but having a dislike for traps I decided to forgo it.

Gear I’m planning:

Armor:
Soldier-Head, Shoulder, Chest
Knight- Hands, Legs, Feet
All slotted with Beryl

Weapon:
Knight’s Greatsword and Shortbow slotted with Sigil of Battle

Accessories:
Everything Soldier, Knight’s on Rings. Rubies in Everything.

Traits:
0/15/20/20/15

Skirmishing- I want the precision and crit chance
-Swiftness
-Fury
-A pet trait

Wilderness Survival- Extra toughness is lovely
-Survival Skills
-GS cool downs

Nature Magic- Yay for extra vit
-Nature’s Bounty/Strength of Spirit
-GS damage

Beastmastety- Some quickness is better than no quickness and a little teeny tiny bit of +healing for the spring
-Miscellaneous pet trait.

Identical utilities- maybe use Muddy Terrain now to keep foes from getting away.

This is my Gs build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQNBjODrkoSk16aGWYtIAWP2Lw+aF4kzwQG/CKxVaB;T8Ag0ynEOJdS9kyJKqMUJoySljKJVLRGQsJA

I mainly run dungeons with this, and some other guild events.
Greatsword mainly, switching to shortbow for fights which are too painful for melee.

In dungeons I set down my water field for all the other melee people in the group (which sometimes is only me and my drakes ) which provides the group with many aoe heals, since its up so often.
The drakes are for their blast finisher moves, which are really useful while inside the water and ice fields I bring to the group.
I find this build to be very durable, although Swoop lowers your dps against bosses using it to proc the water/ice fields is a major part of the build.

I find the main thing with greatsword is learning how to time your Block and interrupt on 4 + 5.
If you can interrupt things like mini-boss heals, and block any fatal, or interrupting (Knockbacks, stuns ect.) then you’ll be contributing greatly to your team.

If you have any questions/criticisms I’m more than happy to hear them.

EDIT:
Forgot to mention the traits: Most important ones are Gs +5% damage and -20% CD’s.
The lower pet skill cooldown is also important, because the drakes blast finisher tail sweep move is vital to this build.
And finally the 5% vitality -> Power lets be take some P/TV gear so I can be more surable without sacrificing too much damage (I hope).