Guild Wars 2

I’ve never been a fan for archer related classes but I adore the ranger class.
I was wondering if anyone knew any good ranger condition builds. I’m a lvl 41 norn ranger. Yeah I have no idea what I have been plugging my traits into and etc ):

Also telling me what armor stats/weapons I should be looking for would be extremely helpful~! I do like using my shortbow even with the nerf.

Oh I forgot to mention I’m looking for a solely PVE build. I’m not a fan of PVP.

If I recall correctly, my build is currently something like 25/0/25/0/20.
Traits are:

Predator’s Instinct
Piercing Arrows

Expertise Training
Off-Hand Training

Master’s Bond
Rending Attacks

I use a Lynx and Jaguar as my land-based pets, and a Shark and River Drake underwater.

Mostly, I’m using sword & torch, swapping to shortbow when things get a little hectic in melee range.
My gear’s all Carrion (Power, Vitality, Condition Damage), with Superior Runes of the Undead.

I use “Throw Torch” while charging to apply burning, then “Serpent’s Strike” when in melee range to apply poison. My pets all apply bleeding with at least one of their attacks, and if I swap to shortbow in group situations and get behind the enemy, I can add further stacks of bleeding on auto-attack as well as poison with “Poison Volley”.

In melee groups, or when “Throw Torch” is on cooldown, I use “Bonfire” with its extended radius thanks to “Offhand Training”, followed quickly by a 2-stage “Hornet Sting”/“Monarch’s Leap” to activate “Fire Shield” as it’s a Leap finisher.

I get a lot of condition damage with this build and can handily take down multiple Orrian mobs in all three ending areas, plus, it has over 23K hitpoints, which is great for survivability.
One thing: try not to drop “Healing Spring” in the same area as “Bonfire”, as the Water field effect from it overrides the fire one of “Bonfire” resulting in no Fire Shield for you.
You do get a nice heal from Leap finishing in “Healing Spring” mind you

Mungrul.9358:

In melee groups, or when “Throw Torch” is on cooldown, I use “Bonfire” with its extended radius thanks to “Offhand Training”, followed quickly by a 2-stage “Hornet Sting”/“Monarch’s Leap” to activate “Fire Shield” as it’s a Leap finisher.

Interesting, I didn’t know that Offhand Training increased Bonfire’s radius. It doesn’t show that according to wiki. Are you sure about this? If so, very cool!

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/index.php?title=Off-Hand_Training&oldid=385744

Increases the range of Crippling Talon, Throw Torch, and Hunter’s Call from 900 to 1,200.

Yup, definitely. It’s about twice the size now compared to before I invested the points.
If I remember and don’t get sucked in to playing when I get home, I’ll screenshot it

The two condition builds I’ve had success with are:

Traps
25/30/0/0/15
30/30/10/0/0
Shortbow/any (I used longbow while testing this build)
And the only really important traits are to pick up the 2 trap traits in skirmishing. And of course to actually pick up 2-3 of the traps. Flame/barbed for DPS, viper’s for poison (very long duration of reduced healing), and frost for kiting or increasing cooldowns on skills. Everything else is up to you (including pets), this one’s pretty flexible.

Balanced
20/0/20/15/15
Any-Piercing arrows//Wilderness Knowledge-Hide in Plain Sight/Any/Mighty Swap
0/20/20/15/15
/Vigor on crit-Quick Draw/WK-HiPS/Any/MS
Shortbow/any (I usually prefer axe/warhorn or greatsword for pve)
Jungle stalker and Red Moa
Quickening Zephyr, Lightning Reflexes, Signet of the Hunt, Entangle
I like this build because it can pump out a lot of damage with QZ and Zephyr’s Speed, but it also has some decent survivability built in with all the dodges and endurance regen. Basically just pet swap every time you can and hit the pet’s F2 right as they come out so the buff gets hasted. Constantly try to flank with the shortbow. Signet of the Hunt is just convenient for moving around in pve and wvw, and use Lightning Reflexes as an extra dodge that also helps recharge your other dodges. Other than QZ the utilities and elite can be swapped out though, I’ve tested just about every skill in this build and they all seem to work decently enough.

I’m too lazy to type this all out again so i’m gona copy and paste from another build thread i posted on yesterday. Enjoy or reject.

Once they fix pet condition damage (it has been brought to my attention that it is listed in the community made list of ranger bugs), i would recommend the following build
Marksmanship 20: Malicious training, spotter
Skirmishing 10: Sharpened edges
Wilderness survival 20: Expertise training, wilderness knowledge
Nature Magic 0
Beast Mastery 20: Speed training, rending attacks
Equipment: Condition damage (major), precision (minor), toughness (minor)
The real purpose of this build is to get as much condition damage as possible through. The use of precision and sharpened edges together makes up for the lack of power. In this build the pet is a major part of the condition damage, using a lynx on land or shark underwater is essential. I also recommend taking sharpen stone (which is pretty much a must for a ranger condition build anyways) and entangle (grand AoE potentially worth 170s bleed). wep sets obviously include short bow with agony or corruption sigil, runes krait, nightmare or afflicted. secondary set sword (earth) or ax (also earth) and a torch.

Yup, this is pretty much my ideal build. take it or leave it. if you want to try out some ideas of your own, GW2 Guru has a excellent build calculator.