Melee ranger
If you want to roll a melee ranger, i’d go with a sword / warhorn. But you can’t just go melee as you will die fast once you run out of evades. You still need a ranged weapon to keep yourself from falling off in PvP.
The ranger dies easily in melee range. Therfore, the melee ranger in PvP has to play very defensively – with defense stats like toughness and vitality. You don’t dish out the most damage in the world but I find it very fun.
You can go with signets or traps.
I know it’s only AC, but last night I tanked Kholher with trap setup using Soldier and Cleric gear while most of my party ranged him. Then I did the same to the troll. So yes, melee ranger is completely doable.
I’ve been messing around with a melee ranger lately, I really like the ranger sword and greatsword skills alot more than warriors, so I’ve rolled one. I’m level 22 or something right now but looking ahead at how I’m gonna build when I’m 80. I mostly do wvw roaming and occasionally join the zerg.
Anyway, i tried it out some in the mists and damage wasn’t great so I guess I’m dependant on my pet? I was using soldiers armor to be tanky but still got kitten by thiefs and whatnot in hotjoins. I was thinking a build like http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMIQNBhYDbEpKwuxyyi1OQ0ewJLhJmC+bIniR5JA, or should I go more BM focused? Two-handed training also seems abit meh. Does a melee ranger even work at all? I need some input here before I waste my time.
Well, I think I can help. Take those points you put in nature magic and put them in beastmastery instead. Learn to send/call your pet and how to manage the pet utility skill. Your pet will hit very hard and with both of you in motion, like ninjas, you will confound your enemy.
Also, I don’t think empathic bond is a requirement, although great for the kind of build xsorsus uses in his pain inverter series (0/0/30/10 (33% regen)/30 (natural healing) with the healing/enlarged pet signet and healing power. You get some good regeneration this way and with proper usage of motion and evades, along with your regeneration, you’ll find yourself doing crazy stuff like rallying in a 2v1 situation, throw torch, switch to axe, etc. Don’t forget: the offhand axe is a whirl finisher and rangers have plenty of combo fields to choose from.
Tin Foil Hat Hearer »—> Ranger Extraordinaire »—> “Be like water…”
The off-hand axe whirl finisher is also the most obvious and easily interrupted cast in the entire game, and it also roots you in place like a shining beacon of dung. I advice you to stay away from it.
Here’s my 2 cents.
I’ve always loved Signet of the Beastmaster Trait, it gives you an amazing o-@$%! button with Signet of Stone (6 sec immune) and means you can gain damage and stability from Signet of the Wild, leaving your elite skill slot open for Entangle if you so desired.
Healing Spring is a must have in my opinion, instant heal with condition removal.
Dagger off-hand is a must with sword, it gives you an extra short cooldown evade and helps you stay on your target. (four+ on-demand evades)
Also once you learn how strong pet swapping is with some BM traits, you’ll never want to go back.
That 5 point in skirmishing can go anywhere, I just really like having an on-demand swiftness.
You could drop out Quickening Zephyr for something else too, many people don’t like it so much these days but I think it has good synergy with the traited Signet of Stone.
Also instead of Greatsword I would suggest axe+horn or shortbow
Wolfred Darkwater – Fort Aspenwood
Yeah melee ranger can be very viable, i used to run a GS and sword signet build (lots of different off hands, most are v.good, dagger is probs best) is Spvp and would consistently win 1v1s vs warriors etc, the great thing is that they try to get you in melee range, thinking a ranger is weak there, so they do half the work lol. So yeah it’s viable, my advice is experiment with different setups. Pets will be around 30-50% of your damage.
i’d say melee ranger is for chasing, with a dagger offhand you can cripple at range to catch up, and evade in close range, while with sword you have a cripple on chain skill to keep that enemy in range with cripple, and it has a leap to also stay in range, and another poison with evasion.
GS has a long range leap and range cripple with evasion on chain skill, overall it feels like the melee version of the shortbow.
to me, all ranger melee weapons scream “chase”
i find the torch and warhorn best used with an axe (because of lack of utility with sword alone.)
(edited by RapidSausage.4620)
yeah dagger offhand is great for the ranged cripple, because chasing ppl down with GS is no fun. If your leap is off CD they will get away, if not you might fair better but gd players can dodge before stun follow-up, then you’re back to square one assuming your target is faster. The cripple on 4 is atrocious, the combination of you having to stop in place to throw it, the activation time and the slow projectile speed means any moving target will be out of range by the time it gets to them anyway.
Thanks guys you gave me alot to think about. I won’t give up and I’ll test out alot of different stuff in the mists for sure.
One thing I noticed is that greatsword damage is pretty bad, which is a shame cause I just love the animations for it. And why does the counterattack throw root you in place? Got to be the worst weapon ability in the game! A chain attack and Maul damage buff while getting rid of that stupid non-sensical root would be great.
yeah GS damage is pretty lackluster, but it is AOE and it provides some nice defense too, so it balances out