Guild Wars 2

My main is a ranger and I’m wondering if my build and playstyle will be viable going forward with higher level fractals (30+). I currently run with a LB and SB. My build is 30/30/10/0/0, with steady focus, piercing arrows, eagle eye, agility training, quick draw, moment of clarity, and wilderness knowledge as my traits. My equipment is pure berserker’s. My pets depend on the situation, but are usually one of either the brown bear, red moa, cat, juvenile wolf, or a spider/scorpion. My playstyle tends to include staying at range and using my longbow while dodging attacks and using my pet to do damage, keep itself alive, and assist my group members as much as possible.

I’ve already read about how bear/bow ranger sucks: that they have horrible DPS and no survivability. I’ve heard all the comments about how rangers are only good/useful if they are using frost spirit, spotter, and a sword, and if that’s not how I play then I’ll never find a group or I’ll get kicked from any “good” groups.

From my experience though, I find that using my longbow I actually do have good DPS (I tend to average around 2000+ damage per hit on autoattack with LB). I feel like I have very good survivability as I’m almost never the first to go down and rarely require help from my groupmates to keep me in the fight. At the same time I feel like I help out by sending my pet to revive downed teammates, or running in and dropping healing spring on top of people with low health, etc. I use different pets for different bosses and situation. For example, if it’s a boss that requires stacking, I tend to use the moa for fury and I switch to SB. If its a boss that requires people to spread out Ill use longbow and spider for DPS. If its a boss that does massive AoE and tends to down a lot of players, I’ll use the bear just because he can take more hits.

I’m currently on fractal level 30 and feel like its been pretty easy so far. Is this a viable build and playstyle going forward, or will I have to cave in and go with a sword/spirit build to be able to continue grouping up for fractals? Am I really gimping my group that badly with my class, build, and playstyle? Should I bother investing in ascended gear for my ranger in order to be able to do higher level fractals, or just accept that I need to switch classes for fractals (I have other 80s i could easily gear for fractals: guardian, warrior, thief, and engineer).

I play casual fractals, pugged up to 40, never kicked a class for the sake of the class. If you see you do your part in the group, then that’s enough for pugging. From what I’ve seen, the biggest hindrance is players that don’t know what to do and/or keep dying. So I’d say play as you like.

That said, even though I never had problems leveling fotm 30+ on my necro, I did switch to mainly using guardian for fractals… it never hurts to have another character geared up and ready to go, so you can switch when you already have another ranger, need a thief for stealth or a guardian for support, or just feel like playing another class.

On a side note, I’m not very experienced on my ranger, but I like might from jungle stalkers and regen from fern hounds. Also when stacking, horn skill 5 and drake’s tailswipe are blast finishers to aoe heal in your healing spring’s water field and stack might if there’s any fire fields about, which is also something to consider in certain situations.

My only suggestion would be to not use the bear if you want a tank use a drake or something. TBH your play style seems perfectly viable as LB+SB works very well because one excels at long range and other excels at closer ranges. Most rangers don’t switch up their pets according to situations especially the different F2s. Try to get your jungle stalker/red moa to help give might/fury to your teammates as well and your chipping in perfectly fine. Maybe bring a couple spirits out for some bosses?? You sound like you have a decent grasp of the class and especially after the LB update it is WAYYY more viable to use now so you should be fine unless some elitists still feel ranger is totally underpowered.

here is a link to my build…for fractals/dungeons (my AR is 85) http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjYDbkoqqurypi1OQsesn+sfmCDxIniSdqK+YH-jwBBEBwUBDRLzsIasFXFRjVXDT5iIq2erIa1SBonuK-e

I may/will switch out the LB for a SB depending on the gap/distance I will be from the boss, but over all I rather use the LB due to the fact I would have to make some changes to my traits for the SB.

viabel sure,but good goups dont want ranger like that and same for.
your dmg is not so good like other classes, you give us 0 support and get 0 support so tell me why should i take you into my group?

Bambula.3649:

viabel sure,but good goups dont want ranger like that and same for.
your dmg is not so good like other classes, you give us 0 support and get 0 support so tell me why should i take you into my group?

Ummm, because I require very little support and I DO actually provide support in the way of healing, fury, condition removal, and revives?

i got the same+frost spirit,spotter and more dmg, so why should i take you?
and from where you got perma furry for the group with sb/lb and 30/30/10 for group? Oo

Maileen.1065:

here is a link to my build…for fractals/dungeons (my AR is 85) http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjYDbkoqqurypi1OQsesn+sfmCDxIniSdqK+YH-jwBBEBwUBDRLzsIasFXFRjVXDT5iIq2erIa1SBonuK-e

I may/will switch out the LB for a SB depending on the gap/distance I will be from the boss, but over all I rather use the LB due to the fact I would have to make some changes to my traits for the SB.

I’m going to invest in getting a sword and warhorn for close range boss fights. I’m still not a big fan of spirits though, and probably wont mess with my traits too much. I can still switch out to using spotter over eagle eye or piercing arrows at any time. Thanks for the input.

“No bearbow please”
Logged into game. Saw this. Laughed.

A lot of people aren’t gonna care if you’re even good or not. Rangers are frowned upon in fotms. Better get some friends to fotm with you, coz some pugs out there aren’t ranger-friendly.

I main a Ranger and so far have not had any real problems in fracs. If what you run starts to fail or you feel useless, you can always try this. I use PvT gear with dolyak runes. Zerk weapons(greatsword and axe/warhorn) Personally, I run celestial trinkets for extra everything. my traits are

10 II
15 V
30 V VII XII
0
15 VI

My pets are Black Moa and Lynx. I am often the last person to die if things go bad, and I sometimes have to solo the last half of bosses, at least with a bad group.(I swap greatsword for shortbow for bosses.) Plenty of damage and survivability. I only use my moa for helping other teammates if tey are in trouble. I do a lot of retargeting and switching pets. As long as you use your pets right, you’ll be fine. Leave it on guard and use its attack at right times. Healing spring and warhorn 5 for a quick blast heal when others in trouble.

It’s both fun and satisfying when you are the last one standing or the one saving your teammates.

That all probably sounds all over the place, but this build is amazing when played right and pets are used correctly.

1. Don’t try out sword in fractals because the mechanics are clunky; do it somewhere else where dying won’t matter.
2. Don’t use SB ever.
3. Don’t use LB unless absolutely necessary because LB = low dps.
4. Spotter and frost spirit are a welcome damage spike to your WHOLE team, so it doesn’t matter if you want to take them or not.
5. DPS always matters in fractals so I would take only moa/feline and trait similar to this:
20/30 – I VII / VIII or X or XI
25 – I V
0
15/25 – IV / VII
0

Liyu.8591:

1. Don’t try out sword in fractals because the mechanics are clunky; do it somewhere else where dying won’t matter.

Wtf !?
I’ve done 79 and now 49 no problem..so you should practice more

Bambula.3649:

Liyu.8591:

1. Don’t try out sword in fractals because the mechanics are clunky; do it somewhere else where dying won’t matter.

Wtf !?
I’ve done 79 and now 49 no problem..so you should practice more

I’m pretty sure he was referring to the OP about investing in a sword/warhorn. Investing in a set is good, something I myself still haven’t done but the sword needs practice if you haven’t used it much before (which shouldn’t be practiced with in FotM).

Azuriel.9137:

I main a Ranger and so far have not had any real problems in fracs. If what you run starts to fail or you feel useless, you can always try this. I use PvT gear with dolyak runes. Zerk weapons(greatsword and axe/warhorn) Personally, I run celestial trinkets for extra everything. my traits are

10 II
15 V
30 V VII XII
0
15 VI

My pets are Black Moa and Lynx. I am often the last person to die if things go bad, and I sometimes have to solo the last half of bosses, at least with a bad group.(I swap greatsword for shortbow for bosses.) Plenty of damage and survivability. I only use my moa for helping other teammates if tey are in trouble. I do a lot of retargeting and switching pets. As long as you use your pets right, you’ll be fine. Leave it on guard and use its attack at right times. Healing spring and warhorn 5 for a quick blast heal when others in trouble.

It’s both fun and satisfying when you are the last one standing or the one saving your teammates.

That all probably sounds all over the place, but this build is amazing when played right and pets are used correctly.

…..this is just awful. I hope you are joking with this so called setup. This is why I wish we had dps charts.

There is plenty of damage going on between direct and condi. And like I said, I finish the fights when teammates can’t stay alive. I’ll take this over max DPS and getting rolled over in two seconds. People are useless if they are dead all the time.

Wrong logic, Azuriel.
This is GW2.

Trust me i was one of those who resisted the so-called zerk of going all out damage. Although giving in to the movement and running with like minded players just makes your game better. Sorry to burst your bubble but you’re not a special cookie to finish a 50% boss on your own while sitting on ranged, you probably were the cause of everybody else dying in the first place.

I know, it’s a hell of a thing…

Never said I was a special cookie, and I’m rarely very far from melee range. And please, I can’t explain how annoying it is when a zerk just keeps dying and then just doesn’t contribute anything. Constantly picking them up and trying to protect them. I’ve seen a few zerks who were good with it, but it’s a rare sight.

If what I do starts to become a hindrance, I’ll change my setup, obviously, but until then, as long as I am finishing and keeping people alive, I’ll stick with this and be a ranger that ISN’T useless

Azuriel.9137:

Never said I was a special cookie, and I’m rarely very far from melee range. And please, I can’t explain how annoying it is when a zerk just keeps dying and then just doesn’t contribute anything. Constantly picking them up and trying to protect them. I’ve seen a few zerks who were good with it, but it’s a rare sight.

If what I do starts to become a hindrance, I’ll change my setup, obviously, but until then, as long as I am finishing and keeping people alive, I’ll stick with this and be a ranger that ISN’T useless

No, it’s pretty useless because it’s not traited for spirits and spotter, the only 2 things that make a ranger worth bringing to a group. Those zerkers could probably be dead for half the fight and still contribute more overall damage than you.

Zerk build requires more experience, the result is a better reward, higher damage and stuff taking less time.
If this is not your cup of tea you can make a more balanced build, but always aim to have good damage output as your main goal.
Sword massively outperforms any other weapon DPS wise, but sometimes you need to pull out the bow and range.

This game failed at making a not Trinity system, everyone is just a dpser now healing is pointless, dodges, aegis and reflection walls are completely overpowered in pve.
For this game to have a good ranged class we are going to need better AI and more difficult bosses.