Guild Wars 2

Good day, the thread will emphasize on ranger capabilities in current GW2 state, its weaknesses and strengths. I hope devs read this and this thread will help them a little bit.

My ranger experience is quite high, I have played both tPvP as a pug and with my team – Team Sleep- . I have tested quite a lot of builds, weapons, traits etc etc. In total I have played 310 tournament games of which high percentage was with ranger.

Utilities

I love the mechanics behind ranger utilities: traps, spirits and pet commands seem all great, however, there’s a huge flaw behind them all. In order to have any efficient utility you must spec for it. Meaning if you go for a trap trait, you barely can go for a signet and vice versa.
- Spirits: must have 30 points in Nature Magic. They’re completely useless and actually even worse without traiting. Even if you do spec for the spirits, they die in combat way too fast due to many AoE abilities. At the moment spirits are nowhere close to be viable for tPvP. Suggestion: increase spirit HP and make them follow without traiting. I know it’s a big one, but spirits will never see the light of the day if you’re forced to spec so hard into them.
- Traps: must have at least 20 points Skirmishing, however, 30 points work too efficiently to have just 20. Traps are currently the best utility of ranger, however, again speccing deep into skirmishing hurts a little bit (even though crit chance is OK), but mostly it hurts the versatility of the specs. It pigeon-holes. Suggestion: make traps usable from range by default.
- Signets: must have 30 points in Marksmanship. Not much to say here. Apart from Signet of Renewal, separately none of the signets are anywhere close to be worth using without traiting. Just compare to Signet of Domination or such. Yes, some rangers spec full signet with 30 in Marksman, then they have huge cooldowns which win 1v1 fights. However, such build has 90 sec cds for each utility, no group support and no cc. Anyway, suggestion: lower the cooldowns of signets by default and replace the CD reduction trait with a trait that, for example, adds an effect on use (might one is a joke, right? 1 stack of might every 120 sec?).
- Shouts: I guess most of the rangers use Protect Me, which is pretty horrible. I used it myself for quite a lot of time, but the flaws: very situational, depends on pets location and HP, no stun breaker and, well, it kills your pet. Killing the pet is the worst though, most people don’t realize how important pets’ F2 and their switching are. For basically any situation Signet of Renewal or Lightning Reflexes will serve you better due to stun breaker. (Why is Guard a utility, by the way?)
Suggestion: Sick’ Em is pretty horrible as well, movement speed doesn’t do anything to pets anyway, since auto-attack locks them in place. This ability needs more damage and possibly a stun-breaker. After all, rangers have only 2 stun-breakers, whereas ele has 4, warr – 4, guard – 3, engi – 4, necro – 3, thief – 4, mesmer – 4. So what’s up with that?!
- Survival: Quickening Zephyr and Lightning Reflexes is the best we got at the moment. Most ranger builds are based on the quickness, they’re not to be said the best builds, but apparently they’re the easiest to use with most efficiency. Survival utilities are good, however, I strongly dislike Sharpening Stone. It promotes brainless gameplay, also it’s another bleed which ranger already has a ton, give us burning, confusion, poison, whatever fits our ’’image’’.
- Heal: one of the best things about ranger. Troll Unguent is amazing and thank God for that, it’s what makes rangers very strong in 1v1s. Poison is not that effective on it, while dodging you can heal up quite rapidly. I’d love to see some troll builds with healing power like Clerics amulet. Should work like a bliss. I hope this stays as it is. Heal as One is meh, the only use I see for this spell if your HP is below 18k. Otherwise, don’t use it. Healing Spring is interesting, you might wanna use this if you’re supportish and not using sword, also you can use this if you have an elementalist on your team – combo field!
– Elites: the best part of the ranger. Elites are incredibly strong and there’s nothing much to add here. Rampage As One is nr 1 EU, it wins you 1v1 fights, it lets you stomp, it lets you stay on the point, just a wonder spell. Use it.
Entangle is great too for condition heavy builds, it offers very high teamfight utility, high damage, burst potential.
Spirit of Nature goes back to our spirit problems, even though the cd is incredibly high, it can turn fights around.

Weapons

- Sword: might be hard to believe, but sword is actually the best weapon for ranger in any sort of PvP build. You want to survive and win 1v1s? Use sword. It gives you movement, evades, damage and poison. It’s all there. Weapon switching and constant dodging is the key to any strong ranger player. However, the auto-attack is incredibly annoying, the lock-in-action sometimes ruins your day.
- Shortbow: 2nd best weapon of ranger. Probably every self-respecting ranger is going to use shortbow, since it gives everything you’d need on a ranged weapon. All is fine here.
- Warhorn: warhorn is the most popular offhand for rangers. It might actually be too strong, being the reason why no uses anything else. Warhorn is superb for roaming and group support, it gives significant damage boost as well. Might need a little nerf to bring in line other off-hands, but it’s OK.
- Torch: torch is amazing and very underrated. It gives incredible amount of damage, strong presence at nodes and a combo field. Throw Torch has high range, try to initiate with it, watch out for dodges tho! If you are condition based build use torch. It’s one of the few sources of burning. Also in a very good shape, no tuning needed.
- Dagger: it’s not good, movement, damage is too low and the cooldowns are too high. Warhorn and torch are what you want to use. Dagger gives another poison which sword already has, there’s no point in stacking poison, if only the spin was like sword’s 3, maybe then this could be good. The cripple needs to be replaced, it’s just horrible. Thing is after you evade you’re so vulnerable since you have no cds, no ranged dps, no charge or anything, 10 seconds on weapon switch are a lot, that’s why I want to have a bit of versatility on my off-hand.
- Main-hand axe: overrated. I want to love this weapon, but it’s so underpowered. Auto-attack is bad for any 1v1, 2v2 situations which is what you’re gonna have as a ranger in tPvP. The bleed ability is weak for one reason, you need to be up-close. Sure the mechanic is right, but as a ranger you want to know your position. Chill is OK, I guess. Axes really need a good look. Traits suggest axes should be built on crit damage, however it doesn’t seem to work. As a condition based ranger there are better options.
- Off-hand axe: awesome. I was trying to make something around it and I am sure someone will. First ability is a bit underpowered, needs more damage somewhat like Engineer’s Throw Wrench. 2nd ability is amazing – a build around, works amazing with combo fields, kills anything that’s not paying attention. Sure, lock-in-place is annoying, but otherwise it would be way too strong. However, usable mainly for power builds, the vulnerability stacks + 1st ability are asking for it.
- Longbow: not viable and I don’t think it will ever be.
- Greatsword: in my humble opinion, the worst weapon in the game. Easily. Only the the leap is done right, everything else needs to be changed, abilities themselves, otherwise this weapon will not work. Why? It’s very slow, no quick burst potential. Tanky greatsword doesn’t work because it doesn’t give any utility, cc, nor group support. Warrior’s greatsword is a great example of how mobile a two-hander should be. 1 leap is not enough with all the massive kiting, dodging abilities in game. You must take into account that apart from the swiftness spirit (which only works in combat), ranger has no mobility from utilities as far as melee ranger goes. The counter attack locks you in place, well, again mobility issues. Maybe if only the damage was right, but it’s not. All in all, needs a rework, unfortunately.

Roles

- Node defender: great close point defender. Trapper. Trap the entrance to your point, when an enemy comes close he’ll already have to be used his heal due to high damage of traited traps. After trap the point itself so it would force your enemy off it, unless he wants to take a million of damage that is, of course!
Signet builds are good too. You’re basically immortal 1v1, so they’d need to send at least 2 people to your point which is already a small victory in a way.
Pets can do a lot of work here too, wolf can fear off the point and thus protect it, dog, spiders can immobilize outside of point. There are a lot of tricks with pets actually. Devourers have a knocbkack, unfortunately their other abilities are underpowered or at least PvE oriented .
Weaknesses – no knocbacks, usually low toughness built (thus really dependent on dodges), cooldown dependant.
Strengths – insane zoning (trap case), very high damage, very tough to be killed in 1v1 (signets).

- Roamer: warhorn. All there is to say really. Take any spec and add warhorn and you’re fine. As a roamer, of course, you’d want to build power specs, since you want to nuke fast, kill trebs, have quickness for res or stomps.
Ranger have potential to be great roamers, they have a lot of swiftness sources (pets, skirmishing traits, warhorn, spirit), they’d be a lot better if greatsword got changed. Shortbow roaming is great too, since you might be chasing people and killing from behind with shortbow is super effective!
For the future, I see spirit roamer performing the best, but yeah, spirits need a lot of help, but we already have a lot of tools to work with.
Weaknesses – quickness dependent burst, little group utility.
Strengths – high damage, very high mobility.

1v1

- vs Warriors: you need to dodge Bull’s Charge and Eviscerates. In tPvP always bring a stun breaker or you’ll die in a few seconds. Another choice can be to pop Rampage as One at the beginning of the fight. A bit cheesy, but it’s fine – we’re rangers. Traps work the best here since you don’t even need to auto-attack him, lay the traps down and dodge on them. Without traps you need Lighting Reflexes and / or immobilizing pet. Both condition and power builds are OK.
- vs Mesmers: good mesmers, unfortunately, you can’t beat. Shatter builds being the exception, but it requires quite a lot of practice. Whenever mesmer immobilizes you, he’s probably setting up on you, watch out for the illusions or whatever, and you use your evade at the precise moment mesmer presses Shatter. It’s tough but doable. Everything else is very hard, even with signet cooldowns, a good mesmer will find a way to kite you, avoid your bursts and wait out for your cds. That he can do very well due to stealth and mirror mechanics. Condition based builds preferred.
- vs Engineers: get away from the bombs! Engineers have close to none condition removal, it’s not that hard if you are condition specced. If you are power based, dodge blinds or you will not succeed. Also very important to use shortbow poison if engineer has Elixir S when he’s downed. Generally, keep distance, engineers don’t have many huge radius abilities. Condition based builds preferred.
- vs Elementalists: you are the bane of elementalists! You can equip just sword without offhand and still win. Dodging elementalists’ burst is the key, which sword does best. Both condition and power builds are OK.
- vs Guardians: retaliation and constant condition removal, they’re one of your worst enemies, unfortunately. Can’t advice much here, don’t use quickness on low HP or you’ll kill yourself. Stay at max range all the time, so you don’t get knockbacked. Rampage as One is almost mandatory here. Both condition and power builds do similar.
- vs Thieves: they made me realize Protect Me is very very average. In most case a simple stun-breaker does a lot more than the damage absorption. Traps work best here, although signets can take the burst too, but if the thief is smart it will not be that easy. Lay the traps down and start dodging like crazy, when the thief uses up his initiative use your main damage source weapon (shortbow or whatever) and kill him. Do not fight thieves in shortbow for the entire fight or you’ll die. Condition based builds preferred.
- vs Necromancers: without condition removal could be tough, but generally they’re the easiest to kill, they can’t avoid your quickness that well. Just apply pressure first, don’t let them take over the fight, and you’ll win. Necromancers on pressure are really in tough position, so advice would be to play aggressively and your cooldowns accordingly. Power builds preferred.
- vs Rangers: dodge quickness. Watch out for signet cooldowns, don’t waste your quickness on 6 sec immunity. Both condition and power builds are OK.

Ask any questions and feel free to politely discuss.

Just out of curiosity, what utility skills do you run with? I noticed you called the protect me shout horrible, while I find this one of the best skills we have.
If you run a signet build with signet of stone and protect me alongside a brown bear there to take the damage, you’re looking at 10-12 seconds of complete immunity to direct damage.

I’m running Flame Trap, Spike Trap, Lightning Reflexes and Rampage as One.
I explained why I think Protect me is bad. And you need cc on pets, since you lack on yourself.

“- Greatsword: in my humble opinion, the worst weapon in the game. Easily. Only the the leap is done right, everything else needs to be changed, abilities themselves, otherwise this weapon will not work. Why? It’s very slow, no quick burst potential”

I’m not totally agree with that. The GS is the only one giving us a quick burst without quickening zephyr, Swoop+Maul do a good amount of damage compared to others weapons, Counter attack/Crippling throw too. Of course, it’s still lower than others classes. But i agree skills need to be change (bleed on Maul is useless, vulnerabitily or snare could be better for example)

vangedas.7358:

Weapons
- Main-hand axe: overrated. I want to love this weapon, but it’s so underpowered. Auto-attack is bad for any 1v1, 2v2 situations which is what you’re gonna have as a ranger in tPvP. The bleed ability is weak for one reason, you need to be up-close. Sure the mechanic is right, but as a ranger you want to know your position. Chill is OK, I guess. Axes really need a good look. Traits suggest axes should be built on crit damage, however it doesn’t seem to work. As a condition based ranger there are better options.
- Off-hand axe: awesome. I was trying to make something around it and I am sure someone will. First ability is a bit underpowered, needs more damage somewhat like Engineer’s Throw Wrench. 2nd ability is amazing – a build around, works amazing with combo fields, kills anything that’s not paying attention. Sure, lock-in-place is annoying, but otherwise it would be way too strong. However, usable mainly for power builds, the vulnerability stacks + 1st ability are asking for it.

I messed aorund on a
10,15,5,10, 30 – Using a cleric amulet with a vitality gem in it and sword/offhand axe.

Essentially a stand in healing spring and fight build. If you stay in the spring zone at every 3.5 second tick you end up with a 12 second regeneration and only 3 seconds of no healing to your next spring. Other than a 33% increase on regen it was pure pet boost build.

Armor runes was the chance to proc retaliation every 30 seconds.

Standing in a healing spring you drop between whomever is getting shot by a ranger, engineer, thief warrior and throwing down axe 5 = sweetness. Lots of toughness/armor 2600ish atk Extra endurance on weapon swap. I was using cats pretty sure it will actually work better with canines traited to make melee range control much better.

Been working on finding something I like on it for awhile. Foresaking crit and vitality and embracing my pet as damage (they are welcome to stand back and shoot I can reflect after all), I may finally be getting close.

Of course against some classes axe 5 does nothing to their ranged making it situational.

I couldn’t agree more there is something to be built around offhand axe5 or should be. Untalented flame traps work as great get off me tools thanks to full condition rangers. Hard part is overcoming the stationary penalty. ergo the spring max heal power testing.

Agree with a lot of what was said here; it’s really good information.

• I’ll agree that Greatsword is awful, but it has the potential to be good. I don’t think it needs a complete rework at all. Swoop is awesome, the auto-evade on the 1 chain is awesome, and the stun on 5 is great. The 4 ability is a little wonky, but not so bad when you get used to it. Only 2 really feels lackluster to me. The biggest problem with the weapon by FAR is that they overnerfed the damage on it during beta. Its damage is far worse than other options, including ranged ones, which just doesn’t make any sense.

• Disagree with you about Protect Me. Stun Breakers don’t affect immobilize, which is one of the most common ways we get set up for burst against thieves. Rangers’ condition removal is so sparse and unreliable, you can’t really count on it to keep you out of harm’s way when you’re immobilized, and Protect Me is the next best choice. Since it’s almost always being used to defend against melee burst while immobilized, your pet tends to be in range anyway, which makes it plenty reliable in my experience. You can also swap pets in mid-Protect Me to keep them from dying. I strongly prefer it to Lightning Reflexes.

• One thing you didn’t mention which I think should be is that Signet of Renewal is both great and incredibly unreliable. It’s very useful against Pistol Engis and Necros, as well as any other condi-based build. Unfortunately, its active ability doesn’t work if your pet is out of range, and a lot of times, it seems like it just doesn’t work at all, even if the pet is in range and alive. If any devs are reading this, I strongly suggest removing the range requirement for this ability, and making it work reliably. It’s one of the Ranger’s only condition removal options, and right now it’s just completely unreliable.

mouse.1689:

• One thing you didn’t mention which I think should be is that Signet of Renewal is both great and incredibly unreliable. It’s very useful against Pistol Engis and Necros, as well as any other condi-based build. Unfortunately, its active ability doesn’t work if your pet is out of range, and a lot of times, it seems like it just doesn’t work at all, even if the pet is in range and alive. If any devs are reading this, I strongly suggest removing the range requirement for this ability, and making it work reliably. It’s one of the Ranger’s only condition removal options, and right now it’s just completely unreliable.

I’ld add range of the transfer of mutliple traits sharing buffs, protection etc….

Tested a remote control pet build with spirits and realized buff transfer had a small range as well radius way too short. Range you can order your pet to attack from also to short.

Pretty much anything that shares a benefit to the pet based on what you do has a range that is limiting to it.

Range of transfer between ranger and pet or pet to/from ranger should be on the order of 1500 IMHO.

Arrys.7145:

Range of transfer between ranger and pet or pet to/from ranger should be on the order of 1500 IMHO.

Not really sure why it requires a range at all, honestly. If your pet is alive (which isn’t always a given) you should be able to share whatever bonuses or abilities you have available. Does anyone think this would be abusable or overpowered in any way? It just seems like a basic quality of life issue.

mouse.1689:

Disagree with you about Protect Me. Stun Breakers don’t affect immobilize, which is one of the most common ways we get set up for burst against thieves. Rangers’ condition removal is so sparse and unreliable, you can’t really count on it to keep you out of harm’s way when you’re immobilized, and Protect Me is the next best choice. Since it’s almost always being used to defend against melee burst while immobilized, your pet tends to be in range anyway, which makes it plenty reliable in my experience. You can also swap pets in mid-Protect Me to keep them from dying. I strongly prefer it to Lightning Reflexes.

OK, the thing is while you immobilized you still can evade and thus escape damage. Protect Me while it does directly stop the damage, a ranger should learn to avoid damage through spells and dodge. Yeah, sure, you can switch pets during Protect Me, but that wastes one of the most important cooldown of yours. You lose 2 sec of quickness, as well as F2 if you haven’t used it by that time. Also the switch could be on cooldown. Anyway, a dead pet is very bad for a ranger, since your chance of survival drops by a load.
Lightning Reflexes also gives you vigor which is also extremely important. Ranger has a lot of non-direct damage sources, thus you have to maximize that.
Most classes depend on cc to have their burst, so breaking the stun usually means avoiding the damage. That’s at least something I’ve learned. Maybe I am wrong.

Protect Me + traited pet swapping CD + traited shout CD + traited endurance/vigor + sword/dagger/SB = godmode. well, relatively. with 15 in beastmastery, my pets are somewhat dispensable in addition to significantly tougher. it is true that pets depend on cc to land damage somewhat, but they can land hits on a non-dodging non-swiftness’d target no problem. i’ll be posting my build and footage shortly.

the areas that require significant work are GS and spirits. i think rangers are just fine for tpvp otherwise.

and i agree, the sword is great. dare i say.. amazing.

mouse.1689:

Arrys.7145:

Range of transfer between ranger and pet or pet to/from ranger should be on the order of 1500 IMHO.

Not really sure why it requires a range at all, honestly. If your pet is alive (which isn’t always a given) you should be able to share whatever bonuses or abilities you have available. Does anyone think this would be abusable or overpowered in any way? It just seems like a basic quality of life issue.

Complete seperation from risk of the player is bad game design is the reason. So it must be within the distance a MOB will aggro or in a PvP environment mean the ranger is close enough to danger to be dropped removing the pet and vice versa. unlimited would be bad design.