Guild Wars 2

Hello, everyone! I never thought I’d ever want to make a Ranger, but here I am.
I have a few questions since I don’t actually know much about Rangers:

1. I’d prefer a Pure Melee Ranger or at the very least a GS focused one. It would mostly be for WvW/EotM roaming. Any recommended builds?

2. What are common Ranger mistakes I should avoid in general? Aside from letting a Bear tank stuff for me, this would include bad traits to avoid, utilities, etc.

3. What pets are best overall? I’d really prefer to use Wolves(reasons in question #4) though.

4. I’m a Dark Souls fan and I thought making an Artorias-look-a-like would be fun and the Ranger seemed like a semi-decent candidate. He would have Sif as a pet companion and a GS(of which I still need to find a similar sword), but I don’t know much about the Medium armors. You think there’s anything that could look ANYTHING remotely close to this:

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/209/c/0/artorias_by_hypershadowx1-d7sm3aj.png

Doesn’t seem easy to me, but maybe the Ranger experts could help me out.
Thanks for any help!

You could play Sword/Axe(or dagger) and GS. I’m currently running Axe/Axe and GS mostly for soloing camps and small to mid size group stuff. The mh Axe I prefer for pet might stacking from Fortified Bond and to avoid some of the pbaoe Blind spam.

Malchior.5732:

I have a few questions since I don’t actually know much about Rangers:
2. What are common Ranger mistakes I should avoid in general? Aside from letting a Bear tank stuff for me, this would include bad traits to avoid, utilities, etc.

3. What pets are best overall? I’d really prefer to use Wolves(reasons in question #4) though.

2. Not using both weapon sets and using skills when it’s unecessary. The next part is kind of a follow up on this….

3. Canines have knockdowns and CC F2 skills. The biggest mistake rangers make is having their wolves on aggressive, which causes them to waste the knockdown. Have your pets on passive and when you get stunned/knocked/feared/etc press F1 and your pet will knockdown the enemy. Or press F1 when you want to chain/bait stun breakers. Something like GS Block→Kick→Hound F1 to knockdown→ F2 to immobilise → Swap to wolf → F1 to knockdown →F2 to fear → whatever you got left

Full Melee Ranger roamer here ^^ (JOIN US!)

You could try something like this for your build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAR8YnEqQLL2LIWsAXLGwSoa3ABQBwqZdHtPwFnxRf8KC-T1xHAB9o8T5nAgP7P4luB/U/BgLCATKBJFwXTtA-w

It is nothing too fancy, and some might consider 80% boon duration overkill, but seeing you will be in melee all the time, the additional stability duration is really quite helpfull, you can have up to 50 consecutive seconds of stability, along with (almost) permanent protection / regeneration / swiftness / vigor uptime.

(you can also switch the NR 12 trait in nature magic to the NR 13 trait, Survival of the fittest, and swap out ‘’Guard!’’ for Quickening Zephyr or Muddy Terrain, In case you don’t need the swiftness /regeneration, and rather have more burst / kite potential)

Your worst enemies are people that can either remove your boons or steal them, against everything else this is the best full melee build that I have used in wvw though.

It is a sustained damage build however, the only burst you have comes from signet of the wild (and Rampage as one combined with a drakes F2 ability for about 12 stacks of might for 8 seconds).

Rune of the water also has good scaling with troll urgent as heal skill, seeing as the 1st tick of troll urgent only applies after 1 second, and the rune of the water 6th bonus starts straight after your heal is done casting, meaning you heal for about 900-1000 before troll urgent starts kicking in.
(Rune alternatives are Earth, Ranger, Pack)

Mistakes you should avoid as ranger: if you ever pick up a longbow, remember that you can still weapon swap… too many rangers in wvw think that they should stay in longbow, even though someone is standing on top of them, hammering their faces in: it kills you… as a melee character you can definitely notice that those rangers are usually free lootbags…
Also, keep your pets on passive, and only tell them to attack (or set them on guard mode) if you know they are not going to run into a zerg or a lot of unnecessary damage, so many rangers not using their pets and just refusing to even try and care for them… so sad T_T (animal abuse!) and it rather limits your class to… well, something that does not do anything at all…

as far as pets go: consider using one wolf, and a drake for wvw (can also be a cat or bird however if you really like to).
Wolves are obviously one of the best CC pets, with the howl fear and the knockdown that they have, the drakehound also has immobilize on a rather short cooldown, and the fernhoud can apply some extra healing.
Drakes are really good because their F2 abilities in combination with Rampage as One allow for some decent might stacks to prepare the limited burst that you have. also, drakes have an auto attack that hits 3 enemies at once, and a blast finisher that occasionally hits up to 6k.
its better to use slightly tanky pets in wvw, because your pets are going to run into a lot of AoE, as well as taking conditions from you occasionally, so even though cats and birds have higher dps, they tend to die rather fast.. and a dead pet gives 0 dps..

as far as your looks go, check your wardrobe (at a bank or crafting station) and see if there are any armor sets that you like, no one can really help you with that : )

Hope that was helpfull!