Guild Wars 2

Hi all,

My friend convinced me to come back to GW2 after some time away and rather than return to my Guardian who I haven’t played in months, thought I’d give ranger a go. I’m primarily interested in PvE with some light WvW thrown in. I was really interested in the concept of a Ranger Tank (not really GC building at all) and have a love of bows.

So that said, I had seen some older builds and was going to use them as a template, but would really be interested in hearing some thoughts or any suggestions as to how to proceed after the new patch.

Thanks in advance!

I suggest you refresh your comeback with your Guardian. The Ranger will make you quit for good.

Venereus.9473:

I suggest you refresh your comeback with your Guardian. The Ranger will make you quit for good.

I don’t mind a challenge. I’ve always enjoyed doing good things with what is considered to be an underpowered class— the Nerf/Balance wheel is always spinning.

That said, I’m really hoping for a push in the right direction.

Venereus.9473:

I suggest you refresh your comeback with your Guardian. The Ranger will make you quit for good.

For PVE guardian is the way to go.
If you are after some Guardian help, throw me a whisper.

Also, if you love bows, you can also give warrior a go, they have longbow and are a far more wanted class in PVE dungeons.

If you wish to persist with ranger there’s not many options.

You can go trap/condi spec which is going to get trumped by a necro on the team or you can go full glass SB/LB which (even after nerf) is still the better option for dungeons imo.

This is still of course a hassle as you lack the real group utility that other classes have.

I’ve heard somebody call it ‘Anchor’, and I think that’s way more fitting than tank/support.

I think it’s important to make that distinction, because as a Guardian you’re used to accomplishing Anchoring through a more classically tank-like approach; getting up in something’s face and staying there with a combination of defensive buffs and healing effects. As a Ranger you’ll be Anchoring with Dodges and Evades, and you’ll divide the labor between yourself and your Pet who’ll use passive regen effects and Fkey repositioning to facetank.

So, less like being one big anchor that radiates security to the players around them, more like being two anchors who can disengage to rez pretty easily when only one is occupied.

As for build specifics, use your best judgement. While I can give you the gist of what I’ve puzzled out in my long tenure of messing around with ranger builds, as a community we haven’t done much to flesh out the concept. I can say your stat priorities are basically the same, and signet of the wild and greatsword seems to be keystones. But beyond that, I’m curious to see what you’ll come up with.

Sorry, jclink. Some people don’t know how to read…

If you’re looking for a tank spec, I believe it’s possible as there’s a ranger around here who uses his drake to tank champs and solo dungeons. Although I’ve never actually asked that poster exactly how he solos and if he’d consider it tanky.

My suggestion, as my experience with Ranger is low, you should just play it and try it out. See how you like it then ask for specific pointers on things like weapons, gear and traits. Asking “I want to play Ranger, so what should I do?” will get you the “pick another class” answer from the jaded vocal minority.

The only other advice I got is to use drakes. They seem to be pretty durable, IME. I guess bears are also an option.

Thanks everyone, I do appreciate the input. I’m going to give it a go and see what I can accomplish. Who knows, right?

0/0/30/20/20.

Take dual stun moas if you can, or a stun and prot moa, trait for grant aoe vigor when using a moa. Moas can heal for about 4k with 1 of their heals. But they have to be close if you want to get the heal so use GS and you can tank any mob with the evade. Use stone spirit and sun spirit and put them off to the side if you are doing a dungeon and you get burning for more dmg and prot quite often and get apothecary gear. That’s what I would do for tanky ranger/support. You could just go classic BM and use bows though and have your pet do a lot of damage while you shoot from a distance. Won’t be as good a build for dungeons though.

Just my two cents.

I haven’t had much issue with my ranger after the last patch . . . of course, I wasn’t using Quickness to do much.

Don’t listen to the people that tell you there would be no options. Exspecially non GC builds offer a nice variety for ranger. The most limiting apsects are our utility skills, not the weapons.

Even after the quickness nerf, I still enjoy my ranger. I would suggest building a mix between power, precision, crit damage, and toughness. I have a lot of precision and end up with around 66% crit chance right now with a full stack of sigil of perception and that crit chance will be higher when I get the rest of my armor pieces. I do decent damage since I’m criting constantly and can take quite a few hits with the toughness. Learn to circle strafe well and you’ll rarely get hit. If something gets too close, then drop a trap. I like to run with either a moa and sylvari hound or a bear and the hound. For weapons, I use shortbow as my main and longbow as my other weapon, but I’m going to start looking at other combinations to see how they are in comparison. I’ve been playing ranger since headstart on and off.

Hello, ranger is still viable and let all the haters hate. I play a very tanky ranger and I love it. My main is sb and I run sword/war horn off hand. Haven’t tried axe off hand yet but I hear good things about it. Dagger off hand has great synergy with the sword as well. I use PVT armor with thief runes atm sense with the pvt gear and knight trinkets/rings ect. U will easily have about 20k health. I use serker weps. Run ommnom pie for added health regen. It’s a very tanky/evasive build and it works well for me. I use in both pve, pvp and WvW. Hasent failed me yet. Iv easily fought 2 people at once and maintained half health. I run 20/20/20/0/0. Utilities are qz, lightning reflexes and ill switch between signit of hunt and protect me. It’s a fun build. And seeing people panic when they try too solo u out and u just kite the hell out of them is a great laugh moment.

Hate hate hate, call it whatever you want. Allow me to elaborate before you get your pitchforks.

I put alot of time into this class (along with others) and I am simply being honest. In a dungeon situation, you don’t have very many avenues to be effective, your utilities are subpar compared to any other class and now the damage is too.

Go ahead and make ranger, no-one’s stopping you, least of all me, I enjoy my ranger regardless of its effectiveness. It’s the funnest class imo. It is very satisfying to go into a dungeon with people saying ‘oh no not another ranger’ and coming out with them saying, ‘well geez that wasn’t so bad, maybe I’ll change my mind.’ due to being skillful with the class.

Just be prepared for the groups that will kick you before you even enter the instance simply due to your class and thier bad experience with pug rangers and know that even when you work hard as you can to contribute to your party, you won’t be as effective as you could be on another class.

This isn’t usually a big problem for easy dungeons, but when it comes to high lvl fractals and groups that are already poor, it’s important to have a class such as guardian that you can switch to when things go pear-shaped.

I have no experience in tanky ranger whatsoever since I’m usually Power/Crit with Rangers in every game.

I am pretty sure most use 20 and sometimes 30 points on he Beastmastery (For the Regeneration part, so that plus the Signet that regenerates health, makes your pet very durable and can use something like Brown Bear (For Condition Removal) and whatever else mentioned above like a Drake or something.

I found a really interesting 0/0/30/25/15 build last night I am going to work from and build off of. He’s using GS/AX2 but I am going to give it a go with GS/SB

It’s kind of between that and a SB based Bunker Build that’s 0 / 0 / 30 / 10 / 30
http://youtu.be/brwfBu9r5g0

I’ll stop back by this thread as I level and let you know my experiences. I really do appreciate all the good input.

For the record, if someone kicks me out of a group because I chose a class that isn’t ‘desired’ for whatever reason, it’s their loss, not mine, because I am extremely attentive and always ready to support a group. And hell if no one wants me, so be it. I’ll go drink bourbon and watch The Wire.

As a full exotic ranger with 6 Rune’s of Divinity I absolutely love my class. I use traps to support dungeon mates (slows/stuns/cripples) and I kite mobs as much as I can keeping the damage off everyone else. I’m technically a tank lol. I do ridiculous amounts of damage with AOE’s as well. My only complaint is the cooldown on my AOE heal.

Full clerics gear.. maybe a bit of soldiers…

0-20-0-0-30… put the last 20 where ever you see fit. Get the 20 point pet heal on crit, and the 30 point regen.

You and your pet will be very tanky.

I’m Pow,tough,vit→ 30/0/30/10/0
Greatsword and Longbow
But i’m thinking of trying pets again now they have agony resistance^^

jclink.6308:

For the record, if someone kicks me out of a group because I chose a class that isn’t ‘desired’ for whatever reason, it’s their loss, not mine, because I am extremely attentive and always ready to support a group. And hell if no one wants me, so be it. I’ll go drink bourbon and watch The Wire.

Make it tequila and play Command and Conquer 3 and you’re set. I dunno why, I’ve just gotten rather lucky lately with those combos o_0