Guild Wars 2

Heya, I wanted to make a ranger because I just love archer type classes. I have played the game since release but never played ranger before (don’t know why lol). I was just asking if you would be able to leave any tips down below about the class eg, what weapons are best for pve and maybe what the best pets are.
I know some of you may think “oh there is no best at anything it’s how you play” but these questions are mainly for getting form like 1-40 then I should of learnt the class a bit more by then and would be able to make my own choices.

Thanks in advance, Jack :P

Acension.9270:

Heya, I wanted to make a ranger because I just love archer type classes. I have played the game since release but never played ranger before (don’t know why lol). I was just asking if you would be able to leave any tips down below about the class eg, what weapons are best for pve and maybe what the best pets are.
I know some of you may think “oh there is no best at anything it’s how you play” but these questions are mainly for getting form like 1-40 then I should of learnt the class a bit more by then and would be able to make my own choices.

Thanks in advance, Jack :P

for easy leveling you want sword + dagger and longbow, but have a shortbow in your inventory ready for use.
Reason for this is, you should use the longbow as much as possible to lay down fire onto large groups, tag as much as possible and let the pet grind the enemy down. A good tip is to get ahold of a Moa or Drake pet early on. The Moa is a tanky-support pet, and offers a great healing ability, along with long lasting fury and chill. Drakes are tanky-offense, they suck up loads of damage, and dish it back out. Both these pets are melee, the only “smart” ranged alternative, early on, is devourers. You can find devourers around the charr homeland. Drakes can be found in Lions Arch, same with moas.

As for underwater, you want devourers and sharks. They simply tear apart anything.

As for gear, knights works really well up till around level 60, past that, you will need more tanky stuff, like PVT/Clerics.

EDIT: if you need even more help, you can always join my guild. I made a guild with the purpose of promoting and improving rangers. It’s still small, only around 30 people in there, but, we have a few good rangers, some are dungeon nuts, others like myself, is WvW’ing all day long. We even got a s/tPVP player in our guild

Prysin.8542:

Acension.9270:

Heya, I wanted to make a ranger because I just love archer type classes. I have played the game since release but never played ranger before (don’t know why lol). I was just asking if you would be able to leave any tips down below about the class eg, what weapons are best for pve and maybe what the best pets are.
I know some of you may think “oh there is no best at anything it’s how you play” but these questions are mainly for getting form like 1-40 then I should of learnt the class a bit more by then and would be able to make my own choices.

Thanks in advance, Jack :P

for easy leveling you want sword + dagger and longbow, but have a shortbow in your inventory ready for use.
Reason for this is, you should use the longbow as much as possible to lay down fire onto large groups, tag as much as possible and let the pet grind the enemy down. A good tip is to get ahold of a Moa or Drake pet early on. The Moa is a tanky-support pet, and offers a great healing ability, along with long lasting fury and chill. Drakes are tanky-offense, they suck up loads of damage, and dish it back out. Both these pets are melee, the only “smart” ranged alternative, early on, is devourers. You can find devourers around the charr homeland. Drakes can be found in Lions Arch, same with moas.

As for underwater, you want devourers and sharks. They simply tear apart anything.

As for gear, knights works really well up till around level 60, past that, you will need more tanky stuff, like PVT/Clerics.

EDIT: if you need even more help, you can always join my guild. I made a guild with the purpose of promoting and improving rangers. It’s still small, only around 30 people in there, but, we have a few good rangers, some are dungeon nuts, others like myself, is WvW’ing all day long. We even got a s/tPVP player in our guild

Are you US or EU? because i wouldn’t mind joining that guild actually :P

im in EU, but we got quite a few US players too, dunno if you know who Chopps is, but he’s in the guild. He moved to Desolation (EU), so if you dont mind moving, you can still play with US time players over here :P

I started out leveling by using shortbow and longbow exclusively and didn’t mind it one bit. Then I found out all the goodness of the greatsword and axe/horn and changed my style of play. Find some skills that suit your play - Quickening Zephyr skill is really fun on bows, especially leveling in PvE. You can pretty much get away with any gear you want to use early on, but I liked full zerk for that pew pew factor. (Of course, getting into higher level content and WvW changes that mentality.) For pets, I’ll echo what was said above - drakes and moas are great, and I also really like wolves for their knockdown attack.

Prysin.8542:

im in EU, but we got quite a few US players too, dunno if you know who Chopps is, but he’s in the guild. He moved to Desolation (EU), so if you dont mind moving, you can still play with US time players over here :P

I’m in eu as well, and yeah id love to join that guild, i could really do with the help, if you want to add me my ign is Xemphire

Acension.9270:

Heya, I wanted to make a ranger because I just love archer type classes.

If you want to play a ranger only because you want to play an archer type class, I’d suggest just making a warrior and using a longbow (or rifle). Or if you want more of a finesse archer instead of a tanky archer, make a thief and use a shortbow.

Play the ranger if you want to play a pet class (who also happens to use bows). The players who picked the ranger class because they wanted to play an archer, and who like to pretend their pet doesn’t exist are usually the ones most unhappy with the class.

If you can accept that the pet will be an important part of your gameplay as a ranger, then welcome!

Best weapons are subjective, but they do have characteristics

Sword = best DPS, AOE, power builds
Greatsword = mediocre DPS, AOE, defensive skills, highest damage skill (Maul)
Axe = low DPS against single targets, good DPS against 2+, AOE, condition builds
Longbow = good DPS, power builds
Shortbow = good DPS, condition builds
Horn = party buffs, pet and on-crit buffs
Torch = good DPS, condition builds, one skill is AOE
Dagger = kitten child, good if you want an extra evade
Harpoon = ranged underwater, mediocre DPS
Spear = underwater melee, great DPS

The pets likewise have distinctive characteristics:

Melee pets, DPS characterized against stationary (PvE) tarets:
Cats = best DPS, tissue paper
Birds = good DPS, tissue paper, bursty damage
Drake = mediocre DPS, good tank, AOE attacks
Dogs = medicore DPS, mediocre tank, knockdown
Moas = mediocre DPS, mediocre tank, buff-bots
Pigs = low DPS, good tank, AOE knockdown
Bear = lowest DPS, best tank

These two are ranged and can easily hit moving targets which really hurt the DPS of the melee pets.
Devourers = mediocre DPS, best ranged tank, highest toughness pet
Spiders = low DPS, mediocre tank, but very useful skills

Underwater:
Shark = best damage, good tank
Jellyfish = mediocre damage, mediocre tank, useful skills
Armored fish = low damage, best tank, but kinda useless

Acension.9270:

Heya, I wanted to make a ranger because I just love archer type classes. I have played the game since release but never played ranger before (don’t know why lol). I was just asking if you would be able to leave any tips down below about the class eg, what weapons are best for pve and maybe what the best pets are.
I know some of you may think “oh there is no best at anything it’s how you play” but these questions are mainly for getting form like 1-40 then I should of learnt the class a bit more by then and would be able to make my own choices.

Thanks in advance, Jack :P

PvE: Longbow. Not really sure about other weapons. I think greatsword is nice too for PvE.
PvE pets: canines, spiders. With 15 or more points in beastmastery: birds. Remember to switch them in time before they die, really important!

Take the time to try all the weapons out. It’s better to learn them in PvE than in dungeons or WvW. I think the simplest way to start is longbow and greatsword. Shortbow is straightforward too, so is axe/horn. Try the main hand sword later as it is potentially the least responsive weapon of any class in the game.

Solandri.9640:

If you want to play a ranger only because you want to play an archer type class, I’d suggest just

^quitting the game or changing your desired playstyle.

There is no archer class in GW2. They’re so incredibly bad they’re not even worth considering. Anything with a bow is strictly not viable, unless you’re 1v1’ing champions in PvE, which is super easy and gets really boring after like the first ten.

I main archers in every game I’ve ever played, including D&D (I play a scout there as to avoid the pet because the kit is not designed so much for ranged combat). I’m deeply disappointed in GW2’s lack of consideration for ranged classes/builds.

DeceiverX.8361:

Solandri.9640:

If you want to play a ranger only because you want to play an archer type class, I’d suggest just

^quitting the game or changing your desired playstyle.

There is no archer class in GW2. They’re so incredibly bad they’re not even worth considering. Anything with a bow is strictly not viable, unless you’re 1v1’ing champions in PvE, which is super easy and gets really boring after like the first ten.

I main archers in every game I’ve ever played, including D&D (I play a scout there as to avoid the pet because the kit is not designed so much for ranged combat). I’m deeply disappointed in GW2’s lack of consideration for ranged classes/builds.

It’s pretty obvious that they favor their ninjas and knights above all and wouldn’t dream of making it so that a lowly archer could ever stand up to the titans of melee. Hence, we get game overflowing with spamable gap closers and weak, lackluster ranged combat.

Someone on another thread was trying to tell me how allowing for the option to disable pets for a buff to ranged damage to compensate would make ranged combat overpowered. The number of gap closers on other classes and reduction on longbow only justifies my argument further, though.

ANet really does need to look into the bow problem. It’s one thing to be different, but totally another to completely prevent people from playing in certain, tried and true, and often-desired ways.