Guild Wars 2

Just started playing a few days ago and just hit 55. Some questions:

1) I prefer being ranged only so have just been using Longbow with Jaguar pet. Is this viable or do you have to go melee or ranged/melee to be taken in dungeons, etc?

2) If you go Longbow with GS or Sword/Axe, do you open with Longbow skills and switch to melee when those skills are on cooldown? Or more accurately, what is the rotation when you go both ranged and melee?

3) For skills i’ve been using Healing Spring, Sic Em, Quickening Zephyr, Signet of the Hunt, and Rampage as One. Is this ok for leveling? In general?

4) Best traits for leveling? In general?

Thanks in advance.

1) There are different types of groups, some will accept anyone. Most groups will want you to be a melee ranger, and if you join a PUG they will expect that of you unless otherwise stated, because melee is significantly faster. However you can always seek out the former.

2) Yup. You open with barrage and rapid fire, then switch to melee for whatever is left of the fight.

3) Definitely some good choices there. Try out troll unguent as your heal. It’s a lot stronger in a selfish way. Healing spring is very very powerful with more people around, in a selfless way. Also try all the skills if they appeal to you, leveling should be fun.

4) For leveling, anything you can get your hands on. For end-game PvE dungeons, read this: http://dulfy.net/2014/07/05/gw2-ranger-pve-class-guide-by-lorek-and-cell/

Thanks for the quick reply and info. Some follow-ups:

1) Is there a strong pure ranged dps class in GW2?

2) Is GS or Sword/Axe the strongest melee choice?

Staff ele is one of the highest dps in the game with a ranged weapon, but you have to play melee anyway ( it triggers stone splinters, and breaking melee is a bad idea, you won’t get/share buffs, may ruin the stack, and will end up getting downed far from your teammates. Nades engi is good for group dps.

2) sword is superior for raw damage. There’s some situations where you want to use gs anyway, when soloing ( because you can’t dodge reliably and gs has an extra block), max meleeing ( because you don’t want to fly everywhere) and for out of combat mobility, mainly.

All classes are strong from range. The reason people “stack” for dungeons is a bunch of things. Melee weapons hit more targets more often, you can share boons, heal each other, revive each other, line-of-sight enemies, clump enemies, and so on for ages.

So basically, in dungeons, no, no class is good from range. In PvP or WvW, yes, many or most classes are good from range.

S/A is stronger for PvE. For WvW and PvP its a lot more complicated.

lesson one:
There is nothing that is “viable”. Because “viable” is a incredibly subjective opinion.
A build either works, or it doesn’t.

What is the definition of a functional build?
It has weaknesses that should be apparent to the user, and that should be possible to work around.
It can apply pressure in 1vX but also hold firm in 1v1 for a noticeable duration.
It can provide some sort of self buff or a party buff or, a combination of these two.
It should have a defined role and purpose, even if hybridized.
It should allow you to exploit known weaknesses in other enemy builds to the most degree possible.
It should allow you to have as much defensive utility as possible weighed up against your offensive capabilities.

With this in mind, you should be able to figure out a way to build your OWN build.
Copying and pasting a build made by someone else is NOT a guarantee for success nor is it a guarantee for you having FUN. Which arguably is the most important factor when playing a game.
Make your own build, OP, tune it, then ask us what you think could be changed to improve it.

EDIT:
for most PvE content, dumping most of your trait points into Beastmastery and Marksmanship during the 1-70 usually let you deal with most content effortlessly. Berserker armor works if you know how and when to dodge, if you do not, try out Knights armor or Celestial armor.

Prysin literally zero of your post is relevant to the OP or to dungeon running…

You make some good posts, but often time you just post your opinion in places that aren’t relevant. I doubt that did anything other than confuse a new ranger.

Edit: Even your edit is useless. You can rarely pick what type of gear you get when you level, you don’t need to pick it, and you can’t even get celestial gear when leveling!

I suggest you reread what the OP said. Then reflect some more over what i said. Then post.

Thank you, have a nice day.

Spurlock.1260:

1) I prefer being ranged only so have just been using Longbow with Jaguar pet. Is this viable or do you have to go melee or ranged/melee to be taken in dungeons, etc?

Dungeons are more about group support and shared buffs. So you’ll be expected to use melee just so you can share in the party buffs (and they can share yours). In particular:

• Jungle stalker’s might is more useful if the party is not maxed out on might.
• Other pets with AOE F2 (red moa, brown bear, etc) can be useful at times.
• Warhorn’s fury is useful if the party does not have 100% fury uptime.
• Healing spring may be expected for the water field, just be sure not to overwrite fire fields being used for might stacking.

That doesn’t mean you can’t use a ranged weapon in your rotation. Just don’t expect to stand far in the back going pew pew pew while everyone else melees. That will get you kicked out of many groups. (There are even a few dungeon spots where ranged weapons actually shine, since you can quickly support people in different areas without having to run back and forth. I always keep longbow handy in CoF path 1, so if someone else is having a problem with their brazier I can help them out without leaving mine.)

Do not under any circumstances use LB#4 (knockback) on a target being focused by the rest of the party with melee. That’ll get you kicked faster than anything.

2) If you go Longbow with GS or Sword/Axe, do you open with Longbow skills and switch to melee when those skills are on cooldown? Or more accurately, what is the rotation when you go both ranged and melee?

Because longbow’s autoattack damage decreases the shorter the range, it’s actually not very conducive to weapon swapping from a melee weapon. Open with it, then swap to melee.

3) For skills i’ve been using Healing Spring, Sic Em, Quickening Zephyr, Signet of the Hunt, and Rampage as One. Is this ok for leveling? In general?

If you’re carrying QZ, you may want to consider Entangle as an elite and take the trait which reduces cooldown on survival skills.

Sic Em I think is more a PvP skill, especially when coupled with Jaguar. Good against thieves, good for surprise (pet) damage from stealth to open a fight. It can certainly be used in PvE, I just think there are usually better choices.

Signet of the Wild is arguably broken right now. The +25% damage felt about right when it only affected the pet, and the cost to make it affect yourself was a GM trait. But now that it affects the ranger by default, it’s rather OP. Add in the 8 sec stability (stability on demand is sorely lacking for rangers) and passive regen and there are very few rangers not running it right now.

In dungeons you’ll probably be expected to bring Frost Spirit. Traited (Vigorous Spirits) is best. But even untraited it’s about a 3.5% boost to party damage. To move it, swap it for a short-cooldown skill to kill them spirit, then switch it back. By the time you’ve finished moving the 20 sec cooldown will probably be over.

4) Best traits for leveling? In general?

I would say Master’s Bond, but if you’re 55 its effectiveness is already beginning to diminish. Instead, I’d say try out the different traits, weapons, and builds as you’re leveling. Get a feel for how they all work. Try a power build, a condition build, a bunker/BM build. Be sure to at least become semi-competent with sword and its weird autoattack mechanic.

Ranger is one of the easier classes to level, so I think it’s easy to get stuck in a rut where you find something that works and just power through everything without trying anything different. Don’t do that – play around with the different capabilities while you’re leveling so they’re not unfamiliar when you try out a new build “for real” at 80.

Thanks again to those who provided useful info.