Guild Wars 2

Hello, I am entirely new to Guild Wars 2. Just picked it up a week ago because I spent many hours playing the first game and… well. All my friends are playing GW2 so why not join them. I have been doing as much research as I can in regards to builds, pets, etc, but it only has so much I can use since a lot of it is very broad.

So I’m asking for some assistance on tweaking my own specific build. Here’s all the information I can offer and the direction I am intuitively going towards, may my better Seniors guide me in the right path.

For weapons I prefer the Longbow, using Sword and Warhorn as the alternate set (Warhorn because of the boons it can give me, though I do wonder if Torch would be a good way to go as well?) I’m going with a safe, if a bit scattered PvE build of either 30/25/5/10/0 or 30/20/5/10/5. I also usually only run around with my friend who’s rolled a Guardian (afraid I don’t know how he’s building it, though) if that information helps as well. I’m hoping I’ll be able to do a lot of DPS while still being able to survive which brings me to my big question…

Do I get/spec armor and weapons for Power, Precision, or Toughness?

It’d be greatly appreciated if people would give an explanation as to why they might be suggesting something to help me understand better.

Thank you.

Hey, a better look at the traits you are using might help out a bit.

Go to either:
http://intothemists.com/
or
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/

And you can show us what traits and gear you have. Might help a bit more.

It seems like you are going for a power build and do mostly PvE. In that case, the meta for PvE is full zerker. I, personally, do not like full zerker. It’s just not my favorite playstyle. But I do have a power ranger. With Knight’s Armor, zerker weapons, and a mix of Soldier and Knight trinkets.

Here’s my build. He originally was meant to be in WvW but the narrow mindedness of higher tiers is, well yeah. I digress.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vMAQNAT8XjMqUxaDLesw1agY9gQ+ZQNFcy8MF8nRpsiGsmK-zECBYLCyUEwkFBKBqIas1TFRjVrET9SQWDLpBAQA4o38o38o3sUARsAA-w

It’s a Signet Power build, pets are interchangeable depending on what you are doing. If all you are doing is PvE, the Soldiers trinkets can be changed for zerker, cavaliers, anything to help with damage instead of survivability. Also, the horn can replace the offhand axe easily.

I do use this build in PvE and it works just fine. I can dish out damage and stay alive by getting out of sticky situations quickly.

Hope this helps and good luck and have fun!

You know, doesn’t matter how new or old you are to the GW2 game, but every time I see the answers that people give, it’s usually, “Go zerker.”

Zerker this and zerker that….I almost seriously want to cry. He could have posted that he would rather support, and someone would have stated, “Zerker.” Or if he had responded he wanted to go trait line beast mastery, again many have responded, “zerker”.

I think we really need to go back to the original way we used to play, and that was get what seems best to work for you. That means, take a good hard look at what your actually going to be doing, or have been doing. What your doing now, is probably what your going to be doing later in game. Most people will choose setups specifically for PvE, PvP, WvW, or just straight up Fractal or Dungeon runs.

On almost every last one of those people have repeatedly argued Zerker, or Non-Zerker.

And the answer does not have to be “zerker”.

Find your niche, go from there. Give you an idea. I tried that whole, running what other people run, and…it wasn’t what I wanted, and it wasn’t what I needed. I ran the gear that best suited MY play style. There is usually an argument of what you want to run, and what others WANT you to run, in order to RUN with them. Don’t get railroaded into something your not going to be happy with later on.

I didn’t say “go zerker”, I said the meta for PvE was zerker. And no if OP said he wanted to go for support I would have given them options for a support build. Yes, zerker is ridic used for everything (part of why I’m against it), but again I didn’t tell OP to go zerker. If you look at my build, you will see that I am not a full zerker ranger. Please read.

Zerker is just gear, it’s not a build by itself. You could go “zerker beastmaster” if you wanted to, but saying “zerker” doesn’t say much when talking about builds. It’s a more appropriate response to “What gear should I use” which the OP did ask.

Zerker being dominant in PvE is just a result of how the game was designed. The game is nice in that it has no gear requirements, and that you could complete any PvE content in any gear no matter how casual or hardcore you are (which may/maynot be a good thing depending on how you look at it. I do believe there should be some limit as to how successful you can be without being sufficiently skilled). Condition damage not being viable is ultimately a failure of the game’s design, so thats why only power based builds are recommended in PvE. The amount of defensive stats one need, is directly related to ones skill level and experience level.

Finally, I’m one of the ones that believes in learning by learning the meta from the beginning, no matter how many deaths and fails are involved Every mistake is an opportunity to learn and improve yourself.

I don’t think I’ll be running too many instances/dungeons (fractals?) as it’s a very small group of friends unless we can find groups that are willing to take pity and join in. In which case I want to be at least useful in my roll. I’ve been reading as many guides as I can to help me get an idea for what would be wanted from me but I won’t sell my fun just so I can grind for gear.

I will look into those links now, though, thank you for a way to spring board towards which direction I’d like to go.

Though just in your opinions, would putting Toughness on gear for a ranger be a waste?

ghostlight.6150:

I don’t think I’ll be running too many instances/dungeons (fractals?) as it’s a very small group of friends unless we can find groups that are willing to take pity and join in. In which case I want to be at least useful in my roll. I’ve been reading as many guides as I can to help me get an idea for what would be wanted from me but I won’t sell my fun just so I can grind for gear.

I will look into those links now, though, thank you for a way to spring board towards which direction I’d like to go.

Though just in your opinions, would putting Toughness on gear for a ranger be a waste?

Toughness can be quite good depending on your build in WvWvW. In open world PvE it can help you survive mass scale, zerg content such as the ones in living story. (ie. PTV gear is quite good for content like Tequatl). Individual gear and skill isn’t as important in most zerg content, maybe with wurm being the exception (I haven’t done Wurm)

In dungeons and fractals, I feel it’s a stat that becomes less useful the more you do them.

Vitality/power/precision, trait to add more power instead of vitality, then some celestial stats to fill in the blanks. Then for traits do traits that add damage, longbow from long distance can then do 2k+ dmg per auto attack which works quite well in pvp actually.

Hey to become lvl 80 it dosen´t matter what u play just have fun but later u rly should start with this build

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;4wEFv-r2VDV-0;9V8b;1JO-O-06-04;234;2eN;05N0-udbTudbTn-FvVH-VKVY;0bVf0l1q2x325230C-2i;9;9;9;9;9;9;0VR-6T
there are some more good builds, but this is fine aswell

Thank you for the advice to TurtleDragon and Swimsasa. I think with your answers I’ve got a good idea on how I’m going to do this. Your patience and explanations were much appreciated.

But, it is a fact that, if you have 2 hands and 10 fingers, the best stuff is Zerker, only need to learn to dodge

I’d rather be actually good at my class than technically ‘only need to learn to dodge’ though.

For you to really enjoy ranger you need to have 2 builds, one that focuses around condition damage and the other one that revolves around power base damage. It’s a bit difficult to focus on both, but there are advantages of centering your build based on this.

First of all, power damage allows you to use longbow and sword/warhorn to the best of their abilities. It also provides you with entrance to signet builds, which are very useful especially in stressful situations like large world encounters (living world for example), dungeons, and fractals. You will then have to choose how much toughness in Wildnerness survival you want to match your lack of defense. I always go 30 in here, for any build since it is simply the best way to stay alive, while adding critical damage or critical chance with your gear.

For condition damage, there are so many options. Trapper is the most popular, beast master is really interesting since you use your pet to deal big number damage while you dish out conditions. Boon regen condition damage + beast master is a very recent build, it focuses on you + your pet dealing damage and using shouts to stay alive. Spirit build also falls along these lines and if it fits your play style then its excellent in group play. For condition damage builds your weapons should be something like shortbow, axe/dagger, sword/torch, depends on what you like most.

Anyhow, do take a peak around the forums for people’s suggestions, here are my builds and they actually are the ones you can take to WvW and be useful without dying easily:

- Power: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJATRjEVN29VGWo2Bi1DCFoB1ewJLdeXBUdyGq0K-jQCB4fDRjgIY0HJKBqIasF4FRjVXDT7KpqXRWFDQIgQLAA-e
- Conditions: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQNAV8fjAVV29VGWo2Bi1DBRoB1ewJzf+Xh0fyKi2K-jQCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDTIgJrBA-e