Guild Wars 2

Looking to make a new class, I’d like to try a Ranger but I hear such mixed criticisms about them.

My goals are mostly PvE based, and I intend to mostly farm with MF gear.

-Is sword-dagger/shortbow a reliable combination? Should I go direct or condition damage?

-What perks does a Ranger have over Warrior besides.. er.. Range?

-Any general advice to keep in mind?

Not one person? =/

Well I am not an expert, I have mostly just played PvE but I am level 80.

I really do not enjoy the sword dagger combo, I believe that was more set up for single target dps, better suited for PvP. I would ditch that.

Short bow is nice if you can manage to stay behind the target and build up dots. Again though, until you unlock piercing arrows its going to be a single target weapon.

I have found that Axe/Torch/Warhorn is a great combination for PvE. As axe bounces to multiple targets. Use the Torch if you want additional fire dot damage, or use the warhorn if you fancy power/crit buffs. Or simple equip both and alternate weapons.

Find yourself a drake pet, the best are Marsh Drake, and River drake as their F2 skills put out massive aoe damage, and also bounce between several monsters. Not to mention the fix for their AoE tail spin is rather nice as well.

Combining Axe with Drake you can easily demolish packs of mobs in very little time. Its great for “tagging” monsters in large events too, expect lots of shiny loot on the ground after events are over, as you will be hitting dozens of mobs while others are single targeting everything.

The great thing about Axe build is you can pretty much put your traits anywhere you want too, if you want to push out raw damage, stack dots, be a tank, have a good pet. I do recommend building signets though, the passive effects are nice.

if your running sword-dagger/shortbow then condition damage will be more dps for you..

if you want more dps change out the dagger for a torch as this is better with condition damage..

the only perks are pet related e.g. being able to tank for you.. access to a list of skills through pet F2.. search and rescue in dungeons is handy but I dont pve much..

Personally, I think dagger is more for pvp, I don’t really see the need for the dagger in pve at all. Sword with torch/horn/axe is a better choice for pve.

If you use the jaguar, a quickness swap to the jaguar will give the best bang for the buck when in melee range, since it’s one of the few pets (possibly the only one) that will use its F2 ability to full potential with quickness (swap + activate F2 almost at the same time to see what I mean).
his will give you 2 seconds of pretty good burst with the sword. If you use this type of swapping for other pets, they will most likely miss their F2 attack (leap attacks will miss, drakes specials abilities will miss and so on).

I find the MF gear with runes of the pirate to be most useful to me with the Tropical bird activating quite often, which brings a pretty decent extra pet for more damage when farming. The drawback is that you may get stuck in combat since the birds wants to fight everything in sight!

As for comparison to warriors, I haven’t played a warrior yet, so I’ll let someone else answer that one.

General advice would be – take care of your pets!

anything works in pve, if thats any consolation. sword/dagger is part of pvp builds and used for defense mostly. equipping that in pve would gimp your dps by a huge margin.

i guess SB with knight’s/berserker gear and piercing arrows might be ok. but id rather do LB for barrage, which does huge damage. the build with the most dps that ive tried out is something like 20/30/0/0/20 with LB/x, cats/birds and 3 traps.

what can ranger offer over a warrior? well, the build i described can do similar amounts of damage to a good warrior, but what the ranger really brings is utility. traps/barrage can CC, Healing Spring + SoN can give your group 700HPS if you have +healing gear, some pets give decent boons…thats about it.

so in short, SB/sword/dagger would be a bad choice for PVE.

Just to do a small correction to the above guy regarding drake pets missing their F2. This is why I recommended River/Marsh Drake. The only time their ultimate misses is when the monster dies. They shoot out several beam blasts that bounce between targets. (Similar to chain frost from dota)

However, Ice/Fire drake will miss quite often. They stand there and channel a constant fire/ice beam that typically misses because the monsters never just stand there. Its short ranged, and requires channeling. Will do impressive damage if its, but rarely does.

If you run a drake pet, choose marsh or river. I have not got a reef drake yet so I cant comment.

Orbys.4895:

Just to do a small correction to the above guy regarding drake pets missing their F2. This is why I recommended River/Marsh Drake. The only time their ultimate misses is when the monster dies. They shoot out several beam blasts that bounce between targets. (Similar to chain frost from dota)

I meant if you swap pets and instantly activate their F2 (more or less in the exact same moment), they will miss the target.
You’ll have to wait maybe half a second up to a second before using their F2 after a swap to get them to land their specials. The jaguar is the only pet that I know that doesn’t have this problem (and maybe birds).