Guild Wars 2

I’ve probably scanned over the guides and not realized it. Being so picky with my classes I finally got my engineer to 80 and think I’ll just stick to ranger as my alt as its so much fun.

I do it all, spvp, wvw, dungeons etc so which builds and what pets etc am I wanting? Just general tips and tricks please! Also curious how we fare at damage compared to other classes in pve? I know we aren’t meta in PvP but I have my engineer I love playing also and prob play guard, thief too lol. Power ranger is hilarious in Spvp though

Well… How are we doing…

PvE – meta
PvP (direct) – nonviable
PvP (condi / cele) – viable
WvW (Zergs) – nonviable
WvW (roaming) – viable

But you know… People are skeptical, never go through the numbers so you’ll never get a positive reaction towards a Ranger. We used to suck after all.

If you’re going to list LB as non-viable for PvP, you have to list ranger as non-viable for PvE. Both are very good up until the best of the best of the best.

This coming from a guy who doesn’t like LB in PvP, so there is no bias.

And on that note, you can easily run a ranger in a zerg. Maybe, maybe not a GvG, but anything else, yes.

in pve, rangers are fine and great as long as u stick with the meta.

for pvp, just wait until the new patch comes out. there’s no point in discussing this now as everything is gonna change and we should have quite a few more effective builds. for example the BM line, which is horribly broken currently, is gonna be amazing and a part of quite a few builds in the near future. spirits and traps might also be viable, and shouts may be interesting. also looks like some form of melee power ranger may be viable, which isn’t the case now. so just wait a week or two.

I have found ranger to work fine in all game modes with various tweaks.
Check Metabattle for the common builds to give you ideas.

I disagree with fluffball. Ranger is going to end up a staple of gvg. It hard-counters thieves, mesmers, eles. You just have to find a ranger that is better then average and willing to go full glass sniper and make the proper choices.

I think we’ll have a viable frontliner build with the specialization changes. and probably druid will be viable in that role (I hope).

glassbows have never been on the same level as a well played thief or Mesmer as part of a gank squad. not even close. some bad guilds tried glassbows in gvg’s but it didn’t turn out so well. unless you have some footage to prove me wrong. simply put, you don’t have enough ways to reset the fight. but right now, you can probably run whatever you want. most good players are gone from wvw, and I hope they come back for HoT.

that being said, with quickdraw and wilderness knowledge, I think LB/GS rangers are gonna be a serious force with the new patch.

That is why I said “is going to end up a staple” not is currently a staple. I don’t record so I don’t have any footage. Time will tell.

Fluffball.8307:

If you’re going to list LB as non-viable for PvP, you have to list ranger as non-viable for PvE. Both are very good up until the best of the best of the best.

This coming from a guy who doesn’t like LB in PvP, so there is no bias.

And on that note, you can easily run a ranger in a zerg. Maybe, maybe not a GvG, but anything else, yes.

I didn’t list Longbow as non-viable. I listed Power builds as such. I’ve run several successful celestial longbow builds. For PvE – the weapon is the meta opener/finisher. Yes, I agree on that. But it is weak as a DPS weapon.

And the last paragraph well… You can even run a Thief Healer in a WvW. Easily. And you can, right? Where’s the efficiency, though?