Guild Wars 2

Just made a ranger and they all feel pretty bad… The meta build is sword/axe but the sword attacks lock you in position and the other two skills move you around needlessly? I tried greatsword and it seemed only the first 3 mattered for dps.
Longbow was alright… seemed only first 2 skills were relevant for damage though.

look on youtube for Ranger 1hand sword Guides there are about 6 now , showing you how to Manualy Manipulate its skills for Greater effect, and perfect control (its not a Weapon for Spamming like a Cleave weapon on a warrior or guard)

the ranger does its damage from combined sources of damage , soft condis, pet damage+condis and Burst type attacks in combination with Situational Traits that buff the damage things like Signet of the wild or Moment of clairty or Flanking strikes or even predators onsalught combined with Signet of the hunt Burst Followed by a Point blank shot > weapon swap Trigger Quick draw trait then use Path of scars+moment of clairty(stacking boosts) for the Sword+axe combo > AA (manualy control it)> swap back RF with Quickdraw > quickness trigger on ether quicken zypher or Zyhpers speed by pet swapping and using PET Hard damage on its first attack ether KD (wolf) or Tailswipe (drake) or feline(pounce 4 high damage bleeds).

its much much more than just Spam and press the Burst button.

keep trying you’ll get better.

As someone who interested in playing around on their ranger again, can you point me in the direction of said videos? The ones I’m finding are highlighting the issue with sword #1, not really a guide how to control it

Matt Stacey.7415:

As someone who interested in playing around on their ranger again, can you point me in the direction of said videos? The ones I’m finding are highlighting the issue with sword #1, not really a guide how to control it

there is no issue it is all player controlled , its up to you to time and press it correctly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4J3O1dqkrQ&list=PL0YdygHp1vKfJ6iu9ZIIeWOQYNVexSeJW

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

Matt Stacey.7415:

As someone who interested in playing around on their ranger again, can you point me in the direction of said videos? The ones I’m finding are highlighting the issue with sword #1, not really a guide how to control it

there is no issue it is all player controlled , its up to you to time and press it correctly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4J3O1dqkrQ&list=PL0YdygHp1vKfJ6iu9ZIIeWOQYNVexSeJW

Those are great clips. There are plenty of other neat little things you can do with sword, but a couple of those are some of the lesser known and used. These are also the things people don’t get when they cry for sword “fixes”; we’d be losing a LOT.

Anything that has such interesting movement that other professions don’t have is an advantage. In PvE it’s a disadvantage, but as of yet, there is zero amount of PvE content that can’t be done with sword autoattack turned on.

People always cry “you think you’re better than us because you pretend sword is an advantage” and YES, us folks that like sword ARE better than you. We can do things you can’t.

the core weapons are terrible and badly need reworks. only lb/gs power rangers are viable. dagger is a decent weapon, and warhorn is almost there. but the rest are a disaster.

on the bright side, staff feels pretty slick.

mistsim.2748:

the core weapons are terrible and badly need reworks. only lb/gs power rangers are viable. dagger is a decent weapon, and warhorn is almost there. but the rest are a disaster.

on the bright side, staff feels pretty slick.

In addition to completely disagreeing with you, how can you not even acknowledge torch? I’m not a math guy at all, but as far as I know that’s our highest DPS option at the moment, for both PvE and PvP. Sword obviously being a PvE staple.

Once we list Gs, LB, Sword, Torch, Dagger and WH, you’re only complaining about the widely taken MH and OH axe? Bah.

Shortbow I don’t acknowledge as existing, however it has been taken by the best PvPers for the better part of 3 years. Even recently it was listed on metabattle.com and made plenty of appearances on sundays in tourneys as the cele survival ranger.

WH cant be used for anything because Call of the Wild has been useless since vanilla beta (3+ years)

Torch – currently, there are no viable condi ranger builds. this is mostly due to the fact that we cant use rabid or settler amulets due to lack of vit. mesmers can instagib u for 15k on 3k armor. once we have some builds available, torch will be quite nice.

sword – purely defensive weapon, needs work. currently useless because we don’t have any viable condi builds

axe isn’t viable on power builds due to poor scaling.

OH axe is unusable, because like WH, it has a non-functional skill out of the two.

dagger isn’t viable in power builds.

SB is beyond unusable.

yes it all sounds so melodramatic but it’s the truth. this is from high mmr conquest perspective.

Fluffball.8307:

Even recently it was listed on metabattle.com and made plenty of appearances on sundays in tourneys as the cele survival ranger.

lol metabattle. listen man, you can put a ranger on a team right now. but that team wont go very far. druids may give us some offensive hybrid options, but until most of our weps and GM’s are reworked, there’s not much to look forward to.

Your problem is with our condi builds and the amulets, not the weapons. Before mesmers got buffed to kitten, you wouldn’t have had a problem with most of our weapons.

Also some weapons on every profession are viable in different game modes. Would I use offhand axe in “high mmr pvp”? Obviously not. I do occasionally roam with it in WvW and before the WH buff I usually took it in PvE. It’s not a disaster. It’s actually considered by many people to be OP in PvE.

And SB, while I technically agree with you, I can’t ignore that some of the very best rangers I’ve ever seen use it in tourneys. I think you’re the one that has always hated cele amulet on ranger (which slightly off topic, I have always loved) so I can understand that. SB is not great, but it IS used at a higher level than you play at, unless you’re a tourney player I don’t recognize.

Fluffball.8307:

Even recently it was listed on metabattle.com and made plenty of appearances on sundays in tourneys as the cele survival ranger.

lol metabattle. listen man, you can put a ranger on a team right now. but that team wont go very far. druids may give us some offensive hybrid options, but until most of our weps and GM’s are reworked, there’s not much to look forward to.

Ya this was a couple months ago that the SB cele build was popular. TBH I’m pretty much done with PvP at the moment because it’s gotten so stale, so I haven’t been watching the weekly tournaments. Not sure if anyone is using SB at the moment but I’ve heard rangers are showing up more frequently now.

The reason SB showed up on metabattle was because one of the best rangers ever used it in a tourney. It showed up there like half an hour later.

I can assure you that whoever was using the SB was experimenting. and I certainly didn’t see any of the “best rangers” in NA using the SB, at least not in soloq. unless theyre below my mmr. and good players can make anything “sorta work”. further, if there was a viable SB build, it would have been made obvious probably back in july/august.

mistsim.2748:

I can assure you that whoever was using the SB was experimenting. and I certainly didn’t see any of the “best rangers” in NA using the SB, at least not in soloq. unless theyre below my mmr. and good players can make anything “sorta work”. further, if there was a viable SB build, it would have been made obvious probably back in july/august.

Well not soloq. Obviously SB is garbage for soloq (again something debatable you and I agree on, but whatever, I still don’t like SB.) I meant the trend a few months ago of every ranger running cele survival SB with muddy terrain in the weekly tourneys against Abjured and what not. Cele survival with SB was a thing for a few months, and I don’t know if it still is because I stopped watching the tourneys. Also Abjured winning every single week kind of kills the excitement.

Also quit subtly bragging about your mmr, anyone posting on the forums that plays pvp has a high mmr because we all play too much GW.

Gonna assume you’re discussing PVE because the sword root is rarely an issue in PVP as you will almost never use the auto. There are videos explaining ways to work around the sword root and leap chains but frankly I just use GS. the DPS is a bit lower but it is worth it to not have to deal with the pain of a completely broken weapon.

In PVP the sword is actually pretty awesome on both condi and power builds for 2 and 3. Even 1 can be useful as the leap is actually amazing for sticking to targets when they run or try to hide in stealth). since you don’t spam the auto in pvp the root is less of an issue but can still mess you up if you’re not careful.

The problem I have had with Ranger was that the weapons that were “the strongest” were the least fun to play with for me personally.

If you’re finding that there’s absolutely NOTHING you like; ignore the names of classes and just test every weapon kit until you find something that you enjoy. That’s really the only advice that can be given.

CandyHearts.6025:

If you’re finding that there’s absolutely NOTHING you like; ignore the names of classes and just test every weapon kit until you find something that you enjoy. That’s really the only advice that can be given.

The weapon skills are 98% of a profession, so ya, that’s some pretty good advice. If you hate all the ranger weapons you probably don’t want to play ranger.

Fluffball.8307:

CandyHearts.6025:

If you’re finding that there’s absolutely NOTHING you like; ignore the names of classes and just test every weapon kit until you find something that you enjoy. That’s really the only advice that can be given.

The weapon skills are 98% of a profession, so ya, that’s some pretty good advice. If you hate all the ranger weapons you probably don’t want to play ranger.

I just use all the weaker ones because they are more fun myself. Then expectations of survival are around 0%. XD