Guild Wars 2

Greetings!

I am a new player to GW in general. Never played the first one, but recently bought GW2 as an early Xmas present.

I initially rolled an Engineer, which seemed OK, but decided to roll another character and decided on the Ranger.

Now, since I’m new to the entire game and it’s significantly different than a lot of the MMO’s I have played in the past, I wanted to get some help and information on some of the things I am confused about. — Warning: This post may be a bit long winded — This is also a need for help in the Ranger profession as well as game mechanics.

1. Pets — I have read conflicting (and possibly outdated) information on what pets to use. I am currently solo PvE’ing and want to have a tanky pet. From what I have read Bears are a poor option compared to Devourers. — my problem is, how do I get a Devourer at a low level? The locations appear to be quite a ways away from where I am venturing, as well as being in a higher level area.

1a. Secondly, how should I be utilizing pets and the mechanics? If I have multiple pets tamed, can I swap in the middle of combat? (I haven’t tried it yet since I just only recently made this character). Are certain pets better for groups and/or PvP?

2. Weapons. This is another one I’ve seen contradicting information on. I’m currently mainly using a short bow — letting my kitty tank and shooting mobs with my bow at a distance. I’ve read that bows are sub optimal and that melee is far better. Is this true? – and if so, how big of a difference is it? If I should be switching between the two, when do I use my bow, and when should I be switching to melee, and what melee setup is optimal?

Additionally, if there’s any insight on good ways to keymap for a Ranger, that would also be helpful. I do OK with the default setup, but any tips are good to have

- I think I will stop there for now. If I remember anything else I need to know, I’ll update the thread.

Thanks in advance!

Welcome to the heartache that is playing a Ranger! :P

As for pets, drakes also make a nice melee option. I choose what pets I run based on how I’m playing. If I want them active and fighting, I’ll take certain pets. If I am just using the pet for its F2, I’ll most likely take different pets. You get to have two terrestrial pets and two marine pets at a time, but you can switch them up when out of combat. One of the many problems with pets is that they have their own unique abilities that you can’t control and some of these skills are finishers, knockdowns, etc. which would be nice for the player to have control over. So choose a pet based on its tankiness or attack, or its abilities, or a combination of those.

As far as weapons go, part of it is your play style and part of it is what your build is aimed to do. In this game melee beats ranged in every way imaginable. But bows and other ranged combat can still be somewhat viable, especially in the open world PvE. The 1h sword is quirky, to put it mildly, but if you can master it you will have a good time. The only other melee we have is the greatsword, which is more suited to defense. Offhand options are dagger for evades, axe for some pull/reflect and horn for damaga/utility. Try them all out and see what you like and build from there. Some rangers run both longbow and short bow and go all-out offense, some go melee and tank, and a lot have a healthy mix.

As far as keymapping, I’ve ran with the default for over a year now.

Just in case. Have you checked the ranger guide sticky (red) found at the top of this ranger forum.

I think that a good bet for leveling are drakes, and some are found in the starter areas, river drake (the pet i use the most) in queensdale, marsh drake in caladon forest and ice drake in warfare foothills. do you should be able to get them by about level 15.
You can swap pets from about from a low level.

even you these are not your starting maps you can going in to you home city use an asura gate to Lions arch and gate to Grove/Holebroke/human city and go cap pets from there.

Also unlock signet of the hunt skill as soon as you can.

as far as weapons go try them all as you go but i like longbow/great-sword for open world pve

I wouldn’t worry too much about builds, weapons and pets at lower levels. If your happy with your bow and your bear just keep using it.

Once you get to level 80, I’d start looking into builds and such depending on what your doing, and depending on your play style.

Felix makes some good points in his post.

In pve, melee and DPS is king and is technically the better option. Although some situations like certain fights in high level fractals it’s good to have a ranged option. Sword/warhorn is the highest DPS set for a ranger, but sword takes a little getting used to.

The WVW meta is heavily centred around conditions and survivability especially if you’re roaming, and so is spvp.

There are different pets for different situations. Cats and birds for raw DPS, canines and spiders for control, bears/drakes/devourers for tanks etc. you can have 2 pets that you can swap between in combat, so if your first pet is getting low or is dead, you can swap to your second. Out of combat you can swap these out for any pet you have tamed.

I will say though, play the game how you want to play it. If you like the feel of a weapon/pet or the function of a utility, use it. However, keep in mind that there are “optimal” weapons, skills, pets and builds for everything. It all depends on what kind of player you are.

If you just like to casually do dungeons and PvE with some friends, use what you prefer. On the flip side, if you want to min/max DPS and like to speed run stuff, there are a few very good builds for rangers in dungeons and fractals. (Brazil’s Ranger DPS guide)

The same goes for WVW. If your just casually running around with a group of friends, play how you want and use whatever gear you want. However, if you want to be good at roaming solo, or in small groups, there are a few different builds that work exceptionally well (faux’s RRR build). If you prefer zerging, there’s a bunch of different builds that work well there too. (Not sure of these, I don’t Zerg much, but when I do I run a power/longbow/great sword build.)

It all comes down to what you like to do in the game and what kind of player you are. If you are more casual or not too serious, figure out what you like and stick to that, whether it be tankyness/DPS/condition/ranged/melee. If your a min/max er, there’s plenty of builds available for dungeons, wvw and spvp.

Open world PvE is fine for a new ranger. The pet is your friend and will soak a lot of damage for you. You can play ranged or melee. You can use any pet. My advice would be to find some weapon sets you understand and can rely on, then branch out and test the others. Try the sword out last as it is the most difficult.

Come back to the forums at 80 once you’ve found what goes wrong with the ranger at 80 in more challenging content.

as far as it goes dont underestimate ranged weapon just yet. If you cant take the heat of dodging like a no lifing Korean while keeping attacking you better just use a shortbow axe or longbow. Melee is good but its only as good as the time you can keep attacking before you take such a heavy hit you have to pull back out. If you realy cant afford to take hits (zerker geared) for the love of the 6 do use a ranged weapon

Remember that GW2 emphasizes on world exploration, it is really up there on their list of priorities for any new players. This is elevated for the ranger, because you will need to explore in order to discover new pets, however despite that you may reach level 80 and only encounter half the pets out there. In terms of pets, I recommend that as you stumble upon them, that you use them all (at least for one level each). This will give you a good feel for the pet and which pet you prefer in combat. Like most rangers, you will find that in general canines, felines and devourers provide solid support and damage. While all the other pets have more specific uses, they do not fall at all behind the main three categories that I mentioned, it is all in how and where you use them, so do be open to playing with all of them. Also keep in mind that the pet mechanic does require you to pay attention to your pet, make sure that they don’t die on you, as the pet is an extension of the ranger’s abilities, without it you will very quickly feel vulnerable.

In terms of weapons, by the time you reach level 20 you should be able to use all the weapons that are available to the ranger. In my experience, it is not the weapon that will provide a huge difference in damage, it is rather your build and how you apply weapons use to it. You will learn to quickly identify that longbow and great sword are the only ranger weapons that focus on raw power. All the other weapons are quite versatile and do tend to shine differently depending on how you use them and under which build you tend to go with. For example, sword is very good for raw damage and mobility, but paired with a torch you can focus on applying condition damage while ‘dancing’ around your enemy.

Most of the ranger game play focuses about thinking on your feet, which is what all the weapons allow you to do. As you reach higher levels and encounter different world events, you might find yourself surrounded by enemies, with just you and your pet to fight them. This is the best time to experiment with the weapon set, with your pet, with the utilities (skills) and with your own style of combat.

It’s not all about pew pew pew arrows fly everywhere, grab your melee weapon, get your hands dirty as well, mind your pet and enjoy.

I would strongly suggest that you change the way you look at your pets. There is no single pet or pair of pets that work best. Each pet has it’s own individual abilities and if you can become accustomed to switching pets to the “right” pets before a fight at lower levels now, it will become second nature by the time you reach level 80.
Different pets for dungeons, different for Champions, different for zergs, the list just goes on. This game is constantly changing too and you have to keep up with the changes.
If you can make your journey to level 80 about learning the pets abilities, and serious flaws, about discovering what weapons work best for your play style given the current circumstances, and about which traits and skills enhance your collective abilities, I suspect you will enjoy this game as much as I do.

Good Luck!