Guild Wars 2

Hey guys,

I’m changing up my weapon setup. I am focused on steady damage with around 1,800 toughness and around 20k hp.

I used to use longbow/shortbow, but I think I want to swap out shortbow (or maybe even longbow though i really like the control with longbow) and replace it with one of the above weapons in the title.

Sword/dagger seems interesting to me as I really want a lot of mobility and control.

I haven’t really messed with greatsword, but love to know what benefits it can offer me.

So I’m looking for pros/cons that will benefit my playstyle of a ranger more focused on survivability rather than pure offense.

Current build:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmoVMc0zMoanoMmanoMGGf0fmRzamc08kiG7khV7khf707khs7khf7kuW70V7ofF70m8ofy

First off, pve or pvp? If pve or eve wait until after the update until you get any gear.

Secondly 1800 armor w/ 20k health is nothing special if you’re trying to run a bunker/survival build.

Use soldier and/or knight gear to boost your toughness and health respectively. Also, seriously consider Signet of the Beastmaster with stone Signet for the invul. In spvp, my gs ranger has around 2700 armor and 2400 health.

Finally, I’d go with gs for the defense. You lack the movement and dos, but you gain nice control and passive evade.

Sword is too buggy to use right now, the auto-attack animation locks you in place and prevents you from dodging or using other skills, but it’s highly likely that’ll be fixed in the November 15th patch. If it weren’t bugged, the sword / dagger combo would give you a whole set of evades while doing decent damage, so it’d be good for PvP. Greatsword on the other hand is just too weak to be a viable offensive weapon, but it has some really good defensive and control skills on it that make it a good option in both PvP and PvE. It’s always fun to unload all your bow skills with QZ on mobs in PvE, then switch to GS and swoop in on them, whereas in PvP you can cancel target and use swoop to get away. The range on that skill is just amazing.

Ranger has a lot of viable options though so you might want to try them all out, the axe is fun and effective (main hand and offhand), warhorn gives you a really useful buff and a skill that does some nice damage, and a lot of people seem to like offhand torch, though I don’t use it much myself.

My thoughts:

Greatsword
PROS
1. Free evade on every 3rd swing of #1 (take off auto to intersperse with dodge roll before and after for 3 evades in row if needed)
2. A nice block/knockback or ranged cripple option
3. Stun
4. One of the best escape/gap closers with the #3.
5. Survives well while still doing ok AoE damage.

CONS:
1. Damage is not that great.
2. Fairly slow attack animation

Sword/Dagger
PROS
1. Powerful auto-attack that should be taken off auto to help with the self root issue.
2. On – Demand evades that can work while immobilized.
3. Ranged Cripple.
3. Great for either Power or Condition Damage specs.
4. Survives well while doing great single target damage.

CONS:
1. Self rooting auto-attack. Take off the auto to help.

Here’s a Greatsword build I’ve used for support/bunker on point in sPvP. It has less health than you want, but it has 100% uptime on regen and great personal and group healing.

It’s also important to note that the uptime on vigor is really nice because of Healing Spring procing the trait multiple times.

Link won’t work unless you cut and paste into browser:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQFARnEV0XZWQGWwaZgY9gQ7fQtHaySn3VYUnsirsC;TkAgzCmouxcj4G7Nubk3M2A

Sword is IMHO the illusion of controlled mobility with some built in defensives. GS is actual mobility under your control, a passive defense in your 1 chain and an active defense with KB in your 4 plus a daze stun(2 interupts). Which do you want.

Yea forgot to say this is for PvP. I will update my first post with a build of something I am thinking. How the heck do you have 2,700 armor?

The post above gave just about all the pros and all the cons so I’m not gonna e redundant.

GS pros:
1) has a 360 degree cleave, no one will escape your swing radius except with the #2 which is a 180 MAYBE 270 degree cone, thi makes GS REALLY good at procing spirit or on hit bonuses, and makes it really good against theives because you can keep spamming 1 while they’re stealthed and you’ll keep them from wanting to go back into Melee.

2) that stun doubles the damage your pet will do with it’s next SKILL so if you stun someone while a drake is charging up its breathe attack that poor kitten is going to have a bad day.

Sword pros:

1) it has 3 evades on it’s own (#2 has 2, # 3 is 1) with a dagger off hand you can evade 4 attacks making you deceptively squishy.

2) the 2 skill can be used to escape from a fight on a moments notice, dodge roll back with 2, turn around and leap further away with 2, then swap to GS an fly further with swoop and NO ONE will catch you.

Joey.3928:

Yea forgot to say this is for PvP. I will update my first post with a build of something I am thinking. How the heck do you have 2,700 armor?

Idk about you, but I rock 3k armor, backstabbing thieves are a minor inconvenience at best when you have that much D.

Arrys.7145:

Sword is IMHO the illusion of controlled mobility with some built in defensives. GS is actual mobility under your control, a passive defense in your 1 chain and an active defense with KB in your 4 plus a daze stun(2 interupts). Which do you want.

Too bad it does about as much damage as a wet towel. GS is good for getting away or holding off long enough for a double-team kill, sword/dagger would give you a better chance of actually defeating your opponent in 1v1.

Daemon.4295:

Too bad it does about as much damage as a wet towel. GS is good for getting away or holding off long enough for a double-team kill, sword/dagger would give you a better chance of actually defeating your opponent in 1v1.

Or, you know, you’re a beast master + spirit ranger which makes great sword a significantly better option then 1h sword, not every ranger is wanting to deal all the damage themselves you know!!

It also depends on what you want to accomplish with your build. If you want to be an on point presence, I think GS with it’s AoE is best.

If you just want to have an option for survivability as a backup weapon set to compliment a shortbow build, then I would recommend the sword/dagger.

This is all very helpful guys. I posted a link the build I have now. I really like my canine pets. So that 15 pts in beast mastery is key for me and I really do not want to lose the 5 sec faster pet swap.

Maybe I will do greatsword. And Tracker that build is interesting. I was using a soldiers amulet, but maybe 5k less hp and alot more healing power might be worth it.

Sucks though because I just finished getting Power/Toughness/Vitality exotic gear. I want this build for WvW too. Maybe I will keep those stats but add on some healing power with my accessories.

Tracker.6483:

It also depends on what you want to accomplish with your build. If you want to be an on point presence, I think GS with it’s AoE is best.

If you just want to have an option for survivability as a backup weapon set to compliment a shortbow build, then I would recommend the sword/dagger.

i was thinking using longbow. For the knockback as well as pet swiftness.

Hmmm. Not sure what kind of playstyle Longbow would be good at with Greatsword or Sword/Dagger.

Problem being that if you want Longbow as main weapon, then dps is really poor. If you want Longbow just for the knockback, then you have to wait a bit with no real defense till your weapon swap is back for your defensive weapon.

Play around with it – who knows, you may come up with something different and fun that works for you.

Tracker.6483:

Hmmm. Not sure what kind of playstyle Longbow would be good at with Greatsword or Sword/Dagger.

Problem being that if you want Longbow as main weapon, then dps is really poor. If you want Longbow just for the knockback, then you have to wait a bit with no real defense till your weapon swap is back for your defensive weapon.

Play around with it – who knows, you may come up with something different and fun that works for you.

The playstyle I’m going for is to be able to outlast someone 1v1 while I widdle down their hp. For 2v1 I dont expect to win but at least maybe down one and draw out the fight. I kind of do that now with my two bows. I do alot of pet swapping and weapon swapping. Basically I want a lot of control with cc and distancing myself from enemies.

I will definitely mess with it. originally I wanted sword/dagger but yea idk :P choices choices!

The cripple on dagger seems really nice. Maybe sword/dagger would be good with longbow and greatsword would be good with shortbow.

Try it out with GS as your main.

When you need a breather, you could do GS knockdown or stun, followed by weapon-swap to Longbow #4 and immediately #5 for the cripple – after #2 for some dps you should be ready for weapon swap again.

My build I linked can hold off a couple players for quite a while with just GS. You wouldn’t need the Longbow 1v1 and Longbow with 2v1 would be disasterous since you’d still have one person on you with no defensive attacks.

Cool man I will try it out. Gonna debate whether or not to give up quicker pet swap for faster recharge of bow AND sword skills.

I wanna keep piercing arrows. I love knocking back multiple people with longbow. Plus i can use the long range trait in WvW then.

Thanks for the help!

S/D is my favorite set on my ranger right now. I have people asking me what I’m running all the time in SPvP.

Leuca.5732:

S/D is my favorite set on my ranger right now. I have people asking me what I’m running all the time in SPvP.

lol i had people screaming at me in whispers about how i’m hacking because rangers shouldn’t have that many evades and blah blah blah worse then a thief blah blah blah xD.

However i gotta say GS (after ignoring the forums about how “broken” and “underpowered” it is) has taken over my love, it made me drop my precious warhorn for it, but my kitten i not missing it!!

@Joey:

A friend of mine and I both run as rangers. We both use Axe/warhorn for run speed, but when the fight starts he switches to Greatsword and I switch to sword/dagger. Thus far, we have both had a LOT of success in WvW.

We both are stacked with power/toughness/vitality gear with a sprinkling of healing thrown in. We both use the signets that restore health and remove conditions. We both use protect me. We both use the Nature Spirit (moveable of course). We both specced 0/5/30/30/5. We both use the fernhound and the Murellow.

We have tried changing individual things out now and again, but we keep coming back to this as the optimal “outlast” set up. We have been in many 2v3 or 2v4, sometimes even more, situations where we came out alive after having killed everyone simply because we outlasted them while we whittled them down.

I feel that this approach to WvW is the only real choice for Rangers until the upcoming fix. After that we’ll see, but for now, anything besides this set up and you dont get enough damage output in return for the survivability.

ski.4927:

@Joey:

A friend of mine and I both run as rangers. We both use Axe/warhorn for run speed, but when the fight starts he switches to Greatsword and I switch to sword/dagger. Thus far, we have both had a LOT of success in WvW.

We both are stacked with power/toughness/vitality gear with a sprinkling of healing thrown in. We both use the signets that restore health and remove conditions. We both use protect me. We both use the Nature Spirit (moveable of course). We both specced 0/5/30/30/5. We both use the fernhound and the Murellow.

We have tried changing individual things out now and again, but we keep coming back to this as the optimal “outlast” set up. We have been in many 2v3 or 2v4, sometimes even more, situations where we came out alive after having killed everyone simply because we outlasted them while we whittled them down.

I feel that this approach to WvW is the only real choice for Rangers until the upcoming fix. After that we’ll see, but for now, anything besides this set up and you dont get enough damage output in return for the survivability.

I run a heavy armor/toughness + healing power build, i run 0/0/20/20/30, have ~3k armor, and ~1.3k healing power, i bring 2 spirit utilities, a random 3rd one (usually sig of the hunt nowadays but it’ll change again, it always does…) and then what ever elite i’m feeling at the time.

I go into WvW and for the most part absolutely wreck people…. i’ve gone into many a 1v6’s and came out last man standing (now were they all lv 80/good? Not at all, but still), so we have options, but in WvW it really does favor the indestructible soldier, not the glass cannon.

I run 0/0/30/25/15, and wear Power/Toughness/Vitality Gear, with Knights Accessories.

The Greatsword has a couple of things that Sword/Dagger doesn’t have.:

-massive amounts of evade while in quickness
-a huge gap closer
-a block/knockdown (or a cripple, but the knockdown is too good)
-a daze/stun

While the Greatsword may not be for you, here’s a link to my guide. Specifically, you may find some of my stat discussion interesting as a melee Ranger, even if you decide to stick with Sword/Dagger.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/66729-how-to-be-a-great-greatsword-ranger/

I did some sPvP last night with a modified version of the build Tracker posted and it seemed to work pretty well. I blame any shortcomings on me not being used to greatsword or a melee weapon. I was running healing/power/toughness and I think I like that setup more than my original power/toughness/vitality.

With two forms of condition removal, conditions seemed to not really be an issue at 15k hp so I’d rather take beefy healing power and 15 pts in beastmastery so my wolves match or usually surpass me in damage.

Vecuu.2018:

I run 0/0/30/25/15, and wear Power/Toughness/Vitality Gear, with Knights Accessories.

The Greatsword has a couple of things that Sword/Dagger doesn’t have.:

-massive amounts of evade while in quickness
-a huge gap closer
-a block/knockdown (or a cripple, but the knockdown is too good)
-a daze/stun

While the Greatsword may not be for you, here’s a link to my guide. Specifically, you may find some of my stat discussion interesting as a melee Ranger, even if you decide to stick with Sword/Dagger.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/66729-how-to-be-a-great-greatsword-ranger/

Coll I’ll check it out. As of now I am longbow/Greatsword and liking it!

Here is my build as of now.

http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmoc0M0zMoxnoMmanoMGVGafmRmacc08khf707khV7070M7kIM70V7owY8of2

Any idea what a good sigil to put on my greatsword would be? I’m a fan of chill so I like hydromancy.

I personally find torch to be a much better offhand weapon than dagger. Dagger 4 (Stalker’s Strike) reproduces sword 3 (Serpent’s Strike) and as poison doesn’t stack, is pretty redundant. Sure, extra dodge means extra defense, but with a torch you can keep a target continuously on fire. It’s a great combat starter having a good throwing range (especially when traited), and the AoE burning from Bonfire is just superb, again, doubly so when traited as the area of effect is doubled. The trait is Off-hand Training in Wilderness Survival.
Also, Bonfire has superb synergy with Monarch’s Leap, giving you a fire shield.

Yeah, dagger’s a bit crappy in comparison.

On thing I’m enjoying with the sword in pve is while you’re largely rooted thanks to the pounce, since the autoattack cripples you’ll also root your target effectively. Great for those pesky enemies that like to kite or bosses trying to squash someone else. It’s why I enjoy the dagger; you cripple them with the throw attack and by the time it’s worn off, you’ve got cripple on them again from your melee.

Mungrul.9358:

Yeah, dagger’s a bit crappy in comparison.

What decent player will stand in your bonfire for more than 2-3 seconds? Torch is a good weapon, but it does not make dagger look crappy in comparison; not by a long shot. You do not need to attempt to stack poison when using s/d. If you know your target has no condition removal, you can simply stack duration, and if they do, you have two separate applications to reduce their healing. 3 stacks of bleed and a cripple is nothing to laugh either at when you are moving in and out of melee. Dagger also has an amazing cooldown on its evade when traited, or is a free evade+poison every 8-9 seconds crappy?

My Build here: http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmoM0VmMzoGrgMmGrgM9MGGxmackM0b8kii707kii7khs7kii70z7kIM70V7ofF70m8ofy

Wanted to see what all the negative fuss was bout the great sword so I rolled a second ranger… I simply don’t buy into the gripe.

Yeah, its not a face roll weapon but man oh man can it wreak havoc on multiple enemies with really good survivability, and the animations are a lot of fun.

Main premise of the build is to stack insane regen and healing to keep both your pet and you alive. The faster pet swaps will lessen the chance of getting a pet wiped. Also, since your are specced higher in survivability, your pet will be rocking a good chunk of the damage. Since you are sticking in melee range this won’t be a problem since your pet doesn’t have to move as much.

I roll alpine wolf and fern hound for greater crowd control and the fern hounds howl adds you guess it, even more regen.

I also have Beast master IV improved healing (won’t select), to keep the pets up even better.

And I rock water runes to proc opportunities for even more area healing.

It is pretty tanky with the constant healing. I’ve managed to solo several champs so far with this build.

Leuca.5732:

Mungrul.9358:

Yeah, dagger’s a bit crappy in comparison.

What decent player will stand in your bonfire for more than 2-3 seconds?

Sorry, the OP didn’t initially post whether this was mainly PvE or PvP. I was talking purely from a PvE perspective. I can see the advantages of dagger in PvP, sure, but there’s no competition in PvE.
Saying that, Bonfire isn’t entirely useless in PvP as it’s great for area denial.

Having re-read and noticed that it’s for PvP, I’ll recant my torch remarks.

One thing I found odd, I used the trait buff that increases range and decreases recharge time of offhand weaps by 20%. For my dagger, it did decrease both skills recharges, but it only increased the range on the #5, the ranged cripple. The “gap-closing” #4 evade/poison skill stayed at a range of 250. I would think it would fall slightly outside the parameters of a close-quarters skill, especially if it gap-closes…albeit a small distance. Is this normal?

Mungrul.9358:

Leuca.5732:

Mungrul.9358:

Yeah, dagger’s a bit crappy in comparison.

What decent player will stand in your bonfire for more than 2-3 seconds?

Sorry, the OP didn’t initially post whether this was mainly PvE or PvP. I was talking purely from a PvE perspective. I can see the advantages of dagger in PvP, sure, but there’s no competition in PvE.
Saying that, Bonfire isn’t entirely useless in PvP as it’s great for area denial.

Having re-read and noticed that it’s for PvP, I’ll recant my torch renarks.

Especially with the trait, it can nearly block off a point on its own and it’s a great way for saying “kitten off thief!!” That sends them scurrying back to their corner soooooo fast, and if they don’t…. Well enjoy the charred idiot!!

S/D is a great up close an personal combo. The ranged cripple is very nice since sword is weak on the gap-closing front, and it dagger 5 does good damage on top of it. Sword has great single target dps (with a little AOE on step 1 and 2 of the chain), and a high attack speed great for proccing crit effects. The only thing holding it back is the self-cc on the 1-chain. Really, for a defensive weapon set based on popping evasions, it’s completely counterproductive to have a skill chain that prevents you from activating other skills.

Dagger 4 is not really redundant, because the other two evades are on enough of a cooldown, and attacks are incoming often enough, that the additional evade is worth it. Not to mention that Sword 2 is not the same kind of evade, and is used differently. Dagger 5 also applies a hefty bleed, so it’s pretty comparable to Torch 4 as a condition attack. Which leaves the fire field as the only noteworthy difference for torch, and it’s really not that impressive. The radius is small, the cooldown is high, and flame trap does the same job only better.

Axe offhand doesn’t work well in melee range, so if there’s anything competing with dagger it’s the warhorn, which everyone should be pretty familiar with.

Forgot to address the greatsword- it’s prbably my favorite melee weapon in the game. It’s got a perfect mix of offense, mobility, and defense. 4 is one of the best blocks in the game, doing both decent damage and an interrupt, and 3 is one of the best gap closers with very long range and short cooldown. GS’s one downside is no burst, but combined with the control the weapon brings it makes a very good attrition-type, wear the other guy down kind of weapon.

Both types of swords combine extremely well with traps- if you’re in melee range anyway, dropping them at your feet will always set off the trap. You can get a lot of extra damage or utility that way.

Rhyse.8176:

Forgot to address the greatsword- it’s prbably my favorite melee weapon in the game. It’s got a perfect mix of offense, mobility, and defense. 4 is one of the best blocks in the game, doing both decent damage and an interrupt, and 3 is one of the best gap closers with very long range and short cooldown. GS’s one downside is no burst, but combined with the control the weapon brings it makes a very good attrition-type, wear the other guy down kind of weapon.

Both types of swords combine extremely well with traps- if you’re in melee range anyway, dropping them at your feet will always set off the trap. You can get a lot of extra damage or utility that way.

Yea after a weekend of WvW and sPvP with my tanky build using greatsword/longbow I am loving it. I’m in love with the utility of both those weapons and will not drop them!

Rhyse.8176:

Forgot to address the greatsword- it’s prbably my favorite melee weapon in the game. It’s got a perfect mix of offense, mobility, and defense. 4 is one of the best blocks in the game, doing both decent damage and an interrupt, and 3 is one of the best gap closers with very long range and short cooldown. GS’s one downside is no burst, but combined with the control the weapon brings it makes a very good attrition-type, wear the other guy down kind of weapon.

Both types of swords combine extremely well with traps- if you’re in melee range anyway, dropping them at your feet will always set off the trap. You can get a lot of extra damage or utility that way.

Your pet is your burst.

I faced a GS ranger the other day with S/D; it was pretty amusing to eat up his 4 block with Sword 2, fly back before he could kick me, then fly back in for a cripple.

You can turn the sword lock on/off in options. You can back roll out of it every time.

Check torch, Bonfire gives a huge dot and opens up a combo field.