Guild Wars 2

Alright, so I’ve been going through my characters (1 of each profession) getting them up to level 80. Next on my list was the ranger, which would be my 5th level 80 character.

Here’s the thing: I’ve gotten him to level 46, and he’s still brutally boring and seemingly useless to play. Originally I also hated playing my Mesmer, but everyone told me that Mesmers got better after about 40-45, and they were completely right. Got my Mesmer to level 80 and I loved it after that 40-45 range.

To me, it just seems that the Ranger is very very underpowered in PvE. I’m having a much harder time doing anything than I did on my other 4 characters. It seems as if anything I do as a ranger, another profession could do it ten times better. I felt the same way about Rangers in GW1…I wanted to play them, but just couldn’t see any practical use for them.

I’ve tried multiple things, mostly Greatsword, Longbow, Shortbow, Axe/Torch, and although GS, LB, and A/T seemed to be the most fun and effective, I’m still having a difficult time with them.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this the class? Does it get better after a certain level like the Mesmer seemed to do? Is there any talk of a buff coming up? Thanks for the help/advice.

Wow, Ranger was my easiest one to level up in PvE, compared to my other characters he was a monster. That being said, it is very easy to play a useless ranger. If you are playing solo and want to speed level, try this out:

Go beastmaster and make sure that your pet is as nasty as they come with traits. Your pets should be close combat variants. One for high single target damage (jaguar, lynx, or the canines for the knockdowns). One is for tanking and group combat (river drake or murellow).

You can do two different weapon variants. I usually do 2 different weapon combos:

1: greatsword/shortbow. This gives a lot of tanking ability. The greatsword gives good survivability, and when you need to kite (usually vets or champs), the shortbow gives you decent auto attack that can stack bleeding.

2: Sword+warhorn/axe+torch. This gives high damage and is really good for handling veterans and champions, as the longer the fight goes, the more might you will stack on your pet. When you need to kite (usually groups) the axe hits a lot of people, and the torch gives you more attrition burning. I usually don’t have room for the fire trap here, since I love the sword and QZ.

A few general things:

Always use healing spring. It is brilliant. Either with your missile weapon, or by doing leaps in it.

Bring at least one field (cold or fire trap are my favorites). Don’t use your leap attacks to close gaps, use them for healing or fire and frost armor. Both cats and dogs have leaps as well, so with both of you sporting those auras the damage adds up quick.

There are many viable builds of course, but I always had the most fun just running in and cutting things up, and the ranger is surprisingly good at it. Not the highest damage, but mobs don’t kite pets, and if you are in close combat as well, the damage racks up fast.

Thanks, I appreciate the comment. I didn’t mean they were hard to play as in I was dying a lot, I just meant I didn’t feel like I was having as much fun or reaching a full potential. I will definitely try this out.

The old classic stand and plink while the pet tanks gets old real fast, and doesn’t get the best use out of the pet either, especially on higher levels where the mobs focus more on you. And playing is all about fun, that is why I love the ranger. Can do all sorts of crazy builds to change things up. Sadly, not all of them are effective…

Ditch the bear. I’m guessing you’re using the bear because, like me, you’re trying for a ranger-primary / pet-secondary build. When you do that, the bears end up being attractive because they survive the longest.

That turns out to be a pretty ineffective way to play a ranger in PvE. You pretty much have to go half/half with the pet, or (for the total BM build) pet-primary / ranger-secondary. When I finally sat down and tested the different pets’ damage, the bears took twice as long to kill anything, three times as long as the cats. That’s the price they pay for having so many hp. In comparison, the highest damage pets (the cats) killed the test golems solo almost twice as quickly as my ranger could solo.

Try the drakes, birds, or cats. They’ll help you kill stuff much quicker, so you have more leeway to do different things safely (you take less damage per fight since stuff dies faster). And experiment with putting some points into BM. The pet is pretty much a required feature of the class, not an optional decorative piece (which is why rangers struggle when pets are removed from the equation, like in PvP or Fractals or against bosses which one-shot the pet).

Or he could go for a trap build. Nothing like luring enemies into your traps and watching the Condition Damage tear through their HP like they were paper. For that build, the pet is extra damage for you. You don’t rely on it to kill the enemy, but you DO rely on it to take the aggro, so I suggest a devourer to help with that. They aggro more than I do on bosses!

I don’t use a bear, actually. I’ve been using a Jaguar/Black Moa combo. Black Moa I guess is a somewhat tanky pet. Should I go Jaguar/White Raven? Also, should I try to focus some trait points and utility skills towards beast mastery and my pet?