Guild Wars 2

A while back, I decided to take a break from the short bow in dungeons to try a melee spec. I ran with a greatsword build for a while and was surprised at just how tanky a ranger can be in melee with the right build and weapon, but I decided that I wanted something that would bring more damage, so I looked to the 1h sword. After a lot of experimentation and looking at other 1h sword builds, I’ve decided on this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMPxG2IRVldkliFrdgopgTm/9I9tq9OFjy/Z8UCrYA;TwAg0CnomxMjYG7MuZkzsyYkxWkpIA

Updated Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMPxG2JRFVWGZhVQsWII6H4ErwhePS/sav/woy4pEWxA;ToAKqMUJoySljKJVrMGZsFZKC
^ You must copy and past this url for the link to work

Goal of this build:
- Provide high dps through melee while being sturdy enough to stay alive in tough fights
- Supplement pet dps through stacking might

Important Talents:
- Wilderness Knowledge: Quickening Zephyr is particularly important since it allows higher might stacking on pets (from pounce on the sword), so talents that reduce the cooldown are important.

- Companion’s Defense: Along with giving strong defense to myself, it allows me to prevent pets from getting gibbed when they get caught in boss abilities or can’t get out of bad stuff in time since I can dodge to protect them.

- Mighty Swap: This allows pets to be changed frequently for the quickness without causing too much loss of the might boon on the pet

- Fortifying Bond: This is one of the main reasons I have a Jungle Stalker in my build. The F2 ability of the pet generates 10 stacks on the pet instead of 5 with this talent since the 5 stacks I get bounce back to the pet on top of what the pet gave himself.

Gear:
I primarily use Berserker (power/precision/crit damage) armor with this, although I do also have some soldier (power/toughness/vit) pieces to prevent being too squishy. Also, I have Centaur runes in this build, but this is mainly a quality of life choice since I’m in love with swiftness. However, there are likely better choices if you’re focusing on dungeons.

Use of the build:
- Swap weapon sets frequently to get the might stacks from Sigil of Battle for you and your pet.
- As with any build that uses a 1h sword, turn off autoattack to prevent being stuck/rooted by the animation.
- Whenever Rampage as One is available, use it when your Raven is out. This is because you can easily get 25 stacks of might on your pet with this ability and the raven’s F2 ability will make good use of this since it’s a high damage attack. Also, the stalker doesn’t need to cast Mighty Roar when RaO is up, so they don’t benefit from it as much.
- When RaO is on cooldown, swap pets frequently. This benefits you for two reasons. One is of course that you gain quickness on swap from your talents. The other reason is that you can use F2 abilities more frequently since this cooldown is reset when pets are swapped.

Since so much of this build is set around stacking might on your pet, the use of cooldowns and pet swap make a big difference in damage output.

Variations:
- Swap an offhand for a torch: Burning can be problematic in PvE if you have other party members that may already be stacking the condition, but it does provide a higher dps potential if you don’t run into these stacking problems.
- Swap Signet of the Wild: If you’re running into a lot of condition damage, Sig of Renewal may work better and if you want more damage, you can bring “Sick ’Em” while swapping Speed Training for Shout Master

Work in Progress:
There’s always room for improvement, so I’m open for advice on this build. One of the main areas I’ve been indecisive about is the 20th talent point in Nature Magic. I’d like to invest 10 in Skirmishing for Pet’s Prowess or Companion’s Might, but I’m not sure what I would remove to get this. I’m considering dropping the 20 point talents from WS and NM to get this, but I’m not sure yet.

Update 12/15/12 I made the switch to drop 5 points from WS and NM respectively for the 10 in Skirmishing to get the 30% damage increase on pet crits since so much of the damage in this build comes from pet dps. Also, I swapped in “Sick ’Em” since the buff convinced me to use it. Finally, I went with “of the Ranger” runes for the extra precision since the strength sigils rely on crit to proc. I may need to use some more defensive gear to offset some of these changes.

Heard some people had trouble with the link, so here’s the same build on the Guildhead calculator:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmoVzVm9Moavg0oavg9cGGxokcoozb8kin7khs7kin7khs

Updated build below
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mmoVzVm9Moavr0oavr9Maffxzococb08kin7khs7kin7khs7070z7kIW70V

Interesting, although if I might suggest something, switch offhand training for HIPS or oakheart (well maybe more oakheart since you have nature’s bounty)
but.. it boils down to… where are you going to use this? dungeons? fractals? sPvP? story? WvsW ? what do you define as “hard fight” ? I’m a bit confused.
Also… are you or your pet going to tank? or are you switching back and forth?
I personally feel that traiting HIPS fills the role of stunbreaker most of the times, leaving you with an optional slot for lightning reflexes, maybe renewal as no matter where you go you (or your pet) gets conditions on you, and it also serves as an “oh crap” when tanking say… broodmother or a few dungeon bosses, also gives you the ability for mass purge your group (as well as stun break if you are in a pinch)… I feel your condition removal will suffer… since you are in the thick of things and dont have Empathic Bond :/
I’m a sucker for 30 WS, can’t get rid of those points no matter the occation
You might want to consider axe on your offhand (going axe/warhorn) save 5 for when you can switch back, and you got some ranged abilities along with weakness on uhm… 3? think it’s 3… from your pet.

maybe consider sigil of blood (think it’s blood, I’m not ingame to check, it’s the one with life steal) if you go with berserker gear…. or… water… but you’d have to go for cleric (or the other forgot it’s name) gear for it to be moderately useful.

But… depends on where you are going and what your group setup is as you have clearly stated… there is some wiggle room for “protect me” aswell

Anyway hope you got something from this rant, and if you do I’d love to hear about it!

Thanks for the feedback!

I just made an update where I dropped the 20 point talent in WS, but I think you’re right about HIPS being better than offhand training, so if I do go back to using this talent, I’ll go with HIPS.

As for tanking, I haven’t designed this build to primarily be the tank, although it should be able to survive being focused for a while. However, if I take too much damage, I pop out and use the ranged offhand abilities for a bit.

Since there’s no real reliable way to control who an enemy focuses, I find that it bounces between my pet and me quite a bit. Neither pet I chose are really designed for tanking, but with the BM investment and the frequent swapping, they tend to do fine.

My goal for this build was to be a solid dungeon dps build that functions for general PvE as well.

I’ve also considered “Protect Me”, but it would probably require a tankier pet. However, I probably could change a few things around to make a tankier variant where “Protect Me” is a good fit.

I quit playing GW2 2 months ago, but since this patch fixed most of the stuff that annoyed me and since AN windet events are aways awesome… I’ll me going back home.

I’ve been using a similar build since launch, but with Cleric equipment. It is very fun to play and I’m glad someone else came up with almost the same build. I used to switch some skills for better support in dungeons, but as it has been two months I’ve yet to see how things have changed.

Might I suggest using Rune of lyssa with your build and an Axe as a mainhand in your 2nd weapon set. Rune of Lyssa makes R as One a whole lot better and coupled with F Bond makes for some fun tactical desicions. The Axe provides with some much needed dps, weakness and snare when you have to avoid melee in a certain boss phase in Dungeons.

I posted my build here when I was still playing, it might be outdated but you might wanna check it out : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Post-Your-Build-Thread/first#post217867
0/5/20/15/30 because I took the off-hand mastery in the 3rd trait line, I find it is much more beneficial than 30% crit damage for your pet. I’ve also put some info on F Bond in the gw2 wiki, but it is a bit outdated as stability now stacks.

I later upgraded my weapons with some Swiftness in weapon swap sigils, cause well… I love swiftness too. blush

Once again cheers for playing this fun build mate, I hope I find more ppl like you during the holidays.

Dahkeus.8243:

Important Talents:
- Wilderness Knowledge: Lightning Reflexes is particularly important since it allows higher might stacking on pets (from pounce on the sword), so talents that reduce the cooldown are important.

Hm, what do you mean with this? How does LR impact might stacking on your pet from pounce? Do you mean you use LR to jump back, then leap back into melee range with sword 1 for one extra might? Sword 1 stacks might anyway since pounce is part of the chain, so if this what you mean, I think it’s a waste of use on LR.

Please elaborate!

OGDeadHead.8326:

Dahkeus.8243:

Important Talents:
- Wilderness Knowledge: Lightning Reflexes is particularly important since it allows higher might stacking on pets (from pounce on the sword), so talents that reduce the cooldown are important.

Hm, what do you mean with this? How does LR impact might stacking on your pet from pounce? Do you mean you use LR to jump back, then leap back into melee range with sword 1 for one extra might? Sword 1 stacks might anyway since pounce is part of the chain, so if this what you mean, I think it’s a waste of use on LR.

Please elaborate!

Doh! Sorry, that was a typo. I meant to say Quickening Zephyr since the quickness allows for faster stacking with the sigil of strength.

@Wayfinder: Runes of Lyssa do sound like they would synergize well with the build. I guess I dismissed when I saw the condition damage, but it does look to have some potential. I’ll also consider an axe mainhand, but I’m really liking using a sword for both since I’m swapping weapon on cooldown for the might buffs from Sigil of Battle. Also with the 10 in Skirmishing, I get the swiftness on weapon swap without a sigil.