Guild Wars 2

Considering trying out the ranger class despite my strong aversion to using pet classes in general. Only really interested in PvE

Tried out the mists for a bit and I really liked the way the swords play for melee (esp evasive strike with sword), and I’ve seen a few people post that sword builds are really good though I’m not sure if they meant pvp or pve.

I basically want to play as a mobile melee with good survival through evasion and dodging. Ideally I dont want to rely super heavy on the pet. I can learn to use it and live with it but I dont want to be useless if it dies.

I would probably use a longbow as ranged DPS to start fights and as my backup weapon.

Any builds and/or advice? (pick another class? lol)

For me, the main problem with sword in PvE is the “root” effect on #1.
If you don’t disable it, you’ll take a lot of damage you must evade.
If you disable it, you’ll be able to dodge when needed, but you’ll loose a lot of damage (because you’ll strike slower)

It’s a really fun weapon, I love it, but the solution against that annoying root effect bring others problems (especially in PvE)

Roll a warrior, lay your face on the keyboard, and profit.

If you ignore your pet, you lose 40% of your potential DPS. So any build that doesn’t allow for the pet (this includes the DDR and the 20/25/0/25/0 spirit build) is doing significantly less damage than any other class will.

Speccing into the pet means you’re accepting that a poorly coded NPC is going to be doing the lion’s share of your damage, and you’re merely along to make sure the opponent is slowed up enough for the pet to actually hit it.

I love the flavour of the ranger, and the nature themes. What the class desperately needs is for pets to be something that help, rather than hinder us.

In general overworld PvE, rangers are excellent. In PvP, there are two builds that are fantastic. In wvwvw, they’re about standard with the others. In running dungeons, Rangers are the undisputed absolute bottom of the barrel.

My advice? Try it, see how you like it, and if you enjoy the gameplay, join the rest of us in waiting for Anet to finally admit that they kittened up badly with pet implementation and actually fix it.

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/82923-the-sword-and-board-dps-ranger-build/

Is all you need to know about PvE DPS sword rangers.

Thanks for the advice.

Been looking at the skills and talents and I really like the whole wilderness survival tree. Tons of endurance and extra protection there. Is it viable to go 30 pts in that?

I guess I would want to focus on conditions if I did that right? Is it a good build to stack all the bleed stuff (on crit, sharpen Stone etc.)

Overall was thinking something like 20 marksman(steady focus and spotter) 30 wild survive(wild knowledge martial mastery and barkskin) and then maybe a bit in skirmishing (Sharpened edges) or nature (Vigorous spirits)

Probably use sword/horn and either short or longbow.

Is the sword root thing that bad? I didn’t even know till people mentioned it. I think I could live with it…

Am I on an ok track here or way off?

I think with Sword/Horn, Short bow is like an odd man out because Shortbow is very dependent on condition dps, which Sword Horn is ALL power dps. So I think if you’re set on a Bow, then try Longbow. I would take Entangle just for the CC though, it works wonders, but if you dont want/need the CC, then take Rampage as One.

However, I’ve been tinkering with Power too because I love Sword/Horn. I made a build that emphasizes Power but has built in tankyness (25k hp with 2.8k toughness) with about 2.6k Power. However, the only thing is that instead of Longbow, I substituted it in with Axe/Dagger. I don’t know what your playstyle is so its just food for thought. Heres the build if you want to check it out

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMhdG1IRVVdllkFqdgYpIPCqpITm39oUoqTFsaC-jgyAoLBRSEIRAmKEosXR0YLpERjVYUlNm6lIq2eXEtaA-e

Thanks,

I was thinking something kinda like this

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhEmebtR3wjDAkCmEeQADJMeohHkA-j0CB4MBkABkMAIFqIaslgRrgJsVRBRNBTjiIq2hAzjgIqWIgFrBA-w

Longbow might be better, I thought shortbow might be a bit better for close up skirmishing but I obv. dont know a lot yet.

I think you posted a Ele build

Oh wierd, I guess I just dont know how to link them properly.

So I should use axe/dagger and shortbow if I go full conditions, and sword/longbow for direct and crit damage?

A lot of ranger video’s I see go really heavy on toughness. Is that normal?

The sword probably has the worst survivability of any weapon in the game. The most powerful survival tool in the game is the dodge mechanic. The sword has parts of its auto attack chain which disable the ability to access the dodge mechanic. It also makes positioning much harder (any other melee weapon can walk circles around the target to avoid cleave range, the sword disables control of your character during the leap animation and thus roots it in place, preventing you from circling your character during those moments).

Full condition rangers will probably be bringing traps but they are subpar in PvE (and even worse compared to a full condition necro who can put out the same amount of bleeds or more, plus more conditions).

Sword is primarily a direct damage weapon, so is the longbow.

The shortbow is actually a hybrid weapon (it only has two DPS conditions and the poison is unreliable at range) so unless you are running traps, building pure conditions on a shortbow isn’t going to be very powerful. It actually does well as a power weapon, although the recent nerf has made the weapon lose a lot of its lustre in PvE.

The axe is a weak single target weapon but decent at AoE. It can be built as a condition or power weapon (Split Blade is decent bleeds at point blank range) especially if you combine it with the torch or warhorn respectively.

The greatsword is a low-medium damage melee power weapon but it has a decent amount of survival built in. Evasion on the auto-attack, block on another skill, a long range leap and a stun. Maul is where a lot of the DPS comes from but it’s has a baffling inclusion of bleeds (but the weapon doesn’t support power builds).

Off hand torch is a fire combo field and powerful burning, off hand dagger has poison and another evade,off hand axe has a rooted reflection skill and a high DPS pull skill and warhorn has a single target DPS skill combined with a party wide fury, swiftness and weak might buff so combine that with your sword or axe however you want.