Guild Wars 2

So my ranger is level 61 and probably it is my fault that she got to level 61 a little too soon from crafting etc and not from clearing zones, PvP, dungeons etc. Still, she is “current” with the story modes (AC, CM, TA and SE) and not too far behind on her personal story quests. So it’s not like I haven’t played her. But I still feel that I am missing something.

To explain, I have a level 80 guardian and a level 80 engineer. I enjoy them both and have a lot of fun with both my guardian and my engineer. There seems to be no end to the possible ways I can play both classes. But with ranger… I don’t know. I can’t seem to find a fun build or even a versatile trait spread that lets me switch between builds. That latter is very important to me because I don’t like running the same utilities all the time and on both engineer and guardian, I often change things between encounter to encounter etc.

I feel like I am missing something vital with the ranger. Where is the fun in playing the ranger? It should be the funnest class for PvE at least and I can’t seem to find the fun in either PvE or PvP. What’s wrong with me? What am I missing here?

There’s 2 main build types I’d suggest you start with:

20/20/5/0/5 (put the other 20 somewhere)
If you want traps bumping skirmishing to 30 is really optional though it does help. This gives you Signets or Traps for utilities easily. You also have the 5 in Wilderness Surival and the 5 in Beastmastery you should always have.

0/20/30/0/5 (put the other 15 wherever you like)
This tends to be the more tanky ranger (unless you’re going full tank with Signet of Stone and 30 Marksman). Both 30 point traits in Wilderness Survival are a huge boon, and the situation determines which is better. In my opinion this is also the more versatile build frame. You can swap to traps or survival utilities and grab the traits to go with them (shouts and spirits are really garbage by comparison right now). You can also easily go melee or ranged, condition or power, tanky or squishy. The gear/weapon choices make the most difference for this build. And, if you want your pet much past 20 in BM is dubious in its usefulness but you could put it up to 20 if you want.

Sorry for being vague but without really knowing what you’re after specifics are hard. I personally run 0/30/30/0/10 and I find that swapping around my gear, traits, pets, and utilities I can go full condition damage, power/crit, or very support/control oriented very effectively. I suffer a bit in the ‘tanky’ role due to not having signets but I can kite like a hot kitten if I bring Shortbow, Frost Trap, Spike Trap, and Muddy Terrain.

If you want full-on builds you can play with I could throw up links/explanations to a bunch for you but this already got pretty long and I’m not sure what areas of the game you’re playing. I don’t know anything about sPvP or tPvP though.

I honestly don’t think you’re missing a thing. Ranger is like many classes bottle-necked at the moment. So many traits don’t work and some builds have next to 0 synergy with others so trait swapping isn’t always practical. Imho your best bet is to figure out what you want to do first. Then find a weapon set that provides you what you need (mobility blocking dps etc), and then the pet.

Theoretically with pet management ranger should be more work than others classes but not necessarily more versatile. The pets are a gift if you like them and a curse if not. You are forced into the mechanic in a sense. While you can function without the pet you wont be any better than a warrior with a bow at range. So there is something completely limited about ranger.

Heres the good news. Since you dont know anythng yet you might aswell theory craft using a builder (http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mco) read others builds and take your ranger to spvp or something to test the builds.

First thing I did was find an acceptable build. Then I chose a pet I liked (birds) then I tried each weapon set out. And after I did all that and played the class a bit I threw it all out and did it again. Went from GS to Sword Warhorn, from birds to canines and reworked the build I found to suite me.

In the long run no one can tell you how or what to play. If you crafted just take it out and try it. For all you know you may hate ranger and it may take time to like it. Its just like that no matter what build someone gives you pets traits weapons whatever it doesn’t matter you need to go out and play the class. That’s about it. GL to yah hope you join the ranks.

One more note my mains an ele. Comparing ele to any class in complexity and versatility ele will win out (we cover too many roles usually). However to play ranger effectively requires me to press one more button than ele lol.

What build have you been running? If you’ve been using a bow for a long time, grab a greatsword and go melee or give the sword a shot. There’s no bad build or weapon for leveling since it’s always a good idea to get some experience with everything.

If you’re not digging any particular weapon, give traps a try. They’re better once you can put 30 traits into Skirmishing, but even before that they’re still fun.

Have to second traps, for pve they’re fun, but wvw is where they’re really fun.
They add another element to the game, setting up ambushes etc.
See a dead enemy player? stick some traps on their body and wait for the bait to catch something. Setting them up in narrow places like bridges also gives you a good way to ambush players or set up an escape route for yourself.

Thanks for the responses so far, I have gotten some good ideas to try a few things out. I have been playing with longbow, shortbow and greatsword but I am first to admit that my melee weapons have been under utilised. I got myself an axe and torch but haven’t really come-up with a build or play style.

I’ll try some of the things suggested and see if I can’t get excited about the ranger. I think I might also embrace the whole pet thing more. I like having a pet but I haven’t really been thinking of the pet as part of my build. That’s probably a mistake I made and so I will start thinking about the pet more and not just have it as a meat shield.

Using Unspecified’s general advice above, and choosing option #1 to go 25/30/15/0/0, you can switch between these two very different play styles easily without paying to re-trait:

PvE Solo or Small Team (Shortbow/Axe/Warhorn with Survival Utilities):
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcom0zm9MoRavMoRavMpxf9MzRMaso08kir707kir7khd

PvE Zerg (Longbow/Axe/Warhorn with Trap Utilities):
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcoc0zm9MomwxmoRavMpxf9MzRcaRo08kir707kir7khd

I like Protection on Dodge and I don’t bother with Beastmastery unless I can put at least 15 points in. I try to always take Blue Moa for Protection and Fern Hound for Regeneration, but sometimes Bears are called for. Flavor major traits to taste.

I find that melee weapons require something along the lines of 0/0/30/25/15.

Thanks Unbroken! I definitely want to switch between things and so that trait spread sounds promising.

Just one last question: spirits, are they really as unviable as I hear they are?

Tinni.4351:

Thanks Unbroken! I definitely want to switch between things and so that trait spread sounds promising.

Just one last question: spirits, are they really as unviable as I hear they are?

Spirits have a few problems:

1) They have an internal CD which prevents them from proccing very often (I’ve heard from 3-10 seconds it may vary from one spirit to another). This basically makes them useless as a solo utility because they just don’t have enough up time to make them even on par with other choices.

2) They die incredibly easily to the more powerful enemies in the game. This makes them more or less useless in any group situation like dungeons or WvW because they are always dead from AoE or body-blocking a shot. Go to the mists and try fighting the elementalist NPC with spirits up to see how quickly they die. Even fully traited they only have ~5k health.

3) Their active abilities are very difficult to hit with because of limited range and being centered on the spirit itself. So for the spirit to hit anything with its small AoE active ability it has to be up in the “Accidental AoE Death” range and stay there through the cast time.

They aren’t exactly ‘bad’ in theory just in practice they are either under-performing or dead and on a 60 second CD.

Unspecified.9142:

Tinni.4351:

Thanks Unbroken! I definitely want to switch between things and so that trait spread sounds promising.

Just one last question: spirits, are they really as unviable as I hear they are?

Spirits have a few problems:

1) They have an internal CD which prevents them from proccing very often (I’ve heard from 3-10 seconds it may vary from one spirit to another). This basically makes them useless as a solo utility because they just don’t have enough up time to make them even on par with other choices.

2) They die incredibly easily to the more powerful enemies in the game. This makes them more or less useless in any group situation like dungeons or WvW because they are always dead from AoE or body-blocking a shot. Go to the mists and try fighting the elementalist NPC with spirits up to see how quickly they die. Even fully traited they only have ~5k health.

3) Their active abilities are very difficult to hit with because of limited range and being centered on the spirit itself. So for the spirit to hit anything with its small AoE active ability it has to be up in the “Accidental AoE Death” range and stay there through the cast time.

They aren’t exactly ‘bad’ in theory just in practice they are either under-performing or dead and on a 60 second CD.

That’s pretty much what I observed but I didn’t have any spirit traits and so thought that maybe fully traited they might be more effective but doesn’t seem so. Thanks for the explaining, I won’t bother trying that out until something is done about spirits then.