Hey all,
I’m posting this because I noticed there are way too few guides to help Rangers out. I think that this build is pretty much the best rangers are capable of, and I’m happy with the results.
How is the damage?
High. Not Warrior high, but high. 5% more longbow damage, 10% damage when above 90% health, 10% damage when endurance is full, 10% damage when flanking… these add up. And at max range, you can maintain all of these boosts very easily.
LB 1 can hit for 3.5k, nearly on par with warriors 1 move.
Utility provides by this build:
Frost spirit, always. For a 3.5% increase to damage for party. Before people cry, with the recent 60% health buff, and if you keep them near you and use healing spring to keep them up, Spirits will almost never die until they are off cooldown.
Stone spirit when needed (No Guardian), for decent protection uptime for party.
If you have any HEAVY condition damagers, add Sun Spirit. A condition necro or condition thief will suddenly gain access to burning, boosted by their own condition damage and condition duration. This can massively buff the condition damagers in your group.
10 stacks of vulnerability on target, the equivalent of Warrior’s “On My Mark” but on a shorter cooldown. 10% damage to target. Very few pugs hit 25 stacks of vulnerability on boss’s, so this is a huge boost.
5 stacks of might for 11 seconds every thirty seconds, using Jungle Stalker.
Healing Spring, one of the best heals in the game— 5k heal, AoE + 6k regen and tons of combo finisher potential. Be sure to drop it near boss or wherever allies need health since, at max range, you won’t be needing it for yourself much. Plenty of Regen via using combos inside of healing spring.
15s of fury/might/swiftness every 35 seconds. 42% uptime. This is huge.
How to Play
When you reach the location you will spend most of the fight (minimum possible distance away to reach 1000+ range), spawn your Spirit(s). it is important to pick a good spot so they benefit from your healing spring.
Use Axe/Warhorn off-set to provide 15s fury/might/swiftness to your party every 35 seconds. Be sure to run near them when you’re going to use it. Then use Warhorn 4 for nice damage. If possible, swap back to Longbow at this point. If not, use 4, 3, 2, 1 in that priority until you can.
With Longbow, always use 3 as your first priority unless the target is sitting at 25 stacks of vulnerability. Longbow 5 is your highest damager in AOE situations or if you know the target will stand in it for its full duration.
Only use longbow 4 as a Projectile Finisher unless you take aggro and need survival. It is a major annoyance to melee damagers.
Longbow 2 is your best damager if not at max range, and in some gear, appears to be best damager overall due to the faster cast speed. If not at max range, use LB 3 on cooldown as it beats LB 1. If you aren’t sure if you’re at max range, use the priority of 5, 3, 2, 1. If you are sure you are at max range, use 3 (if need vuln), 1.
Longbow 1, at max range, will hit pretty hard and do a majority of your damage.
When you notice the group around the boss taking lots of damage, run in and give them a healing spring to keep them up, especially since it will provide a lot of heals via whirling, blast, and projectile finishers. Remember that you can use any of your projectile finishers to give yourself tons of regen while standing in the water field.
Swap to Spirit of Nature elite when your group needs it. The +100% health, and you staying near it with healing spring will actually make it very powerful.
Please note all of your projectile finishers you have available to grant yourself a huge amount of extra healing when they are used in healing spring.
When you find yourself in need of stamina, swap to Axe for sigil of energy useage.
Remember that with Piercing, ALL of your moves are AOE with proper positioning.
Pets:
Are they going to have trouble staying alive? Spider/devourer because they are ranged.
Are they not? Cats for boss, Drakes for AoE. Specifically I mean Jaguar for max damage (crits when stealthed), and Jungle Stalkers for 5 stacks of might to party for 11 seconds every 30 seconds.
Does your melee group need help and someone to do some of the tanking? Bears. This helps in groups without many heavies.
Gear:
Full zerker and scholar runes helps a lot with damage. Optionally swap legs, helm, chest, longbow, to PVT or Knights for extra survival, in that order, swapping as few pieces as possible.
Ranger moves have poor scaling, so Sigil of Fire benefits them a bit more than other classes.
You can bring an alternate Longbow with Bloodlust to get 25 stacks, then switch to the one with Fire Sigil.
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/84416-guide-minmax-dungeon-groups-with-any-class-composition/
Personally, I’d swap axe for sword, as it deals more dmg and it’s melee weapon – very useful against bugged structures (AC burrows) or reflecting enemies (maw fractal).
These are quite rare :P