Guild Wars 2

This is more tpvp related but I’m sure it fits everyone in some way.

Is it just me or do rangers have the worst utility skills of any class? It actually makes me angry looking at them, comparing Wells to Traps, stun breakers.

a lot of other classes utility skills do several things, while ours like Spirits have a % chance to work…great. Our signets are surely not nearly as powerful a some others, Necro signets are far better. I’m just playing necro a little for the first time so I’ll use their skills as an example.

Engis complain about elixir R because it no longer does like 1 of the 4 things it could before haha.

i think tpvp is where rangers actually shine. I use QZ and protect me and SoH as my utilities but I’ve seen many builds use other signets to much success. In tPvP rangers with GS/sword/SB are great and the pet really makes a difference. Spirits are trash and shouldnt be used in PvE or PvP. You can use that SoS also in conjunction with protect me and your invincible for 6 seconds. Muddy terrain also is great makes your target immobile as hell. There are many builds out there with traps that are great with S/T or S/D even GS or SB.

Our signets are modestly good and can compliment most builds, but unless you’re running Signet of the Beastmaster they’re not quite as good as most other class’ signets. (If you are running SotBM they are probably the best signets in the game, but that’s a grandmaster trait and really constrains what you can do build-wise.)

Traps really don’t do much for you unless you go all-in on them. You rarely see them used by anyone who isn’t a full trapper build.

The shouts other than Protect Me are very lackluster. (Guard is good with the new Nature’s Voice trait, but only because of its low cooldown for triggering the trait, not because of what the skill actually does.)

The survival skills are all ok, but none of them make any other classes jealous. They can all help fill out a build, though.

And the spirits…well those are still just plain bad in most situations.

We can get by with what we have, but there’s never been anything to get excited about in our utility skills unless you’re using very specific builds. The only thing that completely sucks is the spirits, though, so at least we have a good variety of mediocrity available.

If the Ranger had balanced utility skills you’d see more rangers use different utility skills.

At the moment the viable skills are;

Signets, if you leave them on passive.
Lightning Reflexes, because Rangers are dying for stun breakers. (I’m not counting Quickening Zephyr because of the Quickness nerf and it being a deathwish.)

The rest is just meh. In most cases you have to use traits to even make them worthwhile.

Ranger utilities and what is used in tPvP currently. 1 is not seen 10 is always seen to give perspective.

LR: 8
QZ: 3
Muddy Terrain: 1
Sharpening Stone: 2
SoR: 8
SotW: 6
SotH: 4
SoS: 2
Frost trap: 1
Fire trap: 3
Spike trap: 3
Poison trap: 3
Protect Me: 3
Guard: 2
Search and Rescue: 1
Sic Em: 2.5
Frost Spirit: 2.5
Storm Spirit: 8
Sun Spirit: 8
Stone Spirit: 8
Entangle: 3
Rampage as One: 4
Spirit of Nature: 8

Some of our utilities like LR and SoR are amazing and are utilities that I feel are almost necessary. With the current meta for rangers being spirits in tPvP Storm, Sun, and Stone spirits have all seen a huge rise in use. The buffs spirits gives and their actives are very good if used properly, however, a stunbreak on one of their actives would be nice. Some rangers use shout regen builds with guard but this spec pails in comparison to spirits in both 1 v 1 and team support (not to mention shouts just aren’t good). Signets are decent, though having to trait 30 into a power line to get a 6s invuln that doesn’t protect you against the condi meta is awful. Traps are pretty much worthless in tPvP because they leave the player defenseless and are very easy to avoid.

That being said the top skills used are:

Storm spirit, Sun spirit, Stone spirit, SoR, LR. That is 20% of our skills and I rarely see or use anything other than this. When I do use SoR and LR I often find myself wishing we had another good utility that didn’t require traiting 30 into a line. Signets = 30 in marksmanship, spirits = 30 in nature magic, traps = 30 in skirmishing, shouts = 30 in nature magic. I don’t believe any class has to do this to use their utilities.

a spirit build currently is actually the strongets build we have access to at the moment in tpvp.
running 10/0/30/30 with a carrion amulet + rabid jewel ( if you never want to die go shamans and play healing spring, it’s also more group support as you can trait for heals grant vigor thus basically granting reg,vigor,protection and swiftness to your party + burning on procc)
23772 hp, 2520 armor, 8% critchance, 1585 power, 1223 condi damge, 10% condi duration and 30% boon duration.
running forge runes on top of that will net you at 50% increased protection duration, thus granting 3 seconds of protection on every dodge roll.
combine that with the spirit procc and you basically got permanent protection on yourself, which is huge – also your pet hugely benefits from that, permanent protection + swiftness on your pet and the burning procc as well.
why spirits you say?
well the good thing is that each spirit procc can actually procc on each spirit active, making it possible for you to have 5 sources available that all can procc burning individually ( if you run around without a team already).
furthermore setting up spirit bombs is one of the most fun things ever in this game, as it’s not easy to land and actually feels rewarding ( maybe a bit too rewarding, as the pressure is quite insane).
another thing that makes spirits incredibly good is that you can provide them with boons like protection, swiftness, reg – but more importantly also with might an fury.
this is where storm spirits active call lightning comes in handy ( also path of scars is great to set it up, precast stone spirit immob then path of scars and then call lightning – by doing it right your victim just got hit by 3 sources of burning, is cced and immobilized and just got hit by 2,8k-4k noncrit) anyways back to mightstacking – so far the highest crit i could achieve in an spvp match with call lightning was 9,2k aoe. mind you that is with applying huge amounts of condition pressure and support to your team as well.
there’s some more depths to spirits that i dont feel like spoiling yet – try it and have fun fellow rangers!