Guild Wars 2

What kind of builds are viable for zerg warfare in WvW for rangers? Are any particular pets better than another for team support or vs. zergs?

Are any of the support builds good for such situations if so what are they(i.e. buffing/healing setups)?

Just considering a ranger as a new alt again.

I’m assuming rangers are a little more suited to small scale skirmishing or supply camp soloing with some of the cleric gear oriented builds?

For WvW zerg, I run full glass-cannon longbow with sword/horn. Do decent damage from 1500 range. Horn gives you swiftness. Sword 2 skill can get you out of trouble.

If you want to buff your group, use red moa for 15 sec fury on f2. That coupled with warhorn 5 can give your group near permanent fury.

Ranger’s support skills are spirits, which unfortunately are terrible right now (the effects are weak and the spirits die easily). So I think you’re better off just going for damage. In a smaller skirmish, say 5v5, you could consider a full condition build with traps. But that lacks range for zerging.

I can solo supply camps no problem in full berserker gear. And I do it much faster than if I was in cleric’s gear, so it’s probably ultimately safer. Your pets will tank for you, so you don’t need to be tanky yourself (when fighting simple AI).

Ralk.7106:

I can solo supply camps no problem in full berserker gear. And I do it much faster than if I was in cleric’s gear, so it’s probably ultimately safer. Your pets will tank for you, so you don’t need to be tanky yourself (when fighting simple AI).

I often run into skirmishes with players when soloing supply camps on my mesmer and engineer and can usually take the camp vs 2-3 average players while dealing with the mobs in the camp too. I’m on a high tier server so there are going to people to fight 24/7 roaming between camps.

Nice to know zerker lb works ok for zergs though. I"m assuming LB shots pierce or can be specced to? WvW zerg play with minimal AE dmg = almost useless.

Shame to hear spirits are still in a bad shape.

I run mostly LB/SB in wvw with a variety of pets depending on situation- sometimes regen buff is good, sometimes 6 stacks of might, sometimes fear etc, but apart from right at the start of any zerg encounter your pets are probably going to be dead or on cooldown from death or crippled and not reaching any meaningful targets, so 30% or so of your damage is gone most of the time.

Was running a bit more of a tanky build but have lost a bit of toughness now for a bit more damage as when I die it tends to be to mass damage that an extra 500 toughness or a bit of extra healing wasn’t going to help anyway.

The key is switching your weapons while skills are on cooldown and running your QZ, etc at the right times, but really it’s more a question of finding the style that suits you and go for it. If you find melee suits you better then roll a warrior- they do a pile more damage have better armor and can use rifles as well as bows.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FV-g;2FFx-r2gDV-0;9V2O;2JT-J;109-58A;108-4-k6;2LNW4LNW46gD

0/20/30/0/20

SB+GS / Jungle Spider+Dog
Fantastic single target control

This is a good all round build that you can use any time and any place!

Immobilize: x3 (2sec + 2sec + 3sec)
Knock Down: x1 (2sec)
Cripple: Near all the time

Disastro.4086:

Nice to know zerker lb works ok for zergs though. I"m assuming LB shots pierce or can be specced to? WvW zerg play with minimal AE dmg = almost useless.

Yes. You can go 30/30/10/0/0. You’ll get both piercing arrows and longer range from marksmanship. It’s worth noting that longbow 5 (barrage) is amazing AoE damage for assaulting keeps and damaging downed players. But it does have a long CD and deals damage over time.

Cempa.5619:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FV-g;2FFx-r2gDV-0;9V2O;2JT-J;109-58A;108-4-k6;2LNW4LNW46gD

0/20/30/0/20

SB+GS / Jungle Spider+Dog
Fantastic single target control

This is a good all round build that you can use any time and any place!

Immobilize: x3 (2sec + 2sec + 3sec)
Knock Down: x1 (2sec)
Cripple: Near all the time

Hey Cempa you should test out running the Wolf, I’ve now got my pet set to avoid combat in WvW, reason being is they die to easy and a new combo I’ve found to be extremely effective.

When I get jumped by group of players I get stunned/KD/Imbo normally you would die, or I need run into zergs to down someone. I petswap to my wolf and F2 and thanks to being on avoid combat he uses his Fear right away. And if you run 15 in Bm you have fear every 25 seconds the CD will reset on pet swap, so No 45 second wait on your F2.

Sol.4310:

Cempa.5619:

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-FV-g;2FFx-r2gDV-0;9V2O;2JT-J;109-58A;108-4-k6;2LNW4LNW46gD

0/20/30/0/20

SB+GS / Jungle Spider+Dog
Fantastic single target control

This is a good all round build that you can use any time and any place!

Immobilize: x3 (2sec + 2sec + 3sec)
Knock Down: x1 (2sec)
Cripple: Near all the time

Hey Cempa you should test out running the Wolf, I’ve now got my pet set to avoid combat in WvW, reason being is they die to easy and a new combo I’ve found to be extremely effective.

When I get jumped by group of players I get stunned/KD/Imbo normally you would die, or I need run into zergs to down someone. I petswap to my wolf and F2 and thanks to being on avoid combat he uses his Fear right away. And if you run 15 in Bm you have fear every 25 seconds the CD will reset on pet swap, so No 45 second wait on your F2.

Cool thanks! By the way are you still running that build I linked -though I think you might use the bleed instead of LR?

Sol.4310:

Hey Cempa you should test out running the Wolf, I’ve now got my pet set to avoid combat in WvW, reason being is they die to easy and a new combo I’ve found to be extremely effective.

When I get jumped by group of players I get stunned/KD/Imbo normally you would die, or I need run into zergs to down someone. I petswap to my wolf and F2 and thanks to being on avoid combat he uses his Fear right away. And if you run 15 in Bm you have fear every 25 seconds the CD will reset on pet swap, so No 45 second wait on your F2.

I set my pets to avoid combat at times myself, there are fights like golems knocking on a door at garrison or a keep which are basically big balls of light and my pet won’t realistically do any amount of hurt to anyone there or in some other flash fires so I pocket them at those times for their f2 or to attack on my command. Over time though you put together a better keymap layout for your pet commands and you get better at knowing when to unleash and when to pull them back.

Disastro.4086:

What kind of builds are viable for zerg warfare in WvW for rangers?

Against your average zerg glass cannon does fairly well. The problem is that against organized guild zergs, your projectiles will kill you in a few seconds due to all the retaliation/reflection. You will die from a single barriage on a stacked zerg that knows what they are doing.

But there are a lot of unorganized zergs out there, and you can always pick people off around the edges with rapid fire, which does amazing damage with quickness.

Overall, rangers are not competitive in zerg warfare if that’s what your focus is. The top wvw guilds don’t recruit rangers, which kind of says it’s all right there.

I’m running 20/20/0/30/0 spirit support build with LB + SB.

I can understand why spirits aren’t popular, but when you get all the right traits in and learn how to play with them, it really can be a good, powerful and viable build. Also the 2nd toggle skill of the spirits helps in 1vs1’s. Just make sure you got all the right traits: spirits have extra health, move around and follow you and +15% benefit… >> equipped with longbow and being around friendlies and in the backline and midline primarily without being targeted and aoe’d a lot, you can do a lot for your team and with 20 in both markmanship and skirmishing you’re also getting your kills.

snacktime.1082:

Overall, rangers are not competitive in zerg warfare if that’s what your focus is. The top wvw guilds don’t recruit rangers, which kind of says it’s all right there.

I have to ask this, then are they TRULY prepared for a Ranger? If you don’t expect to see a ranger, how do you know when to prepare for one when you don’t expect it? After all, it’s just like a certain other thing that nobody expects…

Ranger is a versatile class and you need an adaptive player to play it well, not a one trick pony. A good player needs to have full situation awareness, and the ranger class is able to support most needs in a battle when called for. That said, sometimes it’s not so much of the class or profession in WvW, but the player.

I’m finding that I function the best as a tanky BM build. I tried running as a glass cannon, but it seems I often get doubleteamed by hit-and-run stealth thieves or dagger/dagger eles for them to rush into the zerg to try to kill and get back out safely with their lame mistform/ride the lightening or stealth. Probably my positioning sucks or they like to single out the historically weak ranger. With this build I stay alive pretty kitten easily in most situations and can last until I get to friendly lines unless I really get zerged.

Anyhow my job is to stay alive to add my meager dps to focus fire targets, help revive downed team mates and to cast healing spring. Healing spring is so good I don’t feel guilty for not bringing any other utility.

renmei.3102:

I’m finding that I function the best as a tanky BM build. I tried running as a glass cannon, but it seems I often get doubleteamed by hit-and-run stealth thieves or dagger/dagger eles for them to rush into the zerg to try to kill and get back out safely with their lame mistform/ride the lightening or stealth. Probably my positioning sucks or they like to single out the historically weak ranger. With this build I stay alive pretty kitten easily in most situations and can last until I get to friendly lines unless I really get zerged.

Anyhow my job is to stay alive to add my meager dps to focus fire targets, help revive downed team mates and to cast healing spring. Healing spring is so good I don’t feel guilty for not bringing any other utility.

It won’t be meager if you’re keeping your pet up and have an easy keymap to command them. If you use your control skills your pet will clean up, I normally daze then burn siege operators or sometimes dodge in or sword#2 un-targeted into their battery and drop Entangle and fire trap/healing spring then axe#5 while my group pushes in. Once you memorize your skill roll out so you’re playing it like a piano, as long as you’re controlling targets you’re going to see bags on the ground.

RyuDragnier.9476:

snacktime.1082:

Overall, rangers are not competitive in zerg warfare if that’s what your focus is. The top wvw guilds don’t recruit rangers, which kind of says it’s all right there.

I have to ask this, then are they TRULY prepared for a Ranger? If you don’t expect to see a ranger, how do you know when to prepare for one when you don’t expect it? After all, it’s just like a certain other thing that nobody expects…

I don’t think it matters, since as the guy you quoted said, the Mesmer projectile bubble stops you from doing anything (or kills you if your timing is bad) anyway. In high tier WvW, mesmer’s chain confusion constantly, not because they’re thinking about Rangers, but because it’s how they block most anything comming their way.

Bow using Ranger’s are simply hurt more by this common tactic than other classes.