Guild Wars 2

Is it possible? I’ve been trying to build a support ranger, and I figured “Hey, spirits would probably work the best for their buffs”

But they suck… So are there any other viable options for a support ranger?

Also, Superior Sigil of Water. Does that even proc for a Ranger?

Bear pet with Guard will draw aggro from allies
Horn’s CotW obviously
Pet howls (fern hound, jungle stalker, crimson moa)
Healing Spring + bow means range classes in the spring heal and all the melee allies next to your target gain regen too on your bow shot
Spirits are kinda lame atm, eventually we’re all hoping they’ll improve

While Ranger support is not in the best spot right now, they are still solid and fairly viable.

Healing Spring is flat out amazing. It alone is probably propping the Support Ranger up. Fast CD, fairly long uptime, and when used in combo fields ends up providing a pretty large amount of healing over it’s lifespan.

CotW on the warhorn is also fantastic, especially with the traits to make it close to 100% uptime.

Spirits definitely need some work, but they are not completely useless.

Search and Rescue is good, but probably needs some tweaking as well.

Pets can bring a lot of utility and support, but in order to make them work properly you will most likely be having to micro manage them to try and keep them alive.

My wife plays a support ranger currently. While she gets a little sad at some of her toolbox being really difficult to use properly (Pets / Spirits), overall she likes it and does not feel like a drain on our group. The only advice I can really give is to build around Healing Spring and CotW, as well as to not forget that Support does not mean “Dont do damage”… you will have a pretty good power stat with your Cleric armor set after all. Since spirits are lackluster, it makes your Utility choices more limited… so don’t be afraid to grab things like Sharpening Stone for additional DPS if you don’t want to use a slot with spirit.