Guild Wars 2

Hiya!

I was wondering how you all play your ranger, as I am always interested in finding out other players gamestyles and suggestions (specifically to the ranger, as that is what I play as).

- Preferred pets, and why
- Preferred weapons, and why
- Preferred stats, and why

Whether you are a high level, or are still struggling and leveling up, any tips are welcome as I am sure to have missed some things myself or not figured out those things yet. =)

I personally preffer a Long bow.
i also use a brown bear ( TANK )
and marksmanship due to the power needed for a ranger THEN crits

For me;

-Preferred pets
I mainly play with the Brown Bear, as it is one of the best pets I found to take a beating. It won’t die too quickly, so it can play tank, and the skill to take on debuffs is sexy too.
As a second, I tend to go for a DPS one, but not really found one I liked the most.

-Preferred weapons
My main weapon would be the short bow, as I like to do quick attacks for crits and apply/stack bleeds.
On the swap I have a longbow, which I use when my shortbow skills are on cooldown, and for general AoE at range.

-Preferred stats
I am focussing on Power and Precision, for main DPS and crits. This also means that in my Traits, I have maxed out Power, and going full in Precision now. If I have a choice between power/precision and Precision/Crit dmg, I stille go for Power/precision though. I am not sure if that is the right choice or not. :P

Currently lvl 65

FaceFoiled.5142:

For me;

-Preferred pets
I mainly play with the Brown Bear, as it is one of the best pets I found to take a beating. It won’t die too quickly, so it can play tank, and the skill to take on debuffs is sexy too.
As a second, I tend to go for a DPS one, but not really found one I liked the most.

-Preferred weapons
My main weapon would be the short bow, as I like to do quick attacks for crits and apply/stack bleeds.
On the swap I have a longbow, which I use when my shortbow skills are on cooldown, and for general AoE at range.

-Preferred stats
I am focussing on Power and Precision, for main DPS and crits. This also means that in my Traits, I have maxed out Power, and going full in Precision now. If I have a choice between power/precision and Precision/Crit dmg, I stille go for Power/precision though. I am not sure if that is the right choice or not. :P

Currently lvl 65

YES. same here besides im a long bow type a guy

Level 80 Ranger – Sylvari

Preferred Pets –
Bear – Soloing
Eagle – Group DPS
Armorfish – Water Soloing
Shark – Water DPS

Preferred Weapons -
Shortbow – Most versatile single-target DPS.
Axe/Warhorn – Support.
Longbow – WvWvW. I wanted to like LB for PvE, but you can’t get range on much of anything.

Preferred Stats – (Shortbow)
Power – Condition Damage – Vitality

Preferred Slot Skills –
Healing Spring
Sharpening Stone
Signet of Cleansing
Lightning Reflexes
Take Root / Spirit of Renewal

Pets: Usually a bear for tank and a cat for dps (shark and jellyfish in water).

Weapons: I mainly use longbow because i love the Rapid Fire ability with Quickening Zephyr (QZ), on the swap I usually have an axe and torch (great for putting down some fire then swapping to longbow for Rapid Fire/QZ)

Stats: Mainly focused on Power and Precision.

Preferred Pets:
Bear and Moa. Bear for standard PvE play and Moa for dungeons and group play.

Preferred Weapons:
Short bow for pure DPS and the research/numbers I’ve seen shows that the Longbow doesn’t even come close to matching. Longbow needs some numbers worked around or needs to include an inherent vulnerability stacking, but that’s a different discussion all together.

Also I take Axe Warhorn. Movement buff is essential for moving around and the Axe AoE bounce for World Events is a life saver. With all the bleed stacking that goes on, the boss is usually maxed out on bleed stacks so having an alternative to stacking bleed is important, IMO.

Preferred Stats
No ranger can go without Power or Precision for 5 points into Wilderness Survival for increased Endurance Regeneration. Also, if people are taking short bow, you have to include some +Condition Damage into your stats.

Long bow and great sword here. I love to deal damage and AoE from afar then swap to my great sword and leap in. If I take to much damage I use one of my utility skills to jump backwards and do some dodge rolls and pull the long bow back out.

pet + longbow
and if I want to go into melee, sword+dagger.

cheers

For pet I use a Murrelow it has everything the bear has except it has a ground aoe poison instead of a cleave. and with stacking a lot of cond dmg , the poison does a lot of dmg itself.
bleeds with my shortbow for my main weapon, and a 1hand sword with a torch but that is just for mess around.

Level 80 Human Ranger

Typical weaponset: Shortbow/Longbow
Skills: Spike Trap, Ice Trap, Quickening Zephyr
Elite: Hounds for general PVE, Entangle for WvW

Pets: Usually bear/arctodus for soloing.

I like to kite and stack bleeds, hence my shortbow and spike trap. The ice gets a combo field on the ground while QZ can help you stack bleeds from Crossfire quickly if you can manage to flank. I’m traited with 30 Skirmishing, 25 Wilderness Survival, and 15 Marksmanship. I have good survivability while being able to max out bleed stacks (25) on single targets if I can keep at their sides. It’s usually rare that enemies get close enough to hit me because I’m traited to give swiftness and fury on weapon swaps + swiftness when I hit with quick shot coupled with the cripples and slows from spike/ice traps. Works pretty well.

Axe and Warhorn
Sword and Dagger.

10 in power, 30 in condition damage+toughness, 30 Beastmastery.
In PVE I use sylvari hound for the regen and it attacks quickly. Other pet is a Devourer, the one that gives Vuln on its F2.

Also Anet, please change the sound effect for the pets regen. It just sounds like someone nasally breathing.

- Preferred pets, and why
I use a polar bear for tanking (he like, never dies) and an alpine wolf for DPS. The latter will probably change sometime soon, I just haven’t experimented with different DPS pets yet.

- Preferred weapons, and why
Longbow: I like it because of Point Blank Shot, and the fact that it does more damage with it’s auto-attack the further you are away. Also for Barrage. MAKE IT RAIN!
Axe/Torch: This combo is just super fun. What I do (mainly for farming) is use my longbow to grab a bunch of mobs, get them concentrated into one spot, switch my weps to axe/torch, drop a Bonfire, then watch my axes bounce around until every mob dies at the same time, moments later.

- Preferred stats, and why
Vit, power, and healing. I don’t know if it’s “correct” or not, but that’s really how I’ve been playing since day one. I sorta wanted a druid-like ranger.

Pets –
Murellow for tank, AOE poison (F2)
Eagle for High dps, Bleed attack (F2)

Weapons -
Short bow – Fast, good Dps with Bleeds, slows and evade.
Axe/horn – 3 target attack, AOE attack, -33% movment speed attack, Crazy bird attack and AOE buff
Long bow – A WvW Must I feel, AOE, push back.

stats -
Precision – Everyone loves crits
Power – good to have power
Condition dmg – Since Shortbow does Bleed on Auto-attack this is good, Also couple the skrimishing trait that applies bleeds on crits, More damage.

This is the build i follow:
http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.6.4.10.21.0.5.5.5.0.130.133.143.144.150.3.3.36.377.0.0.391.396.395.410.0.0.0.0.0.440.436.0.10.30.10.0.20

Mainly a PvP build but is also a good PvE build.
Just follow the trait numbers (I, II, III, IV, VI) As the site has them labelled wrong but number on the trait is the right one ingame)

FaceFoiled.5142:

- Preferred pets, and why
- Preferred weapons, and why
- Preferred stats, and why

Wolf for the aoe fear, cripple, knockdown and medium damage. eagle for swiftness and high damage.

Shortbow for bleeds, poison and mobility. greatsword for survivability and aoe.

crit and condition are prefered stats due to stacking bleeds by crit and mobility.

20 in both the wilderness survival and beastmaster line to gain passive survivability and increase the pets stats and reduce the CD on pet swap and gives them might on activation.

30 in skirmishing for trap condition duration and cd redux, shortbow cd redux and bleed on crit

This setup allows me to constantly switch my pets every 10 secs giving them 3 stacks of might for that duration as well as gaining quickness for 2 secs every 10 secs. additionally it also gives me a knockdown, swiftness, aoe fear, bleed, weakness every 20 secs.

conditions from traps and elite and bow skills deal consistant dmg from myself while the pet deals the more direct damage.

Preferred pets, and why

General PvE/Damage, Eagle. Extremely high damage, fair amount of personality with the vocalizations. Nice fast F2 skill as well.

Tougher PvE/Tanking, Brown Bear. Classic Bear robustness along with nice defensive F2 ability.

Water PvE/Damage, Shark. High single target damage. Charming model.

Tougher Water PvE/Tanking, Jellyfish. Slightly more robust than the Shark, absolutely murderous F2 skill, albeit on a long timer.

Preferred weapons, and why

Main – Longbow. Unlike many people, I do not have an issue maintaining range with the possible exception of frenzied Risen, and even those can usually be managed with knock-back and spike trap. Flanking is a PITA for all the same reasons range is meant to be, and I don’t enjoy having 50% of my DPS eaten by the bleed cap on champions. Barrage is the quintessential DE farming skill.

Alternate – Axe/Warhorn. Good utility off the horn, and the Axe 2/3 skills are great for those times you are forced into tight melee.

Preferred stats, and why

The obvious power and precision. Longbow feels a little limp until these go fairly high, at which point it hits quite hard, quite consistently. Toughness and Vitality as a secondary consideration so you don’t dissolve when damaged. Critical damage where extra points can be spared.

Current skills:

Sharpening Stone – Just for a little extra damage on thicker mobs. Not really spectacular without condition damage, but every little bit helps.

Spike Trap – Tried traps out for giggles, found them actually quite useful. The pet gets less and less effective at peeling for you at higher levels, so a little bit of extra cripple goes a long way.

Signet of the Wild – Had the toughness signet as well, but 40 toughness for a utility slot is just a waste of time. The regen is alright, but nothing to write home about, and unlikely to make any real difference in a pitched fight. I may swap this out for another trap.

For WvWvW, Lightning Reflexes really should be in there, and Muddy Terrain is a consideration as well.

SPvP I would lean towards shortbow or just straight up melee, as maintaining any kind of range is fairly futile. I’d also trend towards higher toughness and vitality at the cost of some damage.

Spec is currently 20/30/0/0/20, although the jury is out on the extra 10 points in precision until I decide whether or not I want to stick with traps. I might move them into toughness and pick up the survival cooldown reduction instead.

Level 42 Ranger
Shortbow and Axe/Torch
Polar Bear/Cave Spider
20 Wilderness Survival/10 Skirmishing
Skills: Troll Unguent, Flame Trap, Signet of Renewal, Signet of the Wild, Entangle

I run a heavy Condition Damage build with my shortbow, stacking up on the condition damage as hard as I can. Instead of focusing solely on bleeds, I throw up poison and burning damage as well. I tend to keep within almost melee range of my targets, despite using a shortbow, because it’s easier to apply bleeds when you have a small strafing circle, and because it makes it easier and faster to drop a flame trap right on top of somebody.

I use my axe/torch combo during DEs, or any situation where I’m taking on 3+ enemies. Dropping a bonfire, then throwing my bleeding axes from point-blank range before going into auto-attack mode tends to tear down health quickly. And if they’re especially sturdy, I have my flame trap as a backup fire field while bonfire is on cooldown.

Since I run sort of a close-combat skirmisher type build, the healing and condition-removing signets help keep mine and mypet’s health from dipping too low. And since I move around so much, Troll Unguent is preferable to Healing Spring.

I would use the brown bear over the polar bear (for the condition removal), but whether or not the ability will actually activate when I press the button is completely up in the air. Sometimes, I have to mash it a half dozen times before it’ll activate, and then my pet will take his sweetkitten time using it, so the condition’s already gone by the time it goes off. So I just forego that altogether and use the polar bear.

I enjoy using the wolves for their f2 skills and their knockdowns. Plus I just love how they look

I use a longbow and sword/horn. Sword’s #2 is awesome to get distance from enemies.

I am focusing on toughness/vitality/power.

I bring along utility skills to help me survive/escape. My focus isn’t on high dmg/crit. It is on surviving.

Greyfeld.7104:

I would use the brown bear over the polar bear (for the condition removal), but whether or not the ability will actually activate when I press the button is completely up in the air. Sometimes, I have to mash it a half dozen times before it’ll activate, and then my pet will take his sweetkitten time using it, so the condition’s already gone by the time it goes off. So I just forego that altogether and use the polar bear.

This is true for almost every F2 ability. The only one I ever seem to be able to fire off with anything resembling reliability is the Shark’s, and that’s likely just confirmation bias. They keep saying they fixed the delay, but it often takes a half dozen hammers of F2 to get it queuing up.

Level 80 ranger

Main weapon: Short bow, for high attack rate.

Secondary weapon: Long bow, for AOE and knock back when ever I get to pressured by enemies

Skills I use:

-Radiation field
-Quickening zephyr (along with the short bows fast attack rate allows you to deal a devastating flurry of attacks)
-Technobabble
-Summon 7 series golem

Main pet: Ice drake (named Charizard)

Random question what stats should i look for if I’m going for Longbow/greatsword combo for my ranger. I like getting in melee range as a ranger simply because I can. :P

killdamnzade.2598:

I like getting in melee range as a ranger simply because I can. :P

Toughness/Vitality, or prepare to eat a lot of dirt. Melee range is for the brave.

SpectacularYak.6518:

killdamnzade.2598:

I like getting in melee range as a ranger simply because I can. :P

Toughness/Vitality, or prepare to eat a lot of dirt. Melee range is for the brave.

Vitality gives you more health correct? What about toughness?

killdamnzade.2598:

Vitality gives you more health correct? What about toughness?

Reduces physical damage.

Make no mistake, there’s no turning yourself into a tank through passive stats, but the extra damage in melee is there to offset the extra investment you need to make into survivability stats if you don’t fancy setting a record for repair bills.

SpectacularYak.6518:

killdamnzade.2598:

I like getting in melee range as a ranger simply because I can. :P

Toughness/Vitality, or prepare to eat a lot of dirt. Melee range is for the brave.

Toughness for direct damage, vitality for conditions, and conditions can be dealt with other ways, like Signet of the Wild and condition removals like Signet of Renewal, Brown Bear, and Healing Spring.

How I play:

Weapons: Shortbow and Sword/Warhorn.

Pets: Brown or Black Bear + Jungle Spider. Underwater is Jellyfish and Armorfish.

Heal: Healing Spring.

Utilities: Signet of Stone, Signet of the Wild, and Muddy Terrain. I swap out Signet of Stone with Signet of Renewal if the fight is going to have a lot of condition damage involved (Sorrow’s Embrace golem fight, looking at you.)

Elite: Rampage As One.

Traits: 25/25/20/0/0.

Stats: Power > Precision > Condition Damage > Toughness > Healing Power = Vitality. Healing Power because of Signet of the Wild.

For those of you at higher levels, will I ever be able to get gear that pairs my condition damage with something other than precision? I haven’t heard one way or the other whether condition damage can crit (I assume not, and I don’t recall seeing any critting DoT ticks), but the Condition gear I get is consistently paired up with it.

Greyfeld.7104:

For those of you at higher levels, will I ever be able to get gear that pairs my condition damage with something other than precision?

Yes.

Greyfeld.7104:

I haven’t heard one way or the other whether condition damage can crit (I assume not, and I don’t recall seeing any critting DoT ticks), but the Condition gear I get is consistently paired up with it.

It can’t. There are a lot of on-crit condition application talents and runes though, so there’s more synergy there than is immediately apparent.

I also highly recommend not wholly relying on conditions for your damage output, particularly bleeds.

SpectacularYak.6518:

Greyfeld.7104:

For those of you at higher levels, will I ever be able to get gear that pairs my condition damage with something other than precision?

Yes.

Greyfeld.7104:

I haven’t heard one way or the other whether condition damage can crit (I assume not, and I don’t recall seeing any critting DoT ticks), but the Condition gear I get is consistently paired up with it.

It can’t. There are a lot of on-crit condition application talents and runes though, so there’s more synergy there than is immediately apparent.

I also highly recommend not wholly relying on conditions for your damage output, particularly bleeds.

I know that on boss fights in DEs, the bleeds become superfluous, since there are so many bleeds going up that they overwrite each other, but it works well enough in solo Shrugs

Anyway, I wanted to put power alongside my condition damage sot hat my actual attacks didn’t hit like a wet noodle. Doesn’t really happen with my current gear, though.

Weapons: Shortbow/Longbow. I use a lot more shortbow but i start with hunter’s shot followed by barrage to get nice burst and the 10 vulnerability stacks, then pure shortbow. Im trying shortbow/greatsword and its really fun, hurts quite a lot and you can stay safe at melee range with the 3rd part of the 1 ability, the block and the daze/stun.
Pets: Jungle Spider for the AOE poison and the 2s root and Brown Bear for tanking
Heal: Spring
Utilities: Signet of stone, protect me (using these 2 together = no dmg!) and zephyr for the great attack speed with shortbow
Elite: Roots
Traits: 25/25/20/0/0
Stats: Precision>Condition Dmg>Power (I feel this works nicely with shortbow since you can deal more dmg with bleeds and get lots of attacks in a short period of time when you use zephyr and many of them will be crits. Combined with spiders root i can shoot my foe from the side or back and get lawts of bleeding stacks)

Brown Bear / Forest Spider for pet rotation
Short Bow / Long Bow for weapon rotation (based off of a ranger guide on ArenaJunkies, though I only really use the longbow for the AoE ability. I spend so much time kiting that I don’t know if any other weapon combination will work but I may start researching as the longbow really isn’t getting much use.)

I’ve been stacking power and precision with vitality every so often.

Specced down marksmanship/skirmishing20/20 and survival 8. Level 58

I run signets of stone/renewal and hunt and use healing spring. I use take root for the elite ability. 3rd Flora Artillery Unit =D

I am surprise that people aren’t using Shortbow + Sword/Axe. Normally I switch to melee when I am running for my life and the Sword/Axe combo has nice defensive abilities.

nomicide.5641:

I am surprise that people aren’t using Shortbow + Sword/Axe. Normally I switch to melee when I am running for my life and the Sword/Axe combo has nice defensive abilities.

Kind of why I’m reluctant to move off longbow, I am very good at kiting, so I would like a secondary weapon that is ranged to compliment my shortbow.

My by default setup is:

- Longbow
- Sword/Torch

I actually never tried have 2 bows. I should really give it a try. Right now, I adore longbow to throw things away from me, the AOE and the overall damage is good. Sword/Torch has proven quite good for me, especially in situations where I can root, #2, drop flame circle, switch to Longbow and #2. That usually works well in both PVE and PVP.

I do like 2H sword as well and found that they work very well in PVP or against much stronger mobs.

As for my pets, I adore my polar bear/snow wolf combo. In PVP, I’ll use River Drake because of the lightning and Jaguar for some good stealth attack.

The extra 300 range on the LB doesn’t really make a difference for me in PVE. Maybe this will change when I move into more PVP.

nomicide.5641:

The extra 300 range on the LB doesn’t really make a difference for me in PVE. Maybe this will change when I move into more PVP.

WvWvW is where you’ll get the most returns from Eagle Eye. It can be handy in particularly hectic PvE encounters, where hanging back gives you the widest field of view possible and allows you the most reaction time to developing events, but for the most part you’re correct, 1200 range is more than adequate.

Axe/Horn. Always. The combo is extremely mobile, can chase down almost anything, and has AoE glaiving. If you stack crit and stick bleed on crit sigils on the axe you can stack it up fast too. I tend to use either LB or GS with this depending on how I’m specced or what I’m doing. LB for WvW always (get the range upgrade for this, it outranges everything and can make a difference).

Pets: At least one bear for PvE, and then anything else really, though generally either a cat/bird for DPS is nice. Bird for WvW (has AoE swiftness on attack) with a ranged pet, and Lynx/Bird with ranged for sPvP. Moas and jungle stalkers are pretty good for support. Underwater you can go bear, but armorfish and shark is a fun combo and works well. Armorfish has a stun (has to run away and back in though, so bad for sPvP).

Stats vary depending on what I’m doing, but generally I like survivable builds because the toughness and vitality trees have good versatile major traits and good minor traits. Need to keep on top of your gear damage wise though so you can kill easily (not too hard).

FaceFoiled.5142:

- Preferred pets, and why
- Preferred weapons, and why
- Preferred stats, and why

-I like to use the Red Moa for the extra fury(crit chance) I find it fun popping my enrage elite with that f2 for big burst lol, plus the Moa can do a decent job tanking. For dps I like the lynx
-I have always loved the longbow and the looks of them
-All about the crit and power build <3

I use a river drake as my pet. his active if it pops off pretty much lowers all enemies to 5% health and he tanks efectifly. i do have 30 points in beastmastery. when drake is almsot down i switch to cave spider for the range.

i exclusivly use the short bow with the all arrows pierce trait.

my build is based on buffing my pet and just hanigng back added bleeds like crazy. so my skills are as followed:
Healing spring to heal my pet and players over a long period of time.
Toughness passive to make my pet invincible for 6 seconds when fighting champions and the like.
the Regen signet i never use it i jsut keep the regen passive active always.
the signet that gives you 10% faster run speed. mostly cuz i am to lazy to use sharp edge for added bleeds.

i’m not realy sure wich stats to go for yet. i had vit toughness a lot while leveling up. but now that i am max level i am going to try out different sets ( using magic find atm)

also

Also Anet, please change the sound effect for the pets regen. It just sounds like someone nasally breathing.

this times 20! me and my dungeon party had a good laugh but it sounds like my drake is having to much of a fun time…

For Spvp i take Shortbow and sword/axe in pvp. Nothing makes me feel better than reflecting the thief’s elite dagger spin back at him and getting the killing blow.

It really revolves around quickness , taking quickening zephyr and also quickness on pet switch, if i can get behind someone unnoticed they are pretty dead.

To counter thief’s ive been forced to take the utilities lightning reflexes and signet of renewel as a gap closer and way to remove poison immobilise. I use rampage as one i just think it surpasses our other elites in most ways.

For pets i use wolf and spider, wolf does good damage and has a stun/aoe fear, spider has 2x root which is also nice for keeping things still to flank.

Pve i do the same but short-bow, longbow. The longbow is mostly for aoe and the knockback.

For a heal i use troll unguent, I find im moving to much to use the healing spring.

I am currently using Shortbow and Longbow weapon set. I was using a Longbow and Sword/Torch for a while but gave that up when I decided to use a Shortbow. Skill 3 for Shortbow is amazing 100% evade without endurance used up so effectively you have 3 dodges/rolls. It even works with back to corner, you just don’t move but will 100% evade. It’s perfect for tight corridor fights and good to place traps in when they come to you. I crit pretty often and hit for about 3x in the same time it takes 1 longbow shot to hit. Longbow is good for Barrage only combined with a trap when the mob aggros you.

Utility skills are Flame Trap, Signet of stone (to increase durability of my tanking Bear), Signet of the Wild and Rampage as One.

I swapping Troll or Healing Spring depending where I am.

For pets, a type of Bear for tanking and red moa for +20% crit rate which stacks bleeding from trait skill when I crit. I haven’t found most of the pets yet so looking for them.

I always have an axe/sword and torch in my inventory since torch offhand is amazing when I need crowd control.

WvWvW – cat/bear depending. Group vs solo.

WvWvW – long bow/axe- horn for keep fights, short bow/axe-horn for open field. I need speed.

I constantly move, releasing and recalling my pet. If a large Zerg vs Zerg, I hit troll unguent speed and run in to entangle a bunch.

Pets – defensive – man/bear/pig! (also, plasma rocks)
Support/general – jungle stalker/red moa for might or fury every 15 seconds

Utility skills – general – Signet of move faster, signet of take less damage, and QZ
Support – Spirit of take less damage, spirit of do more damage, and spirit of burnination
Traps – …traps?

Weapons – general – short bow
wvw – short bow/long bow
aoe – greatsword or axe/warhorn (solo or group)

Elites – general – whatever I feel like (most often seed turrets)
Support – spirit of stop napping on the job
DPS – QZ+RaO is nightmarish damage with a shortbow
Traps – spell of quit moving while I kill you

Stats – condition damage > precision > vitality/toughness > healing > other DPS
(though usually other DPS comes bundled with condition damage and precision, so I end up with a lot of that)

I’m surprised that anyone uses anything other than a murellow as their main pet. It’s a bear, so it has all of the bear tankiness, plus it’s the only pet that has a special ability that creates a combo field.

I use the Krytan Drakehound for my off pet because he has knock down and stun, another tough to beat combo.

Weapons: Longbow + Axe/Warhorn
Land Pets: Jungle Spider + Devourer
Underwater Pets: Blue/Rainbow Jellyfish – swap on cooldown then hit F1 followed by F2 for their ability – if they start the fight with F2 it’ll usually go off, but it won’t activate reliably if they’re already fighting. F1 first because otherwise they don’t hit your target with F2, they just useless spin off in a random direction – which underwater tends to grab a whole lot more agro than you wanted.

Land utilities: Flame Trap, Frost Trap, either Spike Trap or Poison Trap
Underwater utilities: Signets (can’t remember which) – more for their passives than anything else.

Elite: Rampage as One, but not really set on it yet. More for the speed boost moving between places while the warhorn is on cooldown than anything else.

Stats: Power/Precision/Toughness, with a bit of Vit.
Current traits: 25 Marksmanship, 30 Skirmishing, 5 Wilderness (endurance regen), 10 Nature (longer boons). Longbow pierce/trap throwing+aoe extension/trap recharge/vit(?) to power…can’t remember the rest, those are the main ones I was after.

Keep moving, line them up for longbow pierce, knock them together using knockback and trap ‘em so that you have combo field to fire through and so they’re slowed/burning. Spider can web them in place and spits a poison field, devourer can slow them with spike, switch to axe when they’re spread out since it bounces around and use hunters call on tougher targets for continual hits while using other skills.

Typical start of a fight in PvE is throw the 3 traps between target and self (not agro’ed yet), then vulnerability, rapid shot, knockback if they are about to hit me or activate a nasty skill at me or pet (usually takes this long for them to reach due to traps slowing them initially), refresh traps, rapid shot if they’re still alive…Tougher foes start with the 2 warhorn skills then switch to longbow for the above.

Group fights add in barrage when you’ve got the 2 secs to be rooted in place to get it off – much easier in big events than in solo play.

I frequently use knockback to group enemies together too, so that traps/barrage work better – or circle around them to use knockback to knock them into a trap if they’re ranged or I misjudged the trap placement.

Dungeons I start switching in the aoe heal and stone spirit, and looking at other elites and condition-removal stuff. I switch out the fire trap for another one when dealing with destroyers/embers/etc.

Underwater: almost exclusively harpoon gun. Skill 1 to make sure I actually am in range and get the pet moving, then 3, then 2 once the enemy has stopped moving so it doesn’t get dodged. Swap pets and get the second F2 off as the new pet’s first attack, then just keep 3+2 up as much as possible and start using skill 4 when the enemy is low on health. Skill 5 if I really need to dodge/get some distance – but it’s unsafe in some areas underwater due to how tightly packed the area is, so I often don’t use it – I keep circle-strafing if the enemy is focusing on me instead of my pet.

Close-combat Ranger

Weapon Set 1 : Sword/Axe
Weapon Set 2 : Axe/Warhorn

Preferred pets : Wolf/Cave Spider

Traits : 0/5/20/15/30
PvE Skills : Troll Unguent, Sic’ Em (optional), Quickening of Zephyr (optional), Signet of Renewal, Rampage as One
Dungeon Skills : Healing Spring, 2x Spirits, Search and Rescue, Spirit of Nature

Armor and Accessories : Cleric’s and 6/6 Superior Runes of Lyssa
Weapons : Knight’s

My build is rather tanky and my dps unbuffed is rather low, but I’ve seen my Wolf crit for 3500 on a level 80 group event boss with 25 stacks of Might on it and 12x Vulnerability on the Boss, which is kinda funny.

This build revolves around supporting and buffing my pet while being somewhat tanky. I rarely take more than 700 damage from levle 80 mobs and common group event bosses rarely hit me for more than 1800, which is good enough when I have 15k hp. I deal consistent but average damage.

I’m having mighty fun with Fortifying Bound, as it is AWESOME with might stacking from Rampage as One and Protection one dodge roll. Whirling Defense and Hunter’s Call are awesome for stacking Might, because every hit counts towards Rampage as One, so it takes ~3 seconds for my pet to reach and maintain 25 Might. you want to know how this trait works go to the GW2 wiki I’ve updated this trait page and have even added a table with boon durations.

I take Wolf and Cave Spider along with the Trait that makes their F2 Cripple.

I love the Wolf, it’s F2 is the best disengage ever and is awesome in dungeons. 30 points in Beastmastery make it hit like a truck even if slow. I like the Fear + Cripple rather than only Fear, because it gives you more control and makes chasing mobs less annoying.

The Cave Spider is ranged which is very good for event boss battles. I take Cave spider over any other spider because it has a very short recharge on it’s F2 and inflicts weakness which makes me and my pet more tanky and coupled with Protection on Dodge and Troll Unguent is rather insane. I’m usually tanking champions in PvE and lesser bosses. Well not exactly tanking, but once me and my pet take aggro its very hard for the mob to kill me with so much toughness and protection. Rune of Lyssa is awesome here, getting random boons on heal is a no brainer when you already have so many boons in your kit. Fortifying Bound makes this even better, as it transfers the buffs to your pet.

I am stacking about 1200 healing power which most people think is a waste but I really like as when you DPS is low, but you are tanky it more than makes up for itself in the long run.
I’m taking Troll Unguent for the same reason, as it has 25% longer cooldown than Heal as One, but heals roughly 33% more and when you are tanky that snowballs really well.

I know my build isn’t really good, but I find it really fun to play and this build is one reason I’ve bought and play GW2.

My English might be bad, but hey we are not all that perfect.

Cheers and have fun, gotta’ tame em all !

I honestly have a huge disdain for ranged attacks, simply because I’m against to low skill level it requires to play. All attacks will always hit no matter what, unless the foe dodges or evades…
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Improved-Combat-Skill-system/first#post64345
For more info.
Melee I enjoy because, I like having the challenge of hunting my target, having to play tactically. I like to feel like I’m in Guild Wars 1 again, and not some dumbed down button mash competition.

I chose a Devourer, which, really never dies much. xD He attacks twice at once, so he can get me 18 stacks of Might very quickly. He is ranged, causes 2 conditions, he can knock back enemies, and has great toughness in conjunction with damage.

I use a Warhorn and a Torch. I only ever use the Warhorn for speed or if the foe is fleeing. Too bad the birds can get… Obstructed. Somehow???

I use all condition gear, but I guess it’s based on your interests. You could go power to try and level out your gear, I’m sure.

Hey all, Sylvari ranger here.

This is for pve. I will post my pvp build when I get a better feel for it.

30 skirmishing (mostly for bleed on crit trait)
30 wilderness survival (condition damage and toughness)
10 beastmastery (healing, pet f2 cool down reduction)

Axe (aoe, bleeds, chill for kiting)/ torch (fire damage, combo field)
Shortbow (major bleeds, poison, interrupt, retreat kiting perfection)

Forest spider (immobilize, poison aoe, poison f2, looks kitten)
Murellow (great tank, poison field)

I use sharpening stone and muddy terrain always and switch the third utility from signet of stone to my racial skills or search and rescue if I’m in a dungeon.

Healing spring

Mistfire wolf, druid spirit, or spirit of nature if I’m in a dungeon.

*Underwater I use harpoon (massive aoe bleeds, retreat and pirana swarm), heal as one, sharpening stone, lightening reflexes, signet of stone and spirit of nature (WHALE!!!!)

I love my build :-D

My ranger build depends on the party which I’m rolling with. Currently it’s the longbow/shortbow combination with heavy stat stacking on both Power and Precision with traits in marks/skirm/w.survival.

This is mainly due to the fact that my role in this particular party is heavy ranged support with an emphasis in the support part.

Reasons:

Stat choices and weapon choice is quite simple. I focus down targets that are high priority hazards towards the party and the group around. This forces them to either break off after spending some cooldowns on their weapon situational/utilities or continue to engage with reduced health, which is of course advantageous to my party.

It also gives me the option to help chase down fleeing enemies by applying either conds (daze/stun shortbow 5, cripple shortbow 4 as well as traited to apply cripple to enemies below 25% health) or dish out the required damage to down the said subject. (My longbow currently and consistently deals around 3k-4k damage due to the crits and precison on the rapid fire skill without exotics. Just greens granted that I’m currently at lvl80 and do plan to grab the exotic gear in one go instead of piecing it one by one.)

Utilities are spike and frost traps with Q.Zephyr and entangled roots for elite, most of these are support skills to complement the party’s make up.

As for pets, the Black Bear and Devourer. The black bear skill is useful during skirmishes after I switch to him mid-battle. The condition applied by it is enough to allow my party to hold out that much longer while dealing more damage to the other group (50% fumble? That basically means that he’ll have to crit to ensure the damage goes through. Otherwise, 50% of the time, his normal attacks do not mainly due to glancing blows.). The devourer is of course used as range support and kiting. The command ability is a decent rapid fire from the pet.

Only level 13, still playing 5 characters to decide on main… but liking the ranger I started with a cat, but he dies very, very fast. I now charmed a boar, a raven and a polar bear. I liked the boar for combat though his F2 skill seems a bit… meh. Haven’t tried raven and bear in combat yet :P

I like the longbow and 2h sword’s fighting style so far, war horn is good for running around, axes/1h swords/short bows haven’t really won me over yet. Still have to unlock the torch skills :P

Vitality and precision on gear for now, haven’t specced traits yet and lots of skill points unused so far, so don’t really know which direction he’s going yet.

All in all, just starting out, but, having fun!

Level 80 Sylvari Ranger, Sea of Sorrows, over 150 hours of gameplay, 60% world explored

My current set-up is: http://gw2.luna-atra.fr/skills_tool/?lang=en&code=3670001p15m6m5gsaf0kku03j3t434cg7gfgi

I prefer the blue moa, not only because i love moa, but the heal+protection for tanking.
The bear is awesome for condi bosses with his “shake it off” skill removing conditions from the team.

I like to play greatsword for non-boss fights, large damage especially when combined with quicken zephyr.
Axe is good for adds in boss fights, keeping DPS on the boss while not focusing him. Also the off-hand axe skill #5 is perfect for team rezing, you block the boss’s ranged attacks while someone rezs.

My traits are 20skirmishing and 20 wilderness survival, then 30 nature magic. This provides me with both DPS and survivability. Ranger’s highest stat is power so as a tank you should built crit to keep it balanced.

I swap my ultities around based on the boss but i posted my PvE solo build.

My armor is +power, +precision, +toughness, and current runes are: Rune of the Noble.