Guild Wars 2

So, it’s been a long time since I last did fractals; used to be level 40 prior to the fractal overhaul and played mesmer almost exclusively. Since then, I’ve made ranger my main and hadn’t really played Fractals in that time, instead sticking to WvW/PvE/Dungeons – but today figured I’d work on mastering fractals as a ranger and jumped in at level 20 running a fairly typical full zerker build and gear set (Note: I was switching offhand weapon as per situation, also swapping GS for Lb on fights where ranging is essential)

…And it was pretty abyssmal, ended up looking like a terrible noob, getting frequently downed (Granted I was far from the only party member getting downed). It felt like i needed to revise strategy for fractals, and that dungeon strategy alone wasn’t enough. So I’m wondering if any more experienced Rangers might have some thoughts on tweaks and strategy changes required to perform better in fractals. The main things I ran into were:

• Pet dying almost instantly, jaguar/drake might be the norm in dungeons but the jaguar was dying wayyyy too fast. Often in a single hit – should I still be using my pet so offensively, or should I be bringing in tankier pets/support pets?
• Lack of boss telegraphs for near instant-kill attacks made sword/dagger evades kind’ve useless on many fights (such as hammer-guy on cliffside). Should I even be using sword as my primary weapon at that level?
• The normal mantra of a PvE ranger is “If you’re using a bow, you’re doing it wrong”, does that hold true for fractals or it is time to put a bow on swap? – I ended up switching in a longbow as a fallback weapon in the end but is that simply because I wasn’t playing a good game?
• There’s squishy, and then there’s squishy all the fractal guides say to run zerker and only zerker, and that is basically how I ran fractals on my mesmer. But full zerker as a ranger, I was on my kitten far more than seemed necessary; would I be forgiven for using some cavalier/valkyrie gear in there, or do I just need to git gud?

Anyway, any thoughts to improve my game would be appreciated.

Your build is fine.

I feel meleeing fractal fights are about knowing when to disengage. If you watch some high level melee videos of bosses like mossman and archdiviner, you’ll notice that it involves a lot of max melee ranging, backwards kiting and running out of melee range. As a ranger, this does imply you’ll need to camp GS more often. And obviously, meleeing a boss does not mean you have to stay in the boss’s face the entire time and probably should not if it means you’re going to die.

Some of the bosses have large cleave ranges, like Archdiviner and dredge mining suit.

You also want most of your group to be meleeing as well. If your other 4 party members are ranging, then meleeing is pretty much suicide. It’s a team effort, and spamming project defenses, cripples and chills help.

Fractal fights are generally not stack and burn, ranged weapons are more appropriate here than in any other dungeon content in the game.

I don’t have much advice for pets though, they will die to things like the molten berserker’s shockwaves and Mai Trin’s cannon phase.

I’m far from an expert at meleeing fractal bosses, but these are my observations. Hope this helps.

I run fractals on a Mesmer, currently at rank 45. For the most part its going to be melee, because either the bosses fight area is really small, or its relatively safe to melee. I will range both dredge bosses because that’s a constant kite, reactor boss because of the required mobility. Most bosses likes to have both options. Pets are going to be need to probably just be defensive.

Changing weapons before fight is the key. I run knight/zerk build always with longbow. I change the 2nd weapon set.

Take the jungle stalker and red moa for fury and might, always keep pets on defend. They will go into fight wneh activating F2. U bassicaly just spam fury and might.

Take piercing arrows for longbow and use axe/wh if you die with sword. I use sword (with axe) only for harpies and in aetherblade fractal I go full melee in GS + sw/axe.
When fighting enbosses, place frost and stone spirits (apart from the ice fractal and bloomhunger couse spirits are useless there).

And believe in axe ;] .

some bosses like mossman and archdiviner are rly hard as full melee group but for mossmann you just need 3 guys with the buff-food chill in crit and let one guard with zepter enter the arena first, than he got aggro the most time, he can kite him in a small sircel and you just can hit him

for harder trash groups i use gs

Here are a few things you can try:

1. mix celestial gear in with zerker until you find a nice balance, and try traveller’s runes.
2. LB is fine but stay very close to action. You want to receive boons from team members.
3. Bring moa and kitty for fury and might, but put both on passive.
4. Bring signets trait and use Stone signet for 6s of inv. with protect me, you will have 12s of inv to pull off some pretty fancy revives when team members go down.
5. I’ll use sword Warhorn or axe Warhorn for offhand most of the time.
6. Your individual dps will suffer a little with Warhorn, but the 100% uptime on team Fury is really sweet.
7. With food, warrior banner, spotter, and fury, team will have 100% critical chance. This I found makes everything easier. Especially at 50.
8. Priority #1 is always to revive allies imiediatly. Stop whatever you are doing to revive allies and use signet and protect me to pull it off.

The META for zerker fractals rangers is horrible! But most people on this forum disagree with me, so be prepared…

Archon.6480:

The META for zerker fractals rangers is horrible! But most people on this forum disagree with me, so be prepared…

What I do not understand is why you hate the meta so much and say it’s horrible when you’re running half the things that make a ranger a decent addition to the party and are included in the meta builds. The only thing you’re missing (or just did not explicitly say) is traited Frost Spirit and at that point you’re bringing all the best utility a ranger can provide at the cost of one off hand weapon slot, 2 trait slots and 1 utility slot. Once you have that, the rest of your build just determines your damage, survivability and playstyle.

Archon.6480:

Here are a few things you can try:

1. mix celestial gear in with zerker until you find a nice balance, and try traveller’s runes.

nope it´s better to swap out 1-3 piecec amor to soldier or knights

Archon.6480:

2. LB is fine but stay very close to action. You want to receive boons from team members.

only for fights where you rly need range and that are not so much…

Archon.6480:

3. Bring moa and kitty for fury and might, but put both on passive.

and lose 40% of your dmg..moa only if you got no other fury source in your team(no war, staff ele, z/d with 6 points in fire or ranger) to buff fury in your group you got warhorn

Archon.6480:

4. Bring signets trait and use Stone signet for 6s of inv. with protect me, you will have 12s of inv to pull off some pretty fancy revives when team members go down.

dont know rly for what boss you need this, if you get hit by mossmann or archidriver it´s allready to late

Archon.6480:

5. I’ll use sword Warhorn or axe Warhorn for offhand most of the time.

first good statement from you..

Archon.6480:

6. Your individual dps will suffer a little with Warhorn, but the 100% uptime on team Fury is really sweet.

not rly if you play sword /wh and sword / axe

Archon.6480:

7. With food, warrior banner, spotter, and fury, team will have 100% critical chance. This I found makes everything easier. Especially at 50.

not true, after the patch the crit chance cap that you want to reach is a bit lower than pre patch (92%), but it´s true with spotter, banner and fury every class should get enough crit chance if he plays zerker

Archon.6480:

8. Priority #1 is always to revive allies imiediatly. Stop whatever you are doing to revive allies and use signet and protect me to pull it off.

compare much to the situation on trash groups, e.g. it´s better to get a rally on kill so call out a low-hp target and everyone will be fine
in boss fights you rly should help them up fast.

Archon.6480:

The META for zerker fractals rangers is horrible! But most people on this forum disagree with me, so be prepared…

if you dont like the meta it´s your problem, but to tell other people it´s bad another!
most issues from people that dont like this build, is that they can’t handle it on them self or with their groups

@Ryuujin, your build looks fine, not what I run for fractals, but I’m a weirdo lol.

All the bosses do have tells for their big “I’m gonna destroy you!” Attacks except the Hammer bosses giant wave of light, and the Ascalonian dudes agony attack, both of those are really subtle, but also only hit Melee.

Personally, I think using a bow in PvE isn’t a bad thing, it just slows down the clearing time while running a perfect group, but it makes the chance that you’ll die significantly less than Melee, and makes it easier for you to Rez your allies etc.

As for pets, -I- run Fernhound + Bear because bears are kittenedly OP in PvE + it’s nice having a “safe” pet to switch to that I don’t have to worry about dying so I don’t get stuck with giant gaps of no pet damage at all. However, my friend who I do +30 fractals with runs dual drakes and I’ve yet to see his die. I’ve also seen a handful of PuG rangers who run cats (BM builds I believe) and they weren’t dead very often so if imagine it’s a matter of Microing.

If you ever wanna run fractals or something though feel free to hit me up in game, I’ll be more than happy to run with you and help you out.

That is not something i would run with a pug. You should run that when you can trust the guardian/mesmer/ele to block projectiles. Otherwise SOTBM is invaluable.

Ranger is viable. Try using drakes in melee situations and spiders when the fight calls for ranged weapons.

Don’t be afraid to use GS exclusively for some fights especially boss fights. I also would rather use shortbow or axe if range is really needed during a fight.

For the pet always dying situation, I mostly use dual drakes because they don’t die instantly and have cleave. If you don’t want to sacrifice your stats you can always just use protect me to add more survivability.

Rangers need a lot of support in fractals, if you don’t have a guardian, ele or even a mesmer in your group you’re most likely gonna have a hard time. Try low levels and work up, don’t go on a lvl 38 and think it’s gonna go fine.

The only thing I can add to the discussion is that if I run any high level fractals, I usually carry 4 different armors and all weapons with me and I’m retraiting or switching pets for nearly every boss.
Adaptable the ranger is, yes, but not outperforming any other class.

Don’t use ranged weapons ever, unless you, for example are in a completely terrible group where everyone else ranges/you “have” to range (molten duo with bads/low dps pugs).