Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I’ve been in SPvP since release and I’m not even familiar with rangers in PvP let alone PvE. I’ve heard they are one of the most useless classes in PvE but I find that hard to believe. I’ve come across some of these “Bearbow” rangers in PvP and they hit like a truck.
My friend who is PvE smart was telling me the other day that Rangers are in the top 4 as far as DPS goes. How well are rangers at DPS in PvE? I’ve tried to watch some youtube videos but can’t really find exactly what I’m looking for. Someone said that most rangers dps comes from Sword Auto-attack. I really want to play ranger but I don’t want to play a class that no1 wants in a team. Can someone shed some light on this subject please and thank you!

For open world pve the lonbow + bear pet is best (hence bearbow). For dungeons is another story. Sword with either ex (for reflect) or warhorn (blast finisher + fury, might, switness) and gs offhand (can swat to shortbow when needed) are the weapons of choice. As for traits a 4/4/0/6 build is generaly good. You will need spotter in marksmaship, vigurous spirits in nature magic and the rest is your call. Also look you youtube for brazil’s video guides, he explain everything better (even if he talks a lot).
And as stubie said, the most ranger hate comes from the bearbow, that camp lb at max range and don’t bring anything good to the party

Rangers are great for pve and probably the most used class in open world pve. In dungeons they get a bad rap because of the bearbow mentality. You can’t help your group if you on the other side of the room shooting your longbow. Get a melee weapon and a short bow and you’ll do just fine in dungeons. Rangers have great tools to help the team and boost dps.

Oh I thought bear bow meant like.. the maul from greatsword and longbow?

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=VG;4sEky-u2NEV-0;9k8I;1TT9;006727A1;6LBW4SNW4m9fgm9fgo-F-1-P0AO_scW-a0f1kYq3w4030Cs1T;5F18ZF18Z;9;9;9;9;0k0j

That’s my basic PvE build for open world. Stalker for might, Moa for fury. I use traps becouse I just like them.

The best thing right now is that we can retrait when we want, so when going into the dungeon I’ll switch my setup depending on situation.

When stacking I’ll go 2 points into nature magic and get the Vigorous Spirits to plant the frost and stone spirits. Switch axe/wh to sword/axe and take Healing Spring. Rotation when stacked goes like this: Rapid Fire (Piercing Arrows ofc) → Barrage → Whirling Defense → Path of Scars → Sword chain → Rapid Fire → etc.
Imo it’s the best damage combination we can get.

The main problem of ranger is that apart from spirits we don’t have many utilities taht will buff our teammates.

No bearbow is the term for a longbow ranger using a bear. This brings nothing to the group in a dungeon and does awful DPS. You’re to far away from the group to give and receive and give group buff and the bear is the worst DPS pet.

We don’t have buffs our teammates? You mean besides spotter frost spirit and perma swiftness might and fury?

twhite, What form of PvE are you talking about: open world, dungeons, speed runs, world events/bosses?

Open world PvE you can kill anything with LB and a cat/bird before it get near you, so in that sense we rock it hard. In dungeons melee tends to be best but if your with a group of friends that do not care what you run then do whatever and we all are good at whatever. If you are with a PUG or speed group you need to be melee and bring frost spirit and spotter. Both of which offer huge damage increases to the group.

Ranger DPS is good but you have to pay attention because we have sword AA, which keeps you on the edge of your seat the whole time, and we have a pet so you are playing two toons for the most part.

Apart from spirits we don’t have any utility skills that help the party.
Guardian got shouts, Wall of Reflection.
Warrior got For Great Justice and banners that DONT’ DIE as spirits do.
Elementalist can give weapons.
Compared to other utilities our kinda suck :/ .

But well we always have the traps that chill or cripple/immobilize but who needs that on speedruns or zerk stacking groups.

fire trap is very good to stack might’s.
vipers trap is to set weakness AOE
the healing spring is 10 seconds water field.
stone spirit is underrated. it is ‘almost’ as good as guardian hammer auto , in reference to protection uptime.
traited warhorn + traited f2 moa pet = group perma fury.

rangers have very good group support, it just players chose not to invest in it.

Ranger is the worst DPS class but probably one of the better support ones. They give respectable stacks of might, can maintain fury by themselves, and also have several substantial, unique buffs that only rangers can give (Spotter and Frost Spirit) A well-played ranger will not produce huge numbers on his own but he will make everyone else’s a fair bit bigger.

A bad ranger, on the other hand, provides neither damage nor support. And I’ve never seen a good ranger in a pug so…

Ranger’s aren’t useless, but the bearbow builds are. They also are not top 4 dps.

TurtleDragon.3108:

They also are not top 4 dps.

Are you sure? I know this keeps coming up, but I’m having a hard time picturing them being far from the top. For single target, in no particular order you would have thief, ele, ranger, warrior, guardian in the mix and engy mesmer and necro I don’t see being in the picture. Out of those top 5 I don’t know enough about the non-ranger ‘best possible DPS’ builds to compare, but DnT is always saying rangers are roughly on par with warriors.

I’ve never seen any “perfect damage” comparisons between all the professions. Does one exist?

Fluffball.8307:

TurtleDragon.3108:

They also are not top 4 dps.

Are you sure? I know this keeps coming up, but I’m having a hard time picturing them being far from the top. For single target, in no particular order you would have thief, ele, ranger, warrior, guardian in the mix and engy mesmer and necro I don’t see being in the picture. Out of those top 5 I don’t know enough about the non-ranger ‘best possible DPS’ builds to compare, but DnT is always saying rangers are roughly on par with warriors.

I’ve never seen any “perfect damage” comparisons between all the professions. Does one exist?

Here are some of the results of using Nike’s spreadsheet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Best-PVE-ranger-maximum-dps-build/first#post3953937

Somethings to note:
-This is without a pet, i’d include the pet but I don’t know their weapon strength
-Assumptions are no bloodlust, no untraited frost spirit, no mob speciffic sigil and no strength booster

For sure, we have thief and ele in the top 4, every list will agree with this. This leaves 2 spots, it’s also common belief that guardians and warriors are on par with eachother, and DnT has raid ranger is slightly behind warrior (not on par) in the past (5%)

You also have Guanglai Kangyi putting Rangers deadlast, if you believe his lists to be credible. But, he gets criticized a lot for relying too much on spreadsheets.

Interesting. I might list that as “inconclusive” then. I’ve always had a gut feeling both warriors and rangers did more damage than guardians, but that may very well be because most guardians are not very good and/or not damage oriented players.

Might be an excuse to dust off my guardian and try out the latest builds.

Fluffball.8307:

Interesting. I might list that as “inconclusive” then. I’ve always had a gut feeling both warriors and rangers did more damage than guardians, but that may very well be because most guardians are not very good and/or not damage oriented players.

Might be an excuse to dust off my guardian and try out the latest builds.

If I were to judge based on gut feeling and not math, it’d be

Ele > Thief > Warrior > Guardian > Ranger = Necro = Engi > Mesmer

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/91678-post-april-2014-patch-dps-calculations/

Unbuffed base DPS: Mesmer > Ele = Engi > Thief > Warrior > Guardian > Ranger

All buffs: Ele = Mesmer > Engi = Thief > Warrior (walled GS) > Warrior > Ranger

Ranger and Mesmer scale worse with more buffs because their pets/phantasms do not get the full benefit of buffs. Ranger in particular scales extremely poorly due to the pet barely getting anything from buffs (they will not receive banner, spirit, etc. buffs due to 5-target AOE cap) other than standard boons transferred to the pet via Fortifying Bond.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/91678-post-april-2014-patch-dps-calculations/

Unbuffed base DPS: Mesmer > Ele = Engi > Thief > Warrior > Guardian > Ranger

All buffs: Ele = Mesmer > Engi = Thief > Warrior (walled GS) > Warrior > Ranger

Ranger and Mesmer scale worse with more buffs because their pets/phantasms do not get the full benefit of buffs. Ranger in particular scales extremely poorly due to the pet barely getting anything from buffs (they will not receive banner, spirit, etc. buffs due to 5-target AOE cap) other than standard boons transferred to the pet via Fortifying Bond.

The joys of being of being a pet class.

most of what others are saying is true here… bearbow seems common in open world.

As for dungeons, rangers can be an EXTREMELY useful addition if built right, and is with an optimal party.
The best DPS/utility for dungeons is 4/5/0/5/0 using S/x (Wh mainly for burst & blast/buffs, but axe can be used for reflect in some situations, and dagger for extra dodges *cough*subject Alpha*cough*). Torch can be used for the fire feild used to stack might but only if no one else in the party can provide a fire feild which is unlikely. Offhand is generally GS, and occasionaly longbow for the rare situations that require ranged attacks in dungeons.

Id say the ranger meta dungeon build can be in the top 4 damage depending on if the rest of the party is optimal.

The major benefits of the meta dungeon build is the use of spotter and frost spirit. Only the ranger can provide these and these buffs are exclusive to the ranger and greatly benefit the whole party. Spotter gives the whole party roughly a 7% increase in crit chance, while frost spirit, when traited, gives the entire party a 7% damage boost.

With 25 stacks of might/vuln in the right party I find myself critting for 5k + autoattacks with sword, coupled with quickness you will do a full rotation in about a second (3 attacks) for around 15k damage. Couple this with WH burst and your doing even more damage while still autoattacking through the channel of WH burst.

If your party is optimal, ranger can be extremely dangerous in dungeons. If your party is not, you will only do average.

What’s WH burst? Hunter’s Call? That skill barely deals any more than sword auto, if at any more at all. It’s only useful for dealing damage as you run towards a target outside of melee range and even so I’d forgo that 1-2 seconds of DPS to keep that skill available so I can kara cancel sword chain into a dodge.