Guild Wars 2

what type of armour should i use and why? also what types of builds 0/0/0/0/0.

For armor: Toughness > VIT> anything else. WvW is all about survive.
So best weapons(in my opinion) should be GS/sword+X, many ppl might say NO since it gonna be melee ranger but in my experience melee ranger is the way to go especially in wvw. For 1v1, the only class you need a bow is VS Guardians.
Build is important but not the most, there is no one for all build, the best build is the one which fits your play style the most.
In my recent experience there are only 2 tough classes VS melee ranger — D/D ele and P/D thief. For D/D ele, you both can’t kill each other. P/D thief is the solid counter against all kinds of rangers (very unfortunately our pet can provide them free perma stealth so there is 0 chance to win) , but if you want to escape there is no way they can kill you. Someone may say what about mesmer? Maybe I didn’t met any good mesmer in WvW recently, but every mesmer I have met = free kill (almost the easiest class to beat).

I disagree with CRrabbit. In my opinion, a 0/0/30/10/30 build is currently one of our strongest, if not the strongest, builds. Focus on toughness, healing power, and power. You will have much, much more survivability than if you were to have a more damage orientated build, while your damage will almost be the same, assuming you will be able to micromanage your main sources of DPS, which will be your pets, properly.

Greatsword is definately a great secondary weapon, but not a main weapon. As a main weapon, anything ranged will serve you well. I’m personally a fan of axe/dagger, but axe/torch and axe/warhorn are also decent choices. I’m less a fan of the shortbow, and even less of the longbow, but feel free to try them out anyway.

Agadar.4931:

I disagree with CRrabbit. In my opinion, a 0/0/30/10/30 build is currently one of our strongest, if not the strongest, builds. Focus on toughness, healing power, and power. You will have much, much more survivability than if you were to have a more damage orientated build, while your damage will almost be the same, assuming you will be able to micromanage your main sources of DPS, which will be your pets, properly.

Greatsword is definately a great secondary weapon, but not a main weapon. As a main weapon, anything ranged will serve you well. I’m personally a fan of axe/dagger, but axe/torch and axe/warhorn are also decent choices. I’m less a fan of the shortbow, and even less of the longbow, but feel free to try them out anyway.

That’s interesting. I am running a 30/0/30/10/0. I would put that 30 into beast-mastery but those are just too many useful traits in the marksmanship skill tree: namely eagle eye and active signets also affect you. I am also running longbow/short-bow though. I like to focus as a support member in zergs able to snipe others a from a fair distance away, and also defending on top of walls.

Depends on your play style. My current build is max dps WvWvW longbow sniper (Aka full Berserker gear and 30/30/10/0/0). This build works great for defending points, dishing out huge amounts of damage from above. It also works really good in zerg fights when your able to hide behind a meat shield.

I am running 0/0/20/20/30 build, basically same idea with 0/0/30/10/30 but just little bit different emphasize. Last night I fight a ranger, I am pretty sure he is running something close coz the whole fight last over 1 minute. Finally I won, disregarding the operating skill problem(he is very skilled, not worse than I in my opinion), I think the main reason why I can win is I use GS+Sword/horn, he use axe/dagger+sword/horn.
Ranger only has 1 real DPS weapon — sword, so in my opinion no matter what build you are using, if you are not using sword, you can’t output good dps. How good sword DPS (plus your pet) is? — find a glass canon warrior friend as teammate , go get a camp or keep gate, each of you fight a same type NPC to see who gonna finish it 1st, you will find the answer. Then use other weapon to test again, you will find the difference.
Therefore, sword is a must-have weapon, then for the 2nd, I found GS is best combination (shortbow is 2nd choice when you VS some tough melee class such as guardian). I only use GS 3,4,5 (with trait which shorten the CD) and it’s so amazing no matter for defending or chasing.

Agadar.4931:

I disagree with CRrabbit. In my opinion, a 0/0/30/10/30 build is currently one of our strongest, if not the strongest, builds. Focus on toughness, healing power, and power. You will have much, much more survivability than if you were to have a more damage orientated build, while your damage will almost be the same, assuming you will be able to micromanage your main sources of DPS, which will be your pets, properly.

Greatsword is definately a great secondary weapon, but not a main weapon. As a main weapon, anything ranged will serve you well. I’m personally a fan of axe/dagger, but axe/torch and axe/warhorn are also decent choices. I’m less a fan of the shortbow, and even less of the longbow, but feel free to try them out anyway.

BroScientist.9875:

Agadar.4931:

I disagree with CRrabbit. In my opinion, a 0/0/30/10/30 build is currently one of our strongest, if not the strongest, builds. Focus on toughness, healing power, and power. You will have much, much more survivability than if you were to have a more damage orientated build, while your damage will almost be the same, assuming you will be able to micromanage your main sources of DPS, which will be your pets, properly.

Greatsword is definately a great secondary weapon, but not a main weapon. As a main weapon, anything ranged will serve you well. I’m personally a fan of axe/dagger, but axe/torch and axe/warhorn are also decent choices. I’m less a fan of the shortbow, and even less of the longbow, but feel free to try them out anyway.

That’s interesting. I am running a 30/0/30/10/0. I would put that 30 into beast-mastery but those are just too many useful traits in the marksmanship skill tree: namely eagle eye and active signets also affect you. I am also running longbow/short-bow though. I like to focus as a support member in zergs able to snipe others a from a fair distance away, and also defending on top of walls.

Your build really depends on your playstyle. However I agree that the 0/0/30/10/30 is one of the strongest right now in terms of survivability and adaptability since the 30/30/10/0/0 I used to run hones your ranger to play a single role in attack/defensive points. By focusing on beastmastery, you can have your pet do the dirty work and quite truthfully, your pet often has more options than you to do a thing about the enemy. To be specific: be way less noticed when attacking an enemy, output more damage in less time, climb inside or outside walls, take out enemy siege with less interruption, etc.

For the beastmaster ranger, Greatsword/shortbow or 1h sword/axe are the best ways to go right now for WvW since they all provide a defense/evade/attack if you use them right. Also traiting yourself is really up to what role you choose to play in this environment. Full support, sniper, beast-master, etc etc.

I like to play the role of a hunter in the full sense of the word: pick a target, send my pet in to do massive damage (sick em/quickening zephir combination is a recipe for a quick enemy death) and follow through the kill. If the enemy is strong enough to resist, I make sure my pet continues to output damage to my target throughout the entire fight. Survival depends on the enemy, stun breakers, block, evades, roots, all have to be timed right. Effecient use of troll unguent use is highly important. If done well, you can survive a many vs 1 fight (yes it is possible now, but not an easy feat). When fightning large number of enemies, sending the pet in to do the dirty work always helps. It still amazes me how people do not pay attention to ranger pets, they get killed by them. Works great to distract enemy groups and help your group charge in (especially if you happen to be attacking a commander with your pet).

I play a glass cannon longbow user as well and it works great in WvW. Barrage is extremely potent when used properly and the 1500 range is actually one of the best survival abilities. You are out of range of just about all of the enemies when you are shooting from near your max range…so you won’t take much damage unless you get out of position. Your shots actually go much farther than the 1500 range when you are shooting down at the ground from atop a hill or wall. And with the right setup you can maintain a 90%+ crit rate.

At jwaz…You should try putting 5 points into beastmastery to get the added quickness. Ranger’s easy access to quickness makes a huge difference in the amount of damage we can put out.. Swapping your pet right before barrage or rapid fire makes all of those hits occur twice as fast to deliver a ton of damage.

If you are interested in this setup just copy and paste this link in your browser: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjOD7EpiILDsQLIWLEArH7FYfdBsHHqIjfBVsyO;TsAg0CnoSykkIJbSukkJtiYYxOCA

If you’re running with the Zerg, a glass cannon Berserker build works just fine; but, if you’re roaming solo or with a small team, you’ll need Toughness, survivability traits and utilities/weapons.

I’m currently running the following condition/toughness build, and I absolutely love it:
http://www.guildhead.com/skill-calc#mcom0VM9MmvahmmvahM0px0fmacoqo08kiT707khd7khf7070z7kGW70V

Armor, Weapons and Back are Rabid (Power/Toughness/Condition).
Jewelery is Emerald (Power/Precision/Toughness).

Wilderness Survival, with this added Condition Damage and Toughness, synergizes exceptionally well with the Runes of the Undead and its 6-piece bonus.

Because Toughness is so great as a defensive stat, everyone is stacking it. Vitality is arguably one of the worst stats because once the health is gone its gone. Toughness protects against the hard hits but does nothing for condition damage. That’s where playing evasively and using healing over time makes up for Toughness’ lack of protection against conditions.

Ranger are among the best classes to stack bleeds and poisons, so having a trait tree with both Toughness (to counter the rest of the profession who rely on direct damage) and Condition Damage (to bypass everyone stacking Toughness) gives Rangers a good advantage – if you like condition builds.

Disclaimer: I don’t use Axe because I simply don’t like it. I feel its clunky and the animation bothers me to no end. Its a pet peeve, and I just prefer the evasion, mobility and burst Sword can provide (spam dat 1 key).

I love melee rangers in wvw, mainly as a good source of badges.

I’ve yet to work out how to get my pet to obey that recall button before it dies while pet swop is on cool down after it ran into the zerg and picked up 3 days worth of cripple making it useless as a damage dealer as it never catches up to the intended target, which the melee ranger will die before ever reaching either, making that 30 point in BM look a bit of a waste.

Melee rangers can be good in small battles where their pet has a chance of catching up with the target and where the intended target is dumb enough to let you hit them- but then that’s true of facing any melee class. The actual damage from sword in wvw is a bit weak for my liking.

The 30 Bm trait is also fun when attacking stuff inside towers and keeps from outside and people too- but it doesn’t take long for people to spot the pet and once they see it your fun is over.

I run a LB/SB build with a bit of toughness and HP/might foods added in, using qz and might stacking before firing off a nice barrage that slows down those pesky front zergers from 1500 range- I love being able to outrange people. Good weapon swap timing is crucial to playing it well, as is the skills you put in your slots and even your elite.

I’m moving away from quite so much toughness atm as I’m finding it fairly pointless for the type of deaths I suffer, where having 500 extra toughness might have kept me alive for 0.5 second longer.

Condition damage builds might work for 1v1 but against a zerg or a bunch of people it’s like spitting at them and hoping one of them dies from catching a disease- might happen one day but it’s gonna take a long time with the amount of condition removal available to most classes (or even worse, a necro that converts them conditions to boons and your boons to conditions..)

For pve melee rangers are great fun – sword horn and your choice of secondary and away you go.

In the end your play style will determine what’s best for you, and what you feel most comfortable playing- but there are way better classes to play melee on.

Find an easy to use hotkey scheme for your pet and keep them alive and biting people.