Guild Wars 2

Greetings! I’ve been trying to recapture the feel of the GW1 Assassin and I feel that the ranger is the best class to do that with. The thief relies too much on stealth. I really enjoy the playstyle of S/D leveling up in solo PvE, but I worry that it won’t be viable in dungeons due to the ranger being relatively squishy. Have any of you more experienced Rangers had success with this? Any builds you could recommend?

Due to excellent endurance regen options and a ton of weapon evades (especially on S/D), rangers are really not squishy in dungeons at all. Our main problem is that nearly half our damage comes from our pet and all that evasion and dodging doesn’t apply to them, they just stand there and get killed, depriving us of their contributions.

Basically, rangers’ problems in dungeons are offense-related, not defense.

Ah, that makes sense. How would a S/D ranger fare in terms of dps vs, say, a Guardian or an Engineer? Are they still able to hit harder than them even with the pet being out of commission most of the time?

With the pet in the fight, getting boons and not dying, a ranger’s damage potential is among the highest in the game, even competing with warriors under optimal conditions.

If the pet dies or has to be pulled out frequently, though, which is usually the case, our damage drops quite a lot. It’s probably more in line with a support guardian at that point.

Basically, under realistic conditions, a ranger’s DPS in a dungeon is fairly low. Under optimal conditions, it’s very high. Get ready to swing wildly in performance based on the whims of the pet AI.

Haha that makes sense, thank you very much for the info! At this point I really have my heart set on the gameplay of S/D and I’m just deciding on ranger or thief. Ranger seems to be able to put out more dps when the pet is up (and also seems more survivable, thieves feel super squishy), but from what you’ve said I would assume that thief S/D dps would probably be higher in a dungeon situation due to not having to rely on a pet. But that would mean that soloing in open world PvE a ranger would likely be able to put out more dps because the pet would be able to help, correct?

u wont do half of the damage of a thief or a warrior, pets or not. thieves make 15k+ warriors… pf… LOT your best is ~7k and others make it more often

Warriors cannot sustain 15k DPS. If the fight lasts more than a few seconds they level off in the 7000’s, which is about the same as a ranger hits if their pet is alive and receiving boons.

Obviously warriors outperform rangers in dungeons because their burst ends some fights extremely fast (especially if their are multiple warriors in the group) and even after their burst is over, their sustained DPS is reliable because it isn’t tied to a clumsy pet. But their sustained DPS is not double a ranger’s under ideal conditions; it’s about the same.

Thank you both for the replies, I’ll play around with stuff and find what works for me. Much appreciated!

Sword/dagger doesn’t really offer much for dungeons. The sword is self-sabotage as you either lose control or lose auto attacks and the dagger doesn’t offer enough utility. In PvP the 4 and 5 skills are good for duelling but dungeons are not about duelling. I’m guessing the dagger suits condition builds but for dungeons you’re generally better with direct damage and bezerker gear. If you like sword/dagger for roleplaying you’ll be able to make it work but to be honest, as someone who swaps weapon sets a lot, I’ve never needed to swap to sword/dagger for anything.

Sword is the rangers best bet for direct damage, but I find myself using torch (great at stacking might with an intelligent group) and warhorn (the 4 skills stacks tons of might on pet with RaO and the 5 skill is always nice for the boons) offhands more often. In reality, with a good group who uses combo fields to stack might and fury well, you can do some of the best damage in game if you play the class right (combining that with vigor uptime and survivability utilities) you can be a very good asset. The problem with rangers is people dont know how to utilize them (i.e. not using sword because they cant dodge at melee range therefore gimping their damage) and they are then judged harshly by the group.

Lots of good info here. So the consensus I’m getting here (correct me if I’m wrong) is that sword is best for damage, but dagger isn’t the greatest offhand. Do any of you run S/something in dungeons? If so, could you please recommend a build for me to try? Also, do you find that you’re able to survive well (I know it can be difficult at times to dodge using the sword auto attack) and dish out some damage? Right now I’m debating between a Ranger and a Thief because I like the “assassin” feel to it. I’m not a huge fan of the long bow. I can’t stand the short bow on the thief, and it’s only okay on the ranger. I enjoyed playing around with P/D for a while on my thief, but I found that I was easily out dpsed by most classes.

I sincerely apologize for all my unorganized and sometimes redundant questions, but I feel like I’m really close to choosing between Ranger and Thief!

Basically what I’m asking is how do Rangers compare to thieves in dungeons, especially when the pet inevitably goes down. An important thing I should mention is that I’m referring to a S/something Ranger and any type of Thief except D/D or D/P.

I really do appreciate all your replies, I’d love to get a few more!

If you really like the sword but don’t like stealth you could try a sword/pistol thief with access to smoke, shadowsteps, pistol whip.

If you haven’t played a sword ranger at all yet you should check out the animations. It could put you off the sword for life.

Stooperdale.3560:

If you really like the sword but don’t like stealth you could try a sword/pistol thief with access to smoke, shadowsteps, pistol whip.

If you haven’t played a sword ranger at all yet you should check out the animations. It could put you off the sword for life.

The ranger sword animations really don’t bother me that much. The auto attack is a little annoying, but I can deal with it.

Esta.9645:

Stooperdale.3560:

If you really like the sword but don’t like stealth you could try a sword/pistol thief with access to smoke, shadowsteps, pistol whip.

If you haven’t played a sword ranger at all yet you should check out the animations. It could put you off the sword for life.

The ranger sword animations really don’t bother me that much. The auto attack is a little annoying, but I can deal with it.

As the other poster said you should consider s/p for thief. I play this sometimes, it can be really fun. It’s also quite powerful in both pvp, and pve. Meaning you don’t have to learn one or the other. It is also entirely dependent on YOUR skill versus your pet’s ai.

Add to that the thief gets so many beneficial skills for the group that ranger doesn’t have access to. Group stealth is very strong. I like rangers, and they are “interesting”, but I just don’t see how they can add up to what a s/d or s/p thief is. Imo s/p or s/d thief is what I thought ranger would be, minus the stealth obviously.

To gives some background out of all professions the only two I don’t have multiple 80s on is my ranger (78, can’t bring myself to finish), and ele (too many skills/traits seem to counter each other. Switch element, oh but you only get certain buffs if you stay in one or the other. Just seems clunky)

Personally I suggest you try thief. Sure they don’t have a pet, but when you can just stealth away from things you don’t need one. Plus with s/p you get a perma smoke field (aoe stealth, blind)

I have to say, I came into this thread looking for some S/D tips because I recently tried it out on my level 80 and enjoyed it, but as far as dungeons go, I run them with an Acrobatics DD Thief, and it’s a very kinetic fighting style that involves almost no stealth. The only Stealth I use is the heal, the occasional stealth-buff Steal effect, and Shadow Refuge which is a great pinch utility. I survive more by dodging things than by Stealthing.