Guild Wars 2

Hello!

I am relatively new to the GW2 ranger and am looking for some help.

I personally enjoy sword/torch and longbow as my weapon choices.

As such I am looking for some trait advice to get the most out of my ranger.

I am currently running a Wilderness Survival / Beastmastery build, but recognize Im not doing myself any favors with the longbow.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

Well… since you have points in beast mastery (i’m assumings you have 30 in both wilderness survival and BM) your longbow will actually do really well to make your pet better, you have your 3 which makes your pet hit that target harder and move in for the kill faster, you have cripple to stop em from getting out of range of your pet, and you have a knockback for those very niche moments when the pet actually needs you to knock someone back.

However, if you REALLY want to just buff up your bow i’d suggest that you go with marksmanship or skirmishing, both are really good for the bow, marksman is a -little- more longbow favored and skirmishing a -little- more shortbow favored but both are good for the bows.

However if you don’t want to change your build AT ALL, i’d suggest stacking clerics gear to make up for the lack of raw power from marksman so you get a good amount of power and healing power, so you’ll kinda balance yourself out, that or you can just change to a shortbow which benefits quite a bit from wilderness survival due to the conditions.

To be honest I personally don’t consider the LB to be a very good damage weapon at all, if that’s what you’re wanting to get out of it. You’d be better off equipping the SB for that. The LB, again in my opinion, is meant more for control and support with a little spike from Rapid Fire.

5 is all about area control—either keeping enemies slowed down and deal DoT while you kite and dodge around them (if you’re on point) or keeping enemies from running through bottlenecks or at least slowing them down.

3 is for giving your team/pet more damage on the target as added support.

4 is for escaping, interrupting, knocking enemies off points/cliffs/into AE or gaining some distance for kiting.

2 is for a little spike damage and/or finishing off a target.

1 is pretty useless, even when traited, imo.

That’s just my two cents. If you want ranged damage, go SB or Axe; if you want support then you’re good with LB and you really don’t need traits for it to be worth using.

i am using a similar set up right now, here are my tips:

for the longbow, i go 20 points into marksmanship for the piercing arrows, i really like this and it spices up the longbow a bit by encouraging you to use good positioning.

i also like 15 points in wilderness survival for the endurance regeneration and protection gained from rolling. using the 1h sword is really dangerous because it offers little defense, so having your dodge up often will be helpful (i know the rooting issue with the 1h sword can make dodges sometimes unreliable, but it is still worth it)

The Longbow by itself is meh, but since I pair mine with Axe/Horn, I am routinely hitting each ability then swapping weapons to do it again. I’ve crit 9.9k with my LB in PvE and am paying attention more now in WvW since I am playing more of it. I know I won’t be hitting for that there but the LB, paired with another weapon and swapping out is a great addition to the Ranger. I am Power/Crit/WS specc’d.

Think of traits as flexible. Sometimes piercing is advantageous, against single targets the extra range. Sometimes you want access to the active effects of signet othertimes it can be irrelevant to you(WVW defense). So switch up on the fly out of combat.

If you are going max damage marks/skirmish and playing PvP you’ll need a survival trait. Which is either 30 in marks and a signet, or a shout and your pet likely dying.

Don’t think of Longbow how cheshire does. barrage is control but also more.

Barrage is frontloaded cast back loaded damage. In PvP it’ll force a target to burn endurance to get out (If they dodge twice they are swallowing your damage for a bit) or slowly move through it but retaining dodge to avoid incoming damage. It also snares to let a melee pet get on target. Want to keep a node defended you stand in the barrage etc…

Most importantly when the cast animation is over over half the damage remains airborn and you can hit your next attack which is 3(vulnerability) followed immediately by 2. In effect you’ll have rapid shot and barrage damage simultaneously on a target you kept in the barrage zone. This is your longbows burst, engineer keeping targets in the barrage with your pet or being max power consider the lashtail devourer(rending barbs-basically a pet verison rapid fire to add additional damage in this phase) that will add a whole extra damage stack in the burst phase from range. Also can apply poisons on it’s auto attack to minimize the heal repsonse. (As a ranged higher toughness pet it also tends to be around for your shout use)

As target reaches you knockback with LB 4 for max distance(or preferably elevation change) and weapon swap(LB is on CD). Pet keeps harassing use your second set ranged or utilities. If they are ranged damage you might prefer them in close.

An armor and amulet switch can be a huge change in survivability or DPS output carry one.

I believe in adapting on the fly as the game lets you do it.