Guild Wars 2

I’ve spent the last few hours reading alot of the threads trying to get a handle on the class before posting, but I’ve never played Ranger so forgive my ignorance!

My gf plays ranger and is leveing with me, she only ever plays with me (as mesmer) and does not solo. This is her first game and I am trying to help her out as much as I can.

Accordingly, I’m looking for what people think of as pretty vital for leveling as ranger to make it as painless as possible (ie: minimize deaths with an emphasis on survive rather than damage.) I know ranger is often said to be the “easiest open world PVE class” but I have no idea as to why this is said. Someone told me using the brown bear to tank makes karka farming /snooze, but idk if its the same principle for leveling, or how pet tankign works when you aren’t solo.

Currently we are level 47, her favorite weapon is the longbow and her favorite pets are shark, eagle, and sylvari hound. We are both sylvari. She will not be giving up bow play, so even if a dual mele set up is ideal.. its just not gonna fit this need. That said, axe/torch and gs all get used often as the other set so what ever you guys think is best as a swap set for LB.

From what I’ve gathred, 10 points in nature magic to get regen duration is more or less mandatory.

I was thinking somthing like this mgiht be good?
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJARTjEVF2JWCWs2Bg+BNfFo1VY0MOKBZRA-e

Are there any commonly used leveling builds or tricks? Like signet warrior/thor ele (War and Ele are my 80s).

I’m always hearing so many people talking about the SB as being amazing, what in particular makes people love it so much?

I have 100g set aside just for our gear and sigils and runes and stuff, so feel free to recomend particular armor builds and so on that will help. Also, any particular pets I should make sure she has?

Thanks for your suggestions… and sorry if I blatently missed an identical thread. The 0/0/30/10/30 threads kinda make me wanna play ranger….

Jester.1546:

“easiest open world PVE class” but I have no idea as to why this is said.

Eh… Neither do I, since that’s an outright lie. Easiest open world PvE class to level is, by far, the Warrior, followed by the Guardian.

That said, as someone who has leveled almost every class in the game to level 80 now (only 2 missing and on their way – elementalist and engineer) open world PvE is quite easy, and honestly spending money on leveling gear is generally a waste… It’s like buying a ton of expensive clothes to your newborn kid… blink and they’ve outgrown them. Anything over green for leveling is either bought bellow 10 silver or is a waste.

If you wanna focus on survival, making sure you absolutely don’t die, then some clerics gear with soldiers will probably be best. I will say that, in my experience, nothing beats berserker for PvE, but that is less “error friendly”.

As for build, don’t bother with 5 points in Marksmanship. If you go into marksmanship is because you want the major traits. The minor traits on that tree are all trash.

The things you really want will be 15 points in wilderness survival (for the protection on roll and the mini vigor from the minor traits + Vigorous renewel – vigor on heal), 25 points on beastmastery (similarly, you want both minor traits + pets healing more), and 10 points in Nature’s magic for the trait you already have there (Nature’s Bounty).

I’d also advise changing Signet of Stone for Signet of Renewal. PvE doesn’t have a lot of condition spam for the most part, and you already have Healing Spring for condition removal.

The rest is whatever really… Seriously, once you grasp the principal of it, PvE is quite easy regardless.

Enjoy.

Great call on the 15 point protection minor. Thanks!

Money is lolz. Buying the new tier of rare quality costs less than you make from one COF run.

And it is easy for anyone thats ever play video games before, but when you hae never played anything at all before this, it can be kind of amazing how many little skills we take for granted.

Thanks! Updated build in OP

Very nice couple out here lol~

Ok about ranger.

“easiest open world PVE class”
Yes true we send our pet take agrro/Dmg with enemy and we hit them from safe distant.Keep our pet alive anything be smooth.(You can swap pet b4 they death for full hp recovery and send 2nd to fight and do it again.)
And BM traits make your pet can tank any monster in a world PvE.
(not boss/ champ/ mob in dungeon.)

Shotbow we love them because can do DMG and got condition when shot fron side and back SB fast rappid can fight long-mid-close can do variety distant.

Trick on PvE for ranger hm…just stay out of trouble and takecare your pet gently.

I see your build a lot of signet do you like to use this build 1botton end game?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJARVjEV91JWGWs2Bi1DC1nB1Kop3Da1q2nxRJILC-jwgAEEE5BU3FRjFA-e

Not think much just send pet fight look and cheer him up.
Can use long bow for support your pet too.

About traits on LV47 use something effect on your fight first don’t worry much.
Both class can handle any worst situation and now you have togather that make safe-travel all over tyria.

IMO try any slot of traits and what you love it or not just try to know how suit your play style or not and fix-retraits any time when you ranger back to city will be know how fun or useful.

Silverkung.9127:

I see your build a lot of signet do you like to use this build 1botton end game?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQJARVjEV91JWGWs2Bi1DC1nB1Kop3Da1q2nxRJILC-jwgAEEE5BU3FRjFA-e

Lol, I play ele as my main. So no, one button endgame not really my thing. Honestly went with signets for her since they are easy and powerful.

Thanks!

Hey Jester! Nice to see you on the Ranger forums! Was a big fan of your Mesmer builds

Concerning Short Bow: People consider it great for several reasons:

• #1 causes Bleeding while flanking and in combination with the 25 Skirmishing Minor Trait ‘Hunters Tactics’ and decent Power + Crit you hit quite fast, since the auto attack speed is pretty high. also synergises well with the Crit Sigils Fire and Lightning.
• SB #3, 4 and 5 are 100% projectile finishers. with the Ranger being the class that easily has access to the greatest variety of combo fields, this creates nice synergies especially in condition focused builds.
• SB grants great mobility with the #3 jump-back (comparable to Staff #2 on Mesmer, but not a Leap-Finisher)
• decent CC with #4 Snare + Pet buff and #5 stun.
• all in all a well rounded range weapon.

if your gf wants to stick with longbow, I as a Greatsword fan can only shed a few tears of sorrw: Greatsword is really awesome in PvE!!!

anyway, Longbow:
I personally find that Longbow synergises well with a Signet build. I am using something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNBjODbkoKyOxywC1OQsesHCNomCN1fmCDxoU2xXezB-TIAg0CnA

I left gear mostly blank cause I think its really up to you in PvE. For most endgame content I would say the same is true for any class: Berserker > all. Especially in high level fractals boss mobkitten so hard that either with 26k life and 2200 toughness or full berserker gear you’ re going to drop in 1 hit. So might just as well do massive damage in the meantime.

If you are looking more for a heavy survial build you could always use the already mentioned: 0/0/30/10/30 build. with right gear you can reach up to 600hp/sec without using a healing skill with that, making it almost impossible for normal mobs to kill you. you will have to go conditions or your damage wont be great though. (e.g. Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQNAT3fjEVR2JWGWo2Bi2DNZeM9eke13eXhRlyO+ybOA-jAyAIOBZSAM5JQ5xioxW2KiGremIqWZjZxLiWtMAmjB-e)

Generally I would recommend to you to listen to the 3 episodes of the Arrow to the Knee Podcast. They give out nice infos.

Concluding:
General rules for PvE that I consider to be true:

• DONT use bears. it is true, the litteraly dont die but they suck on any other aspect. Drakes are almost as beefy but are a LOT better ( AoE auto attack, Blast finisher every 30 seconds, F2 Abilitiekitten like a truck)
• Conditions are ALWAYS worse than Direct Damage in PvE due to their mechanic:
  A condition that stacks either duration or intensity will always use the condition damage used by the person applying the last stack. And since almost every class has some skill that applies either bleeding or burning as a side effect, you seldomy are going to be able to use our conditions to their full damage potential.
• Greatsword is a great defensive weapon and always worth it to have with you. the #1 Chain has a 1 second evade, #2 hits like a truck, #3 is a 1200 range leap-> great mobility on 8 sec cd if traited, #4 3 second block + knock back, #5 120 range stun. like the Shortbow a very balanced and well rounded weapon (though many including myself think that #2 should also be a black finisher since we really lack those).
• If using a Longbow I would recommend using the 2 sources of quickness that ranger has access to: Quickening Zephyr and Zephyr’s Speed (5 point Beastmaster Minor trait). They synergizer very well with LB #2 and #5, which are both channeled and have a high damage potential. Quickness is especially nice with #5 Barrage, since the skill will ‘go on’ for several seconds after you have finished channeling it. and the sooner you stop channeling, the sooner you will be able to move again. Also make sure you have signet of stone ready when using Barrage in a PvP scenario cause most Burst classes consider a LB ranger using it free loot.

Alrite, wall of text I hope this helps you a bit and I hope you will enjoy your Ranger just as much as we do!