Guild Wars 2

I have a Ranger around the low level 30s, and I’ll be honest I have no friggin idea where I’m going or what I’m doing with her.

I only PvE, dungeon, or WvW (rarely), I’m looking for builds or general themes of gameplay for Rangers. The pet mechanics feels really awkward to me and very different from any of the other classes a play (I dual main a thief and guard, I’m very comfortable in melee but wanted to play a ranger for some fun range fighting experience). The following is my perception of the Ranger based on what I hear people say in my guild and among my friends who play GW2. 95% of this is probably way off base.

I’ve heard of the “Beast Master” builds but I’ve been on pugs with these types of rangers, and remember how infuriating it was when these pets randomly drew aggro and the user was unable to do anything about it. No idea if Anet fixed this in the last patch but with the confusing pet mechanics and the random aggro drawing, I’m hesitant to try that build, although I’ve heard it is a very powerful build. Thoughts?

How are condi based rangers? Are there any specific builds for condi rangers that are especially popular? I just have a vague sense that one uses the SB and sharpening stones but outside of that I have no idea about the core of that build, and I do know from my experience playing a condi thief that in dungeons, once you hit the 25 stacks of max bleed, if there is another thief or necro in the group the offensive utility of the bleed toons diminish significantly.

Melee ranger seems surprisingly strong, but when I personally use GS the evades seem completely random I can’t figure out which part of the animation does the evade. I think on the 3rd strike? Timing that evade seems to be a nightmare… any specific builds for this?

And lastly, “trap rangers.” I could be totally off base but this seems to be the new metagame ranger based on what I’ve been hearing people talk about. How does this work? What’s the build?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on any or all of the above, or if you have a general PvE build that seems to work very well please let me know!

For PvE, I think any build can work to be honest.

I think it really comes down to what weaps you enjoy using and then build from there. I personally like the Longbow with an Eagle pet and power gear/traits for PvE. Thats what I used mainly. The eagle can do some crazy spike damage. For tougher mobs, you can put up some nice Vuln stacks with Longbow and Axe offhand. This made killing Karkas this weekend considerably faster.

Shortbow is a good ranged choice for a condi build. Don’t really need Sharpening Stone skill if you have crit and the Sharpened Edges trait.

I don’t know about that, I don’t subscribe to the “whatever the hell you want will work in PvE” school of thought I find this to be untrue. Especially when running dungeons or fractals not every weapon set or build works. And there is a concept of efficiency and synergy. It is the experience of optimizing a build and stream lining things to make everything click that gives me the greatest pleasure!

To do this though you need an innate understanding of the class which I completely lack, I was hoping to consult the experts (which is you guys) on this matter.

Well I guess what I really meant, was you’re level 30. Fractals aren’t till level 80. You’ve got 50 levels to figure out how the class works. To get the innate understanding of the class, just play it, it will click. For the next 50 levels you’ll be doing quests and dungeons… mainly quests I’d imagine. Which I say you can do with any sort of build. And since levels will also limit your traits, might as well experiment with the traits and see how they effect things. I can give you a build that puts 30 points in Marksmanship, but at level 30 you can’t put 30 points into it. So experiment along the way.

You’ll come across various pets to charm. Keep them out and use them for awhile. See how they perform. I always kept bringing out my eagle. Oh how I love the eagle. But cats and dogs are great too. Pet management in dungeons will be the biggest challenge I’d imagine. If you have a problem keeping pets alive, look at just using devourer for ranged attcks or pet on passive that buffs/heals.

I edited my post above to add a bit more to the questions you asked.

For PvE, if you want to melee, I’d suggest trying out my Tanky Greatsword build.
10/0/30/30/0 with full Soldier’s armor, weapons, and accessories.

You’ll have over 2k power so still hit hard, which is aided by the following traits:
+10% damage when endurance is full
+5% greatsword damage
+5% damage when you have a boon.
+5% of vitality given as power

With Barkskin and your high hp, you’ll take 30% less damage when your health gets to 6.5k hp … that’s still a large chunk of hp.

Greatsword’s auto-attack chain is 0.5s, 0.5s, 0.75s = 1.75s total. The 3rd attack gives 1 second of evasion. So every 1.75 seconds you’re evading for 1.00s which is 57% of the time. That plus your toughness and vitality makes you one tough Ranger.

The Heal, Utilities, Elite, and Pets you use with it are up to you as is whatever your other weapon set is.

what kind of gear do you use Sebrent? And what kind of PvW are you talking about? Does the GS work in dungeons?
additional question: it`s been 5-6 months since I played the ranger; do pets survive bosses in dungeons this days?

Thank you.

rogerwilko.6895:

what kind of gear do you use Sebrent? And what kind of PvW are you talking about? Does the GS work in dungeons?
additional question: it`s been 5-6 months since I played the ranger; do pets survive bosses in dungeons this days?

Thank you.

No, no they do not. They are able to auto flank enemies that aren’t targeting them, which is pretty nice, but that doesn’t amount to much when the enemy is a legendary that is covering the floor in aoe’s.

Between this and the hilariously underwhelming update to spirits, we are still pretty much where we’ve been for a while.

The gear I use changes depending on the spec and mood I’m in.

For the build I was talking about, I use full Soldier’s gear.

My full sets of gear that I swap between on my Ranger are

• Soldier’s
• Knight’s
• Rabid (also w/ Giver weapons)
• Apothecary
• Cleric’s

Some pets can take hits from various bosses but no pet is going to tank a boss for long. Some just give you more time to call them back or swap them. Just like with weapons, utilities, and traits, you are best served by swapping in/out the appropriate tool(s) for the job. Pets are not an exception to this rule.

The AI does help a little with pet survivability, but honestly there weren’t any huge changes. If you look at the patch notes, it’s a few HP here and there. In some cases, a large % change, but no pets went from non-bear HP to bear HP.