Guild Wars 2

First off, I am a complete newbie to the ranger profession. I must have started 10 different rangers, only to browse forums, get discouraged and delete them back into nothingness.

I want to like this class. While the AI turns Mr. Fluffy into a big, kittened mess…I still like my pet. I don’t want to end up trying to make the ranger into something it’s not and ignore the core mechanic of the profession. It’s not a warrior and will never be. I am slowly understanding the micro-managment that comes with my cute little kittened friend; I have to constantly pull him back from chasing the proverbial butterfly to attack the thing that’s attacking me. I wish I didn’t have to keep recalling him to make sure the f2 gets used in a timely manner. Nothing more frustrating than watching him autoattack when I am mashing that f2 button hoping he hits it before I kill it.

Is there a build that I can work towards that will help keep Mr. Fluffy upright and on all four paws without gimping myself too badly? Or is it I try to beef him him a little at the expense of myself, or I make him a wet tissue paper while I try to get a little more survivability while he and his f4 brother are dead?

I know about running sword/warhorn or dagger and not to use the longbow/bear combo around people who can see me, or I’ll get laughed at. I like the shortbow, is it a viable second slot or should I stick with a GS for that? I also know that I should pick up Spotter when running dungeons and get the frost spirit traited as well.

So basically my questions out of all of this are:

1. Is there a build that can help keep my pet alive, or do I have to choose between the pet and myself? (I have tried Googling this but I get a ton of random stuff that don’t answer my question)
2. If there is a ‘pet build’, is it less effective than a build that buffs the just character?
3. Is shortbow a viable second weapon slot or should I stick with GS?

Thanks in advance for any advice

And yes I know, roll a warrior instead…seen it before, still want to give this class a good try though.

Playing a BM bunker or a similar build will get your pet great survivability and allow you to tank enemies and deal decent damage.

Look at these videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/Xsorus/videos?view=0

I used his old BM bunker build, I’m just now moving over to dire armour and weapon stats like his newer video suggests and I’m quite liking the extra condition damage.

If you like using conditions, go with sword-dagger/axe-torch like in those videos or if you prefer the shortbow try using shortbow/sword-torch to cover your conditions.

Spiders seem to have the best chance of survival and to deal a good amount of damage with good pet management since it can attack at range, allowing you to pull them back and let them continue to attack from you instead of near the enemy.

I main a ranger, have had 2 level 80 warriors (deleted one), got an 80 guardian and am working on others, but I always spend the majority of my time on my ranger (mostly in WvW, but he does great in PvE, too)

Try not to be discouraged by the negativity, rangers are a good class, even if we do need a couple of buffs

You cannot live life through the eyes of others people.Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it.

@Gamemaster: That post really brought a smile to my face, thank you

@Rabidsmiles: Always glad to hear people that are willing to pick up a ranger, despite their flaws! I’ve tried most of the other classes in this game, but the only one that really stuck for me is Ranger, they’re just such a unique and interesting class to play!

1. I always tend to invest a few points into Beastmastery, just to make sure my pet’s got enough raw stats to take some hits and do some damage (I think I’m running 20/25/0/10/15 right now). Speccing like this also gives you 20% faster pet swapping, which is really important if you’re using cats. Speaking of cats, felines are very much glass cannons in this game, with plenty of damage, but not a huge deal of survivability. I’d recommend taking another pet as well as a cat, that has a bit more beef to it (bears are okay, but they’re selfish tanks – they don’t do much damage and they don’t have any conditions) wolves are good imo – they’re reasonably tanky, have a decent bit of damage, and have access to a knockdown, a cripple, and a fear – give the other pets a shot and see what works for you ^^ (Quick shoutout to devourers!)

2. There are Beastmaster builds out there which place heavy emphasis on the pet. They’re okay, but I don’t like the idea of placing all of my damage on something that’s controlled by the AI – it’s unreliable for us, and predictable for enemies in PvP. Even so, pets are a big part of a Ranger, so I think it’s still important to invest a little in beastmastery and carefully consider what pet is right for the task (Spiders and devourers are good for enemies with lots of AoE like Malrona in TA, whereas the Spider Queen in AC is a good place for cats and moas because of the stacking).

3. The Shortbow is very heavy on condition damage (Bleed from behind, stun, poison, cripple, bleed-on-pet-attacks). It’s an excellent weapon for kiting, but it really shines when you put a bit of extra condition damage into your build.

I know what you mean, I keep going back to my ranger. The real problem with Mr Fluffy, is the AI, inability to dodge, overall survivability and rangers loss of DPS to compensate for having said Fluffems. The only real way to keep a pet out of instakill AoE is to have it run back to you, which isn’t guarenteed to work because
1. AoE can be huge
2. Pet AI is dreadful they either might not respond fast enough or at all
3. They’ll simply path through other AoE Circles on the way back.

Then there’s the DPS. When ever Mr Fluffy is moving, either to you or from you, it’s not causing damage. Which means keeping the pet alive automatically debuffs the rangers DPS output by, what is it these days, 40%? It can take several seconds or more to get pet out of danger and get it back to the target, if it can even reach the target or keep up to it during which time we’re doing very little to assist team mates, mostly because we’re concentrating on keeping the pet alive instead of
1. Ourselves
2. Teammembers

So not only does keeping Mr fluffy alive ,‘debuff’ the ranger, it also hinders teamwork and player survivability. In endgame, group and dungeon content, being a ranger is not going to make you many friends, for these exact reasons. Possibly the most selfish class in the entire game soley because of the sheer amount of attention that has to be given to resist debuffing ourselves. Where most other classes will spending effort and time to buff, DPS and support the team, we will spend an equal amount of effort and time trying to just keep our dps at at baseline, while doing nothing to support the team.
Ironic really conisdering we have some of the most useful support skills in the game.
This could of course be fixed by having in combat stow pet, with an automatic buff to ranger DPS while pets are stowed. This would allow rangers a greater variety of playstyles, opening options and team support skills we cannot even begin to utilise in the present system. With combat pet stow, we could switch almost entirely to support roles or DPS, then when we need to control trash mobs, send out the pet again, to distract, CC, heal teamates we can’t reach etc. The pet would spend more time doing it’s job, less time dead, and rangers would do more damage overall, while supporting the team better. Rangers would be useful and not resented for anything except being too awesome.
Of course, we can’t have that, because ranger is a pet class and you will use your pet!!!!!111!!111!!!!!!!!