Squishy, Tanky, and Everything in Between
I’ve got a weird build that ends up giving me a lot of armor but virtually no max HP. As far as ‘tanking’ goes I find I have no problem being in the thick of fights thanks to my great dodges. With sword/dagger, vigor from heals, and the passive 50% extra endurance nothing can touch you. If I do take a couple hits my toughness is enough to keep me from dropping right away. Gives me time to jump out with 2, heal, then dive back in.
If you build specificly tank, the great sword is an amazing weapon. Get good at timing your third strike and you can evade everything. 4 on the GS is a very strong projectile block/melee counterblow. Finally, rangers can have great regen through signet of the wild and natural healing (BM 30). Its not as good as a tank warrior or guardian regen but a ranger is infinitely more evasive than either.
I haven’t played with tanky builds much, but from my limited experience, I think there is definitely some potential. With a greatsword and a solid investment into the nature and WS tree, a ranger can take a hell of a beating.
However, even if it is viable to run as a ranger tank, I don’t know if it’s as good as a warrior/guardian or if it really brings anything to the table that they can’t already do better.
I Tank PvE dungeons for the group I run with using Ranger. 0/0/30/10/30 GS/Sword&Horn. I have Power/Vit/Tough Armor and weapons and Tough Power Healing Jewelry. Runes of Dwayna on Armor and Sigils of Water on Weapons.
It tanks really well and I can keep regen with 100% uptime. My pet obviously is primary DPS and helps me with tanking as I often swap aggro with it. Run Dual Canines mostly (Fern and Alpine). Signet of Wild (extra source of regen), Signet of Stone (mostly to keep pet up if I am begging for a few more secs to swap, free tough doesn’t hurt), and Sick’Em (Makes good burst if you can get 25 stacks of might on pet through RaO, combined with GS#5 and you can get some good burst out of the pet).
The nice thing with the build is that I can rez people while keeping DPS up through the Pet.
I Tank PvE dungeons for the group I run with using Ranger. 0/0/30/10/30 GS/Sword&Horn. I have Power/Vit/Tough Armor and weapons and Tough Power Healing Jewelry. Runes of Dwayna on Armor and Sigils of Water on Weapons.
It tanks really well and I can keep regen with 100% uptime. My pet obviously is primary DPS and helps me with tanking as I often swap aggro with it. Run Dual Canines mostly (Fern and Alpine). Signet of Wild (extra source of regen), Signet of Stone (mostly to keep pet up if I am begging for a few more secs to swap, free tough doesn’t hurt), and Sick’Em (Makes good burst if you can get 25 stacks of might on pet through RaO, combined with GS#5 and you can get some good burst out of the pet).
The nice thing with the build is that I can rez people while keeping DPS up through the Pet.
You switched from 0/0/20/20/30? (yes, I recognize you from the Guru forums, lol: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74991-gs-tank-pet-build/)
I Tank PvE dungeons for the group I run with using Ranger. 0/0/30/10/30 GS/Sword&Horn. I have Power/Vit/Tough Armor and weapons and Tough Power Healing Jewelry. Runes of Dwayna on Armor and Sigils of Water on Weapons.
It tanks really well and I can keep regen with 100% uptime. My pet obviously is primary DPS and helps me with tanking as I often swap aggro with it. Run Dual Canines mostly (Fern and Alpine). Signet of Wild (extra source of regen), Signet of Stone (mostly to keep pet up if I am begging for a few more secs to swap, free tough doesn’t hurt), and Sick’Em (Makes good burst if you can get 25 stacks of might on pet through RaO, combined with GS#5 and you can get some good burst out of the pet).
The nice thing with the build is that I can rez people while keeping DPS up through the Pet.
You switched from 0/0/20/20/30? (yes, I recognize you from the Guru forums, lol: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/74991-gs-tank-pet-build/)
One and the Same lol.
I did, In PvE I rarely get down low in health to benefit from last 10 in nature magic and when I am I am usually healed up again so my pet rarely benefits from the bonus DPS. So I opted for the full 30 in survival. Now I take reduced damage at 25% health to stretch out my life and pets until my next heal is up. More bang for the buck and my build becomes that much tankier. The extra damage reduction paired with a few well aimed dodge rolls granting protection and I’ve escaped a couple close calls that would have otherwise been me a gonner.
I should probably update that on GW2GURU
It’s kind of weird?
Because you can build yourself tanky, and then you can also build your pet tanky. There’s alot of overlap in utilities and traits, but your stats are split between Vit/Tough for the you-tank and Healing Power for the pet-tank. It’s a similar enough general build direction that you can kind of choose how far you want to lean one way or the other.
If you lean more on the you-tank side, it’s about what you’d expect from a ranger tanking. If you lean farther on the pet-tank side, you use stupid pet tricks to force your pet into harms way to the tune of limited boss tanking, keeping part of a group of enemies distracted, and soaking up projectiles. If you’re somewhere in between, it’s a mix of these two things though a pet can’t hold it’s own without some key elements (SoS, SoTW, some of the Beastmaster traitline, some Healing power)
In terms of tanking, this thread brings up some very interesting points regarding toughness vs. health (despite it being a guardian thread, it can pertain to any tanky aspect for any class).
The stats I run with in sPVP anyway (just got 80 so havent geared yet, I play too much sPVP hence just now hitting 80 lol) seem to be great all around. I try for a middle of the road with decent of survive, dps etc.
power 1910
precision 1710
toughness 1316 (1281)
vitality 1809
attack 3010
crit chance 42 %
crit damage 20
armor 2380 (2345)
health 24,012
I find it lets me survive quite a bit, deal sufficient damage and is nice all around. Ive tried many other set ups and this one suits me perfectly.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQJATRjEVR29VGWoWCi1DCFoB1UwJJxPw/vgCm8A;ToAA2CnosxYjwGrNObk2sKYUA
This is my build, GS and Longbow, Im sure ill get boo’d but it fits me right…
(edited by Damage.7493)