This is a somewhat tanky Ranger build with a balance between defense, support, and damage. It preforms well in general PvE and dungeons.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMMQJARVjEVR2JWGWs2Bi1DCFoB1eoJLdeXB/fyHuyK
Weapons
Pets
Skills
- Healing Spring
- Quickening Zephyr
- Signet of the Wild
- Signet of Stone
- Rampage as One
Traits
- 30 – Marksmanship
- 0 – Skirmishing
- 30 – Wilderness Survival
- 10 – Nature Magic
- 0 – Beastmastery
Comments
One of the key traits for this build is Signet of the Beastmaster allowing one’s Ranger to gain the effects of Signets in addition to one’s pet. This grants one’s ranger the ability to gain 6 seconds of invulnerability from Signet of Stone as well as 10 seconds of stability and increased damage from Signet of the Wild.
The Wilderness Survival trait lines takes advantage of two defensive traits. Vigorous Renewal and Bark Sking. Vigorous Renewal turns one’s Healing Spring into an even more amazing supportive field by also granting vigor on each pulse.
If I were to switch any traits around, I would probably take the points from the Nature Magic line. Although, as the build currently stands, the points in there allows one to gain 5 seconds of protection upon taking more than 20% of one’s health in damage. This is great for dungeons by granting protection in clutch moments.
The choice of pets is for their supportive skill and tanking ability. The brown bear is naturally tanky and has the ability to remove conditions from allies. The fern wolf is able to grant 10 seconds of regeneration to one’s party to keep their health up. In addition, it has a knockdown leap for added CC.
As for weapons, I like the Greatsword as my melee weapon. It has an evade on every third attack as well as many useful utility skills such as a leap (which can be comboed with Healing Spring for health), a block (which can now be used while moving and to become invincible to ranged attacks), and a daze/stun. The cooldowns of all these skills are reduced by the Martial Mastery trait.
I chose the Short Bow because of the large amounts of damage, condition duration, and condition damage coming from traits. This has wonderful synergy with the Short Bow. Also, with the Piercing Arrows trait, one can position themselves to hit multiple enemies.
Closing Remarks
Overall, I am sure many people are running builds similar to this. Even so, I thought I would post my take on a tanky Ranger. Feel free to comment.