Guild Wars 2

Hi there, i’m currently a level 60 Ranger and will be hitting 80 fairly soon. I have enough dungeon tokens (run by my 80 Guardian) to be almost a full set of CoF gear and enough gold to buy a few exotic weapons and accessories.

Thing is i’m not entirely sure which way I wanna go. I’ve tried both power/prec and condition damage in the mists and tbh I find that power/prec works a bit better for me. The auto attack with the SB just can’t stack enough bleeds to make condition damage worth it and the 2 skill on the SB is just kinda meh. I use traps a lot in PvE and love them. I like being able to burn down mobs with aoe burn, poison, and bleed damage. I havn’t really tried traps in the Mists except for the spike trap (for the cripple). Thing is I can’t really see not having Protect me or Quickening Zephyr (even with the nerf ) on my utility bar.

At the same time even though SB (or Rangers for that matter) doesn’t do a huge amount of damage or burst, they seem to have decent sustained dps. I can crit for about 900-1000 on class cannons and like 500-700 on tankier enemies. I seem to do fairly well in both hot join and tournaments.

I’ve read around the forums a bit and some seem to say that a condition/trap build is a good build for pvp while others would say that traps aren’t that great and the SB can’t stack as many bleeds as before since the nerf. Same thing with power/precision basically.

I know I said I do well with power/precision and crit damage, but I’d like to get some feedback before I use all my dungeon tokens on armor with stats that I might regret. I know Ranger is in a rough spot right now, but I love the class and it’s going to be my new main. So really i’m looking for your thoughts on the matter. Do you feel both types of builds are viable? Or do you think only 1 is a good way to go?

Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated, thanks!

I run full exotic zerkers gear, jewellry & weapons.

I had a similar decision to make and it really came down to basics. with WvW in it’s current state, there is mostly zerg, lots of PvD (Player verses Door) and if you can get a group together, the odd bit of supply taking.

For me, the decision was simple, do I want a DoT/Condition spec which can be cleansed by the better players or max burst damage.

I went for burst, I have about 50% base crit (70 with RaO), 90% crit damage and crit from 800-1400 or so with shortbow and double that with LB. I also run the Superior Runes of Divitinity.

Since the recent nerfs, i’m running LB, Sword/Horn, but SB is still very viable, I guess i’m just playing LB long enough so that I forget how good SB was pre-nerf, then will go back to SB as my main.

My build is 30/25/0/0/15. I run RaO (against tougher teams entangle), Signet of Stone (traited), QZ and the last is either Protect Me (not really a huge fan of, mainly due to the delays and the fact that im running a dps setup my pets are often dead or about to be swapped for 2 seconds of quickness) or the reflect one which name escapes me. You can also swap out that last slot for a trap if you prefer.

GL.

Alright man thanks a ton! Glad to know others have made the same decision i’m about to make. Those crits sound lovely, can’t wait.