Guild Wars 2

Hi Everyone!

People have been asking for a good WvW ranger build for a very long time, so I’ve decided to get off my lazy kitten and post one This should take care of you in WvW very nicely, enjoy this pwnage build in WvW.

(This build is made for group/guild WvW play, and is not recommended for SPvP or solo play. Please recognize this when posting your critiques and comments)

THE BUILD

Vivec’s Ranger WvW Build Link

The best thing a ranger can bring to WvW is very high, very sustainable damage. We can keep consistent damage on a target like no other class can, and from 1200-1500 range no less. Sitting in the back and melting targets is what we do best, and this build will help you to do that, along with providing your group the best buffs that we can give to a group.

THE WEAPONS

• Long Bow – Too good in WvW to pass up. Every melee class in the game is better at melee than you in 80% of situations, especially cluster situations like in WvW, so stick to this, especially because of the 1500 range. Taking out siege on walls with the #5 AoE after popping quickness from your Quickening Zephyr or pet swap becomes easy, not to mention taking out enemy groups with the massive AoE that will be doing 1.5-2k damage a tick.

• Short Bow – Again, great for group combat when things get a little closer to you. #2 is a good cone poison, #4 is great for retreating enemies. This is a good go-to weapon, don’t pass it up.

• Everything else – People might like warhorn for buffs, but they’re short range buffs, and overall pretty useless besides the fury (1 stack of might = 1% more damage, pretty minute). Axe is the only other viable weapon for WvW, but with it only hitting 3 people, and a very weak #2 and #3, this should be skipped for Long Bow as well. Sword and Greatsword, don’t even think about bringing these into WvW.

PETS

First off, pets are pretty much useless in WvW for attacking, they get burnt down WAY too fast in groups. The biggest use of pets I’ve found, is their buffs. Meaning, I put them on passive so they don’t run into big groups, and pop their buff any time I need it.

• Red Moa – Gives fury for 15 seconds, meaning another 20% chance to crit. With food and oil buffs plus fury, my crit chance gets up over 90%. Have fury up whenever you can, you will melt people from 1200-1500 like no tomorrow.

• Wolf – This guy doesn’t give a buff, but I find him very useful to break up large grouped zergs. Send him into the middle of a group, pop quickening zephyr, pop the wolf’s fear, and they will be spread out. Works very nicely sending him to the back of groups and fearing enemies towards your group too in order to pick them off. Just be sure to pop quickness before you use his fear otherwise he will probably die before ho fully casts it.

SKILLS

• Healing Spring – Leaves a water field giving regeneration to anyone in the circle, best healing ability for groups by far (considering the others do nothing to your allies). Always take this over the other 2.

• Quickening Zephyr – overall amazing skill for the 4 seconds of quickness and the minimal downside (no healing allowed for those 4 seconds). Pop this before unloading on a target with the long bow #2, or my favorite, before dropping the Long Bow #5 AoE. People’s HP will melt away VERY fast with this build when you pop quickness.

• Sun Spirit – I choose spirits over other skills for 1 main reason, they help the group in a very large radius to where they’re placed. Place a spirit at the back of a zerg, or my favorite, in the back of the walls when defending a keep, and the extra damage your group does will be amazing. Sun spirit applies burning on hit, and when everyone in your group is applying burning on hits, a lot of enemies will be on fire. Condition build people will love you for laying this spirit down.

• Frost Spirit – chance for 10% extra damage for your entire group, this is like giving 10 stacks of might to your entire group for whenever it procs. Not a bad buff for a single ranger to give a group.

• Signet of the Hunt – when roaming around or doing small group stuff I switch frost spirit for this ability. The movement speed is great for traveling, and for small group skirmishes. Switch back to frost spirit when assaulting or defending a position.

• Rampage as One – Fury buff and stability for shooting off walls without getting pulled. Amazing elite with a relatively low cooldown. Entangle is good, but hard to get off in a place where it matters. Take RaO instead for the extra damage.

TRAITS

• Steady Focus – Lot of the time you’ll be in the back of a group free-casting with full endurance. 10% more damage is great to have, and a huge buff.

• Piercing Arrows – without this, you are totally useless. ALWAYS take this ability in WvW.

• Eagle Eye – Getting the long bow to 1500 range means you can hit people further away than most other classes can hit you. More range is a good thing in WvW, take this trait.

• Primal Reflexes – A lot of hits you’ll take will be crits, and the increased endurance regen can help you get out of a tight spot more easily, for instance a charge into your group. Take this just for defensive measures.

• Sharpened Edges – Your crit chance will be from 65 – 90% with this build at all times, that makes for a good chance to bleed the enemy.

• Quick Draw – You have a Short Bow and a Long Bow, might as well reduce the cooldown on all their abilities.

• Commanding Voice – More fury buffs for you, take this one.

GEAR, RUNES, SIGILS, AND FOOD

• Power, Precision, Crit Damage – A ranger has the highest ranged damage IMO because they are so easily able to get fast hits on enemies from 1200 range. Your short bow auto-attack with this build and gear will be critting for 1k-1.5k damage a hit, and considering it hits 3-4 times a second (about 5 times with quickness) you can really dish out damage. You are very squishy, so always find a safe spot to fire from such as on walls, or the back of a group. Elevation is great too. The best thing you can bring to a group as a ranger, is awesome and consistent ranged damage, so go all out and melt faces.

• Rune of the Ranger – Precision, critical damage, and +5% more damage when your pet is out (always). Great runes for this build.

• Sigil of Superior Air – I’ve seen the lightning strike crit people for up to 2-3k damage, great sigil for this build.

• Sigil of Superior Strength – between your short bow and quickness I’ve gotten up to and sustained 10-12 stacks of might just by auto-attacking. You NEED this sigil, so take it.

• Bowl of Curry Butternut Squash Soup – precision and crit damage, need I say more? (Cheaper alternative is Minotaur Steaks)

• Master Maintenance Oil – greatly adds to your precision, use this WITH your food, they stack. (Cheaper alternative is Artisan Maintenance Oil)

And that’s it, feel free to comment here in the forums, or to message me in the game if you have any questions. Have fun melting faces

One stack of might is a flat 35 power and cond dmg. so it is way more than 1% unless you usually have 3500 power and 3500 condition damage. Just wanted to get that clear. Beside that nice and direct dmg build for group play. Also propably the most efficient build for that. I would get kind of bored with it though.

Also the damage difference between Sigil of Air and Sigil of Fire is only like 20% I think. Might aswell take the AoE option even if you want to pressure single targets … the AoE will just be so strong in big group fights.

LB based builds are laughable at this point. LB rangers are crushed when tunnel-visioned in WvW. devs know this and hopefully we’ll be seeing some good LB buffs soon.

nerva.7940:

LB based builds are laughable at this point. LB rangers are crushed when tunnel-visioned in WvW. devs know this and hopefully we’ll be seeing some good LB buffs soon.

I can’t agree with you here.
You can’t say a blow of LB 3-2-5 + QZ before engaging with the SB is laughable and Barrage is also very useful during siege and defence or to reach opponents that are out of the SB range.
Actually I altered your build in order to use the Longbow, I keep the war horn in my inventory to buff myself and my group before the inc. Now I’m quite pleased with that setup.
Here’s the build (Full PVT armour and Full Knight jewels, Berseker bows, polar bear and jaguar):

Shaina’s LB/SB Build

Really happy it works for you. All I know is that my sb hits more often and autoattack does more dps than rf. Piercing cripple and piercing daze on a low cd bring more utility than barrage ever could.

Also, staff eles, gs shatter mesmers and rifle zerker warriors are kings of 1200 damage. Ranger gets 4th place but even thats debatable as thief sb could be better.

There are lots of issues with sb/lb combo mostly that u die when anything looks at you funny. I tried playing a ranger with no evades and felt extremely kitten maybe thats just me. You bring nothing to skirmishes which is most of wvw/spvp. Lb rangers get rolled in wvw by any prof because u have no way of mitigating damage. They’re my first target because they cant even live through my qz burst. And when u get focused u pretty much have to sit there and take it after burning through your endurance.

Well, it’s true you have two escape skills on the sword but does it save your life so often in a wvw context? Honestly, I’ve used it since the pre-release and now that I dropped it I don’t feel its absence (tough I do for the warhorn). Don’t get me wrong, I only speak about wvw, in pvp it is a different story.
Again, maybe it will depend on the play styles but for me, in wvw, sword is not that great life-saver. In fact, I think LB point blank shot saved my kitten as much as hornet sting.

Monarch’s leap allows you to leave the area completely. Serpent sting is a 1.5 sec evade meaning invulnerable. I cant live without this.

Leave the area completely? It is more or less 400 units, you’re still in the range of most attacks after it, especially in wvw when you are often surrounded by foes.
Well, it’s cool if it works for you.

Shaina’s choice of traits is IMO better than the the OP’s, if you assume the same gear (full berserker for max dps). More damage in WvW thanks to faster QZ reload, more survivability, better trait options for a GC LB.

@OP: Didn’t you already post this build? I remember this GC setup with no endurance regen really well, it’s a pretty significant flaw. I don’t see how you can argue that sharpened edges is better than natural vigor, particularly with no condition damage.

Just to what you were saying about monarchs leap, its more than 400 range if you do a 180 spin after the first cast, then do the second leap away from the target – this is probably what he was talking about.

Personally i like GS more than sword for escaping stuff, huge leap on a short cd that doesnt require you to spin in place a lot, and the block makes you immune to all ranged dmg for the whole cast time (melee dmg stops the block and knocks them back). I can honestly say this has saved my life many, many times, you run from a bad 1v1, or run from a whole zerg. Using GS leap and the similar thing on underwater spear I took 5-10 people on a nice run from SW supply, up through the lake to garrison, back down the SE supply, and back into my spawn on the SW side perfectly safely

Daze.6914:

Leave the area completely? It is more or less 400 units, you’re still in the range of most attacks after it, especially in wvw when you are often surrounded by foes.
Well, it’s cool if it works for you.

Uh you have to turn around, deselect and leap again.

You don’t have 15pts in WS for the protection on dodge, or even 5pts for the 50% endurance regen, to me those are must haves for basic survival. You also have no mobility skills for when things go badly. You either win with the group, die with the group, or die without the group, so you better hope you have a good group. This is the kind of build that gives rangers a bad name. If you enjoy it thats fine, but you’re leading newbies astray by posting it here.

Edit: Spirits without any spirit traits, and no defensive utilities or stunbreaker.

“(This build is made for group/guild WvW play, and is not recommended for SPvP or solo play. Please recognize this when posting your critiques and comments)” – duly recognized.

This build is missing what others are talking about, and it only good in Zerg vs Zerg encounters where you can run while others are being killed when your opponent is pushing.

I’ll pass. I’d rather run solo, or in a small group.

Valroth.7138:

You don’t have 15pts in WS for the protection on dodge, or even 5pts for the 50% endurance regen, to me those are must haves for basic survival. You also have no mobility skills for when things go badly. You either win with the group, die with the group, or die without the group, so you better hope you have a good group. This is the kind of build that gives rangers a bad name. If you enjoy it thats fine, but you’re leading newbies astray by posting it here.

Edit: Spirits without any spirit traits, and no defensive utilities or stunbreaker.

“(This build is made for group/guild WvW play, and is not recommended for SPvP or solo play. Please recognize this when posting your critiques and comments)” – duly recognized.

I tried not to be as harsh about it as the OP clearly put a lot of effort in, but yes these builds that haven’t been thought through well give bad advice to new players and make us seem weaker than we really are. Unlike other ‘easy-mode’ classes, rangers have to be played really well to be effective.

See this thread for a discussion on the importance of endurance regen and quickness. if your build doesn’t have these, then unless you have a very good reason you should probably refrain from posting it.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-101-the-0-0-5-0-5/first#post1634476