Guild Wars 2

So,I’m still lv40 and I have the second trait book and 30 points to spend,but I don’t know where I should put these points.

Usually I always put them in Power (first line) and precision (second line) while leveling other professions,but my Ranger is different because:

I have the sylvari cultural armor,so it gives me only precision and condition damage,so I went to the condition damage build,which doesn’t benefit from the first trait line (power)

But if I put 20 points in the first line I can get Piercing Arrows which looks good for PvE since I use shortbow and there is no AoE to tag mobs in events for the EXP etc (like the Modniir event in Harathi Hinterlands,I can’t tag more than 3 mobs with shortbow on the first part of the event,sad )

The trait line that gives condition damage is the worst IMO,no useful traits for PvE,so I think that 20 points in “Wilderness Survival” would be useless for me now.

tl;dr: My armor set gives precision and condition damage,but I would like to get the power and precision trait lines instead of the Wilderness Survival trait line which gives condition damage and would make my build stronger.

Also,what is better overall,Condition damage or Power/Crit Ranger in PvE?

What do you guys think?

Thanks in advance

Throw it all in beast mastery and have your pet butcher everything for you.

Leveling is probably the one thing rangers are actually good at, and it’s all thanks to the pet.

Make sure your pet has a higher toughness than you, though. From my experience, NPC’s tend to prioritize the enemy with the highest toughness.

I ran a 25/25/5/0/15 trait spread. similar to a build i saw on some other forum. weapons were Shortbow and Greatsword. Pets were swapped between lynx/snow leopard or lynx/polar bear depending on the situation. The lynx puts out a lot of damage so taking down foes goes real quick :-) . ears for when I need a tanky pet instead. The beast mastery trait ‘Loud Whistle’ , that makes pet swapping recharge 20% faster works well with the ’Zephyr’s speed’, allowing you to almost gatling gun with the shortbow :-) You could drop the 5 trait from the Wilderness survival and push that into either Marksmanship or skirmishing.

Basically ran something like this.
build

Agadar.4931:

Throw it all in beast mastery and have your pet butcher everything for you.

Leveling is probably the one thing rangers are actually good at, and it’s all thanks to the pet.

Make sure your pet has a higher toughness than you, though. From my experience, NPC’s tend to prioritize the enemy with the highest toughness.

I second all of this. Canines a great dps pet with high toughness and can pretty much solo things for you while you run around gathering or kill something else.

I’ve been experimenting with drakes today since they actually work now and they’re pretty good for AoE slaughtering if you run a Greatsword and some tanky stats (healing power and toughness) so you can just stand in one spot (take Healing Spring).

Personally I currently run a 0/0/15/25/30 build with all cleric’s gear (healing/toughness/power). Build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQJARVjEV91JWCWo2Bi+hJ9ekeA0ePjR5fA (pick your pets and the blank trait in BM to suit)

If I was to level a new ranger I’d probably prioritize traits as follows:
1) 10 in BM
2) 5 in Wilderness Survival
3) 5 more in BM (15 total) (probably take master’s bond at first and Mighty Swap later)
4) 5 more in WS (10 total, I have a bad habit of jumping off high places so Soften the Fall is nice for getting around easier)
4) 15 in Nature magic (longer regen and shared boons) (level 50 here)
5) 5 more in BM
6) w/e until level 60

Post level 60:
1) start with 30 in BM, 10 in WS and 10 in NM
2) 5 more in NM
3) 5 more in WS
4) 10 more in NM (second trait being Nature’s Protection)

That’s just me though. Someone will undoubtedly come along and explain why that’s bad and you should focus on all damage while leveling so it’s faster and/or give you a ‘better’ tanky build (e.g. 0/0/30/10/30 or 0/0/20/20/30 or some other variation on 0/0///*)

full berserker traps power/crit GS and/or LB. leveling is all about pumping out aoe damage. no need to really theorize prior to lvl 80 because the pve content in this game is so easy. you can run full berserker in most explorable dungeons even. it’s just fractals that get tough.

With 10 points on Beastmastery with the trait Master’s Bond (II), your pet becomes a weapon of mass destruction (mostly at lower levels), you can put the rest of the points wherever else you want.

Thanks guys,I’m using Master’s Bond now.

Its a shame that it goes away when you swap pets though