Guild Wars 2

Been seeing more melee rangers in spvp recently and while I can 1v1 most, there was one who gave a good fight that lasted upwards of a minute with my staff ele (semi-bunker spec). He kept swinging around me like a thief’s flanking strike and evaded a lot of attacks. Tough to damage and still dealt a lot of pressure even with my heals. I forgot which weapons he used but looked like a sword or greatsword. Is there a particular melee build popular atm?

Sounds like the sword/dagger build I used to play way back when the game was new and a ranger was my main. It can be really devastating if played correctly. I also fought a few ranger with sword/axe which gave me quite the fights.

Melee builds aren’t too popular, really. Sword auto-attack disallows you to dodge, making it utterly impractical unless you wish to micro-manage your auto-attacks. Greatsword has some pretty good defensive utilities as well as the best charge in the game, but the damage is so horribly low that it’s only ever used as a back-up weapon.

You likely faced a sword ranger. Both swords have evades on them, but the one handed sword is the one with the relatively high damage output and ‘flanking’ ability.

They’re pretty easy to beat, as they can’t dodge your attacks. Hence why one handed sword builds aren’t at all popular.

Biomanz.9302:

Been seeing more melee rangers in spvp recently and while I can 1v1 most, there was one who gave a good fight that lasted upwards of a minute with my staff ele (semi-bunker spec). He kept swinging around me like a thief’s flanking strike and evaded a lot of attacks. Tough to damage and still dealt a lot of pressure even with my heals. I forgot which weapons he used but looked like a sword or greatsword. Is there a particular melee build popular atm?

My Sig

As for Sword Auto Attack, Most won’t have it on, and will only use it to finish you off.

Proper Sword Rangers know that they’re suppose to be Switching Weapons constantly to apply conditions, Auto Attacking with Sword is pointless otherwise.

Sounds like he was using a sword main and most likely a dagger off (offhand axe wold be my next guess).

The Serpents Strike (3 skill) from the main hand sword has the ranger roll around you, evades attacks, and poisons; Hornet Sting/Monarchs Leap (2 skill) adds a another evade that has them roll backwards (Hornet) and the latter attack (Monarch) leap back at you; with a dagger offhand they obtain another evade, Stalker’s Strike (4 skill), and another crippling attack, Crippling Talon (5 skill).

I’ve found that heavily traiting into Wilderness Survival (toughness, some control resistance major traits, and Survival Cool down reduction), a bit of Nature Magic (Vitality), a decent amount of Beastmastery makes for a decent Ranger melee build.

I personally use a sword/dagger and Greatsword weapon set. The greatsword is low on actual damage, but great in many group fights as the third strike with the 1 skill evades attack (combined with quickness can help evade some major amounts of damage when on the offensive). Hilt bash and swoop are great to use as a secondary in 1v1’s.

If it’s more of a 1v1 fight then I personally focus on mainly using a sword and dagger to attack. The sword and dagger keeps great pressure on the enemy as it throws out a nearly constant cripple, a bit of poison, and provides several evades. It also has a fast attack speed and fairly low cool downs, which allows a player to keep active. Quickness from Zephyr and pet swaps makes this just amazing… fun. The only downside is the swords 1 skill roots a player in place and heavily delays any and all attempts to really do anything else (even when you have auto turned off, you still have to wait for whatever animation you are on to finish).

The big thing that still brings down rangers though are pets; they just aren’t really a threat or very useful unless you focus purely on them and even then they are very limited. If it weren’t for pets still being as bad as they are, rangers would be in a relatively good and competitive position (they still can be as they are now; just if one were to take that skill to an Ele, Warrior, or Thief they would be light years better off lol).

The best t/sPvP build right now is a bunker+healing+BM Condition based build that uses said weapon -Sword+Dagger. You Can’t solo that ranger if she knows how to play, it won’t happen.

Biomanz.9302:

Been seeing more melee rangers in spvp recently and while I can 1v1 most, there was one who gave a good fight that lasted upwards of a minute with my staff ele (semi-bunker spec). He kept swinging around me like a thief’s flanking strike and evaded a lot of attacks. Tough to damage and still dealt a lot of pressure even with my heals. I forgot which weapons he used but looked like a sword or greatsword. Is there a particular melee build popular atm?

i had a fight with a ele (asura) for 2-3 min , 1 or 2 days ago, i lost at the end because the pet was unable to land enough hits :P.

can u link the build plz?

it is a custom build, i only use it for fun in WvWvW, never tried in sPvp or hotjoin.