Guild Wars 2

Currently playing in a duo setup with a warrior friend he’s bragging about critting for 9k in our late 50’s and im sitting here hitting for like maybe 1k plus whatever pet is doing maybe another 1-2k at most. Running a LB/GS setup with Beast Mastery and Markmanship traits so far. All my gear is up to date with a focus on Power. I’ve spent some time browsing forums looking at play styles but a lot of posts are old out dated info from 2-3 yrs ago.

Just looking for some tips I guess I really feel like I should not be THAT far behind him even if he is a OP warrior.

• update your gear to fresh greens or yellows every 10 levels. jewelry can be less frequent.
• BM is the right choice for leveling. pets that can solo tough mobs are super helpful in openworld and personal story.
• Warriors class mechanic is stupid big numbers. you can put out a lot more dps with 1h sword (smaller faster hits) but its a bit slower than GS for map movement so use whichever you prefer.
• take the zephyrs speed trait in BM and petswap in combat for big burst. Clarion Bond in MM synergizes good with this.
• make your next spec line skirmishing, and take quickdraw. this will let you double up on skills every weaponswap, for instance double rapid fire or double maul. Spotter in this line will also raise your crit for you and your allies in combat all the time, and swapping weapons will give you swiftness and fury (bigger numbers).
• take the lead the wind trait in MM. there are almost always situations where you can shoot more than one mob in the open world with the piecring arrows, so essentially your shots will do double or more damage.
• if you decide to go with 1h sword over GS, Predators Onslaught can be very good too (10% damage while mob is crippled, and 1h sword cripples on auto)
• Signet of the Wild is a very good leveling signet: the regen will help keep your pet up, and you can mash it when you want to do big numbers.
• consider pet strengths: drakes can cleave and do the same auto-dps as dogs while being super tough to kill which makes them an all around great pet for multiple mobs. for single mobs, jaguar and jungle stalker will get you the most dps.

9k is a very big crit and its very rare to see that even at 80 as a ranger unless you are really setting up burst with multiple cooldowns. its possible that your warrior buddy is seeing this number on the final swing on Hundred Blades, which is really the cumulative value for a whole bunch of swings. 9k is also possible on warrior’s eviscerate skill, but i’d expect those numbers to be hard to reach until 80 also.

Even leveling, Warriors put out stupid big numbers in bursts. I wouldn’t compare your Ranger output to the end of a hundred blades cast.

If you want a higher damage output, then I would use sword/axe rather than great sword and keep the longbow. The greats word is a goo, weapon for movement and the occasional control, buts it’s damage isn’t outstanding. The Sword/Axe pairing along with longbow is probably the strongest dps setup for a range right now.

In melee, remember that sword 2 and 3 can help you maneuver, especially 2, which is a great skill for gaining distance and swapping to bow. The sword auto attack, and axe 4/5 and good DPS.

Normal for damage I’ll use barrage, rapid fire, and then hunters arrow for stealth as I run into melee and sword at things until I think I’m done. It woks pretty well, especially with the aforementioned strats from Raven

Raven.9603:

9k is a very big crit and its very rare to see that even at 80 as a ranger unless you are really setting up burst with multiple cooldowns.

Usually the last few hits of Rapid Fire are all above 9k (in berserker).