Guild Wars 2

Hello,

I’ve returned to GW2 and made a ranger. I’ve got him up to level 56 and after trying various weapons I find that I have the most fun with axe/horn as my primary weapon set and sword/torch as my secondary. I love axe mainhand, it’s lots of fun vs. groups, I use a flameburst sigil for extra AoE and I’m shocked at how many mobs I can fight at once. It’s bit slow for single mobs, for those I switch to sword and torch.

I also like being durable, and when my HP gets low I use healing spring + horn 5 to heal me, my pet, and anyone else in the area. I’ve actually managed to solo a champ mob, something I’ve never done with my other characters.

Anyway, although I’m very happy with my ranger right now I thought I might ask for some advice. I am having a blast in open field PvE, but I plan on doing WvW and I have no idea if my set up will work there. I know my pet will be a lot less useful, but I will be with a couple groups of guildmates. I doubt I will spend much if any time in dungeons or sPvP.

Currently I’m using healing spring, signet of stone, signet of cleansing(?), signet of the hunt and rampage as one for my slot skills. I’m just using whatever gear I find but I tend to focus on power, precision and toughness. I don’t have a lot of trait points right now so I have the increases endurance regen and the healing spring when downed traits iirc.

Thanks in advance for any tweaking advice!

-Matt

Glad to see you are enjoying ranger.

In WvW you can have roughly 3 fields where you want to think about how you want to play ranger. Zerg surfing, small group, solo roaming. One thing you will learn in wvw is that condi spam is king in most cases. You will be overloaded with conditions, so they will be hard to get rid of. This means you will need some condi cleansing.

Signet of Renewal is fine and dandy, but might not be enough (also needs a lively pet near you to pull all condies). The other thing is hard cc (stan, daze, fear etc). This makes it a lot easier for other players to hit you with their hard stuff. Signet of Stone and Signet of Renewal is good, however I would change Signet of the Hunt for a stun break (Lightning reflexes is really good). If you are worried about speed (in solo roaming you should be), you could take either Runes of Speed or Runes of the traveller, and still get 25% higher movement speed. Keep healing spring, its really good. For the elite RaO is good as well (although there will be a change coming to stability).

All this is for solo roaming or small group roaming mind you. In zerg serfing everyone is depending on others to do their job. This means you gotta be durable, deal damage and have some support for others. So high precision and crit damage might not be what you are looking for. For a long time you could only buy Power, Vitality, Toughness gear with the WvW tokens if this gives you a clue. Team support is something rangers not great at unfortunately with spirits and pets dying quickly in AoE zerg fest. For gear cavalier (Toughness, Power, Ferocity) or Knight (Tougness, Power, Precision) are both fine.

Playstyle

I always pictured axe/horn rangers to be beastmasters and maybe this is what you should look at. However, you will find that condition builds will have better survivability, they can have good damage, and could still have a hard hitting pet. And for WvW where you fight players, you need to have a solid choice petwise as well. (Wolf is really good as a secondary, for knockdown and fear).

With all that in mind, feel free to experiment, look for builds online and try things out. If money is an issue, you can run Ascalonian Catacombs P1,3, get money, and buy either rampager gear (a bit riskier in wvw) or soldiers (P/V/T) from Ascalonian Tears. In 3-5 days you will have enough to buy a set of Speed runes as well.

Cheers.

Matt,
Check this thread and included links.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Build-Exuberance-Frontliner/first#post4858698

You will find that you are moving a good direction.

Good luck and enjoy.

I’m going to second looking at the Exuberance Frontliner thread. You don’t have to follow it verbatim, but take some ideas from that play style since it sounds like that’s where you’re leaning.

Many thanks! This gives me some much-needed direction.

I suggest to check Brazil’s build on youtube

McWolfy.5924:

I suggest to check Brazil’s build on youtube

Did you read the post? Brazil’s guide last I checked was a dungeon/fractal guide, and see below.

Ybrahim.2084:

I am having a blast in open field PvE, but I plan on doing WvW and I have no idea if my set up will work there. I doubt I will spend much if any time in dungeons or sPvP.

Not sure how relevent it would be to the style you wish to play, personally I play a trapper build with the newly added Trapper Runes, trappers always used to be competative imo, but with the stealth on traps I think their now a much more solid choice. If you’re curious of looking more into it I’ll link my build below;
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQRAsf3YjMqUua9KerQ1ag8gaVA0eI22fg9IsCtQJrIK-TlTAABK8AAo4AKYwBBY99HC4EAkj+BIM/gnJoZ0wAwRAYgDUwVK/iVJISq/QKAYmbB-w

This build has been by far my favourite WvW build, and I’ve played since beta and tried almost every build. Of course it’s down to preference. But for me this is the most entertaining. But maybe cause I find it hilarias to trap a choke point and watch a group blindly roll over them :P

This build suffers heavy from conditions though, like most Ranger builds do. Which is why I take Empathic Bond and Healing Spring. If you want to be more aggressive you can get Poison Master, and maybe a more burst heal like Heal as One.

Hope this helps

Thanks for all the new info! Here’s a few things I have been trying since I hit 80. I put a sigil of purity on my warhorn and left the fire blast sigil on my axe. Since each axe hit seems to count as a separate attack, I basically get an extra free condition removal every ten seconds in addition to the automatic condition cure I get every ten seconds from my signet. That and the condition removal from healing spring seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping conditions off me.

I did some WvW for the first time the other night with my guildmates and I felt that I did OK for my first time playing a ranger. I tried using Rampage as One, but I think entangle will be more useful since I am running with a guild group and I don’t need to worry quite as much about stability as I would if I was solo.

Thanks!
Matt

@Ybrahim Nice find with sigil of purity i will check it out with my melee build which is under development. Rampage is nice with Power build but Entagle is beast especially with fury + condi removal talent which I love for both of my Condi and Power specs. Trapper for WvW with runes of trapper is also blast I wish it would be possible for sPVP.
With torch remember to use off hand training with torch big difference is size of ring and range.
This build I have been using lately for condi feel it is very strong SB/Sword+torch
You can check it on my channel if you like it is lots of fun. I will make melee next but still tweaking it bit and testing my ideas.
http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjMqUzaLLOsQ1iABhaVA0sGSWWJg789H+6CW9A-TZRHwABuIAJLDI4IAA4BAEa/BA