Guild Wars 2

i know the common tactic for rangers is to use a tanky pet that tanks for them (duh) while they do damage, but can it work the other way around?
if i have 30 in beast mastery can my pet survive? or do the dps pets just die too fast?
also, are there any melee weapons that are really viable on ranger? ive seen a few with a greatsword, but can sword+dagger or axe+torch (for power or condition dmg respectivly) also work?

i really have no idea what im talking about im lookng for some help, cuz im thinking of starting a ranger XD

Axe is not melee. Axe is a thrown weapon, it hits at range. I suppose you could use it for melee since its at least not penalized for close-range (like the Longbow is) but its not actually a melee weapon.

I like Sword + Torch for melee quite a lot, its my favorite melee config for Ranger. Though if you’re looking to be tanky, you probably want to run Greatsword, since Sword has very little defense, while Greatsword has a counter special and built-in evasion for 1 of the attacks in your basic string.

Can’t really speak for the overall effectiveness of a tank / pet DPS build. My build thus far is sort of shaping up that way (I have Survival for Toughness and Beastmaster) but I’m only at level 34 so I can’t really know if it’ll be effective at higher levels. It works well enough for me so far, though only in PvE and haven’t done any dungeons yet, but I’m not really tanking, I’m still letting my pets tank for the most part. Though I don’t just run tank pets like bears, I run any pet

for pve, anything is viable. for organized pvp, what youre talking about is not viable.

nerva.7940:

for pve, anything is viable. for organized pvp, what youre talking about is not viable.

dps pets are not viable in pve if they die all the time :P thats kinda what im asking.

and when i said axe as melee i meant using “2” attack mainly, which puts 5 bleed if your in melee range, and less from further away (i said its for a condition build)
axe is clearly meant to be played in close range

dps pets are viable in pve, but not against world bosses or in dungeons. you can steamroll the open world content with anything.