Guild Wars 2

1) Are the devs planning on give active condition removal to rangers? The only means of getting active removal are soldier runes, signet of renewal active, and healing spring, of which only signet of renewal can deal with burst condis. And the only reliable means of condi mitigation is Empathic Bond which has the drawbacks of being a grandmaster trait. People sometimes make humans for Prayer to Kormir.
2) Please explain the reasoning behind the shortbow range reduction and what is being planned for power rangers in general. For a build to work, if you can’t one shot, you need pressure and then burst. Longbow and greatsword I think handle burst on power rangers just fine, but I feel rangers are a bit lacking when it comes to pressure or sustained damage in power builds, and the shortbow range nerfed kitten it even more.
3) Is the opening strikes mechanic going to be reworked anytime soon? Something like a refresh on crit with cd would already be a vast improvement on it.
4) Explanation for why traps are in skirmishing when they’re primarily a condi tool and cc tool.
5) Explanation for why Zephyr’s speed is now a grandmaster trait.
6) Possibility for maneuvering pet’s outside of a linear line, like and F5 for move to target. F3 only works as a reposition if you’re not in melee (and “the” range weapons are the bows which arent that great atm) and guard. I can’t imagine wasting a utility slot just for a reposition or 15s cd.
7) Possibility of removing pet entirely and not come out even if put into combat as others have said. I’ll add one more reason as this being helpful in PvE when running around (though setting it to avoid combat works just fine too).
8) Are bears in the spot Anet wants them to be in? Maybe they could clear 3 condi’s on F2 and they’d be more useful than a kitten drake.
9) I would more reliable finishers. Something better than 20% projectile finisher chance. And like, a weaponset blast finisher would be nice, like on warhorn.

10) If I could sneak a mesmer question in, why the illusion cd trait Illusionist Celerity moved up to grandmaster minor. For one it’s not consistent with any other cd trait (all being master or less and yes I double checked).

I’ll just give some general suggestions. So a commander’s primary job is to be the last one to die. As a ranger you’re best defensive tools are weapon set evades (greatsword 1, sword 3, dagger 4), lots of vigor/endurance regeneration for dodge rolls, high protection uptime, and large amounts of sustain (signet of wild). I’d recommend 15 points into nature magic picking up Nature’s Protection for the 5s of protection and since area boons are the name of the game in WvW, boons you give you’re pet can really boost it’s survivability. Also of course 15 points into Wilderness Survival for the protection on dodge and endurance regen buff.

Some good traits you might also want to pick up are vigor on bird petswap in BM or vigor on heal (and works per pulse on healing spring as a nice bonus). Some grandmaster traits you want to consider are Empathic Bond for the condi removal and Zephyr’s speed for haste res’s, and even Signet of the Beastmaster.

The problem rangers run into is the lack of active condi removal, though you get alot of passive removal. In WvW when running with 15+ groups, the condi problems you should have are when you get hit by a large burst of condis (like all of them at once with multiple stacks of bleed large); otherwise passive removal such as Empathic bond and you’re zerg can take care of the condi clears. To help with this I’d recommend doing at least of the following: Signet of Renewal active, Melandru/Hoelbrak runes, Bowl of Lemongrass Poultry Soup or similar foods.

Current WvW meta for organized groups is to run melee trains that CC forever and deal large amounts of power damage (since power is what scales to large fights due to condi caps). The defense against this when you get caught by the train are stun breaks, stun duration reduction (food/runes), maxing out toughness, and protection. Rangers get lots of protection and you should always run a stun break on your utilities.

In terms of offense, I really wouldn’t worry about damage and instead go for what CC you can provide, so traps if you feel you have enough defense. You’re job isn’t to do damage, it’s to survive and provide a focus point. While typical WvW larger group builds want to be as much about group buffing as possible, as a commander you can be a bit more selfish as you want to invest as much as you can into your own survivability.

So to conclude, I’d recommend 15 into WS for IV and 15 into NM for VI as sorta of a base to go off of. Have at least one probably two stun breaks, and at least one means of mitigating conditions (runes/food/signet of renewal active). You’d probably want to run greatsword/sword+dagger or greatsword/sword+warhorn. Pretty much get as much toughness as possible. This is of course when you’re expecting to be leading groups of like 15+. Smaller group situations are different of course.