Guild Wars 2

Shouts are not very good. Most disappointing is Sick’Em because it seems so good, but the actual boost it gives is negligible. I have found that the signets passive benefits are overall most beneficial merely because they are always on. ‘Lightning reflexes’ is a good choice too, if you like its affect, since it gets the survival cooldown bonus. But, while you must have QZ as one skill, the other two skills are flexible, use what you like.

Other classes have ranged weapons that do more damage because they don’t have pets! A jaguar does massive damage at range even out of line of sight!

I really think the whiners on these forums just don’t understand the class.

Not a bad build, but I have two criticisms. First, regeneration isn’t very good in PvP, so natural healing and rejuvenation are not great choices.
Next, shortbow is slightly broken right now, so shorbow+sword may be challenging since you can’t burst at range. Now my build calls for shortbow too..however since it uses longbow you can make up for the QZ deficiency on shortbow by using it on longbow rapid fire instead. Also, and this is very important, Quickdraw gives a bonus to both longbow and shortbow, but not to sword, so that synergy is like having an extra trait! In order to be effective, you need to swap weapons and blow your cooldowns a lot, you should not keep one weapon in your hand most of the time.
Finally, as I note, the key to this is to swap pets out often, and especially before they die!

The BM build I posted in the sticky at the top of this forum is solid; I believe it the best build for WvWvW; it is also very good for sPvP.

Realize that most of information you see on this forum is just plain wrong. People are trying to play ranger in a way that doesn’t match its proper play style.

pets are useless in pvp for the most part especially in wvw

This is just plain wrong! Rangers pets dominate in WvWvW if used correctly. A ranger can easily solo supply camps that other classes struggle with. The pet can attack things out of sight and out of range…like siege engines.
You do have to be smart about spec’ing though. You try to play glass cannon you are gim-p.

I’m sorry, but I think the build you are using is one of the worst possible builds for sPvP.

Eagle Eye is like a sucker punch for rangers. It seems like it must be good, but in reality it totally sucks. 5% damage is not very good, and increased range is a joke in sPvP.
Agility training does nothing.
Traps are not very good in PvP because the enemy can avoid them just by not stepping on them.
Moa is not a good pet. Jaguar is much better than leopard.

This build is a ‘glass cannon’ bow build (which isnt really a very good choice), but you don’t take quickdraw (bows skills 20% shorter cooldowns) as a trait or quickening zephyr (quickness) as a skill.

There are builds posted in the sticky at the top of this forum which are better; I recommend trying them.

The swiftness part of warhorn is only part of the story, the fury part is just as cool!

However, I actually play Shortbow+Longbow because this combo has more synergy when traited with ‘quickdraw’.

Miyu.8137:

And also don’t care about its life, just once your pet dies, swap to another one.

Very very wrong. Always swap your pet BEFORE it dies! If you do this, the cooldown for the next swap is three times shorter. Also, if you are spec’d right you get quickness everytime you spec your pet, and better, you can get this every 15 seconds! OP!

Look up the spec I posted in the sticky at the top of this forum. This is a strong and fun build for WvWvW.

You get the black dye (the best is called Abyss) from the auction house. I’m see it selling for 5 gold right now. This may sound like a lot, but in fact this cheap.
Their are 3 other ways to get it that I know of:
1) get a lucky random drop
2) buy dye packs at the gem store hoping to get lucky
3) craft unidentified rare grey dyes until you get lucky
All of these will have a time, gold or cash sink much higher than the auction price.

Pikafan.3792:

Entangle is situationally better, but requires you to be pretty much in melee range. If it’s a zerg, you are going to die and it’s not going to even come close to saving you.

Not quite so. The vines stay on the ground and capture people who walk into them. If a zerg is chasing you and you drop vines, it roots when people step into it letting you escape.
For fun, try using entangle from behind a gate.

Pikafan.3792:

Pets are so useless in WvW, and you have 30 points into it.

Pets are idiomatic ranger; if you don’t like them another class might suit you better. I suspect you did not actually try out this build since the spec’d jaguar is pretty good.

A big mistake people are making is going marksman ranger as a glass cannon. This is actually lame. If you choose to do it that way, you are way better off going elementalist as they have superior burst and are not shackled by pet management.

But, do what thou wilt. Pearls before swine I say.

I agree that signets suck. However, signet of stone making your pet invulnerable is very useful as it ensures your pet will survive long enough to dump his damage; this is especially useful when taking out ballistas and arrow carts. Also the passive seems to make a bigger difference than the math suggests.
Signet of the wild is much more questionable, I mainly use it for the passive heal. Replacing that with lighting reflexes might be a good idea if you like the way that skill works!
I found that protect me doesn’t work so well with cats because they are squishier, and I have lot harder time keeping my pet alive than myself! I also don’t like the long cooldown.
I used to use rampage as one, but after a lot of play I have determined that properly used entangle is just better.

We did some tests with birds a while back, and although on paper they should be good, there were some serious issues with animations and movement that made them much worse than the cats. It is possible this has been fixed recently, but I am unaware of it.

Compassion training could be a choice, but then mighty swap would have to be removed, and those might stacks make a huge difference! I tried shared anguish, and proc’ing every 90 seconds just isn’t good enough I think. Wilderness Knowledge increases how often you can use Quickening Zephyr by 20%, which is really really huge.

I think this would work fine with undead runes.

I think this is as good a spec for WvWvW as you will find. It may not be obvious that this should be so…
[It also works in sPvP, possibly better than some of the spec’s above]

Skirmishing +30, pet’s prowess,carnivorous appetite, quick draw
Wilderness Survival +10, wilderness knowledge
Beastmastery +30,speed training, mighty swap, rending attacks.

Pets: Jaguar, Snow Leopard

Skills: heal as one,quickening zephyr,signet of wild,signet of stone,entangling roots
Weapons: shortbow+longbow

Armor:toughness first! precision second [try exotic whispering armor from arah dungeon karma vendor]

Key tactics: always re-summon your pet before it dies. This is rule number one! If you do this, the pet re-summon cool-down is only 15 seconds. You get quickness every pet swap.

Pretty much use everything on cool-down; when one bow is done, switch to the other, pet functions f1 and f2 on spam. Use either longbow rapid-shot or short-bow crossfire when quickness is activated. Longbow “point blank shot” is your knockdown and mastering it is key when fighting melee. Use it to knock people out of siege weapons, use it to knock them off cliffs, use it to knock npcs out of convert circles. Knowing how to pause when using rapid shot is imporant too, let it finish! Entangling roots is important, knock down, wait a beat, then entangle. Don’t knock them down while they are entangled!

This spec requires you to use feline pets! You are spec’d into them, and it matters big time. The ‘carnivorous appetite’ trait makes them heal on critical hits; this allows them to ‘tank’ a little even though they are DPS! Don’t use bears! They suck!

I think this is as good a spec for WvWvW as you will find. It may not be obvious that this should be so…

Skirmishing +30, pet’s prowess,carnivorous appetite, quick draw
Wilderness Survival +10, wilderness knowledge
Beastmastery +30,speed training, mighty swap, rending attacks.

Pets: Jaguar, Snow Leopard

Skills: heal as one,quickening zephyr,signet of wild,signet of stone,entangling roots
Weapons: shortbow+longbow

Armor:toughness first! precision second [try exotic whispering armor from arah dungeon karma vendor]

Key tactics: always re-summon your pet before it dies. This is rule number one! If you do this, the pet re-summon cool-down is only 15 seconds. You get quickness every pet swap.

Pretty much use everything on cool-down; when one bow is done, switch to the other, pet functions f1 and f2 on spam. Use either longbow rapid-shot or short-bow crossfire when quickness is activated. Longbow “point blank shot” is your knockdown and mastering it is key when fighting melee. Use it to knock people out of siege weapons, use it to knock them off cliffs, use it to knock npcs out of convert circles. Knowing how to pause when using rapid shot is imporant too, let it finish! Entangling roots is important, knock down, wait a beat, then entangle. Don’t knock them down while they are entangled!

This spec requires you to use feline pets! You are spec’d into them, and it matters big time. The ‘carnivorous appetite’ trait makes them heal on critical hits; this allows them to ‘tank’ a little even though they are DPS! Don’t use bears! They suck!

Jaguar stealth is also very useful in PvP since enemy players also cannot see your pet while stealth. This can be a pretty big deal because they may see that I am far away out of line of sight, and not realize they are going to be taking some nasty scratches.

You normally cannot pick up the orb from an altar. So what you are saying seems a little bit suspect.
The only way you can pick up the orb after it has been placed on an altar is for the altar to be broken.
The Quaggan’s lightning bolt can in some instances destroy the altar at Garrison. If this happens, then anyone can pick up the orb. However, just because someone picked up the orb and left the keep with it doesn’t necessarily mean they meant to ‘give’ it to another server. If the altar is broken, you have 15 minutes to plant it on a different altar; thus if the Quaggan break the altar, it is legitimate to try to carry the orb to a different keep before it resets. If you got caught by the enemy after trying this, that is just bad luck, not exploiting.

Longbow+Greatsword is an inferior approach.
Traited longbow will not hit moving targets at max range, so traiting into that is not as good as it sounds. Greatsword is terrible in WvWvW.

Instead, Shortbow+Longbow is much better. Shortbow is the burst, Longbow is the CC and AOE (with rapid shot and hunters shot filler until you can swap back to shortbow).

Instead of ‘Eagle Eye’ which only affects longbow, take Quickdraw at the top of the skirmishing tree; this affects both longbow and shortbow and has a much bigger impact in combat on both weapons!

BTW the link you gave is 20/25/20/0/5, not 30,25,10,5 like this comment says.

The best way to ensure credit is to do a repair on a wall or gate. Then you don’t need to worry about how damage is calculated.

I’m not sure support ranger is especially viable these days since spirits are nerfed so badly.
However, some ideas of what things can help:

Pet:
Use a fern hound since it heals.

Skills:
Use healing spring since it is AOE heal.
Use Signet of Renewel as it removes conditions from allies.
Use Search and Rescue to revive allies.
Use Quickening Zephyr to speed up your heals on downed allies.
Use Spirit of Nature as your elite since it heals and revives and removes conditions

Traits:
(nature)
Natures Bounty makes your healing circle do more healing
Concentration Training makes your pets boons heal more.
Circle of Life makes a healing spring if you are downed
(beast)
Commanding voice makes pet functions cool faster (fern hound healing)

Weapon:
Use sigil of water on your weapon for heals.

Axe,Warhorn as an offhand gives speed to your allies.
As a second weapon, long bow has a knockback which is very useful in knocking baddies off your friends who are in trouble.

RE: Lawn Pirate
My experience shows that Axe as a second for shortbow is not especially good for PvP. Sure it seems good because its so easy to use, but it has no good CC. I think longbow is a better choice only because knockback is so good. Another option is greatsword, which you use to dps people who you can’t get away from. Managing all three weapons is really what you need to be able to do. Also, I think Rampage as One is a questionable choice for elite, entangle is superior.

Here is my ranger and the kitty that bites instead of licks :(

Lick wounds is indeed buggy. My jaguar actually does massive damage to me rather than heal. I think Anet thinks its funny..i know I do

Manually turn off auto-attack should fix this.
I think there is a bug with warhorn ‘call of the wild’ (swiftness) causes a bug that makes you get a target for auto-attack; but it won’t do if you have auto-attack disabled.
Also, right clicks can change your target, so panning the camera with the mouse can select a target on accident.

You also..umm..have to have two weapons actually equipped…

I am not an expert in sPvP, but I don’t think ranger is so easy in sPvP. Generally I think you use shortbow and stay back. Dodging and running around are key. Knowing when to weapon switch/which weapon is important too. I think ranger is about CC abilities and kiting, and not so much about burst. I think specing for survivability will get you farther than specing for burst.

And why is it I’ve never seen gear with ‘Pet Attribute Bonus’ on it, all other trait tree bonuses are represented.
Also, what is it about airline food???

You need to be high enough level for weapon switching (level 7 i think).
The icon is the curvy arrows on the left of the weapon buttons, or you can use the backquote (‘`’) also known as lower case tilde ‘~’.

Auto works. Right now for most pets, the using F2 skills actually nerf your pets effectiveness; until they fix the F2 stall bug, lay off F2 if your pet uses an animation for the F2 ability.

neoxide.7320:

I suggest the Lynx because its f2 ability is a leap + bleed.
….
If you’re a glass cannon ranger, chances are you will need to use the “Protect Me” shout for survivability. Bears are better at taking damage than any other class, so Bears are your safest bet when using “Protect Me”

The reason I suggest jaguar is that they don’t leap, so the animation bug where your f2 ability stalls your pet doesn’t happen. Once they fix this issue (as they have said they will), the leaping cats might be better. In any case if you are using one cat, two is better and you have to go with a leaper too.

“Protect Me” is not a good enough trade off; 6 seconds of every minute isn’t going to keep you alive very long. If you are going glass, go full glass and get a cat. However, I actually advise not going full glass and getting lots of toughness instead, but keep the kitty.

Pets use their other skills automatically.

I think most people are specing with damage trees like marksmanship and going for damage traits; ranger is lackluster if you do this. I think it can be better to spec for more specific traits than just direct damage. Even then, ranger might take more skill to be competitive in sPvP, but they really are top-notch in WvWvW.

I am seeing way too many rangers using Bears as their pets in WvWvW. Bears are good for tanking elite monsters, but they are terrible in pvp situations, and useless in zerg situations. Bears live longer in some situations, but they don’t actually do anything worthwhile, so there is little point to having them.

I think the best pets for WvWvW are the cats (jaguars), and maybe spiders (jungle spider).

Try to master the art of resummoning your pet before it dies; if you resummon your pet when it is alive, its summon cooldown is 3 times shorter than if you resummon it when it is dead. If you pick traits that do useful stuff when you summon your pet (hint: quickness), you will benefit from this mastery much. It’s like having extra skill buttons!

Specing for beastmastery makes a significant difference in the power and survivability of your pet. Some traits spread across the tree that are pet oriented (hint: heal on crit) make a huge difference.

I think Anet’s post on queues might explain this. You can only queue for one borderland at a time; everyone queued for Eternal Battegrounds might have to wait for hours, but maybe nobody queued for the Red borderland at all.
Anet has said they are trying to come up with a way to address this imbalance.

Zenyatoo.4059:

rangers:

skill 3 has a pet come revive you even if your pet was dead. Can be sort of buggy, but still very useful in application.

When I use skill 3 with my jaguar pet, he chews my face off doing up to 1k damage per tick till I die. Ungrateful kitten! <-that word is not actually kitten

I cleared up my problems by
1) get latest beta driver
2) enable SLI
3) run the game in a window