Guild Wars 2

Raine.1394:

I love the profession. I have a max level Ranger of each race and love playing them. But, I hate seeing a Ranger in any group I find myself in. Why? Because I can count on whenever using a hard hitting ability that depends on a target being there for it, the target will surely be removed by a Ranger. If there are multiple Rangers I can depend on them to successively move targets around the battle field. I might as well just auto-attack.

What about Point Blank Shot is so difficult to understand? It’s great when soloing and situationally in group play, but, generally, it should never be used in group play. Why do Rangers use it in their rotation. It’s something that’s annoying every time I play. I’d almost be willing to give it up personally because it seems it’s impossible for people to use properly and regularly has a detrimental effect on others. I guess it might be a good troll ability.

With ancient seed trait from druid traitline, point blank shot procs entangling roots on the target, which in turn guarantees a rapid fire plus whatever your group is tossing.

Its too hard to hit players in pvp with it. Maybe increasing its size would help. They pretty much have to be standing there asking for it.

Hi @ajrpkd1234!, Welcome back.

1) Dont listen to anything @Darkness.9732 have to say. He’s notoriously known for being a troll on the rangers forum, telling everyone how terrible ranger is and that they should change a profession. Ignore this guy completely.

2) I play GS/SB ranger, its very viable for solo que spvp/solo-small scale raoming and dueling.

3) Pet AI is about the same, but the easy access to BM trait line, making them very strong. most veteran rangers have learned how to play around pet AI limits.

4)Keep in mind the changes to condi made it so you wont do much bleed dmage on SB unless you build for condi damage.

If you want me to sahre my won personal build tell me and i’ll send it to you on private.

Good luck and enjoy.

@Tigaseye.2047:
Before you continue making such long posts about how everything should be just as easy / “noob friendly” / etc..

… please take look at this video:

Also, while you want the devs to “remove red herrings” … that assumes they know what all of those are and how to remove them without inhibiting the abilities of those at the higher skill levels.

What is so wrong with letting players have a bit more control? Letting players make mistakes? Let players make choices even if some of those choices are less optimal than others.

Let people us their brains however they want and reap the results.

Torsailr.8456:

Blockhead Magee.3092:

The exhaustion idea has merit, however, a limit of three seems a bit small considering you may want to quickly build a number of defensive siege when you see a blob storming your keep. I’d wager the griefers won’t be dissuaded no matter what cap is put in place. They’d just wait it out.

One small tweak, perhaps, would be to not allow flame rams to be created inside a tower, camp or inner keep (SM & Garrison). At least force the griefers to use something that has a modicum of value.

I think a system that allows siege to be destroyed by the player base would be a better way to go. Some sort of approval where some number of players concur that a piece of siege should be destroyed in any given area. It would be a lot harder to get a group of griefers together to remove siege than it is for them to create it.

Allow a squad to salvage siege for a percentage of supplies used to build it? Share those supplies among the squad members that aren’t full?

A commander with 10+ people in his/her squad should be able to destroy siege. The number can change depending on factors like Outmanned Buff.

Apparently my server does fight against the worst thieves in the universe then. While I struggle with condi thieves or the new sword thieves, I can’t recall the last time I had an issue with d/d or d/p on my Ranger thanks mostly to the combo listed above. Lucky me I guess.

The point still stands… a passive damage increase is not going to be enough to fix this class or replace the utility the pet brings. While they’re useless in WvW group fights, they’re still very valuable in roaming and dueling and simpy removing them is not a realistic option. Not for ANet and not for the players.

I think a lot of people in the forum should follow the much-given advice of: reroll Warrior. That way the Ranger class will have less noobs giving a poor representation of the class.

L2P.

Burnfall.9573:

Durzlla.6295:

Just because you suck at playing ranger now that you can’t use the most passive build in existence to carry you to victory doesn’t mean the rest of us became bad.

I’ve been doing just fine. Seeing as how, you know, I haven’t been using a kittening spirit build for god knows how long.

Where in “ranger class is not good anymore” made you label him/her for being a “suck player”?

I don’t see it nor anybody else except you.

Lastly,

Just because you don’t use spirit build doesn’t Justify you to Parade ‘just fine’ player you are as Ranger"

In other word, as long Arena.net nerf builds that aren’t "yours’, is “fine and dandy” for you and make the players who played those builds as “suck” players.

Well,

That’s Unjustified and Bias to the Ranger community as a whole.

Uh well seeing as he’s gotta be a bad player to think rangers are bad, there’s this magical build we’ve had from the beginning known as the Trap Build that is VERY strong in this meta still and hasn’t been touched by buffs or nerfs since the game was launched.

Then there’s the Spirit ranger, who is STILL useful, you can’t just play him how you normally do, gotta be more tactical on when you use your spirits than just going “LOLOLOLO” and rolling your face on the keyboard.

And then you know, there’s still the BM bunker build which is a good BUNKER build, is it going to pump out damage? kitten no, but no bunkers really do, just drop the cats and take moas, bam you have so much survivability on your little point (where you can’t possibly be out of range of your moas heal) and have a nice cone daze (possibly two) or aoe protection, as well as AoE vigor.

Then you can also go with a roaming build (like a survival build), which is always useful because it allows you to backcap, and assist allies.

In other words, you have NO kittening idea what you’re talking about, and the spirit master build NEEDED a nerf it was so stupidly passive that i swear to god my dog would be able to play that build and do well if i turned Auto Attack on for him. The ONLY way spirits were nerfed was that you can’t have 100% uptime, other than that it was a buff.

Learn to play before you go around spouting garbage about how a profession isn’t viable in tournies.

It’s a bit deeper than that.
Sometimes a pet won’t use a skill at all unless specific requirements on the battlefield are met (ex; Devourer Retreat, Moa Harmonic Cry).

…or I guess another way of thinking about it is that all pet Family Skills have a requirement for activation, it’s just these requirements can be as simple as ‘be in range + skill off cooldown’. So certain pets seem to operate like clockwork because their requirements are really easy to satisfy, while others are less so because they have more complicated ones.

Our profession mechanic is honestly one of the deeper ones in the game. It’s just kind of shame we’ve been so busy licking our wounds over being last pick, we haven’t put much of our collective intelligence into discovering it.

heya, i know there are a number of threads floating around about this, but i didn’t want it to get buried at the bottom of a page.

these are my thoughts on the Slash – Kick – Pounce combo for Ranger in a 5 minute vid.

edit – another short vid going over the rest of the sword skills:

Things you need to learn:
-When to use your cat, when to send him in, when to call him back. When to put him on Avoid setting and when on Guard. You need to know which bosses he’ll be fine against, which bosses he is a complete no no for. What upcoming mob group he can handle, which he could but its risky.

-How to use your Drake, we all like Drakes, lets admit but hate their F2 skills for being slow and hard to hit with. Well all our Drakes, except the marsh are best served in PvE. Reef if you are into Zerging but you need to time and manage it right. For all our other Drakes, specially my River Drake, it is best used in areas where mobs are close together and abundant. You want him to target the mob that is not going to move much, either ranged, crippled or immobilized. If you’re in melee and use a torch or Healing Spring often, Drakes should be among your favorites. Jump into melee combat, pop Healing Spring/Bonfire, attack with your passive Drake, first attack will be a Blast Finisher. Switch pet and attack, another Blast Finisher.

-Dogs, well dogs are awesome and the easiest of our melee pets to use, can dish out good damage and take some too. First attack always knocksdown, F2 skills are amazing control. Fern hound looks ugly, but hey you got some extra Regen.

-Devourers, I say they’re the training pet. Take aggro at times, amazing toughness and are ranged so you can use them to attack from outside the Boss AoE range. If you use Healing Spring, their F2 skills are amazing. Poor direct damage, but amazing for boss fights if you’re still trying to master the pets. (Which I still am, though I have graduated from them in most fights, but the ones where being melee is not even an option- several fractal bosses)

-Bears, I do not even need to discuss them.

Birds, Moas, Pigs and Spiders I have never used, but I say that’s a good thing. There is still more for me to learn, experience and use. We are ridiculously flexible, no matter what we do, because of our pets. Sure they can be expanded, they can be improved, but hey, do the best with what we have and kick kitten while we do it.

Tips

- Runes of Dwayna are a god send.

-Marksmanship makes me go meh, but I hear Piercing Arrows makes you bad kitten Opening Strikes however I find unappealing and puts me off the trait line.

-Skirmishing this line is great whether you are pet reliant or not, always consider it.

- Study EVERY trait in the WS survival line, it can help you and your beastly companion survive almost anything.

-Nature’s Magic, just 10-15 points can make you and your pet, super duper heal machines.

-BM the whole trait line is pure gold, if you want to use a damaging pet. Get it all, otherwise I feel 15 is compulsory(unless you are a trapper or non pet condition damage build)

-Always carry a GS and a LB even if it isn’t a part of your build, GS block and LB control can make you a big help to your party. Stand in front of your weaker party member during an unavoidable attack and block, or mass cripple and control with the LB. Harpy/Collosus Fractal anyone?

-For party play your go to heal should be Healing Spring. Heal for you and your pet on cast, each pulse clears conditions, provides Regen and can be traited to give Vigor on each pulse too. Parties love Vigor.

-In spite of what our skills look like, in melee range we are skirmishers. All our melee weapon skills(except GS throw) can be cast while moving. Get into the practice of fighting without auto-attack, moving in circles around your target and moving in and out towards them. We shouldn’t stand and unload like other classes.

Rangers are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’ll get.
However you can adapt to it in a flash and kick kitten anyway.
That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

-Esh Crowe

I bought GW2 at launch and the first class I made was the ranger. In GW1 it was my favorite class and I wanted it again. In my GW1 career I ran several builds on my ranger. I started with the much hated R/N Touch Ranger, why ? Because that was fun, but I got bored of it quickly, I moved onto the R/E Fire Barrage and then R/A Quick Shot ranger. However towards the end I found myself playing the old R/P Ranger, brandishing a destroyer’s spear and shield with a black Moa by my side. And that was my main till the end of my GW1 career. My W/E Fire Hammer warrior, my D/A Dervish, my Me/Mo Signet User and my Minion Master Necro. None could live up to my Ranger.

When I started GW2 I immediatelly made myself a Ranger, a Mesmer, a Thief, an Elementalist and a Guardian.

I started with the Ranger, I was all meh, next was the Thief, I enjoyed the perma stealth. Moved onto Elementalist. The sheer number of people using D/D everywhere put me off and I deleted it. Replaced it with an Engineer, that I still love. Guardian and Mesmer I quit and deleted. (I lost patience with the Mesmer it being so trait reliant but now I’m levelling one again). I deleted my Ranger too, however life got more demanding on my time so I quit the game. After a recent break up and an injury causing me to stop fighting, I decided to spend my hours of writer’s block on GW2. I started on my Engineer but the old elixir/pistol build bored me. I didn’t want to even look at my thief and deleted it(made a new one however haven’t levelled it much). I felt the old call of the ranger. Made a new one, got it to 80. And I couldn’t love it more.

The ranger isn’t the class for you if your favorite play style is the in your face DPS like the thief or the warrior. It isn’t the class for you if you enjoy lazy button mashing combat. It is a class of skill, intellect and reacting to the situation. There is not a more versatile, adaptable or flexible a class.

What makes it so? The Pet.

The pet system is imperfect, frustrating, complex at times and vast. But once you get a hang of it, once you master it. You wouldn’t trade it for anything. I don’t even want to level my Mesmer, Thief, Warrior anymore. They’re sitting at levels 37, 18 and 3 respectively. My Engineer is maxed with a fun build but still is no match for my Ranger.

A ranger isn’t a glass cannon, with massive burst. We are survivors, in my opinion a ranger excels with a lot of toughness, mobility or self healing. Or it all, and manages his pet well to do the damage. Or empowers himself and takes a pet that will help him even more with an extra heal, a buff or a control effect.

The day we get some decent buffs, Rangers are going to shine and everyone will hop on the fotm OP Ranger. People will complain and cry and ask anet why are Rangers so strong. They dodge to much, wtf are all these evades, how can they still do damage when sitting standing still, and why do I have to fight their kitten pet and the Ranger at the same time like cmon anet nerf this right now.

6+ months pass and no nerfs, Rangers continue to dominate, and the general squalor still complain about the Rangers. We play, we lvl, we get gold, we get wvw bags, we are given gold to join parties for dungeons, its just a kittening Arrow Age for us Rangers.

8+ months go by everyone is rolling ranger and on the World vs World map its a mighty battle of pets and arrows flying everywhere. Pets everywhere, everywhere, why are there so many and i dont get anything from killing them? The pets take supply camps, they siege towers, and they take keeps. The army of pets are so overwhelming that nothing can stop them because all they do is insta respawn. Wtf is this bullkitten the other classes may ask, to you we say L2play scrub.

Err… ok… thats a lot of data… o_O

To finish up the article, I’ll discuss the playstyle. After all, a dead pet is dead weight!

As mentioned earlier, the pet should be kept permanently on passive to increase it’s chances of survival. With this setup, you can actually trigger your pet’s Family Skill listed here by pressing F1. After they do their special attack, immediately press F3 to make them come back. Pets should not extend their stay inside melee range of the enemies as they will most likely die.

For ranged pets, you can make them act like a turret in the sense that you can “park” them in a spot and make them stay there by pressing F1 on spot you want them to stay in. They will stay in that spot until you either press F3 to call them back, or attempt to follow their target if it goes out of range. Remember that the pet will keep on attacking even if the enemy is in their face and is charging a nasty spell to 1 hit it! Make sure to call it back before the charge up finishes.

Oh-kay.. Is that it..?

One last thing: We can further improve our pets by using Malicious Training to increase the pet’s Condition Duration by 50%, and Concentration Training to increase our pet’s Boon Duration by 50%.

And that’s it! If you made it this far, thanks for reading my wonderful wall of text! I hope you gained some insight on pet uses as some of these applies to BM builds as well.

TL;DR – Use pets with conditions, keep pets on passive and press F1/F2 to use pet skills, press F3 after pet uses skill to keep it alive.

Drake:
Family Skills – The Ranger’s only Blast Finisher!, 30s cd. It also deals weakness with quite a bit of damage in a small AoE.
Ice Drake – 5 stacks of chill in a 250 cone in front of it, 25s cd.
Marsh Drake – Fires 5 projectiles that bounce twice, and gives 3 seconds of poison per hit. 30s cd. This skill is one of the easier to aim because it tracks it’s enemies and can hit behind it!*
Reef Drake – 5 stacks of Confusion, 25s cd. The Ranger’s direct way to access confusion. With the cast time buff on pet F2 skills, it’s easier to hit this but it still requires the target to stand still for 1.5 seconds for the charge up, and another 1-2 seconds for the confusion to stack up.
River Drake – Damage!, 30s cd. I wasn’t planning on including a pet that didn’t have a condition, but River Drake gets a pass because it has an amazing F2 skill that can track enemies similar to the Marsh Drake’s. It’s also a really AoE attack so it’s worth mentioning.
Salamander Drake – 5 seconds of burning with quite a bit of damage, 30s cd. This is supposed to be the strongest Breathe attack, but it is really hard to aim that I don’t use it that much.

Ah the Drakes, once useless, now oh so useful! The Drakes are our only source of Blast Finishers and they are really good for that purpose. It isn’t a targetted blast finish though, so don’t expect to use it for pre-buffing on fire fields. It’s more useful for AoE Healing in conjunction with Healing Spring. The setup is cast Healing Spring near an enemy, and make your drake attack that enemy while it is on the water field. Easily pulled off during boss fights in Dungeons! Special mention goes to River Drake because even in its nerfed state, it’s still a really hard hitting skill.

*Update June 25: No longer tracks enemies behind it.

Feline:
Family Skills – 5 seconds of Vulnerability on auto attack, and 4 stacks of bleed (10s duration) every 20 seconds.
Jaguar – 6 seconds invisibility, +25% crit chance, 30s cd.
Jungle Stalker – 5 stacks of might with 5 second duration, 30s cd.
Lynx – 4 stacks of bleeds, 10s duration, 30s cd.
Snow Leopard – 8 second chill, a bit of damage, 30s cd.

I used to strongly discourage using Felines because of how squishy they were pre-April patch. Now that they’re much more survivable, they are viable pets for builds with no points in BM. They still deal the highest DPS out of all pets so whenever you need high DPS and there aren’t really that many threats, Felines are your best bet. Also, Lynx has a really long lasting bleed, along with pretty decent damage.

note: Thanks to Indoles.1467 for pointing out Icy Pounce is 8 seconds chill

Moa:
Family Skills – 2 stacks of Vulnerability for 10 seconds, 20s cd, and a 3k~ heal in a 240 AoE, 40s cd that is very hard to manipulate.
Black/Pink Moa – 2 second daze in a cone, 30s cd
Blue Moa – 3 second protection in a about 360 AoE, 40s cd
Red Moa – 15 seconds of Fury in 360 AoE! 30s cd One of the best pet buffs!
White Moa – 3 second chill in about 360 AoE, 24s cd
NOTE: The AoE is a personal observation, it might be wrong

Porcine:
Family Skills – 3 second AoE Knock Down in a small arc, 40s cd.
All the forage skills are unaffected by Beastmastery so they all are still working on 100% efficiency without it. Read up on pigs on my Porcine Pet Guide! /shameless plug

For our purposes though, the Warthog and the Siamoth are best suited for this, since their Forage items are usable at range and allows us to stay out of range for most of the nasty AoEs. Pigs are also one of the better pets to use on a BM 5/0 build because of it’s Knock Down, available on every swap!* The downside to them, though, is that their Brutal Charge seems less accurate than the Canine version, as the skill starts from about 600-900 range away from the target, while the Canine’s version makes them leap from 350 range away from the enemy and has a less noticeable charge up animation.
EDIT: A recent discovery shows that the Knockdown from pigs has a small AoE so it can knockdown multiple foes!
*Note: This no longer applies because ANet fixed pet cooldowns when stowed

Canine:
Family Skills – 2 second knockdown, 40s cd, more accurate as mentioned in the pig section, and 5 second cripple, 20s cd.
Alpine Wolf – 2 second chill in 500 AoE, 30s cd.
Fern Hound – 10 second Regenerate, 25s cd.
Hyena – Summons a hyena ally, 45 second cd. More knockdown machines!
Krytan Drakehound – 2 second immobilize in 500 AoE, 20s cd.
Wolf – 2 second fear in 500 AoE, 45 second cd.

The Canine Family is my personal favorite when running 5/0 BM Builds, because they add so much utility from their Knock Down alone. A recent thread has shown that they have the best kill time on moving targets because of their innate cripple. Drakehound + Wolf is what I usually use when roaming in WvW. Don’t be afraid to use the drakehound howl as it has a pretty big AoE and it has a fairly short cooldown.

note: Thanks to Indoles.1467 for pointing out Canine KnockDown is 2 seconds

Devourer:
Family Skills – none that can be manipulated, although 10% chance of poison from their normal attack is nice.
Carrion Devourer – 5 second Poison Field, 30s cd
Lashtail Devourer – 7 stacks of 5s bleeds, 30s cd
Whiptail Devourer – pet version of Shortbow #2, 30s cd. Fires 5 barbs, each barb puts 2 seconds of poison.

Devourers are the pets with the highest toughness and this is what keeps them viable even without points in Beastmastery. They are also the best pets to use for Rampage As One since their normal attack counts as 2 hits, and it gives out 2 stacks of Might per attack! Best of all, is that “hits” made by the Carrion Devourer’s Poison Field will also trigger the Might section of the elite skill. I could get 25 stacks of Might very quickly if the devourer is able to hit a mob of 3 or more inside the AoE of the Poison Cloud, in addition to it’s normal attack. This also applies to the Murellow’s, but the Murellow doesn’t have the double Might per attack that the Carrion Devourer gives.

Still not convinced. Prove it!

We now focus on what pets can give even without points in Beastmastery.

If you go through the List of Pet Skills in the wiki, you will notice that nearly all of the pet skill have a bonus effect, which is either condition for the target, or a boon for itself/allies. Those are what needs to be utilized when there’s no points in BM.

IMPORTANT: It should be noted, however, that pets are particularly vulnerable in this state so they should be kept in passive mode permanently, and their skills should be used on command, even their non-F2 skills.

*Update Post April Patch: Since the survivability of pets have been improved, you can actually set your pets on agressive now, but you have to press F3 often to keep them in check. Its still a good idea to keep them on passive to control who/when pets attack though!

Contrary to popular belief, Pet AI is actually predictable and can be manipulated, to an extent. Pets will likely try use their high cooldown skill, if it is an offensive spell. This means that drakes will most likely use Tail Swipe first when they are activated, and Canines will likely use Brutal Charge first to knockdown enemies.

What this means, is we have Knock Down and a Blast Finisher available to us with 5/0 Points in Beastmastery. And it is not limited to just that. Here’s what each of the families/specific pets can bring to the table:

Bears:
Family Skills – none that can be manipulated
Black Bear – 10s Weakness in a 600 AoE, 45 second cd.
Brown Bear – Remove 1 condition in 600 AoE, 25s cd.
Murellow – 6 second poison field, 35s cd. This is my personal favorite, for reasons i will mention in the Carrion Devourer section.
Polar Bear – 3 second chill in a 600 AoE, 45 second cd.

Bears have been considered the worst pet for a while now because of they have the lowest DPS and really slow attack animations. With the recent changes to ranger utilities, things may have changed since then. The “Protect Me” shout is best used with bears because they are very likely to survive the 6 seconds that the shout is active. Murellow has always been my favorite because of the poison field, with Black Bear a close second because of the new Weakness. Rangers have been known to have really bad condition cleanse and Brown Bear happens to have an AoE condition cleanse every 25 seconds. The only bear that hasn’t changed in status is the Polar Bear because a 3 second chill on a kitten cd just doesn’t cut it.

Bird:
Family Skills – 10 seconds of Swiftness.
Owl – 6 second chill, with quite a bit of damage, 20s cd.
Raven (Regular/White) – 5 seconds of blindness, 18s cd.
Eagle/Hawk – 2 bleed stacks, 15 seconds duration, 6s cd.

In the first version of this guide, I strongly discouraged using birds because of their lower hp, even though Quickening Screech was useful. With the survivability of birds buffed, they are a very nice utility pet. The blind and chill they bring last a decent suration and are on pretty fast cooldowns. They used to be great for spike damage (dealing over 4k with their double crits), but they were toned down for the June patch. Special mention goes to Eagle/Hawk because they have really long bleeds on very short cooldowns. They are very nice pets to use when the enemy has really crazy condition cleanse.

note: Thanks to Indoles.1467 for pointing out Owl’s Chill is 6 seconds

Solandri.9640:

Yes you can do it with GS swoop. The catch is that you need to have a bit of level ground in front of you. Swoop seems to follow the terrain for the first 100 or 200 in range (probably the run part). After that it continues going straight horizontally (the leap part).

So if you stand right on the edge of a cliff like in the video and hit swoop, the skill will take you down to the level of the ground directly in front. But if you stand back a bit so swoop can “rev up” by going horizontally, it’ll continue to go horizontally and you’ll jump the gap. I use it frequently to jump distances I normally couldn’t cover, and for a running jump into water before I lose my speed skills. Never thought of doing it with sword.

That’s what I thought thanks, looking at the animation its clear you jump but I wasn’t sure if you still count as charging or if its a leap. Now all we need is an exact time when you leap because monarch leap is 600 range but swoop has a total of 1200 and potentially has more leaping time.

Great use of terrain there! Never though of using sword like that.

I show you tricks with 1handed sword on pvp maps.

Hope you like.

Thanks all for the feedback, really warms my heart.. :-)

I have added some links to the description of the video with the build and the armor/accessories/weapons, as mentioned here.. I’ll post them here as well, for the record:

Traits: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qomqlj9qribg4ll/FreyaHatreidis_Traits.png
Armor: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hf2rrshg1v86k9m/FreyaHatreidis_Armor.png
Accessories: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0q4b39jaec2jwa1/FreyaHatreidis_Accessories.png
Weapons: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7nqah07n7mss38f/FreyaHatreidis_Weapons.png

Cool vid, and you might want to preempt the usual questions:

1) Build
2) Gear

Created a small video yesterday while messing around on Vabbi territory (yes, T9, so?) and explained some of the tactics used..

For instance, something I fail to see being used a lot is the “Stow Pet” ability. It’s great though, since it doesn’t give you a recharge counter when your pet appears when you start combat (if you take it out manually you have the 20 seconds of course).

Nevertheless, here is the vid, hope you like it, and of course feel free to comment/hate/spam/whatever..

Po-Po-Po-Po-Porcine Power

Give the Porcine pets a try when fighting in melee range. Their foraged items are amazing if you can deal with the clunky mechanic. Since you & your pet will be fighting side by side (and porcine are pretty hearty) their F2 item will pop up next to you, easy to pick up. Study the items each Porcine forages, and use them according to your build. Can also really benefit teammates in dungeons, so long as they know what Foraged items are/do.

Pig – heals, invulnerability
Siamoth – conditions, ethereal field
Warthog – blind, stealth, boons
Boar – control, ethereal field

Warning: I don’t PvP, but I’ve heard that an enemy player can pick up Foraged items (who came up with that idea??). Use wisely if in PvP.

Great tips coming in everyone! Keep it up! Even if it’s a small tip drop it in!
I don’t really have anything new to add that hasn’t already been said.

Jellyfish, ain’t jelly.
Don’t let this pets stats fool you, the Jellyfish is a seriously strong defensive pet with good utility (mm blind spam) and the Blue Jellyfish specifically has a rather high damage AOE with it’s F2 ability.

Jazenn.7526:

This is a good thread. Keep up the tip posts, I love em.

Pet Burst

Rangers don’t have too much burst on their own outside of rapid fire. Our burst is GREATLY increased when you throw a pet into the equation. RaO and QZ also affect the pet! Sick em, Zepher’s speed, Pet’s prowess, and Signets are really good ways of getting a burst of damage for your pet. Find a way to slow your opponent, and then pop skills for your pet. Jaguar stealth+QZ+Sick em+RaO does soooo much damage. This is where the ranger’s burst is at. Builds can be made around this.

This, +1 to this. I hear people say rangers have no burst all the time, this is where it’s at. Although might I also recommend traiting 30% more critical damage under skirmishing for Jaguars, increases their damage quite a bit (along with all the other skills, of course.)

+1 for stickying!

Balancing heal and condition removal with Healing spring

Ok so Healing spring cures all conditions and heals for around 5k depending on your healing power. This tip pertains to the poison condition. If you are poisoned, heals are 33% less effective. In my experience conditions are removed after the heal, not before, meaning poison will still weaken your heal so instead of 5000, you’ll only be healing for 3350 – a huge difference. Therefore, it is sometimes advisable to use a different condition removal method before your heal despite the fact they’ll all be removed shortly after the heal.

Disclaimer: this will be down to your judgement, obviously you’d need another form of condition removal, and you’d only do this if you were actually down by ~5000 health of course, if you’d still be healed to 100% with the 3350 poisoned heal, then of course do that (or wait a bit to do the _ condition removal then healing spring combo). Against enemies which rely heavily on condition damage you may not want to use all your condition removal options at once – as i say it’s situational and down to your own judgement

Bump. I wish this thread could be stickied. More Tips!

Evading damage

This one is a bit obvious, but I only say it because I met a few rangers in tPvP who were practically standing still. The bunkers already know this, but evasion is a powerful defense. Rangers have a lot of it. Use it. Sword, Dagger, Greatsword, and Shortbow all have evades built into the weapon. Traiting 5 points into WS gives you extra regen for evades. Also use vigor, which doubles evade regen. Outside of lightning reflexes, we have 3 traits (all in different traitlines) that grant vigor under certain circumstance, including on demand. Runes and Food also help with this.

Aside from pure evasion, we have a few stuns/knockback/cripples that also help out. These skills can become a psuedo-evade, in that they interrupt or prevent the foe from reaching you. Shortbow/greatsword/longbow all have that. Figure out traits and sigils that help you out with this as well.

The point is, we have so many ways to avoid damage. There have been many times when using my full gauntlet of evades I have escaped a thief or warrior initial burst and then killed them, in fact, I always open a fight against a warrior with my evades. These greatly assist in offensive builds, when you can’t take the big hits. Ranger definitely has a strength in this, use it. A still ranger is a dead ranger.