Guild Wars 2

• Brown Bear: Ludwig Beethoven
• Jaguar: Steve Urkel
• Hawk: Helen Keller
• Lashtail Devourer: Sarah Silverman
• Wolf: Susan Boyle
• Lynx: Michael Jackson

@ Belzebu Yeah there’s a problem I have with that. I’m seriously under geared. And I currently still need to get a bunch of gear. I have full Berserker’s w/ Scholar Runes, and some trashy green level 80 trinkets/accessories/blah besides my Cavalier Spineguard.

1400’s are my max hit. That’s without any extra stacks of might. I can’t go beyond 1400 without might. That being said, as soon as I get geared I can say what max damage is.

I get ya though. As soon as I get fully geared I can put that in this build. Sadly that won’t be for a while though.

Alright guys, I have updated the guide and everything is up to date and nicely done now. There’s probably still things to be done but I did this all today, and it’s break time now. I’ll still be stalking this thread for any questions so feel free.

@hyjaxxx Yeah, that is the thing. The Axes only reason for being main hand in both hands is for the 10% extra critical damage, so you can keep on weapon swapping for fury and not lose the extra DPS.

If you were looking at the equipment from the link I posted then kind of ignore that, I’m revamping everything here right now. I am trying to get a nice balance of getting crit damage to 100% and precision almost as high as possible so as to make it 85 – 100-ish chance to critical hit but also I do want to infuse some condition damage in it.

This build is only for PvE/Dungeon/Fractals, yes. And actually with the new revamped guide I’m putting in ascended gear and making it a lot more fractal friendly with agony resistance infusions & such.

I’m working on making a nice looking crit train build for WvW & sPvP. But first I revamp this to make it perfect in my eyes.

@Conan I’ll get to that when I update the build! But I will drop some knowledge of it right now because I don’t know when I’m going to be done recompiling it. That is a great catch, and if you feel like you are getting stunned a lot and Signet of Renewal’s passive and active aren’t cutting it for you then go right ahead. The Signet of the Hunt is a goodie to keep because when you activate it you start doing more DPS, and you gain stability. So if you’re up against some annoying CC super boss ( eyes on you Jade Maw! ) then you can stand through knockdowns and pull out some extra DPS and make some amazing game changer.

Hello ( frequent checkers ? )! Sorry I haven’t updated this build at all. I am working on pumping out a finalized version that makes things nice and sweet. This will actually increase the amount needed to be read but it will also increase the use-ability of this build.

Been busy with my account getting hacked & such.

So my account recently got hacked, not sure if it was a phish, I do not think it was. I haven’t even touched an e-mail for a good two months. Beyond that though, I have my account back and everything is peachy.

Except I lost 30 gold. And nothing was bought with it from what I see. Unless of course someone got on my account to buy 1021010 Orichalcum Pickaxes and then destroy them all to get rid of 30 gold.

I am thinking that they sent it in a message to their character and then deleted the message. Is there anyway to retrieve said message? And even if I could retrieve it, could anything be done about this? I wouldn’t be as desperate to get it back if it was a smaller amount but really I need that back.

@jubskie : Awesome, thanks!

@Killsmith : True, for non-feline users that would be good. I could try and rewrite it to include that. & to your second comment, yes, that can be done! Though I do enjoy the regeneration at 75%, plus the little bonus to power, which really is not that little.

@Girion : I had no idea! This was an ‘ideal’ build. I actually do not have all of the stuff I was going for with it yet. If I had all the items at the moment then I could have included some DPS quotas. Then yeah, I can search later for some good alternatives, thanks for the info. Or maybe if some people wanted to look around and give suggestions?

Haha! I wasn’t bashing other guides! At least I didn’t try to. My problem was that every guide I looked at that was at least even ‘inspirational’ or something I wanted to try out had outdated traits. So I set out to create my own build a while ago. Now that I’ve had some days working with my build I find it nice.

Oh and yeah, my guide is still kind of a wall of text. Though I do know what you mean, I read the whole DDR, and I do not regret it, but I did not like the reading portion of that.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/New-To-Rangers-Looking-for-guides-CLICK-ME

Go here! You can check out all the builds posted there.

Hey, if you don’t mind I’d like to have my build guide on this list. I’ve got a link right here,
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Ranger-Build-Guide-Critically-Powerful

Anything else you need for it to be on here?

Oh & also, any feedback would be appreciated! Whether negative or positive, constructive or appreciative. Feedback is always nice.

Ultimate Ability

This one gets a little bit opinionated. In the build I showed it has the Spirit of Nature ability. However, I will go into detail about the ultimate skills.

Spirit of Nature — summon a spirit that heals allies. command the spirit to revive and cure conditions on nearby allies — So this is literally one of the best abilities for Fractals or Dungeons. That boss mob literally just wiped every single melee attacker in your party. That leaves who behind? You. You are the last person left and they are all sustaining damage on the ground while downed. Instead of running into melee range to try and get someone up, you can cast this. Basically spam the key you have it on when your team gets downed and they will all get up and be healed. Then you can do it again in case your team did not learn the first time.

Entangle — entangle your foe and bleed them. they are immobile until the vines are destroyed — This is a viable choice as well, a very good control option for a large-ish group of mobs. This immobilizes 5 targets and bleeds them a lot.

Rampage as One — rampage with your pet, gaining stability, fury, and swiftness. you and your pet also grant might to each other when you attack — So this is a good damage output raiser, for sure. The reason I do not use this is because it is such a long cool down for such a type of skill. I literally never use this. I prefer having more control, or support based ultimate abilities like the two above, nevertheless, this is good for things such as PvP, or WvWvW.

Conclusion
That is it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask them! Otherwise, this concludes my build. Have fun!

Skills & Rotation
This is the part that takes up the largest amount of importance, this is essentially the builds backkittenead this whole section, digest it thoroughly, make sure you understand the point and if you do not then ask for some help if you want to use this build because otherwise you will not reach full potential.

Fury
This build focuses on critical hits as your main source of damage, both yours and your pets. Now, how do you keep those critical hits coming? Simple, fury, which gives 20% critical chance. So here is how you can get fury.

Hunter’s Call – you can use this every 35 seconds – this gives you and your allies 5 seconds of fury, might and swiftness.

Weapon Swap – you can use this every 10 seconds – Due to furious grip you gain 5 seconds of fury every time you swap.

Using these two methods, you can effectively keep almost constant fury by using Hunter’s Call, Swap, Swap, Hunter’s Call, Swap, Swap & so on. This should become second nature to you if you want to obtain maximum damage potential. That 20% critical chance is a beautiful thing to keep up constantly.

Axe
Ricochet — Always be using this if possible. If you are casting another ability then yeah you cannot be attacking with this, but seriously all other times there is no excuse to not attack. Even if you are being chased, just back up attacking and roll when necessary.

Splitblade — This is a great skill to use on either, a) a large group of mobs in the area, so that you will hit them all and cause them all bleeding, b) on a larger mob ( champion, legendary ) because if you get close enough it will hit with more than one easily.

Winter’s Bite — This is only used if something is chasing you, just hit it in the face with it, chill it, and keep backing off until another teammate comes to help or until you kill it.

Warhorn

Hunter’s Call — Use this whenever possible! Generally it is good to link it up with Call of the Wild when you get close to your group to give them the fury, swiftness and might, but seriously, use this whenever it is available. It gives you so much more damage because it does not stop you from attacking throughout the full duration of the skill.

Call of the Wild — Fury rotation, hopefully you read that section.

Torch

Throw Torch — Use this whenever possible, the base damage may not be so great, but the burn is good.

Bonfire — Use this if you have some mobs around you, or if you do not. If there are no mobs around you then use it and use ricochet to try and get some burning off with a projectile finisher for a fire field.

Heal
Healing Spring — This is an amazing healing skill. This creates a field of regeneration, heals you and your pet, cures a condition ( healing poison? nice! )

Utility Skills
Signet of Renewal — signet passive: cures a condition every 10 seconds. signet active: your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself — You know, get rid of a condition every 10 seconds with an AoE stun breaker on activation?

Signet of the Wild — signet passive: grant health regeneration to you and your pet. signet active: your pet grows larger, dealing more damage gaining stability for 8 seconds — Passive regeneration, then use it to get some stability and extra damage. Pretty good deal.

Signet of Stone — signet passive: improves toughness for you and your pet. signet active: your pet takes no damage from attacks — In a pickle? Taking way too much damage? Use this, 6 seconds of invulnerability to use to your advantage. Plus, when it is not on cool down you get improved toughness by about 200.

Lightning Reflexes – evade backwards with a crack of lightning, dealing damage and granting vigor – If you find yourself being stunned a lot or in need of some escape, then you can use this in place of some other utility. This is not a recommended idea though, because the current utilities should be enough for PvE/Dungeon/Fractals.

Pet

This one is a heart breaker. You are not going to like what I am going to tell you. Drop the bear. Yes, he’s been with you since childhood, he’s your best friend, I know. He makes you lose damage in Dungeons and Fractals though. There are some better choices than him. In PvE if you need a tank then you may not have to drop him but there are some pretty good choices for PvE besides the bear.

Pet Choices
Jaguar
Yeah you know. 100% critical chance while stealthed. Good damage output with that bonus 30% critical damage from your trait line.

Jungle Stalker
AoE 5 stacks of might? Dungeon/Fractal savior! This lil’ guy right here, combined with a Guardian with a staff, and maybe that one Warrior shouting some crazy lingo to make you stronger can get a group up to 25 stacks of might ( do NOT want to be the enemy here )!

Snow Leopard
Alright, here is another cool cat with good money output. Here is the artic cool thing about this lil’ guy. Use that f2 skill on an enemy closing in on you in your healing spring and you get regeneration for you and any allies near you. A good thing to escape an enemy with and live. You get to slow the enemy, heal and regerate more health. This is a nice thing to do if you find yourself in trouble a lot.

Lynx
This cat here can do the same leap finisher regeneration as the Snow Leopard. This guy is more damage based with that jump though, if you do not have a reason to use it situationally to escape then you can use it to attack and do some bleeding damage.

Cats are the best way to go if you want damage, additionally you can scope out some birds for damage or some drakes, I like to stick to cats though. Pets are still up to your choice mostly because no matter what pet you have they will do something.

Here is the most important part of the pet section. A little announcement. Keep your pet alive. Switch them out to stay alive every 20 seconds if needed, keep track of them. Remember this: if you let your pet die then you will be missing out on half your damage. Keep the pet alive, more importantly keep yourself alive, but secondarily keep your pet alive.

Wilderness Survival

Yet another changeable trait line. If you take out 5 points here then you can put them back into Skirmishing and save the 5 points for the last trait line.

Tier 1
Natural Vigor — increases endurance regeneration by 50% — So when you do need to roll ( when those mobs just will not leave you alone! ) you can get back up to your 10% damage increase much quicker. 50% quicker, actually. This extra evasion ability always helps.

Nature Magic

So here you are, a damage dealing, pet-owning, axe wielding <insert race here> with no survivability. Here is some survivability for you.

Tier 1
Minor Trait
Rejuvenation — gain regeneration when your health reaches 75% — Gain some of that health back! And with those Runes of the Scholar, this will hopefully get you back to 90% or higher quickly, so you can continue the 10% more damage.

Major Trait
Nature’s Bounty – regeneration you apply last 33% longer – So this will help the above minor trait do its magic. This also buffs healing springs regeneration, and the possible combo finisher regeneration as well. All around a good one to grab.

Strength of Spirit – 5% of vitality is given as a bonus to power – This is what I generally roll with. This increases your power by a good 50+ depending on how much vitality you have. That is almost as much as some gear gives you and is more than some gear gives you. Quite a nice thing to have.

Note: This is where the extra 5 points that you could have saved comes into play.

Tier 2
Minor Trait
Fortifying Bond – any boon you get is shared with your pet – This is a good thing to have for helping buff your pet up and heal it and etc. For instance, you get regeneration from healing spring, so does your pet. You get might from some far off shout or something. A good thing to have; although personally I prefer the 25 points in Skirmishing for that 10% flanking bonus.

Skirmishing

Alright, here comes the storm of precision. A changeable storm. Now here is the deal, you can put 25 points into precision for the best possible damage output using the 10% bonus damage when flanking; or you can save that 5 points for later which I will explain when we get there. For now, I shall show you the trait line.

Tier 1
Minor Trait
Tail Wind — gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat. this effect cannot trigger more than once every 9 seconds — So you swap weapons and gain swiftness every 9 seconds? That is a nice way to get away, or gain some mobility in combat.

Major Trait
Pet’s Prowess — pets do 30% more damage on critical hits — Here is a major help. 30% more damage from your pets critical hits? On a critical hit build? Yeah sounds good. Here is something you may have to get used to though: your pet will probably do more damage than you. Just putting it out there.

Sharpened Edges – chance to cause bleeding on critical hits – This is a second choice for the trait. This will cut your total damage but increase your personal damage. This is also a route to go if you want to splah a lot of condition damage on foes. Not recommended but still a choice.

Tier 2
Minor Trait
Furious Grip — gain fury when swapping weapons in combat. this effect cannot trigger more than once every 9 seconds — I have never heard of someone getting angry when they switch to a different weapon. However, I will not complain! This is what this build focuses on, keeping fury up using this switch right here. You have to get this trait or this build does not work. More on the fury swapping in a later section.

Tier 2
Major Trait
Honed Axes — you do 10% more critical damage when wielding an axe in your main hand — Since you will never not have an axe in your main hand, this is perfect! Increase the damage of those critical hits! This cannot be passed up, no other trait is better. I guaruntee that.

Tier 3
Minor Trait
Hunter’s Tactics — deal 10% more damage while flanking — More percent increase traits! Get behind those bosses and show them what’s up when you are getting a 10% increase to your damage! This is the trait that you can leave behind, either you keep the 5 points in here and just put another trait in or you save it for later.

Trait Lines

The trait lines are our first stop! and what an important place to begin, this is the backbone of every single build. this defines them and this is generally a very permanent structure and the armor is mutatable to the player’s desire. this is not true for this build though, there is a little wiggle room allowed in the trait lines. the most wiggle room comes from the major traits, which I will explain the most important ones to make note of ( and if I do not mention one, it does not mean I do not think it is unusuable, I just think that it is less desirable than other major traits! ), additionally, the trait lines themselves have a little wiggle room to fit your desire! but first off, our only permanent trait line: Marksmanship

Marksmanship

We will put 30 points into Marksmanship every time. Why? Power is a beautiful thing ( look at it, so pretty ). Power puts the oomph in our critical hits when they happen. So here we have it.

Tier 1
Minor Trait
Opening Strike – cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat – Cause vulnerability with your first strike on a mob? Why not? A good damage helper, though not too effective for large amounts of mobs. Surely with this you could tell a Dungeon group to bust every possible move on the boss in the start so you can get the most of that vulnerability, otherwise it’s just a little helper.

Major Trait
Steady Focus – damage increases by 10% when endurance is full – 10% more damage is a lot ( 1000 + 100 = 1100 ; 1500 + 150 = 1650 ), so definitely the way to go if you do not find yourself rolling much. That is not to say you cannot roll though, definitely do that instead of dying; remember, 1000 damage instead of 1100 damage is better than 0 damage.

Signet Master – signets recharge 20% faster – So let’s say you do not want 10% more damage from Steady Focus. Fine by me, I guess. Another alternative would to go this route. This would not only give you the ability to activate Signet of the Hunt more often when you do not need the regeneration so you can steadily do more damage, this also allows you to have a shorter cooldown on Signet of Stone so you can have some more clutch saves with that 6 seconds of invulnerability to attacks ( careful though, not invulnerable to everything! that’s right, I’m talking to you Jade Maw! ).

Beastmaster’s Bond – gain fury and might when your pet’s health reaches 50% – I can definitely see this being used in a build. How one would be able to use this as a reliable source of fury is unbeknownst to me, however it is a nice little surprise ( or maybe not a surprise, if you watch your pets health go down ) when you gain fury and might and can save your warhorn.

Tier 2
Minor Trait
Alpha Training – pets have opening strike – Now your pets can cause vulnerability too! Another little damage helper.

Major Trait
Spotter – increases precision of nearby allies up to 150 points – This is especially good for you if you are running Dungeons or Fractals. This is literally 15 points into the Skirmishing tree worth of Precision. How sweet is that? And not to mention that everyone in your group gets it! You, your pet, your Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, Thief friends, whoever! If they are near, they get it. There is no other alternative to this trait that is nearly as effective for this build, unless you wish to take a trait from tier 1 ( not recommended, not at all ) then this is the one to have.

Tier 3
Minor Trait
Precise Strike – opening strikes always critical hit – This is great! 100% chance to critically hit your first opponent? Especially when that hit carries over to 2 other mobs as well.

Major Trait
Signet of the Beastmaster – active effects of signets also affect you – This is really the best of the two traits to get, unless you want to effectively get rid of a 6 second invulnerability and the ability to do more damage ( and grow big like a norn, unless you are already norn, then you are a super norn, yikes! ). That is the whole reason behind that one.

Intro:

Rangers. We all play one. We all have to build them somehow. And lots of people like to follow guides! Good ones! So I give you the Critically Powerful build. This build is based off of Critical Hits, and that is it. The damage output is really good, and there also is a little wiggle room with this build, though they all focus on critical hits.

Pros:

good damage
helpful to teammates with Spotter
helpful to teammates with Pets

Cons:

takes some skill to get maximum output
must be aware of pet at all times
must be aware of self at all times
must be aware of fury at all times

Before the walls of text intimidate you all away ( though please do not let that happen! ) here is a link to the build editor which gives the stats for the build the way I generally have it for PvE & Dungeons & Fractals.

http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-F;4wEFu-g2cDk-0;9k8a;1TO49-06A08;24;3SJF64;1udbTudbTm-kKVHLWGO_scOVTWYXcYi3o423WMs3i;5F18ZF18Z;9;9;9;9;0k0;3V9k3R