1- I use greatsword and axe+wh (greatsword let’s me dodge,which is critical for 1 hit bosses)
2-Yes.
3-Yes.
4- Spider and jaguar/jungle stalker for might.
5- No, I use soldier with zerk trinkets.
I am a dungeon forums frequenter. And the axe on a ranger is seen as a giant No No. That thing is terrible, and will often get you kicked. Running stuff like that will create the bag stigma people have with Rangers. The Longbow is the obvious kick on sight, but axe rangers are generally viewed as not knowing their class(I’m not being mean here, just letting you know what the perception is).
Same as Guardian. If they join the dungeon holding a staff, mace or scepter then they get the boot. Unless its TA, and the staff is only for clearing blossoms.
Point I’m trying to make, is that Rangers dig themselves their own grave by running terrible builds, then it makes everyone who plays the class suffer. The reason why guardians are often saved from being so strictly banished, is because people are dumb. A bad guardian is a bad guardian. They should be booted just as quick as bad rangers, but the general masses of pugs don’t know how to properly filter out bads from goods, so they just use the “kick all X class”.
Any group worth their salt will keep a ranger who has:
1.) sword
2.) spotter, frost spirit
3.) zerker
So if you run the right build and get kicked. Its their lost. If you run a bad build, then you are to contributing to the negative stigma of your class.
And I know that the axe is a bad weapon, but which other can I use that isn’t 2 handed? other than the sword, because I never run 2 melee/ranged weapons at the same time? and I need the offhand for warhorn, which is a great off hand 4 does pretty good damage and 5 gives a long lasting fury and swiftness.
I see this thread pop up from time to time and my answer/thoughts are always the same: the game has evolved a bit and yes many things have been added, but the core of the game is still the same, and honestly I’d see no reason for you to enjoy it now if you didn’t back then. Sounds like your biggest gripe was lack of Trinity, and we still don’t have that.
There are, however, more group events which require co-operation now. Things will fail if people don’t pay attention, whereas before you could just afk auto-target on every boss.
Thank you for the reply. Are there any incentives to at least build somewhat support-ish? My gripe wasn’t so much the lack of trinity, as it was everything but max dps seeming sub-optimal. It’s good to know there’s more intricate group events though.
Although support builds are liked, if you don’t roll zerker/assasin gear you’ll get frowned upon because max dps is the only meta.
I like your attitude taco, thank you for giving the dungeon forum a friendly breeze. That aside i dont know anything about rangers xD but as people have already said, there is a preferred playstyle for puggroups. Though if you want to run tanky ranger with friends, by all means, do so.
Yeah, I sometimes do that with my guildies, but if I go with strangers I’ll swap for berserkers gear and sword.
Yes, I know the meta is full dps, however i’ve never liked that concept, I’ve always prefered to be that support-tanky guy.
But, everyone has to adapt.
do the personal story whenever you want to, it’s pretty fun and rewarding imo as it gives you gear and I beleive 1/2 of your level?
The weapons you should probably use are axes, warhorns swords and greatswords, longbow is terrible atm in dungeons and pretty much everywhere else.
for pets, if you want good damage take felines (jaguar, stalker etc) or drakes if you’re facing big amounts of enemies at the same time, their blast finisher is pretty good with healing spring aswell, if you need ranged pets use devourers or spiders, devoursers are more tanky and also help kite enemies because they can knock back and retreat, their auto attack also has poison. As for the spiders, they have inmobilisation and poison. Other pets that are useful are the moas, which are a mobile buff station, so that’s great for a party, and the bears, which have terrible, terrible damage but are very tanky (use the brown bear if you need condition cleansing).
randing attacks because I like having my pets do bleeding
10 pt trait, didn’t realise it was empty but I have malicious training on it
SotH?
soldiers
any drake, depending on the situation
force sigils and dolyak runes
Lately I have heard a lot of how bad rangers are in WvW with some very good points to back that statement with (no efficient condition removing, no burst damage, no AoE attacks, pets getting slaughtered with AoE and just overall bad everything.) So I decided to ask the WvW experts that (should hopefully) roam this forum section:
how do you think rangers fare in wvw, roaming or otherwise?
