Guild Wars 2

For PvE Dungeons:

Rangers are great in dungeons and really do contribute a lot to a group. However, I find a huge lack of viable utilities. When I play my guardian, mesmer, even my warrior, I frequently swap utilities based on the situation. In fact I never run the same utilities the entire way through. With my ranger though the options are far fewer. The skills I frequently swap in other classes are things that provide various types of support to my group. Whether its wall of reflect, stand your ground, null field, portals, mantras, banners, for great justice, etc., these all provide critical support to my parties. What does ranger bring? Frost spirit… that is all. The other spirits have almost no place in dungeon mechanics. There are no other skills that support the group in any significant way. Besides Frost Spirit, Quickening Zephyr, and Sic’em, the other utilities are not good.

So, rangers need utilities in dungeons that offer more variety that they can provide in various situations. It does NOT have to be damage based. With the entire nature theme to work from there are many possibilities. Unfortunately, the game has limitations (most of which I honestly don’t fully understand) so I am not quite sure what is really possible to do.

Spirits: Make them immune to AoE damage but still vulnerable to direct attack (make this a trait). Only one really helpful is frost spirit and its useless without traits (make the 70% chance permanent). Others are just not good in dungeons.

Traps: These are not dungeon worthy so I will leave these alone.

Shouts: Only shout worth anything in dungeons Sic’em and its great.

Survival: Quickening Zephyr is awesome! Lightning Reflexes can help some but generally is not needed for the experienced ranger.

Signets: These are just not useful in dungeons. Give a reason to use these. First of all, change what they provide. Then make their use provide the party with their buff (duration increased through traits). For example, signet of the wild would provide the party with slightly more damage and grant stability. Signet of the hunt provides the party with 3 seconds of quickness…

This is just an idea, there are obvious problems and limitations with it but maybe it can get the creative juices flowing. I kept it general on purpose.

p.s. Fix the sword The learning curve is far greater than ANY other weapon in the game. It would be nice to actually be able to attack at max melee range.

The biggest reason this likely won’t get used for PvE is lack of condition removal. I don’t use healing spring for the heal as much as I do for the condition removal.

JonPeters.5630:

Even though we wouldn’t do it now another shot at Greatsword to discuss

A) 1 chain NDA by giving Vigor.
B) Add evade to swoop…

Discuss?

Ideas for the Greatsword:

Evade on Swoop: This would be huge. An “on command” evade that also does damage? Amazing. I really like this idea since you no longer forfeit dps to dodge. You now get to evade + do some decent damage. This even provides other incentives such as going into Wilderness Survival for the Martial Mastery Trait in order to lower the cooldown. Not to mention what it also does for the Sword.

However, as nice as this idea is it still doesn’t solve the feel of the greatsword. The greatsword doesn’t feel…well “great.”

Ideas for 3rd attack on Greatsword:
• Lower the cast time on the third attack from ¾ to ½. This provides a slight increase in DPS and the extra time is no longer as necessary since it isn’t providing evade.
• Keep cast time the same but increase the amount of damage done 3rd attack. Force the player to make a judgment call during combat. Do I wait for the third attack or do I use Maul now? Make waiting for that final attack worth it since the evade would be gone.
• Have the third attack provide a buff. Not super thrilled by this to be honest. Vigor? Not as useful. You already have block + evade on swoop. Not enticing. However, if it provided the party with vigor for 2s or whatever, that would be a STRONG draw to the sword. Yet this interferes with vigor on heal trait.

Personally I think with evade on swoop + a tad more DPS on the auto attack would help this weapon a lot. MAKE Martial Mastery enticing so those cooldowns are lower.

These are just some ideas. I am sure there are issues and problems involved here that I don’t see but I hope this is helpful and maybe spurs even better ideas.

Manekk.6981:

Also what the flem man you have to start talking english dd-re-port331-+gs3/a4 you need a bloody enigma decrypter to read these forums nowadays. :P

Should really call this build the Tough Beast. Yesterday I did some WvW for the first time with this build. I am a noob. I am not very good. I am not even very mediocre!

Anyway, I was exploring by myself and ran into a guardian. I honestly would have died in 2 seconds if I was running my PvE setup. What really stood out for me about the Tough Beast is it let me live long enough to learn and adjust during the fight. I truly think the guardian thought he could one-shot me and he never even came close. It was a long fight which gave me time to catch on to his tactics and adjust so that I actually won!

This is a great build for noobs in WvW. Lets you live long enough to actually learn something.

Here is a list of builds. There are only a few PVE here since Ranger options are severely limited in that area. I also do PVE and the first FOTM build is really your best bet.

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

Only one wish:
I want to see,“Group LF Ranger” without everyone laughing…

Love this build. Its really solid. Sadly though, from what others say, this isn’t viable in dungeons since apparently the ONLY build that works in dungeons is a glass canon. And even then that’s only if you have friends that feel sorry for you and will bring you along.

So, being a noob here, I gather I may as well cash in my dungeon hopes and leave that to war/guard/mes…

Problem is you focus on pet damage with nothing in BM. This pretty much means pet will die in one second rather than 5.