Guild Wars 2

Even if you run the most straight forward of builds for a ranger, in order to be valued for a dungeon (and this goes for anything, not just ranger) you need to learn to work in groups. The damage output you do must be absolutely consistent, so if you need to swap weapons in combat to better support your party get it done. Use AoE heals and use your pet wisely. A good ranger can turn the tide and in fact most rangers, when played well, are typically the last man standing in a dungeon, thanks to your pet and how the ranger combat system works.

That being said, there are tons of people out there who, despite their best intentions, have realized that most ranger pugs just suck at group coordination. This is not just about how much damage you do, how fast you do it, etc… it’s how you do it and if you do it good (be it condition damage, DPS, or pet DPS) then no party will think twice before inviting you over.

So if you encounter a sad excuse for a ranger, please teach them how it’s done, rid the pug base of lakcluster rangers, it’s not the ranger that’s making it tough for all of us, it’s the player behind the ranger AND them ignorant fools who write ‘no rangers allowed’ in their LFG.

We need to sticky a thread like this!

Adaptability
Rangers have more versatility than any other class, in fact far too much, which is what makes them so complicated to master. Experiment with all the possible builds and how you react with each possible scenario. Try out combat with all weapon sets and learn how to use your strongest weapon (your pet) in more than one way. This will hone out your ranger-ability and in no time you will find that being so adaptable is what will make your ranger shine the most. Remember: don’t spread yourself too thin!

Dungeons
Your allies need your support and crowd control skills, not just your arrows. Make yourself a bit tougher by investing in the Wilderness Survival tree. Using healing spring combo efficiently (short sword 2 Monarch’s Leap, Great sword swoop) and have a nice fern hound with you for extra healing. QZ for reviving allies is a true lifesaver in times when things are very rough for your party. Make sure that the skills you use are further enhanced by your traits. If you choose to be a Beast Master then combine with condition damage or support build, keep your pet alive and always keep an eye on it so that it can properly support in fights (good timing of using ‘guard’ and ‘search and rescue’ is invaluable). Glass cannon should always combine it’s killing power with traps and smart ways to control+burst the enemies. Tank build should combine with Support or Beast Master build to keep those lovely AoE heals from yourself and your pet.

Your pet is your most versatile weapon
Use it to help an ally guard an area while you scout for enemies in PvE, PvP or even WvW. Another bad guy coming your way? Learn the amazing value of pet kyting in both boss fights and PvP fights. Just like a warrior can time their shouts to sound something like ‘on my mark, fear me for great justice!’ you can also learn how your pet mechanic works and use them for optimal destructive and protective means.

Combine techniques
Being a jack of all trades means you have too many options and ways to combine them. Lately I have found (personal opinion) that the most successful offensive combo comes from a Beast Master + condition damage build that I’ve been running lately. I send in a jaguar in stealth mode to a selected enemy and approach them to get within range of short bow and start firing (works 4/5 times for me in pvp, pve, wvw). When the Jaguar is in striking position I use QZ + skill 5 for a quick stun, immediately after the stun wears off I use skill 2 for poison + Sick ‘Em and a rooting skill (Muddy Terrain or Entangle) then follow through with skill 5 of torch and a quick burst from sword 1 while the QZ has a few seconds left to go. That combo easily takes down an enemy faster than you can realize it. If the enemy survives just keep on coming at them and use a combination of dodges if the fight gets out of hand in order to give yourself enough time to reset the burst. There are plenty of dodge combinations you can use to have an enemy waste their own burst, but that is entirely up to your own ability. Do keep in mind that as a beast master, your pet will do lots of damage so proper pet kyting is important. All that was long but it’s just one example of the many things that rangers have at their disposal.

Keep contributing people! I am actually interested in reading about ways of enhancing your Power and Condition damage while keeping toughness high. Any suggestions?

I play like this nowadays:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMUQNAV8fjAVV29VGWo2Bi1DBRoB1ewJzf+Xh0fyKi2K-jgCBofBGJURj8II0HRjABOPqIasVTFRjVJjIqWdDzeuIa1CBIdNA-e

I find it more solid than BM bunker, using pet as a support rather than the main source of damage, since the pet damage can be mitigated by experienced players and most blind/stealth thiefs. Access to signets helps with ‘uh oh’ moments and buys time, decent healing power, decent power to dish out when fighting enemies with strong condi-removal, and strong condi damage + access to lots of conditions.

Bob.8456:

I main the class and I have to admit that I have booted other Rangers on several occasions. If I see a brown bear, a longbow and 3 signets loaded (esp if they also have low achieve points) you get the boot. Sorry.

If you are running bears that tends to place you in the camp of: ‘omg, pets suck! they need more HP or should be immune to AOE.’ This means that you aren’t effectively micromanaging your pet, this leads to all sorts of problems such as aggroing mobs that shouldn’t be aggroed, attacking enemies/bosses when you don’t want to for various reasons, and generally just having a dead pet a majority of the time…such a waste. There are so many boss fights where all Rangers should have their pets attacking something other than what you and the rest of the group are focusing on…sic them on totems, turrets, etc while the rest of the group focuses fire on the boss…duh! When I am gauging the skill of a fellow Ranger in my group, this is the main thing I am looking for…mastery over your pet.

Longbow has it’s place, but that tends to be the worst weapon a Ranger can bring in a dungeon. Period. See the above posts for clarification but it boils down to not sharing buffs. Also, LB is the worst weapon a Ranger has if you want to keep an eye on your pet and, you know, keep them alive and doing consistent damage.

Signets. Ewww. There are so many awesome utility skills that you should be running to both keep yourself/pet and others alive, if I see full signets loaded I will seriously think twice about partying with you. This loadout (paired with 30 marksman) is the hallmark of a kitten poor Ranger player attempting to maximize their DPS.

Not that all Rangers who run bears, or LB, or even signets are bad…but if I see them all together I will not hesitate to boot you.

If you are trying to achieve something today by doing a difficult dungeon run, running all the dungeons in the game, etc… then yes please boot anyone who you consider not worthy of your group of players. Otherwise, please refrain from booting anyone who is considered ‘noob’ under your eyes. All that you said describes the exact reason why this post exists and why there are still rangers who don’t know any better. If you consider yourself so knowledgeable then apply yourself to teach other rangers how to get it right. I would gladly kick people that they don’t know how to do run their ranger if they would rather quit the group, than to try and learn from a ranger who knows how to do it right. However, when it comes to people who boot rangers on sight for their lack of experience, I would gladly vote to ban them from using the LFG system. Why? Because all the above quoted is the reason why there are still rangers who suck at playing right.

Does that sound a bit too much? let’s be more clear then. A novice ranger knows next to nothing on how to do things right in a dungeon. Think back to when you started, who helped you do things right? It was mr. trial and error that’s who, it was mr. I get killed so easily, but hey the game is still young and people are forgiving; or hey my friends play with me or my guild, they will be cool with it. Play and adjust, time and time again, every new dungeon a new ranger challenge. ANet dumping on the ranger over the months, the pet AI crapping your playstyle in the dungeon, what else is there to say? Then one good leisure day looking to party for a dungeon, a novice ranger with a longbow, a bear pet and tons of signets joins your party, and you have the bloody guts to boot them on sight? Please… refrain from using the LFG system mate.

I don’t get that mechanic honestly. It lets people re-join the winning team once the match is balanced which is total bs if you ask me. They should lock the players who quit from re-joining the match so they’re not team switching so oftenly, and pull new players into the team who has the least number of players automatically. On top of that, it does nothing to balance the score for the losing team, or to reward players who were auto-swapped into the losing team, who have contributed to their original team’s victory.

All they need to do is make it easier for the player to interrupt the animation, without disturbing the functionality… right now if you are rooted, you are rooted and have to force yourself out of it rather than walk out of it.

Thiefs, hate them so much I made my wvw experience all about killing them, what world score?

What to do against thieves overall? Do what I did:

Go into PvP 1 vs 1 arena with a thief friend, regardless of their skill level. Work your way to killing them, modify your build and gear as you deem it necessary. Use websites to build your character outside the game, so you don’t spend anytime in game looking for gear when you don’t know better. Put your ‘i think this works’ build in these forums so we can comment on your ideas. As you get better, challenge other thieves in the 1 vs 1 arena, until you feel strong enough, but do come back periodically to retest your skills and builds.

In my experience, I find that condition/toughness centered builds work best. There are certainly many variations in approach and I can share mine if you want, but it all will depend on your skill, your build can only take you so far as there are really skilled/experienced thief players out there.

Pro tip:
1. It’s essential for you to learn a thief’s approach, make a thief and practice with them in PvP, learn the flow of battle, or level them to 80 just for the single purpose of having fun.
2. Learn your ranger, we have a lot of (quite spreaded) survival options and damage options. When you have mastered your ranger, your weapon, utility and pet skills should flow as smoothly as an elementalist’s going through their elemental atonement rotation. The difference is that we can be more versatile since we have plenty of options, it’s just a matter of using them best the way that suits the situation AKA trashing the floor with that —- thief.
3. Learn to use your pet…. period.
4. Be open to losing, getting killed over and over by a thief until there is a permanent hole on your ranger’s back from all those backstabs, that’s how you will learn from your mistakes.

All those complaining about the pet boost need to realize that the biggest issue with pets is not related to PvE or PvP, but in fact to dungeons where they become absolutely useless in far too many cases, unless you do not send them into combat. This buff to pets unavoidably spreads everywhere.

I did happen to catch a developer talk about them looking into the idea of giving everyone a customized Hero pannel, in which you would be able to toggle between PvP/PvE/WvW/Dungeon tabs. This is to avoid having to pay for changing your build everytime you go into those environments, especially if you have not balanced your class out yet. This would be very useful because, if done propperly, it could help isolate balance issues that players find rather than have them spread everywhere because of a single nerf or buff to a profession.

I don’t think there is a current level-by-level guide out there since ranger leveling is quite forgiving, easy and fun to play. Given that your armor stats will be more defined once you get to level 80, I suggest you stick to anything you like. For starters you cannot go wrong with a power build, focusing on longbow play with a melee weapon as support. Then as your secondary trait line it’s really up to you and your play style, you can choose spirits, traps, pet, etc. For the melee only approach do trait into Wilderness Survival as you will need the toughness and pair it with 1 on any backup build you like (pet, spirits, traps, raw power). This is the time for you to move around and learn all there is to know about rangers.

Now all non level 80 builds should start looking like this: x/x/1/x/x due to the great benefit that having faster endurance regen brings to any ranger situation. From there on its your choice.

Starting somewhere between level 30ish and 40ish trapper play will become very doable and it’s a very useful play style, by all means use it as soon as you can trait for it. Once you reach past level 60, builds will become more viable since you will be able to trait into at least 1 grand master trait line. From here on out, spirit play will become viable, beast mastery play will become possible and pure melee combat will become very possible (bark skin for the win!).

Rangers are quite versatile in their options so mastery of your preferred play style will not truly begin until after level 80, when the challenges of WvW, PvP and dungeons become a big threat to the safety net that PvE provides for rangers. Do avoid at all costs spending big money on gear until you have defined at least one or two solid approaches in ranger builds that you like, be patient and enjoy the ride!

Belzebu.3912:

Now lets see how many of them will keep playing rangers after level 80.

That bell curve effect…

Stuligan.6180:

why do people play this profession if it has so many bugs?

The same reason why you would play your favorite profession(s), because you are akin to it. The bugs only hinder the profession’s potential; but in time, if we continue to post bugs and constructive criticism, then the end result (we hope) will be a more robust ranger which will be more fun to play.

Bug: as of today I am still having issues with downed skill 3 within dungeons. I cannot say with certainty what could have caused it as it does not happen all the time. Last time it happened I was in AC dungeon third path, died due to the spiked traps after killing the giant spider, called my wolf to help and it just stood there. Not sure if spiked traps killed the wolf, but if that happened he should have resurrected, either ways it failed.

Snack.9315:

I agree with bri. I invested so much time and money on my ranger, and… nothing. Everything feels so lackluster. Just reroll another class; it’s hopeless cause.

I will tell you and the peeps above you right away that this is not true. Just because other professions offer different things that ranger does not, it does not mean that ranger does not provide any help that cannot be replaced. Just because you feel that you cannot accomplish with your ranger what you can with other profession, does not justify you telling other people otherwise. It only speaks to the great lack of your ability to emphasize and capitalize on your ranger skills. If you quit your ranger because of that you and anyone here should not be giving any advice at all regarding the ranger profession, all that a new ranger needs is feedback regarding what they can accomplish. If you wish to tell them that they can’t accomplish something as a ranger begin telling them why you cannot do so, be bloody responsible. I can tell you this as a ranger who has accomplished to bring out best of the ranger abilities, to properly help my team, to be able to provide reliable support, and so on. I am also fond of expressing all new rangers about the ranger’s limitations, rangers are super complex to get them to work perfectly. You must learn to work around the imperfections if you wish to achieve a higher standard of ranger play.

Now for the advice:

WvW – either zerg support or 5 man team/roamer, you need to choose your role. For a back liner zerg support use a Berserker-ish build. 30/30/5/0/5 should give you a head start, but read more about it here: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/A-Ranger-Guide-Power-Build

For a roamer/5-man team, use any variant of beast master you prefer the most. Something that would help you survive those intense encounters while giving your party what you need to support them.
Read here for a ‘sentinel build’: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Sentinel-Frontliner-Next-Level-WvW-Ranger/first#post2705270
Read here for a beast master build: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Help-with-my-ranger/first#post2633468

PvE – honestly you can do whatever you want here, the most basic of builds can get you far here, this is the place where you should experiment with your build the most. I enjoy condition beast master in pve: 20/0/25/0/25, its my style.

Dungeons – good question, you certainly need to know if you are doing dungeons with your guild constantly and you know who you are working with, or you are joining random groups. I like to use condition beast master here because it means i wont die and i will provide a ton of condition damage support. Depending on the dungeon I like to go pet-strong (20/5/20/25), which requires you to micro manage your pet very well, or support-strong, which can be done via spirits OR a nature magic enhanced build around healing springs. You can also go very berserker, 30/30/0/10/0, but that’s very squishy mind you.

The above represents a very small piece of the puzzle, ranger can easily be the most complex profession out there due to its imperfections; but once you get the hang of it ranger can be extremely useful. I recommend you to try it all out one day at a time and figure out what works best for you. Good luck!

Casey.9687:

Coarr.3286:

Casey.9687:

This build is the new meta?!? rofl! come fight me on my trap ranger and ill show you how terrible greatsword still is =D Please stop using longbows and greatswords….they are useless weapons and you silly rangers thinking they can actually help you are just lieing to yourselves. Anet looks at you silly ones and sees that your still running them and thinks oh they must be ok but their not….stop lieing to yourselves guys.

lol you still play trapper? i use my sword/horn + axe/torch wvw roaming build and did beat down a trapper + spirit ranger pretty easy in spvp ( my first 3 matches ever yestarday. havent died a single time )

You clearly haven’t fought me yet =D

4,293 hours on ranger 4,326 across all characters. All I ever run is trapper all other builds like this one are just crippling ranger they all still suck. Longbow is still horrible dps. Greatsword can’t hit the broadside of a barn. Spirit Ranger is alright but its the most lazy build I have ever witnessed next to signet warriors….Tired of rangers getting on here and lieing and trying to make the greatsword and longbow into somthing their not….they need fixed, bad. Stop trying to make them work on a build its just down right disappointing

I like that we keep this discussion moving but why the heck get off topic? Rangers need to help rangers, if you want to fight over stuff find yourselves in PvP and work it out, but please come back here and tell us why you won… and none of that ‘uh I am uber good uh look at my skills uh’ crap; give us the build and strategy, why it works for you and why we should care.

I really like GS/SB myself, but I never tried 10/30/30 or 5/30/30/0/5 as in ever, but this is a purely condition damage / stun – root lock approach, does it only work in 1 vs 1 situations? What about team play?

I can see this working nicely. Take 1000 rangers into WvW and as the enemy zerg comes in have them do the bird emote, 1000 birds come flying to the ranger’s shoulders and BAM lag spikes all over the place, blue screen errors, only 10% of the enemy forces did not disconnect, flipping outmaned in 2 seconds. WHAT NOW

Ryan.9387:

People have a point when they compare Rangers to other classes. I have both a berserker Ranger and warrior and while my Warrior’s Axe auto attack regularly hits for 4-5k. I can’t seem to get even a basic Ranger sword attack above 2.5k.

Thats because you are comparing a warrior to a ranger, who is inherently stronger in order to counter balance the range and mobility and pet of the ranger. When comparing you need to be unbiased by the fact that one class does not compare to another 1 to 1. You need to take into account what many confuse as ‘the loss of DPS’ to what is given to the pet. The point that the pet takes away from the ranger is a point of discussion, when comparing rangers and warriors, not when comparing the ranger alone with a warrior. On top of that, many rangers are known not to be able to use their pet properly, even though there has been improvement in the ranger community over the past year, it is mostly true for those who do not put the time into mastering the complexity that the ranger truly can be. Note how rangers have taken such a long time coming up with new builds and new tactics to counterbalance with the other professions. Nowadays there are a solid but very few builds that work in combat successfully, but in no way do they compare with the other professions. By compare I don’t mean that they are better or equal or less, I mean in numbers or strategy, which for a ranger that will always involve a pet. Taking that into account, a warrior does not have a pet and does have the seemingly ‘added DPS’, well mate if you have been paying attention you should understand why. I would play a warrior if I didn’t want to deal with a pet, or any other profession, but I like the pet game play and I stick with it, knowing the strengths and limitations is important. That is why in an honest 1 vs 1 battle against a warrior I have honestly very very few times, because I know how to compare a warrior and a ranger, I know their advantages and limitations and as a good -jack of all trades- profession, I know how to use my jacks and not be biased to compare to completely different professions and combat approaches.

I get it: they want longbows to be more of a thing for rangers than they already are. However I don’t see how faster projectiles are supposed to be a trait choice that is important enough, to overcome all the other longbow shortcomings that rangers have to eat everyday. I just hope that the other 4 traits are more significant, or that they add higher critical damage/chance on this read the wind thing.

Victory.2879:

Good build for ranger: any other class, they all do things better than you can and are more use in wvw. That’s coming from someone who has played them all, and still comes back to ranger (yes, I’m a sick man).

All the posted builds are trying to work around the fact that so many things are broken about the class and ANet have no real ideas on how to go about fixing it without making rangers OP in PVE dungeons.

I don’t get why people don’t focus on the topic being discussed rather than complaining, we all complain and hey even I have plenty of negative things to point out, but that’s not what this thread is about. There are plenty of other people complaining elsewhere so like the dude asked please keep the conversation clean.

What I currently use is a variant of the Phantom Catmaster which focuses on supporting damage for the pet via higher condition damage / better critical chance/ power/ toughness. So I have toughness gear and runes that allow me to spike up condition damage, just in case my pet dies I can fight competitively for as long as possible. I keep a torch on my off hand for constant burning damage. Also note that while cat damage is pretty amazing, you can swap the routine with canines, its especially helpful against enemies who don’t have much protection against stuns.

shadowpass.4236:

Here’s one of the builds I use:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAT8YjUq0ya/Kesw1agDhq5K8BMDgFw9Q0CV9FXlWF-T1SDABdquSPKnmRlCT2f4gLAgQKZCwkRCPBQJoL6GG4gAAg5MxAwE-w

- 90% less cripple duration
– pretty good condi clear
– 50% critical chance with fury
– 202% critical damage
– 2k base power (2.25k with stacks)
– 2.8k armor
– 19k health
– very high swiftness uptime out of combat, near to permanent swiftness in combat

You can swap the Longbow out for a Greatsword if you want. I prefer Longbow for damage however. Greatsword’s Maul is hard to land and many of the attack skills are very telegraphed. Also, for escaping, the stealth from Longbow works wonders.

This is a good trade off from going full into marksmanship, but I would go for runes of strength + jungle stalker’s might, pretty good option since you’re constantly thinking about properly positioning yourself in battle and that’s what your pet will do for you.

KeyOrion.9506:

Been playing ranger since first year Guild Wars 1. People who choose ranger, chose it for the play style. They wanted to hit the enemy at longer ranges. They felt that there was more safety, if you could hit the enemy at range, the better chance of survival you had. Even in Guild Wars 1, I had a build that I named “Last Man Standing”. Even that term was coined earlier in this thread. We did damage at range, and that is our style of play we preferred. But unfortunately Ranger was always considered a second class profession. Support. Sidekick. This was never more common, than in Hall of Heroes, Urgoz Warren, and The Deep. Ranger mains were always told to “reroll”. Do you have any other profession? We need 2 tanks, 1 nuker, 2 Healers, 1 Prot…so on and so on…usually the last person was just an added benefit. Rangers were considered nothing more than an afterthought after the CORE group was chosen and put together. And the CORE group, was never a ranger.

Support. We were there to support the base core group. Nothing more, nothing less. At times, yah it hurt. It sucked. After nearly six years, was lucky enough to find a group for Underworld. Was I bad player? How would they know if I never worked with them? No, I was a fully dedicated player. The groups, wanted 55 Necro’s, 600 tanks, nukers, bonders, healers, Minion masters….but never barely a single ranger. Second class citizens. 55/600 builds never worked to well with rangers, because the skills were not quite compatible for the builds. Our ability to cover large AoE areas were limited, unless we pulled the skills from a secondary skill set. Hall of Heroes was the worst. You had to be a certain rank, to join the group, and even then you had to have certain professions. Rangers were excluded just for being a ranger.

Now, come Guild Wars 2…Rangers are still classified as nothing more than support, sidekick…once again, we’re being classified as a second class profession. Mostly from those players who played the original Guild Wars. And this rankles a lot of long term original main rangers. Rangers don’t like to think of themselves as second class to ANYONE. We’re a profession all to ourselves. We have unique skills, with the proper combinations, runes, sigils, can do extraordinary things.

Barrage with Sigil of Hobbling, and you can slow the enemy down.

Rune of the Centaur, gives Sharpening Stone additional bleed time, add that with Sigil of Agony….

Hunter’s Shot quickly followed by Quickening Zephyr, then Rapid Fire could easily give up to, if all shots hit, and has been reported, up to 18k in damage can be achieved. But you have to be properly Traited, runed, and be seriously focused on the target.

When people look at DPS, or damage from the Longbow, that’s all people will focus on itself. The weapon. What traits you do, what rune’s you have on your armor, what sigil is on your weapon, and which Support Skills you have in your bar, will wildly change the damage you can do. But most people will not sit down and look at what will support the Longbow/Short Bow skills for a ranger.

You’re so spot on the ranger problem. The mentality on which players view the ranger has been, for over a year, completely underrated thanks to all the factors revolving group play. I don’t need to repeat anything that you said since you stated it so clearly, but I will add this:

I consider myself a very capable ranger as I, through significant combat and group experience, trial and error, have truly hit the epitome of an ideal ranger. The last man standing is a true testament to what a ranger is really capable of. With the ranger mechanics in which we display 100% counter-mechanics to fight battles, we can provide solid support for a group where no other class can. If anyone reading this thread has not yet met a ranger who is the last man standing and can stand his ground against a boss and possibly even kill him, then you have not yet seen the true potential of a strong ranger.

hedjaz.7362:

I have a level 25 human ranger. I have not invested any skill points yet as I am not certain of what build i should follow.

The only certain aspect of it all , is that I wanna use a longbow and a great sword.

I have found many build videos on youtube , however I am not sure they are still valid right now. Many if not most of all are older than 5 months so if anyone could direct me somewhere I would be very grateful.

Short story :
I wanna build a glass cannon ranger that is equipped with LB/GS and I am looking for updated guides.

I recommend that you take it easy until you reach level 80 and save up on gold in the meantime. Once you get to level 80 is when you should begin to worry about what builds would suit you best, that is because of the high versatility that each ranger build brings. For example, when I first started I wanted a glassy long bow build myself, but I ended up hating now glassy it felt, and ended up liking the 1 vs 1 aspect of playing a ranger more and more using condition builds.

In terms of a good glassy build, you cannot go wrong using this set up:

Armor: Berserker
Runes: Runes of the Ranger
Sigils: of Fire / of Strength (On GS)
Utilities: As seen in the video
Traits: 6 / 5 / 0 / 3 / 0
IV, VII, XI / I, V / – / V / -
Video proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BYUXyO8yyw

It’s as Fluffball said, they still haven’t entirely risen community wise from last place, however rangers have struggled for a while and we have come together. It certainly takes quite a bit of skill to hold your ground as a ranger, but now many different and efficient builds have emerged for those skilled enough to play them. Take a look around the forums, also if you’re really interested in your ranger then join the multi-server [Winds] guild (look in the forums) for constant ranger fun + feedback.

Not sure if trolling or not, submit your pictures of utter defeat to the bear bows please.

JaNordy.6149:

Condi trap bunker owns thieves, well it owns pretty much everything due to how condi stats work right now. One of my favorites is full glass cannon LB, let thief get you to less than 5k health, pop signet of stone, unload on him as he spams HS, if he is about to stealth barrage. It produces much rage from thieves cause they think they had a sure win, often times you will get party invites after that.

I like to run ahead of a large group of allies or a zerg (ahead enough that the enemy doesn’t see them coming right away) straight into a bunch of thieves, the minute they see the solo ranger they all run like wild animals after me, using their utilities to close the gap and initiative. Pop that signet of stone, force them to start ganging up on me as they chase me around the corner of that wall over there….. and BAM 40+ allies pop out of nowhere… dead thieves everywhere. Party invite achievement unlocked.

Evan Lesh.3295:

We absolutely want to make build templates.

I would also love to see in the hero panel ‘H’ under Equipment a tab either above the gear choices or above the character avatar itself that allows us to immediately switch into another pre-defined gear choice. A player would be able to call this ‘PvE gear’, ‘Arah dungeon gear’, ‘WvW guild’… etc. Even better these tabs could even contain the pre-defined configuration for a build, or it would allow a gear template to go with a build template.

The objective is simply to say ‘I have this template build for WvW roaming, and I have this template gear for it too’ instead of having to click into refunding traits for the build and swapping gears as well. The option of doing this out of combat already exists so one more step please <3

The whole point of running a bunker/skirmisher build is to go out there and pretend you have a big bullzeye on your back, pretend it’s day 1 with your ranger and you don’t know why you happen to be running towards a bunch of enemies, pretend that you should be running away instead and destroy every single misconception anyone has about rangers by dancing into all of your victims as you destroy them in battle, especially thieves.

As far as I can tell going the BM route means you are giving your pet a lot of your damage, so that you can survive longer. How is taking away their damage going to help us rangers at all? There is already a lot of hard work put into surviving as a BM ranger. Timing your dodges, using AoE fields, tricking the player into thinking we are the real menace while our pet does the dirty work. Did I mention the gear and weapons and the time and gold spent in getting geared up for it? If this nerf has to happen then I’d like to know what it is that they want the ranger to do, if they tell us exactly what that is then maybe we can stop breaking our heads over what build to come up with next that won’t get eaten alive everywhere we go.

Hello fellow rangers,

For those of you who have much to complain about the ranger profession, please notice that a new forum section has been opened up to filter and discuss this topic.

Refer to: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance

I suggest you focus on posting constructively over there. The better you explain your concerns regarding balance, the more likely that rangers will get dev attention (cross your fingers and your pet’s fingers too).

So don’t begin by writing none sense, like for example: removing pets, making longbow 4000 range, giving phantasms to your pets, making glass cannon builds super tanky and survivable in WvW, etc… On top of all the none sense that can be said, leave all ranger hate outside that forum, that’s what this forum is all about already.

WvW is truly where ranger issues begin to shine, start by looking between – do I suck as a ranger or is this a balance issue – type of questions, cheers.

The way I see it is that many rangers don’t know how to control their pets; more importantly they don’t want to or don’t know how to work with them. If you put the time to run dungeons, fractals and do events everywhere, then you should not be considering your pet a hindrance, rather use it for what its meant for.

As a ranger I cannot deny that there will be places where it’s best to dismiss the pet (large WvW scale events for example), but for the most part you can use your pet as an asset rather than a hindrance.

1. Never turn your back to the enemy.
2. Know your enemy and you will know how to counter their approach.
3. Stay calm, very calm and use your skills in an efficient manner, a calm mind can easily turn the fight into your favor.
4. Go to pvp on 1 vs 1 non rated SOLO arenas, practice practice practice a lot and come up with better builds.
5. Learn to defeat all professions in 1 vs 1 fights, from the easy to the difficult opponents.
6. Learn to fight as part of a team.
7. Never make a build that has anything less than 2500 in total armor, unless you plan on being a sniper and even so you can still achieve nearly 3000 in total armor.
8. Know how to use your pet perfectly.
9. When you are in a do or die moment, remember to breathe.
10. Your first measure of progress will be simple: you’re capable of defeating most thieves in combat, in wvw and pvp, at least 2/3 fights should be your victory and that is the first step.

Good luck!

Hello there mate, one thing you need to be aware is that both the builds that you describe have a high skill cap, so practice will make master. PvP will be your friend in this aspect, it surely will be something you can translate into WvW.

PvP build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjEq0xaLLmsQ1aABhaVA0uGS2u2d+eDfdBbqA-TphAwAeOCAL3fgcZAAHEgOXAgNPAAA

In PvP, a bunker condition ranger has many different applications. I personally run this build, but feel free to listen to other comments and modify it as you like. So far its quite successful for me, but don’t forget about that high skill cap. For this build, consider your Wilderness Survival grand master trait to be a personal choice between Poison Master and Bark Skin. I like Bark Skin more, however it doesn’t hurt to try Poison Master. I am sure you can see the benefit of surviving longer vs dealing more damage, they are quite interchangeable and you can play around with either depending on your enemies.

In WvW it’s just as you said, Power damage will conquer in large zerg play. However the only thing is that wielding longbow does make you quite vulnerable in certain situations, especially the melee combat kind. Be aware that the following build, while quite efficient, is certainly not optimal as a pure and optimal build for rangers in WvW does not exist. You will have to be the judge of what works best for you and how to apply yourself. The positive? It’s strong and it serves a purpose. Also you can take the above pvp build into WvW with the right gear, trinkets and food:

WvW ultimate skirmisher (roaming version):
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAT8YnEqQLLWLIWsAXLIAQoWFAtrh9NGYmvZgrookPVB-T1DFABFcEAY4ACcoaHI8AEWSZmSKNaT3wkqgAwFAoQVB2Z/hEOABLcwAUTDjgKBJDg5EA-w

WvW ultimate skirmisher (long range version): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnEqQLLWLIWsAXLGoPoWfAJQA0eHC4bg1/exTVNB-T1DEABJcIAg4ACsoaHM8EEeSJWc6CuUFkEVF4n9HkS5BAXAgGOABPcgAcTDjhKBJDg5EA-w

WvW bunker sniper: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLmsw1agAha9AEAbdrbw9TsvhdJfqC-TFDEABaq+DEHQAGOCCPp8bp9HWRXgEXAAAeAAPcoAa4AEYoSQ30wQIAWLAA-w

WvW power signet bunker: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0ya/KOsw1aA/AZdjALa3LWNXVL4TF-TlCHwAEOgAAOACy1BMU53v9HEp+zgDEQgDQgelgi1wQIAWLAA-w

WvW roaming shouts: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fnEqQvgWLIWsAVLGAToanAdaA86Gc3sLwEXynqA-T1hLwAb1IkT53n9HUoLAgGmMq/EWJIhAQuGA-w

WvW roaming signet conditions: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fjEq0ya/KOsQ1aABhadAUADQ7aIZbhXfRJfqC-T1iAABecEASUHAAHEAc0Ms0+Dsoh5I1fkUJoYK/24BA0xFAgMAMjB-w

There are plenty more builds to come up with, but the ones above should provide a decent starting point on ‘what I think I like’. Remember that ranger is the hardest profession to master, so be open minded, have fun and keep your skills sharp by going to PvP.

I want a honey badger, so I don’t give a kitten anywhere, against anything, all the time :P

Joking aside, I would like to see an electric eel for underwater, a red tailed/arctic fox and finally a condor for the air.

- Used signets in a big WvW fight without traiting them, thinking they would save your life.
- Get super fired up every time a thief is killed by your hand and your hand alone.
- Scratch your head and get super confused whenever you need to figure out a new build.
- Wonder why pet controls aren’t more intuitive.
- Throw your hands up in the air when you die due to sword 1 auto attack.
- Feel a sense of adventure because you have a pet running next to you.
- Enjoy that moment when you are down but your spirit of nature revives you on the spot, revenge is sweet.
- Fail to understand why everyone dislikes rangers, even after you have worked out a serious build and managed to be the #1 most competitive player in your guild.
- Have had a whole bunch of thieves hunt you and you alone down in the middle of a zerg fight in WvW.

They would easily rethink ranger to have a more substantial role in WvW. When I think of ranger in WvW I think of thief and how thief can be used in group play. They have that venom share build which is quite awesome for group play, but when they’re not doing that they can feel free to do their thief job and target enemies on the outskirts of battle, without running a huge risk due to their stealth mechanics.

Now rangers should be able to cope in a similar way. In group play they could be provided with builds that both allow them to excel in group play while providing ranged support; while at the same time allowing them to jump into the current and strong roaming builds we already possess. So why do we need to get shafted? It seriously can’t be that hard for the devs to take a look at the rangers and say DEAL and come out with a more efficient way to be a ranger.

I can imagine being a very DPS~spirit ranger, using a skill or trait like ‘nature manipulation’ that granted me and 5 allies boons based on the spirit that I decided to absorb into myself, something related to burning damage or shocking damage etc… or perhaps a ranger who focused on defense via wilderness survival and granted allies certain defensive abilities or boosts when signets were used. Anything is possible, traps + the above spirit skill = enhanced trapping skills. Beast mastery specialization in which your pet can contribute to you in different ways if passive and active respectively, and that synergizes well with at least one major aspect of ranger play (signets already do, how about CC via skirmishing?)

Why can’t we get stuff like that, which is purposeful and not counter intuitive? I have no freaking clue.

Rangers are not a bad class, there are tons of ranger hate out there that you will hear, but this spawned by all the new rangers that people constantly create.

A new ranger will most always choose a super DPS build, based on their PvE experience which is always positive for most if not all rangers. Then comes the end game content, level 80 experiences in dungeons, pvp and wvw will quickly slap a ranger in the face: you are too squishy! While most people want to pew pew pew super criticals arrow shower everywhere from far away, they never adapt. Rangers are most definitely more than a pew pew profession. You need to realize this quick, learn to fight as a melee player as well, learn all about how to kill just by traiting to use condition damage, learn how to kill by traiting only to survive and let your pet do the big damage.

All in all, ranger is and has been by far the most difficult profession to master. This is why there are not many good rangers out there. If you don’t like the play style you will move onto another profession. Some people will hate the ranger on their way out of the ranger, which is a mistake. If you like the play style and work your way to perfecting it, you will be very loved everywhere you go. It is true, even in the highly competitive world of wvw, guilds don’t like rangers because there aren’t many good enough to provide what guilds need out there.

But don’t let that discourage you, here in the forums you will find the help you need if you ask, there are strong rangers who will help you in need. At the beginning of it all we all helped each other become strong rangers; nowadays all this information is available to you.

When using search and rescue, the pet will not resurrect downed players who are in range as long as the pet is on passive mode. This is counter intuitive, especially because you have a long cool down from the skill and the pet did absolutely nothing, which is a waste of utility. Furthermore, even if a pet successfully responds to the command, why the long cool down if a player resurrects prior to the pet getting to the downed player? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to have the long cool down if the pet lands at the very least 1 health from a resurrection attempt?

Double the speed on arrow released is definitely underrated, they should at least increase the critical chance and/or critical damage by about 15% and it would make sense because if you can read the wind, not only will your attacks be faster, but they will be much more accurate and deadlier.

While we are at it, might as well make a post on the balance forums about this and flood the kitten out of it so that it doesn’t take them 1 year to make an update to the new trait.

CRrabbit.1284:

If you wanna some fun in WvW, go zerk LB/GS, that’s the best use of ranger in WvW now.
If you are running with pug zerg, go with EE+PA, you need not RTW.
If you are running with organized group, consider yourself as a thief, go with EE+RTW, focus on 1 target, you are helping a lot since you are a real killer since in a tight fight, every single 1 counts.

Condition/Regen ranger shines in 1v1, but that’s it, roaming =/= 1v1, in most cases you are facing 1vx, you will still have a hard time.

Completely agreed, WvW is a lot of different things and it changes from server to server, it depends on what you want to achieve. Fun in a solid zerg, build bursty. Fun in a zerg that keeps on dying then build bursty but tanky, fun roaming? Try not to roam alone unless you feel you can take on anyone 1vX, organized groups is exactly what it is, help out by getting kills especially of those whom are most vulnerable to you: the back line. The best way to contribute in organized groups as a ranger is by getting kills and applying a lot of immobilize to the main blob… not to mention not being too squishy… a very squishy ranger is almost as good as a dead one since organized groups are too dynamic and big damage will hit you from time to time.

Do you feel that you completely understand what is happening on the other side of battle, what your seemingly immortal opponent is doing to stay alive? I suggest that you begin by understanding precisely this, so that you can properly modify your approach and build to better suit the challenges in battle. Sometimes it also happens that you are doing everything you can but they do not die, whereas in reality you are doing it all in the wrong order. The simplest example I can think of is not using poison after/before your enemy uses a heal or pops a regeneration boon on themselves. Another example is not properly timing a stun before or as the enemy heals. In the case when fighting elementalists, using all your condition damage during or immediately before they use the condition clearing heal skill can also be a good example, when you should save some if not most for after their heal.

That’s easy, you want a condition build focused around shouts, for team play you can also use spirits.

This is a very strong setup already but feel free to play with it however you like: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8fnEqQvgWLIWsAVLGAToanAdaA86Gc3sLwEXynqA-T1hLwAb1IkT53n9HUoLAgGmMq/EWJIhAQuGA-w

If you’re truly looking for a regen/conditions build for WvW you need to understand how it works. Condition damage won’t do you too well in zerg fights due to the aggregate condition clear + stability in zerg fights, especially if you’re constantly facing organized enemies. The bottom line is power damage will be more useful to you and your allies as a ranger in zerg fights. However, once you find yourself alone… that’s when regen/condi ranger shines.

The actual regen/condi ranger looks like this except (I kept your gear choice since it’s not far off, full apothecary otherwise): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV3fnEqQvgWLIWsAVLGAToanAdaA86GcfBLwED-TViAABecEAAU3gP7PAwBBoRlgcq+TZK/24BA0xFAgQATWDA-w

Axe/torch will not work too well for you given than you have no evades on that weapon, but torch is great overall as a condition-damage weapon.

If you want something power based for WvW then try Pelopidas’s build which is a good option based on healing/shouts. If you want something more related to WvW power + survival here is my personal choice (please note how you get fury from using your skills which is quite beneficial): http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRjEq0xaLLmsw1ag9gadA0Andrhw9WcEtdJfqC-TFDBABmq+DHHQAMOCAbp87q9Ha4CAsiuAAeAAqohZjDlQGHgAJVCSIAWLAA-w

Lokheit.7943:

Please Daecollo don’t do this…

Long story short: Daecollo is well known around the Thief forum for constantly sugesting incredible OP ideas for the profession without considering the devastating repercussions that would have ingame like if it were just what the profession needs, like he thinks the Thief should feel like a super ninja able to destroy everybody without being touched or something idk but he’s always making those posts.

I’ve told him many times for the sake of his credibility he should stop doing that before people simply see his name in a new sugestion thread and simply skip it.

As a main Thief, that have been lurking around here some time to seek info for my alternate Ranger while I waited for this patch buff, I can tell you this isn’t how most of the Thief community thinks. We’ve have our big share of haters and we wouldn’t want it for other profession communities as it’s a nonsense that becomes harder to deal with every day.

Specially a profession like the Ranger that was waiting for buffs with open arms so no, no need at all to nerf them! (If anything I would say they could’ve used even some more help, specially with Spirits as simply a 60% HP increase to an HP pool made of paper isn’t enough given the talk about improving them before the patch… my Spirit Herder Norn is disappointed!).

Long story short: a ranger kills a thief in downed state, why are we not celebrating?

Brush that experience off your shoulders like it never happened mate. If you think about it you have every reason to kick whoever you want. I personally dislike warriors in dungeon runs because a good number of them like to yolo 100 blades and die in 5 seconds.

Moreghan.6807:

Ok i’m kinda confused here since the build you gave me from the build editor has other trait points then the one you talked about?

My mistake I forgot to post the proper link for the build, its fixed now

I beat spirits ranger all the time as a ranger… what’s so OP about them other than not using your head to defeat them?

Oh wait that’s right, you need to use your head to defeat them… let’s post more hate instead.

It’s not like rangers have spent a whole year trying to get out of the ‘weakest profession’ loop hole. It’s not like we’re constantly trying to figuring out ways to defeat everyone else (cough thief… mesmer), coming up with countless strategies, most of which got nerfed and using their heads to finally begin to come on top of other professions.

I say bring on the nagging we’ve been there before and we will continue to figure out how to come out on top.

Edit: I will say this, spirit rangers provide with very strong team fight potential, but fight them alone and you will find out they are like every other ranger, they have their weaknesses and they won’t let you exploit them so easily, so fight through them.