Guild Wars 2

Durzlla.6295:

Dahkeus.8243:

Yea, if it’s between my pet getting it or me getting it, then I’d rather have it.

However, why not make it so it works when you OR your pet goes down?

I’d be ok with this so long as they each had a separate CD

I didn’t think there was a cooldown associated with this, or are you meaning that if they did add a cooldown that it should be separate?

Yea, I’m torn on this.

On one hand, it was a bit disappointing to simply walk up to a pet, press a button and instantly have it as a pet. There was no struggle (aside from walking to the right zone) having an animal switch from wild to completely under your control in an instant really is a bit jarring for the sake of immersion (yes, I know, lolimmersion).

On the other hand, because I haven’t become overly attached to any one pet, I feel a lot more open to the idea of using my full artilery of pets. As a result, I’ve gained a real sense of appreciation for how much pets can contribute to so many diverse situations and builds.

You don’t sound like a scrub at all, this is a very good question.

While Rampager’s armor is cheaper and easier to attain, I would recommend going for Berserker’s since it’s all around a higher dps stat choice, even if you are running a short bow build centered on condition damage. There’s a really good post on why this is the case at GuildWars2Guru.com here:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/57386-longbow-vs-shortbow-dps-speed-etc/#entry2094997

Also, I’d recommend Berserker’s gear since it’s a solid long term investment. If you’re like me, you’ll eventually want to play around and try different builds and Berserker’s is optimal for just about any damage-focused build.

Yea, if it’s between my pet getting it or me getting it, then I’d rather have it.

However, why not make it so it works when you OR your pet goes down?

Rangers aren’t just supposed to be ranged, otherwise we wouldn’t have melee weapons or talents to boost melee builds.

But it sounds like you need to spend some time with a good shortbow build since this is one of our best weapons, hands down (PvE or PvP).

A while back, I decided to take a break from the short bow in dungeons to try a melee spec. I ran with a greatsword build for a while and was surprised at just how tanky a ranger can be in melee with the right build and weapon, but I decided that I wanted something that would bring more damage, so I looked to the 1h sword. After a lot of experimentation and looking at other 1h sword builds, I’ve decided on this:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMPxG2IRVldkliFrdgopgTm/9I9tq9OFjy/Z8UCrYA;TwAg0CnomxMjYG7MuZkzsyYkxWkpIA

Updated Build
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMPxG2JRFVWGZhVQsWII6H4ErwhePS/sav/woy4pEWxA;ToAKqMUJoySljKJVrMGZsFZKC
^ You must copy and past this url for the link to work

Goal of this build:
- Provide high dps through melee while being sturdy enough to stay alive in tough fights
- Supplement pet dps through stacking might

Important Talents:
- Wilderness Knowledge: Quickening Zephyr is particularly important since it allows higher might stacking on pets (from pounce on the sword), so talents that reduce the cooldown are important.

- Companion’s Defense: Along with giving strong defense to myself, it allows me to prevent pets from getting gibbed when they get caught in boss abilities or can’t get out of bad stuff in time since I can dodge to protect them.

- Mighty Swap: This allows pets to be changed frequently for the quickness without causing too much loss of the might boon on the pet

- Fortifying Bond: This is one of the main reasons I have a Jungle Stalker in my build. The F2 ability of the pet generates 10 stacks on the pet instead of 5 with this talent since the 5 stacks I get bounce back to the pet on top of what the pet gave himself.

Gear:
I primarily use Berserker (power/precision/crit damage) armor with this, although I do also have some soldier (power/toughness/vit) pieces to prevent being too squishy. Also, I have Centaur runes in this build, but this is mainly a quality of life choice since I’m in love with swiftness. However, there are likely better choices if you’re focusing on dungeons.

Use of the build:
- Swap weapon sets frequently to get the might stacks from Sigil of Battle for you and your pet.
- As with any build that uses a 1h sword, turn off autoattack to prevent being stuck/rooted by the animation.
- Whenever Rampage as One is available, use it when your Raven is out. This is because you can easily get 25 stacks of might on your pet with this ability and the raven’s F2 ability will make good use of this since it’s a high damage attack. Also, the stalker doesn’t need to cast Mighty Roar when RaO is up, so they don’t benefit from it as much.
- When RaO is on cooldown, swap pets frequently. This benefits you for two reasons. One is of course that you gain quickness on swap from your talents. The other reason is that you can use F2 abilities more frequently since this cooldown is reset when pets are swapped.

Since so much of this build is set around stacking might on your pet, the use of cooldowns and pet swap make a big difference in damage output.

Variations:
- Swap an offhand for a torch: Burning can be problematic in PvE if you have other party members that may already be stacking the condition, but it does provide a higher dps potential if you don’t run into these stacking problems.
- Swap Signet of the Wild: If you’re running into a lot of condition damage, Sig of Renewal may work better and if you want more damage, you can bring “Sick ’Em” while swapping Speed Training for Shout Master

Work in Progress:
There’s always room for improvement, so I’m open for advice on this build. One of the main areas I’ve been indecisive about is the 20th talent point in Nature Magic. I’d like to invest 10 in Skirmishing for Pet’s Prowess or Companion’s Might, but I’m not sure what I would remove to get this. I’m considering dropping the 20 point talents from WS and NM to get this, but I’m not sure yet.

Update 12/15/12 I made the switch to drop 5 points from WS and NM respectively for the 10 in Skirmishing to get the 30% damage increase on pet crits since so much of the damage in this build comes from pet dps. Also, I swapped in “Sick ’Em” since the buff convinced me to use it. Finally, I went with “of the Ranger” runes for the extra precision since the strength sigils rely on crit to proc. I may need to use some more defensive gear to offset some of these changes.

I totally read the title in Oprah’s voice, lol.

Also, Runes of Centaur+Horn for 100% swiftness (for yourself and nearby allies) if you don’t want a talent investment.

Oh! Forgot to mention, but any build with a heavy investment into BM along with at least 15 in Nature Magic does well with a Jungle Stalker since it will get 10 stacks of might on F2 cast (5 stacks from casting it on themselves and another 5 stacks from matching the stacks that you get when they cast it on you).

It works on downed, not death (despite what the tooltip says). And I know this is an old thread, but it still pops up on Google searches, so I figure it’s worthwhile to make the correction for anyone else that stumbles upon this.

Great write-up. Forum needs more posts like this.

Nashaan.3160:

Dahkeus.8243:

The pet I use changes a lot depending on the situation, but here’s a general list of rules I go by when choosing a pet:

PvE:
Bow build – Wolf/Krytan Drakehound
(Canines have a fast attack rate and give good dps while also bringing CC and good defensive stats to survive)

Sword build with 20-30 points in BM – Raven/Jaguar

Orr farming with a tagging build – Carrion Devourer/Forest Spider
(The AoE poison of Carrion Devourers has a fast cast and works well to tag multiple mobs quickly. Ranged pets are also generally more effective on mobs that will die quickly.)

Fights where melee gets chewed up – Lakittenail Devourer/Forest Spider

Fights with lots of conditions – Brown Bear

Fights with lots of AoE – River Drake

PvP:
Bow Build – Jungle Spider or Krytan Drakehound/Wolf

Sword Build – Raven/Wolf

If they ever buff spirits so that they don’t die so quickly, I’ll probably try a support build that uses blue moa/red moa.

Hmmm … a Lakittenail devourer, don’t think I’ve seen that one lol … gotta love the filter

ROFL! I didn’t notice that, haha!

Dulfy, you are awesome beyond words.

The pet I use changes a lot depending on the situation, but here’s a general list of rules I go by when choosing a pet:

PvE:
Bow build – Wolf/Krytan Drakehound
(Canines have a fast attack rate and give good dps while also bringing CC and good defensive stats to survive)

Sword build with 20-30 points in BM – Raven/Jaguar

Orr farming with a tagging build – Carrion Devourer/Forest Spider
(The AoE poison of Carrion Devourers has a fast cast and works well to tag multiple mobs quickly. Ranged pets are also generally more effective on mobs that will die quickly.)

Fights where melee gets chewed up – Lakittenail Devourer/Forest Spider

Fights with lots of conditions – Brown Bear

Fights with lots of AoE – River Drake

PvP:
Bow Build – Jungle Spider or Krytan Drakehound/Wolf

Sword Build – Raven/Wolf

If they ever buff spirits so that they don’t die so quickly, I’ll probably try a support build that uses blue moa/red moa.

Shox.4936:

I hope this gets changed asap. The rooting on the sword, along with the skills that you can’t use near a ledge or a cliff really make me not want to use a sword. Why not enable the rangers to dual wield swords? Who the hell uses the dagger anyway. Take away the crappy dagger and give us an offhand sword that won’t make us rooted to the ground.

The dagger may appear lackluster in PvE, but it’s probably one of the most used offhands for PvP rangers wielding a sword mainhand since it brings an extra dodge and cripple (gap closer).

Just let me break animation to dodge while using the sword. I can deal with the root (event though I’m not a big fan), but if they could just do this, it would make a big difference.

If they did keep in the root of WD, they could easily put in a talent that allows it to block while reflecting, which would be another way to buff the skill.

Last I tested, there was a limit as to how much you could spawn from pigs (after a while they just despawn one when you spawn a new one) and you still have to wait for the pet swap cooldown, so it’s not as awesome as it was early on when you could spawn and swap instantly out of combat, lol.

As for building burst without PI, I think the best route would probably be from building might on your bird, then unleashing the F2 with QZ and “Sick ’em”. After teh F2 casts, swap to your other bird and F2 again (who has might from Mighty Swap). A variation of the build like this may work:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRAsY3fnEVUZZkFWBxahgo9gTmHTsCJ6pI9zyVYUXsUSSA

However, landing two F2 bursts in a row would probably be tough, especially against anyone that would know to blow a defensive cooldown when they see you cast QZ/“Sick ’em”. I haven’t tested this, but it’s an iea. =P

I like the idea as long as a pet with a full investment in BM did as much as they currently do.

Here’s what I’d go with:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQRBMfxG2JRFZWGZhVQsWEIaK4k5fKS/suYpkkA

I don’t remember how many skill points you have at level 50, so sorry if I put in too many or not enough, lol.

Anyways, the direction I went with this is to invest 20 to WS for the faster OH recharge and range, which is pretty awesome for any build that primarily uses a torch since it increases the radius of the bonfire. By doing this you increase your condition damage and are also able to pick up Wilderness Knowledge (faster QZ recharge).

After that, I invested into BM. BM synergizes very well with any sword build since you provide might from using your 1 attack. This along with the heavy damage that you get on both the raven and jaguar F2 skills gives you some strong burst. Mighty Swap allows you to quickly get might built up on your pet for increased damage.

Also, I chose these two trees because they contribute to both your offense (condition damage from WS and pet stats in BM) as well as defense (toughness from WS and healing from BM).

edit Made a small fix to the link. Also, I chose “Sick ’Em” along with the shout recharge reduction talent, but you can easily drop this for something else if you prefer.

This would be awesome, but they would have to change a lot of character animations on the lower half of the body, so it’s unlikely that we would see this change anytime soon. ANet was able to make the GS block moveable easily largely because there was nothing specific about the way a rangers legs moved when you used the ability, so it doesn’t look akward when you pair the upper body block animation with running leg animation.

For WD, however, you would have to do a lot of changes to the skill animation itself to prevent the ability from either having the character appear to be floating (i.e. not add running leg animation) or would have the upper body contort in an abnormal way (i.e. upper body continues to spin, jump, and turn, while legs run where directed).

I mean, hopefully I’m wrong and there is an easy fix, but I don’t think that’s the case.

The flaming rhetoric with stuff like saying that we “DESERVE” answers probably will reduce the chance that this thread will ahve a response, but I honestly would like to find out some more details on this issue.

I was having a conversation with some friends the other night and came to find that my situation is actually pretty similar to theirs, so I figured I’d share.

To give you some background, I’m a veteran MMO player and have been playing games in this genre for probably close to 7 years now. Since I started playing, my situation has changed from a college bachelor to a now full time employee who is getting married within the month. Because of this, I have a lot less time to play than I used to. This is why I was so thrilled to find that GW2 has taken the approach that it has.

So, with my limited time, I’m still working on getting gear for my first character (Not focusing on any ascended items, just exotics with Berserker stats). Because of this, I have hardly touched any alts and have not yet purchased the extra character slot or bank slots (my extra characters are my bank slots right now).

You may ask why I haven’t just purchased gems, converted them to gold, and bought my gear? To that I would answer that just because I have more money than spare time now doesn’t mean I’m ready to spend it on something like gear that will get replaced as soon as the next tier comes out. Also, it just doesn’t feel right to use real world cash to get items for my character that give better stats. (I’ve had this mentality ingrained for the last 7 years, so it’s not easily changed now).

So, really, to sum up, I just wanted to give ArenaNet the heads up that while it does sound counter intuitive, the extra grind that we have to put in does actually discourage some players from opening their wallets.

Momo.6972:

This is Momo Jojo From the server Blackgate!
I Happy to hear about these upcoming patches!
I have not played since the week of the last big patch!
I can’t wait to get on and start playing all over again!!! WHO IS WITH ME!

Temper your excitement. There were a lot of threads like this a month ago before the 11/15 patch which caused a s***storm of disappointment when we didn’t actually get much of anything that we had been told that we would get.

Seetoo.9316:

I would trade spirit mobility for that godly (not really, but still better) range on their buffs. The 1st time I saw spirits could move I thought “good for a melee ranger” but later found out thrash mobs with cleave could take em out easy.

Ultimately, the ability to move spirits is amazing, but the inability to stop moving them is crippling.

Jake Dressler.8204:

I know I’ll get flamed for this, but just do it like WoW did it. After a certain time has passed while holding the flag, you get a movement and defense debuff that stacks the longer you hold it. It limits the movement speed at regular walking speed so quickness won’t work, and would stack 10% extra dmg taken per stack.

Yea, this is one of the things WoW got right, even though it took them a long time to realize this. There were some miserable stand offs before they implemented this mechanic, lol.

NevirSayDie.6235:

I generally love CTF in any type of game. I’m inclined to say it would be awesome in GW2 also, but it would need testing. Movement penalty is usually good, might need to force some movement skills to drop the flag.

Yea, the downside of a CtF map is that it could reinforce the bunker playstyle and yes, they would DEFINITELY need a mechanic to put a time limit on games and to make it harder for flag carriers to hold a flag as time goes by so that it’s not just a turtle-fest the while time…

but at the same time, it may make room for builds with snares and CCs to become popular as well.

Rangers, in particular, may work for something like this since they have a lot of ranged CC options.

Flame, QZ, and Spike is what I use for any trap build.

As Apophis said, without any damage incorporated, frost trap is just really underwhelming compared to Spike Trap.

From the tests I’ve done, Snake Trap and Flame Trap deal about equal damage, but Snake Trap takes a LOT longer to deal the damage since poison is a lower dps ability. Considering that we can apply so easily with our short bow anyway, I have never seen any reason to take this over other options.

There are some good vids on youtube that talk about flipping which may be a good reference if you’re looking to learn more.

I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with a meta that favors certain builds, but I think that there needs to be some changes to the game to prevent stagnation.

I think a lot of this comes from only having capture point type maps that favor bunker/roamer builds.

The PvE side of the game has been receiving plenty of content to keep things new and interesting, but sPvP has only really gotten 1 new map that’s not much different from the current ones, so the experience hasn’t changed much for the PvP focused player base.

Am I the only one that really wishes this was in the game?

I mean, I know it would take a good bit of time to get the balance right on this, but I’m getting a bit tired of only having objective capture for sPvP and I think it’s stagnating the metagame to only have this option available.

Rehashed Jibe Tube.7102:

a better way to end the missery would be for people to realize life isn’t always fair. Anet is trying their best. The chest really isn’t the most important thing in the world and we should all just move on.

By that logic, why not just give a chest to everyone (or just not bother trying to get it to anyone who missed it)?
I mean, life isn’t fair, so why should Anet lose any sleep over making sure that only the players that attended get a chest (i.e. being fair)?

Personally I don’t think that some huge investigation over a chest is worth Anet spending tons of time and resources on.

Hmm, I may have to pick up a good harpoon then. I haven’t messed with a harpoon much since the nov 15th patch since I never bothered to invest in an exotic harpoon. I got a good spear as a drop and never worried about it too much, but I’ve been kinda curious to go back lately now that I have a bit more of an expendable income.

I say bring back Edge of Extinction so we can lol EoE Bomb everyone in WvW!!!!!

edit For those who aren’t familiar with this in the original GW, EoE was a spirit that would cause damage to all creatures of the same type whenever one of those creatures died. Because of this, teams would have a ranger run up, drop the spirit, then the team would suicide to cause massive damage to the other team. Meanwhile, one teammate would stay back out of range to survive, winning the game. Here’s a video of the effect:

Yes, I know, lolwater combat, but I’m honestly curious to hear from other people as to what they prefer and the reasoning behind it.

So which do you prefer or which do you use more often and why?

Well, warrior probably wins in burst, but don’t quote me on that since my experience is limited with warriors.

Rangers tend to have two options for burst, QZ and pets. Since QZ+Short Bow has been toned down, it’s not as effective on its own as it used to be. Pet burst has some good potential, but tends to benefit more from something like a 1h sword melee build and regardless of what build you run. However, you are a lot more limited in when you can pull off because of their limitations/

The issue with ravens character models seems to now be resolved.

Karma armor is great, but be careful because there may not be a set of karma armor with the stats you want.

I found this out the hard way.

After I bought nearly a full set, I realized that the best stats for my class/build was Berserker (Power/Precision/Crit Damage), which was not available on any karma armor.

Chat in GW2 is a bit quieter than in other MMOs, but it’s also generally more under control than other MMOs.

I came to GW2 after trying out Tera, which had an absolutely terrible community when it came to in game chat, so I appreciate the chat here, even if it is a bit sparse at times.

A handy use of transmutation stones is also to keep the rune or sigil of one item and to apply it to another item. When you use a transmutation stone, you combine items so that you pick the appearance to keep, the set of stats to keep, and the rune/sigil to keep individually.

But you get plenty of them, so if there’s an armor set you like the looks of, they can be nice to have around so that you don’t have to give up that look when you get another set with better stats that doesn’t look the way you like.

Akisame.9508:

No, I don’t think longbow is worse, I actually run a glass cannon build with SB/LB. I don’t use melee weapons. For me I believe the bow’s are situational and you have to adjust according to the conditions of the battle.

And I thought that warriors piercing didn’t have to be traited? I guess I read it wrong somewhere.

If you’re comparing utility, then it’s debateable whether the long bow or short bow is better, but if we’re talking dps, the short bow deals more damage regardless of whether you’re running a direct damage or condition build.

Sleepy.2647:

Dahkeus.8243:

There’s a factor a lot of people are leaving out of this:
Piercing Arrows

Considering how often you have multiple targets (at least in PvE), it’s easy to at least have your bow damage doubled for much of the time, so even if your pet is dead and even if you are missing a few attacks, you’re doing more damage than a warrior in any realistic situation.

Well, that’s right except warriors rifle also pierce if traited.

…well kitten there goes that argument then, lol!!

I think we’re just seeing more diverse builds since a lot of people (myself included) have gotten a bit bored of just running short bow builds all the time.

Also, the current meta really favors bunker builds, so even rangers have started building this way.

There’s a factor a lot of people are leaving out of this:
Piercing Arrows

Considering how often you have multiple targets (at least in PvE), it’s easy to at least have your bow damage doubled for much of the time, so even if your pet is dead and even if you are missing a few attacks, you’re doing more damage than a warrior in any realistic situation.

Yea, It’s definitely viable and works very well with a lot of melee builds, but I can understand your frustration. It took me a good while to warm up to this talent tree and I really didn’t see what other people liked in it so much.

Durzlla.6295:

Dahkeus.8243:

Durzlla.6295:

Dahkeus.8243:

Letifer.4360:

Durzlla.6295:

icechai.2079:

and notice how Guardians have untargetable invulnerable spirit weapons..

Which are garbage compared to spirits? they last 20s and have varrying CDs, rarely attack, and their active destroys them.

Spirits last for 60s with a 60s CD, have actives that DONT destroy them, and can buff an infinite amount of people once per 10 seconds per spirit (5 rangers with the same spirit will cause the spirits to STACK meaning if me and 5 rangers bring stone spirit we’d have 100% prot uptime assuming my fellow rangers weren’t dumb with spirit placement), another thing that spirit weapons CANT do is take shots for you, ever lose a fight because you got hit just once to many times? yeah, see those spirits you’re bagging on? i’ve saved my own leafy butt so many times by dodging behind one of those things so it’d eat a finishing blow for me and leave me to win the fight or escape (have also dove INFRONT of them before to ensure they had time to heal back up to full before dying so they’d live long enough to let me proc them again, but this doesn’t happen nearly as often).

But nope, just because they’re unkillable -that- means they must be good right? right?

Would love to see this “if me and 5 rangers bring stone spirit we’d have 100% prot uptime”.

If only the spirits themselves could have 100% prot uptime to survive more than a gentle breeze.

Simple, don’t put them in front of the giant fan AKA the big angry mob who wants to curb stomp it back into the spirit realm.

Oh, certainly, but the trouble I encounter is when I politely ask that giant angry mob to stay in one place or at least to not throw their malicious painful stuff around the room.

Sadly, they rarely oblige.

How many spirits do you put down in one area? Because if you have them all near each other it’s not random and it’s the AI seeing +2 enemies in that area which is good for an AoE (more people more likely for the aoe), i normally space them out a lil bit (not -that- much) so they become less ideal for the mob to throw an AoE under them, but you can’t fix random, and sometimes they get gibbed regardless of what you do, but then again so does everything.

Yea, I played a Shaman for a long while in WoW, so I’m familiar with what to consider when dropping things like spirits in GW2. And you don’t need grouped spirits or even multiple spirits for them to be gibbed by enemies.

Durzlla.6295:

Dahkeus.8243:

Letifer.4360:

Durzlla.6295:

icechai.2079:

and notice how Guardians have untargetable invulnerable spirit weapons..

Which are garbage compared to spirits? they last 20s and have varrying CDs, rarely attack, and their active destroys them.

Spirits last for 60s with a 60s CD, have actives that DONT destroy them, and can buff an infinite amount of people once per 10 seconds per spirit (5 rangers with the same spirit will cause the spirits to STACK meaning if me and 5 rangers bring stone spirit we’d have 100% prot uptime assuming my fellow rangers weren’t dumb with spirit placement), another thing that spirit weapons CANT do is take shots for you, ever lose a fight because you got hit just once to many times? yeah, see those spirits you’re bagging on? i’ve saved my own leafy butt so many times by dodging behind one of those things so it’d eat a finishing blow for me and leave me to win the fight or escape (have also dove INFRONT of them before to ensure they had time to heal back up to full before dying so they’d live long enough to let me proc them again, but this doesn’t happen nearly as often).

But nope, just because they’re unkillable -that- means they must be good right? right?

Would love to see this “if me and 5 rangers bring stone spirit we’d have 100% prot uptime”.

If only the spirits themselves could have 100% prot uptime to survive more than a gentle breeze.

Simple, don’t put them in front of the giant fan AKA the big angry mob who wants to curb stomp it back into the spirit realm.

Oh, certainly, but the trouble I encounter is when I politely ask that giant angry mob to stay in one place or at least to not throw their malicious painful stuff around the room.

Sadly, they rarely oblige.

Polaritie.4851:

Dahkeus.8243:

Here’s the definition of flanking if that’s what you mean:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking

But you obviously won’t have 100% uptime on this 10% damage increase. However, anytime you’re using the short bow, you’ll want to try to flank as much as possible. This just rewards you even more.

If you don’t have flanking up, you’re either in an odd case (can’t get to boss side/rear) or you’re being attacked by the boss, in which case… you should be focused on not dying first.

I almost always do the pulls when I run dungeons since I run with a close group of friends and it does make it a bit tougher to flank at times since I often start with aggro, but even in those cases, I can still get to where I can do a good bit of damage while flanking. If I can’t flank my target, then I’ll at least flank another target that I’m shooting through (piercing arrows ftw).

Here’s the definition of flanking if that’s what you mean:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Flanking

But you obviously won’t have 100% uptime on this 10% damage increase. However, anytime you’re using the short bow, you’ll want to try to flank as much as possible. This just rewards you even more.

Letifer.4360:

Durzlla.6295:

icechai.2079:

and notice how Guardians have untargetable invulnerable spirit weapons..

Which are garbage compared to spirits? they last 20s and have varrying CDs, rarely attack, and their active destroys them.

Spirits last for 60s with a 60s CD, have actives that DONT destroy them, and can buff an infinite amount of people once per 10 seconds per spirit (5 rangers with the same spirit will cause the spirits to STACK meaning if me and 5 rangers bring stone spirit we’d have 100% prot uptime assuming my fellow rangers weren’t dumb with spirit placement), another thing that spirit weapons CANT do is take shots for you, ever lose a fight because you got hit just once to many times? yeah, see those spirits you’re bagging on? i’ve saved my own leafy butt so many times by dodging behind one of those things so it’d eat a finishing blow for me and leave me to win the fight or escape (have also dove INFRONT of them before to ensure they had time to heal back up to full before dying so they’d live long enough to let me proc them again, but this doesn’t happen nearly as often).

But nope, just because they’re unkillable -that- means they must be good right? right?

Would love to see this “if me and 5 rangers bring stone spirit we’d have 100% prot uptime”.

If only the spirits themselves could have 100% prot uptime to survive more than a gentle breeze.

Don’t get carrion, especially if you’re not going traps. I made that mistake and had to shell out a lot of gold to buy new gear.

Go berserker for pieces that you want offensive stats on, then get Power/vit/toughness (soldier’s) or Power/Vit/Crit Damage (Valkyrie) for defensive pieces.

It sounds strange to go for precision and crit damage as a class that can easily deal a lot of condition damage, but crit damage is a very powerful stat in this game, so don’t underestimate it.

As for build, you have a good bit of flexibility, but if you don’t have much preference (outside of avoiding trap builds, which is fine), I would suggest something that starts like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMAQFAVjEVV2RWKWsWCgli9CsVgTOjDB4LA;TEAjMA

Invest the last 10 points as you want. Some good choices are putting them in BM for a faster pet swap and more pet survival or put them in WS for protection on dodge roll and something like Vigorous Renewal for some extra dodges (also gives vigor to people in your healing spring).

There are several good choices for the 20 point skirmishing trait, so go with what you like there.

Your secondary weapon also doesn’t matter too much, so pick what you like best for that.