Guild Wars 2

Fluffball.8307:

TurtleDragon.3108:

They also are not top 4 dps.

Are you sure? I know this keeps coming up, but I’m having a hard time picturing them being far from the top. For single target, in no particular order you would have thief, ele, ranger, warrior, guardian in the mix and engy mesmer and necro I don’t see being in the picture. Out of those top 5 I don’t know enough about the non-ranger ‘best possible DPS’ builds to compare, but DnT is always saying rangers are roughly on par with warriors.

I’ve never seen any “perfect damage” comparisons between all the professions. Does one exist?

Here are some of the results of using Nike’s spreadsheet.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Best-PVE-ranger-maximum-dps-build/first#post3953937

Somethings to note:
-This is without a pet, i’d include the pet but I don’t know their weapon strength
-Assumptions are no bloodlust, no untraited frost spirit, no mob speciffic sigil and no strength booster

For sure, we have thief and ele in the top 4, every list will agree with this. This leaves 2 spots, it’s also common belief that guardians and warriors are on par with eachother, and DnT has raid ranger is slightly behind warrior (not on par) in the past (5%)

You also have Guanglai Kangyi putting Rangers deadlast, if you believe his lists to be credible. But, he gets criticized a lot for relying too much on spreadsheets.

Ranger’s aren’t useless, but the bearbow builds are. They also are not top 4 dps.

Soldier’s gear.

1.25% * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.1 * 1.05 * 1.05 * 1.05 * 0 (aka nothing) = 0 (nothing)

Guang’s saying your damage is bad.

Bow ranger isn’t a viable build for speed runs or high end PvE.

He probably meant Bolt.

I enjoy my Howler a lot, it’s always useful in PvE. The mist aura and howling noises are the best.

Oh look, A Spider Queen example. How come people who post these threads never name a real example of bosses not attacking and being bugged?

For the burrows, you’ll want to use a Greatsword instead of a sword or bow. The reason is that you want to move while hitting them and the sword does not allow you to do that. If you facetank the skelk, they’ll stack a ton of bleeds on you very quickly.

Fluffball.8307:

a t s e.9614:

DId u just say ranger takes skill? Much auto-attack such passive spirit

What do you consider skill? All classes are at their best just pushing buttons at the appropriate times. I think GW2 requires experience (know when to push the button) and intelligence (know why you have set your character up the way it is) more than anything else. I’m not sure I can think of an example on any class other than PvP/WvW that requires “skill”. Perhaps jumping the lasers in CoE.

Anywho, not to speak for turtle, I think what he meant is that staying alive and contributing to the group on eles or rangers requires far more awareness and game-understanding than it does on a healsig warrior.

Yep, this is exactly what I meant.

If they ever add an ICD to Frost Spirit, then the number of viable dungeon classes in this game will decrease from 7 to 6.

There’s a pretty distinct difference between “Meta” and “Common”. Meta is usually based on high level play in organized groups, not on what you see in your average LFG. Heavy only groups haven’t been meta for a long time, it’s just arguably “safer” to PUG warriors than a random Ranger or Elementalist which have much higher skill caps.

It’s still an inferior team composition to say, 1 warrior 2 ele, 2 other or any rainbow party comp.

Alacrity.4312:

hopefully not too dumb question -

as I understand, Rangers have a reduced damage coefficient to compensate for the pet.

So would that mean that Force, Night and other % modifiers give less bang than they would on another prof (say a War) with the same Power?

Also, would Air &/or Fire be just as good on a Ranger, as on any other class?
Or are their coefficients based on the Ranger’s reduced damage?

Modifiers sigils like Force are stronger than Air once you start to get buffs like might.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Also – for bosses the highest DPS output is still BM version since not only you can deal your stated damage but your pet’s damage is improved significantly too (if your pet dies – you’ll probably die on melee too). For Dungeons – the burst version of BM on Signet of the Hunt build seemed the way.
For personal DPS – that is.

No. If you’re putting points into BM, then you’re also lowering your “stated damage” and/or decreasing your contribution to group DPS. The increase in pet DPS would not be worth the trade-off.

I think I’m done wasting my time here in this thread.

Fairytayl.1035:

Hey Moon here,

I’d like to point out a few things :

I’m doing math atm moment on runes of the ranger vs scholar runes. From what i’ve calculated which might be wrong and is not complete yet, scholar runes with perception sigils still outputs better dps by 1,5% than ranger runes with bloodlust. However, this is based on full stacks and without stack the dps difference is hugely in favor of ranger runes (~ i estimate that to 5% but i still need to do precise calculation on the matter). So scholar runes are still better in my opinion if you know you’re not gonna loose your stacks, though you have to keep in mind that it is high effort for low reward (1,5%). SO you’re right to recommand your build to the majority of players just pointing this out for min-maxers.

The other thing is completely unrelated and is only a suggestion. You may want to include the 4/5/5/0/0 build as it is really usefull for soloing arah and/or pugging it. It i the build i swap to for lupi and alphard solo (yeah ranger can solo those). It is highly situational, but worst mentioning to make the guide more detailed to cover multiple areas of PvE.

Moon

I also have a small disclaimer about not wanting to go into the details of min-maxing every last % possible :P. I do find Ranger Runes more practical with superior modifier uptime, now that it’s much harder to get 25 stacks of bloodlust/perception due to the double stacking nerf.

I’m not really a fan of that 4/5/5 build, nor do I know much about it. I also wouldn’t recommend it for PUGing unless you badly need reflects.

I opted to only include general use skills and avoid going into detail on utilities, pets and builds that are good in very speciffic and niche scenarios, like your build in Arah. My intent was to dicuss options that will work in a variety of different dungeon and fractal scenarios, instead of listing many options that are only good in one boss fight. For example, I did not want to include Brown Bear in the pet list, even though I use it on Old Tom, but shelf it for 90% of other PvE encounters.

I took the time to spreadsheet it.
Sword: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V3c75gsux4vMd8tGB28NB8SzIstczqoG3eLLrRyD9QU/edit?usp=sharing

16.66 sword AA chains in 30 seconds =
( 17(0.6) + 17(0.6) + 16(0.7) ) / 30 = 1.053

Sword: 6471.44 DPS

GS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E28jWhkDoxE https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/12rFV22W8oUfXb0gEFY8yhbUUgRs8qLJf_uS9qYpHDO4/edit?usp=sharing

Now, this one is a lot harder to model, so I tried my best to do the rotation perfectly. Feel free to submit your own rotation or critique this one.

#of skill uses
swoops: 3(1.0)
Mauls: 4 (1.5)
Crippling throw: 2(1.0)

Slash: 11(0.55)
Slice: 7(0.55)
Power stab: 5(0.65)

( 3(1.0) + 4(1.5) + 2(1.0) + 11(0.55) + 7(0.55) + 5(0.65) ) / 30 = 0.805

GS: 5442.03 DPS

100(( 6471.44 / 5442.03) – 1) = 18.9%

Sword is better by 19% on single target.

You don’t need to math or spreadsheet that GS is better on 2 or 3 targets, that’s obvious, but in general single target boss dps is the most important thing.

Best part is, you can’t use #3 on some of the fights you need to GS on and using #4 for dps is not a good idea.

Chokolata.1870:

There is only one specific instance where you are actually required to play bearbow:

Harpy fractal TOM fight. U stand on the fan shooting with your short/longbow while your bear melees. Everyone else stacks behind the bear at max melee range and are immune to Toms green spin projectiles. Thats it!!!

You can still melee it with the GS, and probably even the sword too in-between the projectiles. There’s nothing physcially stopping you from stacking behind the bear yourself.

Tragic Positive.9356:

You’d notice he said he is a LongBow user. Also – if he is asking for the best DPS, I’d say he wanted a personal DPS. If I wanted a supportive DPS build – I’d specify my request.

The funny thing is, the supportive DPS build also has better personal DPS. A simple Effective Power analysis will tell you this.

Consider the following scenario:
Suppportive build: http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBMhF6kRFaVxSWwVQ4axA7B1yAIg5mBdg3qYLy4nTk9A-TBSBABPt/Alq/YmSwrU+hn+mFOECA8kCy7EAEA4AggwDCYUA-e
personal build (the one you linked earlier): http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnMqQrgWyCuqAXLGYPQWHoRB2Z+My12Lu7EJ-TBCBABVcIAga/BIuAAVq+zZKBxS5HAPAAPOCABAOA43f/93f/tUARMMC-e
Both are using longbows (which will bias the analysis into the favor of your build because of the presence of an additional modifier) on a single target under optimal conditions doing the same rotation.

Support:
Modifiers = 2.31 (Ranger, night/force, dungeon potion, vuln, steady focus, flanking, nature magic, traited frost spirit)
EP = 27119

Personal:
Modifiers = 2.23 (Ranger, night/force, dungeon potion, vuln, steady focus, flanking, eagle eye, untraited frost spirit)
EP = 24361

Result:
Personal dps is 10% worst while also decreasing your group dps by 11.5%

I don’t have a link to Nike’s old spreadsheet, but this one should still do:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1H8FwevtNHMhoBQ7QkxYJF1W7DLTDkuKtA_oNSk4OOes/edit#gid=1347975015

Obviously, if you’re running a 2 ranger party and the support ranger is buffing you then you’re going to do more DPS. I consider this an extreme and selfish scenario because 2 ranger compositions are bad and impractical.

Summary: If you’re the only ranger in the party, you’ll do more DPS with the support (meta) build.

Edit: I made a mistake with the critical damage modifier, but I did the same mistake in both builds so it’ll still be the same result, just lower EP numbers,

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

TurtleDragon.3108:

awge.3852:

snip

The measure of success is going to vary from person to person, but if your definition of successful is to just “complete the dungeon in a reasonable pace.” then it doesn’t take much effort at all. I could be successful in dungeons playing condition damage longbow if I found 4 other players to carry me through them.

Instead, the focus for many players will be completing the dungeon efficiently and quickly in order to farm them for tokens and gold. In this scenario, you want every member contribute as much as their class can and builds like bearbow become less appropriate for the situation. It’s also very possible for players to not pull their own weight and leech off the boons and buffs the rest of the party gives to them. If you are playing with friends/guildies who don’t mind you playing that way, then that’s fine. In a PUG environment you won’t know the random players and they may not appreciate you running longbow in their speed runs. That doesn’t mean they’ll kick you or even care, but anyone knowledgeable with the game will be annoyed and may not be as patient.

tl;dr: It’s a team game, be a team player, not a DPS leech.

How is a bearbow going to leech off his team’s buffs when he’s standing at 1500 range?

LOL, i forgot about that. Uh….. good question.

awge.3852:

snip

The measure of success is going to vary from person to person, but if your definition of successful is to just “complete the dungeon in a reasonable pace.” then it doesn’t take much effort at all. I could be successful in dungeons playing condition damage longbow if I found 4 other players to carry me through them.

Instead, the focus for many players will be completing the dungeon efficiently and quickly in order to farm them for tokens and gold. In this scenario, you want every member contribute as much as their class can and builds like bearbow become less appropriate for the situation. It’s also very possible for players to not pull their own weight and leech off the boons and buffs the rest of the party gives to them. If you are playing with friends/guildies who don’t mind you playing that way, then that’s fine. In a PUG environment you won’t know the random players and they may not appreciate you running longbow in their speed runs. That doesn’t mean they’ll kick you or even care, but anyone knowledgeable with the game will be annoyed and may not be as patient.

tl;dr: It’s a team game, be a team player, not a DPS leech.

Paladin Jeff.9210:

Could this build be used for leveling a new Ranger? Also what rotation do you normally use?

Should be fine for levelling, though I wouldn’t put points into Nature Magic.

Rotation is basically to auto attack with sword as much as possible. You’ll want to fit in WH#5 within a fire field if possible.

Example opener: Equip Torch. Torch 5. Equip Warhorn. Warhorn 5. Swap. GS3, GS2. Swap. Sword 1 until dead. ( Blast Fire Field, enter fight with GS, auto with sword)

Tragic Positive.9356:

On a training dummy – yes.
In a risky GlassCannon position at bosses that wipes whole parties – hardly.
Sword doesn’t deal more damage. Sword + Warhorn (or probably OH Axe) definitely. Don’t mistake the expressions.

Analysis of the sword doesn’t factor in the additional DPS from offhands and tests it in a vacuum with optimal conditions. Sword by itself does more damage, and allows you to bring warhorn which is by far the best offhand in terms of group utility.

Not everyone is terrible with the sword and can play it in “risky GlassCannon” boss fights, for very few of them I would say it’s a bad idea. There are plenty of target dummy styled fights in this game in terms of how “difficult” it is to use sword with.

By the way – Ranger IS the class with the best vulnerability applies in the game. You all either say the build doesn’t deal damage or doesn’t apply vulnerability or isn’t supportive enough. Get your ideas together – you can’t have everything.

This is incorrect, engineer is the best vuln stacker in the game. You can’t have everything is true, which is why you should specialize in the things you are strong at. In the rangers case, it’s Spotter, Frost Spirit, and group Fury. After that, you throw the rest of your points into damage.

And I believe it’s not that hard to swap one trait for regaining the opening strike on Hunter’s Shot – but I’m rarely the only one applying vuln. and the raid bosses are flooded with it – so I end up wasting the trait most of the time. By the way – I’m able to keep 15 myself with Rapid Fire and Maul alone.
You all sound like you try to throw the people’s ideas… But if you were smart enough – you’d realize that the OP doesn’t probably want the build for getting world first kill on a raid that aspires to get it and need more damage – but a build that feels responsive and user friendly. That is hardly going to be a Sword build that cost me my life a nice bunch of times and I got sick of switching weapons every other encounter.

Here’s the thing, open world is easy and does not require min maxing (except for maybe wurm). You can run whatever you want there because there are like 40 other people to make up for your contributions. This is not the case in dungeons where each individual matters a lot more. Generally, PvE builds are in actuality “Dungeon/Fractal” builds.

You’re also just making assumptions on the other details of what the user wants. He did ask for “Best” and “maximum dps”, but let’s not turn this arguement into interpreting what the OP wants.

Don’t be lazy, switching weapons, traits and utilites is a necessity for PvE. There is no one build fits all, but certain builds are much stronger at it than others. You should always be thinking “what weapons and utilities should I bring for this next encounter?” and as of the latest patch, that includes traits as well.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Not only the ranger isn’t the class made for Might Stacking – but he doesn’t have anything special besides Frost Spirit that doesn’t have a cap (and this one wastes you 4 traits into defensive tree).
To sum it up – you all may be right, but you don’t answer the OP’s request.
- I have to admit that the sigils were from a former PvP build and I was lazy to replace them since they weren’t that bad.
But something to add: PvE consists of dungeons and World Bosses. Where Dungeons are BASED ON BURST DAMAGE and world bosses are a suicide for 1h Sword builds. Sword is a suicide in more cases – even dungeons since you are glued to your target and you can’t stop attacking when you need it. In my opinion the Sword is made for PvP.
__________________________________________________
GS is better in terms of reliability. Not only you provide MORE damage than 1h Sword(Maul gives you the advantage/The Warhorn gives you burst which isn’t exactly dps) but you gain evade and Stacks of Vulnerability on target AND you can save your life more frenquently (important for full Zerk Build!).

I’ll give you another build with a pretty safe constant damage that provides the party with 20 vulnerability stacks uptime. That should be more than enough supportive for the PvE party. But you won’t feel the “damage” in other way than statistically unlike the former full burst build I posted (Pet can crit for 17K in the burst phase in addition to your Zerk Stats).

This build provides Party:(5)Might, Fury, 10% damage chance, 20-25 vulnerability stack uptime. Also provides reliable constant damage of high values.
P.S. Switch to Sword + Warhorn if you feel safe in melee range (which you mentioned you don’t like and you prefer Longbow sniping).
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnMqQrgWyCuqAXLGYPQWHoRB2Z+My12Lu7EJ-TBCBABVcIAga/BIuAAVq+zZKBxS5HAPAAPOCABAOA43f/93f/tUARMMC-e

Let’s not kid ourselves.

1. The sword does more damage than the GS, this is a fact based on math not opinion.

2. 20-25 vuln stack uptime is laughable. Rangers can burst a lot of vuln on trash and at the beginning of the fight, but other than that rangers are terrible at providing vuln. After your opening strike wears off, the only vuln you’ll be providing is from your cat and maul/rapid fire. You’re also forgetting about unshakeable, which halves vuln duration on anything noteworthy, so in reality you’ll have only around 6 stacks of vuln uptime and the vuln sources are from subpar and situational weapons.

3. I did answer the OP’s request, he asked for the maximum DPS ranger builds not for builds that contain LB and GS. The builds I mentioned have GS in them, and you can bring a longbow in them for Ranged encounters. You should never aspire to mediocre, pure GS is terrible and prevents you from learning how to play with the sword.

There are 7 dungeon classes in this game, dunno what you’re talking about.

Tragic Positive.9356:

Before I can give you the answer you are looking for – I need you to tell me what kind of player are you…
… Active (you like doing stuff and like mashing many buttons)
… Comfortable (doing solid damage without much effort)
… Melee / Ranged Oriented
?
By that time – the most build with highest damage output (AND burst) is definitely this one: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQJATRnMqQrgWyCWsAXLGYPoWHANQEwMD6gnb73exUlIB-TBCFABPcEAAa/BkU+hwhAYhHAAAXAgCV/5KlgBAOA43f/93f/tUARMMC-e

This is a terrible build for PvE and should not be recommended to anyone.

The good PvE builds are the ones that take the minimum amount of group support needed, and then optimize their damage from that point. Your builds do neither and are prioritizing burst so much that your sustained DPS plummets. Air, Intellgience and Rage sigils are terrible in PvE and more applicable in PvP, which makes me suspect you designed this build for PvP and just decided to use it in PvE.

Also, there’s zero reason to trade away group DPS for personal DPS on a ranger, because Rangers are bottom 4 dps anyways.

Sword based Spotter/Frost Spirit build is the best you can do in PvE.

Check out my guide in my sig.

^ This

Don’t blame PUGs for not knowing more about your build and playstyle. For all they know, you could have been a clerics warrior and earned all those relics and whatnot, there is no way they can tell how efficiently you got those tokens or what builds you ran to earn those.

Rathore.9348:

TurtleDragon.3108:

That’s the problem with axe, you need to trait for it when you want it to be a decent reflect. The trait is in a highly defensive and undesirable traitline for PvE, meaning you give up too much damage or group support to grab. You also have to stand still and channel it, meaning you don’t get to continue moving or using skills while reflecting unlike mesmers and guardians. Whirling defense damage is inferrior dps to auto attacking, standing still can be a problem in some fights like Grawl Shaman

Path of scars is great damage, but you need to be careful not to CC bosses when they have 0 stacks of defiance. (Unless you’re trying to pull or interupt them). If you want a knockdown, other classes have much better ones and using path of scars is a giant waste of boss CC.

Mm, I think you exaggerate. In my experience, damage from reflected projectiles more than compensates for any theoretical damage loss, and the higher endurance regen helps maintain steady focus. Lower cooldown on QZ is also very convenient.

If you have other rangers in the group, I’d actually recommend 4/5/5/0/0 over 4/5/0/5/0. Traited and untraited spirits still stack, and peak strength is great with a traited WH because then the traited Call of Wild cd (28) lines up much more smoothly with the Healing Spring cd (30).

Also, with grawl shaman – Hunter’s Call, Entangle, then Path of Scars + Whirling Defense right underneath the bubble (the reflect protects both you and the root) is probably the safest and most reliable way to “solo” the bubble. Add river drake lightning to seal the deal.

I think you’r exaggerating as well, no balanced group composition would run with 2 rangers. If I had other rangers in my group, I’d just bring my guardian instead for reflects. Nature Magic still gives you more power and a more reliable modifier than peak strength and wilderness survival. DPS-ing the bubble down isn’t even the hard part of the fight, it’s the elementals. Oh and other classes can do it better and there are plenty of different strategies for that fight that don’t invovle the ranger “solo”-ing the 50 stacks or whatever stacks.

Health isn’t that effective at providing survivability, it’s just helpful at preventing one shots (which can still happen even at 17.5k health ). Rangers are lucky that they have a medium sized health pool, and their PvE meta builds go into the vitality trait line. If you absolutely had to choose a defensive stat, pick toughness (ie. Knight’s gear mix is commonly recommended)

You’ll get more bang for your buck by altering your playstyle or traits slightly than adding defensive stats. Most of your survivability in this game is from Active Mitigation, not defensive stats. Some examples are picking up more endurance regen from food or traits, taking traited Signet of Stone to block attacks, using GS instead of sword for a fight, etc.

It could also be that you’re bringing the sword to the “wrong” fights as well.

Unless you’re talking about WvWvW or something, then ignore this post. I’m just assuming PvE dungeons/fractals because of Zerker gear.

Yep, the fractal is quite long even with an organized group. 8 minute clown car whee.

You’ll want Eagle Eye, Quick Draw, Traited Frost Spirit, Scholar runes and Force/Night.

This would terrible in dungeons/fractals, but fine in Open World PvE.

Fafnir.5124:

TurtleDragon.3108:

Axelwarrior.9084:

At least when you have a DPS/tank/healer that each commit to their role, you don’t have to trick enemies into not attacking you or into grouping up so you can clean them up easily and without a threat.

You don’t have to, but you still should because it’s faster to AoE down enemies than it is to single target them individually. It’s also not “without a threat”, if your party is grouped up as well, then that also means they can be AoE’d down by the enemy as well. It’s all about effeciency.

What do you think it the most logical approach? Tricking enemies and avoiding most of their mechanics, or using a right combination and strategy to beat them fair and square?

Tricking enemies is used in many MMOs, they are usually creative strategies that can make a fight easier in some ways, harder in other ways. A term for it is “creative use of game mechanics.”

Admittedly, the tank/DPS/healer trinity is brainless skill spamming in most cases

This is definitely not true in high end PvE in other MMOs.

Just asking where do the moss man exploits fall under all this:
-Stand in tree
-stand under bridget
-fight him under water
probably where more
I think anet fixed him but if you did any of these before you took no damage. Wouldn’t this fall under exploit. So saying you are playing the game as it is designed wont really save you. look at people who converted karma to gold selling food and got there acount band. Or people who made snowflake jewelry. What is and what is not an exploit is entirely what anet says it is.

-If you are skilled enough to play zerker you are fine = knowing mechanics and having skills to dodge damage you are probably fine. if you are not then you are just going to drop dead.slight faster then if you had different gear. In a party there is way to optimize design of members to optimize dps and surviability this is infinetly more important than an individuals build. Most people have multiple character I have a berserk ele because with low health you might as well have high damage output.I split builds up across multiple characters and use them as i see fit. The viability of a build is based soly on how you want to play.

Not sure why you’re responding to me, but I agree with most of what you said. No one on this forum is going to argue that glitching Mossman, Simin or the TA champions in the tree aren’t exploits. That’s just silly. Anet also hasn’t exactly been consistent with their definition of their definition of bannable exploits.

There’s a pretty distinct difference between safe spotting, stacking, glitching and using boss/game mechanics to your advantage.

The viability of a build is based soly on how you want to play.

I don’ think viability is the right word for that. If you just want to complete content, anything is viable. Completing content efficiently is a completely different story. I may want to play a Longbow ranger in a speed run, but that doesn’t mean it’s viable or appropriate for that situation. Play how you want only means so much without context, but if the people around you are okay with it, then that’s cool. Don’t force the way you want to play onto other people.

In my old guild, I used to say “Play however you want, just don’t join my groups if you’re not going to play with a meta build.”

Vargs.6234:

TurtleDragon.3108:

GS is ~17% worst DPS than sword.

What factors into this statistic? Is it just the autoattack damage, or is it accounting for things like 2h training and warhorn?

Auto attack and Maul under optimal conditions, no 2H training.

While staying alive is important, I encourage you to at the minimum learn how to use sword on the easy dungeons. That is everything but Arah and FotM, it’s fairly trivial to use sword since a lot of the fights are stack and burn. There are a few exceptions where you need to max melee range like Ginva and Collossus Rumbulus (PUG strat)

GS is ~17% worst DPS than sword.

GS is the next best thing to sword. Best you could do is run GS with x/WH. Start the fight with a warhorn blast and hope your fury/might lasts long enough for the entire fight. Take 2H training to help with your own personal Fury.

The ranger’s most effective role is to increase the party’s damage output. Their main strengths are Frost Spirit, Spotter and providing fury. You’ll want to use a Spotter/Frost Spirit build. 4/5/0/5/0 with Sword/Warhorn and GS. See my guide for more details.

Now that the patch has settled, I feel it’s time to bump this. Some of the guides I follow are now recommending Ranger Runes instead of scholar and the 4/5/0/5/0 set up as the main trait spread. This is more of a quality of life change than a strict DPS boost (If it even is one). You will crit more often but your crits do slightly less damage than before. This is the alternative to critting slightly harder, but not critting as often.
I’ve gone and made the switch, because it’s fairly difficult to maintain modifiers from full endurance, 90% health AND deal with the sword controls. I also do mostly fractal content nowadays, where the fights are significantly harder to melee than in dungeons.

I also forgot to mention, that you are supposed to make up for the lost power by stacking bloodlust.

Tl;dr: Ranger Runes 4/5/0/5/0 new PvE meta.

Rathore.9348:

OH Axe is a very good and very underrated weapon, especially in PvE. If your group stacks properly the AoE of Whirling Defense (when traited) is a proper reflect that also stacks vuln. Compared to Feedback and Wall of Reflection it has a lower cooldown and doesn’t force the group to use a generally useless combo field.

Path of Scars, with a coefficient of 1.2, has the same damage as Backstab if it hits twice. Getting both hits is very easy if your foes are against a wall, and the interrupt will provide some active damage mitigation. The pull comes in handy if your pugs are dysfunctional.

In PvP, the pull is good for interrupting stealth stomps (no need for a target, just aim it), and if you tank up, the retaliation and reflect from Whirling Defense is surprisingly useful in zergs. The big advantage of Whirling is that’s it relatively hard to see in traffic, unlike a gigantic purple bubble or shiny wall.

That’s the problem with axe, you need to trait for it when you want it to be a decent reflect. The trait is in a highly defensive and undesirable traitline for PvE, meaning you give up too much damage or group support to grab. You also have to stand still and channel it, meaning you don’t get to continue moving or using skills while reflecting unlike mesmers and guardians. Whirling defense damage is inferrior dps to auto attacking, standing still can be a problem in some fights like Grawl Shaman

Path of scars is great damage, but you need to be careful not to CC bosses when they have 0 stacks of defiance. (Unless you’re trying to pull or interupt them). If you want a knockdown, other classes have much better ones and using path of scars is a giant waste of boss CC.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

6/5/0/3/0
4/5/5/0/0
6/3/0/5/0

I’d hesitate to call 4/5/5/0/0 a “viable” set up since it’s only good in very specific, niche scenarios unlike 6/5/0/3/0 and 4/5/0/5/0. The only times you’d want to go into wilderness survival are when

1. You want offhand training
2. You already have a ranger with Vigorous Spirits
3. You need to reflect something really badly

Otherwise it’s not worth giving up Fortifying Bond and Vigorous Spirits, which are important for any PvE ranger spec.

@Ykfox
Here’s my PvE guide

Some people dont find it fun to min/max for every single dungeon, especially if you main something like a ranger or engineer. I personally don’t care about maximizing gold/hour and prefer more casual, relaxed runs. Elite doesn’t mean you have to min-max all the time, and I do understand there’s a time and place for that. It’s nice to at least have an environment where everyone will at the absolute minimum run berserker gear with a meta build, you can’t rely on that in PUGs.

At the end of the day it’s just a game, and If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing then what’s the point. My guildies in [IX] may have different opinions, but this in particular why I do not like min-max compositions (they usually don’t contain a ranger unless you just want to hit the highest possible numbers)

The meta is the exact same as it was before, only difference is that you need to put a 2nd Sigil on your GS if you choose to run that as your 2nd weapon set. You also need to put a stacking Sigil on your Underwater Weapon if you still want to stack bloodlust or perception, but this is likely unintended and will get patched eventually.

Here’s my PvE guide

Fluffball.8307:

jmkmay.3257:

Sword/Torch and Axe/Warhorn

While I agree with most everything you wrote, what’s up with those combos? Torch specifically for fire fields in dungeon running? I’d leave that to an ele and use an offhand axe. Axe 4 is colossal damage* and axe 5 is situationally amazing, as it doesn’t just block but also reflects projectiles.

*Someone posted a video of themselves “1 shotting” a karka with axe 4 the other day, although with a slightly different trait requirement than the normal 6/5/0/3 (<— hard to write.)

Torch is good, because you don’t always run with elementalists and your blast cds won’t necessarily align with their fire field cds all the time. Axe #4 is good, but the problem with it is that it gives bosses defiant, which is a bigger deal in organized groups where you actually try to interupt key abilities.

Stop being an entitled player. If you want those Hall of Monmument pets, go play GW1 and gather points. Those pets are just skins and provide no game play advantages, their abilities are still available in game. It’s also been stated numerous times that pet names can’t be saved because of a design issue. If you want your pet to not die, take care of it. If the player is good, it will not be dying left and right in dungeon content. Zerg content (like living story) is a different story, and a bit more out of your control.

The cast time for Mighty Roar is 3s, and while your claims of F2s failing when spamming are not unbelievable, you don’t have much credibility when you claim 40-50% damage nerf or 5-7 cast times. Those cast times only happen when your pet is CC’d when you press F2.

Most of your suggestions are overpowered without any thought of balance behind them.

Rangers do need some love in high end PvE, but threads like this are very misguided and give a false representation behind the class in general. Their damage only got nerfed by the ferocity changes, which affected everyone the same way.

Other classes got it worst than us from this patch. F2’s are more responsive now (atleast for drakes and jungle stalkers), so dunno what you’re talking about.

You’re free to play however you want but don’t force the way you want to play onto other people. Try to group yourself with players who have the same mind set. Ie. if you don’t want to stack and melee and use zerker gear, then don’t join guilds or groups that do zerker speed runs or find more friends to play with.

Casanova.7293:

My biggest problem about the whole ranger thing is people will often say just because range is in the name doesn’t mean you are a range player. Okay cool, so you are saying because I picked ranger I don’t get the option of being range only ? All people want is the option to play full range and not suck kittens at it. before anyone says but “insert class name here” can do a full range build just fine play that… That is the problem sweet I am glad that class can do it now why can we not?

It’s a class balance and design issue. Melee damage needs to be more rewarding than Ranged damage in this game. Those other classes (Ele, engi) still need to melee with their ranged weapon builds.

Ranger longbow/shortbow are especially terrible because our damage is split between us and our pet. So you do less damage than other classes that can range, while ranging which is already suboptimal damage.

law.9410:

I like the sword and will continue to use the sword regardless but you guys defending the sword can’t be suggesting you wouldn’t like the option of being able to dodge mid chain.

Or move or max melee range.

Axelwarrior.9084:

I’m asking you which one of the examples I mentioned, which I consider exploits, are creative. Obviously, I’m not denying that creative strategies exist, nor did I ever say that the one at Old Tom is an exploit. It’s not interfering with the boss in any way, you’re using your own abilities to protect yourself.

About the spider queen, you can indeed die while stacked, but that doesn’t change anything. You’re still basically crippling her damage output and she can’t do anything to react to it. The players shouldn’t be the ones controlling the boss and its attacks simply by stacking.

The only boss you keep mentioning is spider queen, and maybe ooze (that one is a safe spot exploit). Old Tom was just an example of creative strats, I never said you thought it was an exploit. Might not have been the best example, but I can name trick enemies into not attacking you strats in trinity MMOs (Which you said people don’t need to do in it). The immobilze strat for Tar in Arah p1 is pretty creative and is within bounds of the boss’ mechanics.

It does change things because you said we don’t get AoE’d while stacked

When you stack to gather enemies in one spot, at melee range, it’s so that they DON’T use their AoE and your AoE hits everything

she can’t do anything to react to it

She does react by using a different move set, at this point you’re asking for improved AI which is too much work to implement in this game.As of right now, the boss is working as intended with how they choose what moves to use.

Luckily, this is a PvE guide and targets will often sit there and let your pet wail on them like a training golem. Moving bosses is really only an issue in fractals, and birds have terrible utility (blinds) on bosses.

Axelwarrior.9084:

@ TurtleDragon: I realize you’ve missed the entire point. When you stack to gather enemies in one spot, at melee range, it’s so that they DON’T use their AoE and your AoE hits everything (At least in the case of the Spider Queen). Read my previous posts.
I don’t see how staying still in a corner and oversimplifying a fight is creative. Care to elaborate?

When you stack to gather the spider queen in one spot at melee range, she has two AoEs. 1 is a bite that applies weakness (also a giant DPS loss if not cleansed), and a channelled breath attack that applies immobilize and bleeds. I might have mixed up the conditions, but the point is that you are also at risk of being AoE’d down by the boss..
It’s not oversimplifying it if it has different mechanics to deal with, especially when they can easily kill bad groups.

This case is in particular isn’t a “creative use of game mechanics”, but it’s also not an exploit. An example for the former is using tomes, pets or summons to body block Old Tom’s poison bolts.a But the whole point of mentioning that was that players trick enemies or use creative tactics in trinity MMOs as well.

You can crit the ice elemental adds

Don’t forget your bear and bow.

Axelwarrior.9084:

At least when you have a DPS/tank/healer that each commit to their role, you don’t have to trick enemies into not attacking you or into grouping up so you can clean them up easily and without a threat.

You don’t have to, but you still should because it’s faster to AoE down enemies than it is to single target them individually. It’s also not “without a threat”, if your party is grouped up as well, then that also means they can be AoE’d down by the enemy as well. It’s all about effeciency.

What do you think it the most logical approach? Tricking enemies and avoiding most of their mechanics, or using a right combination and strategy to beat them fair and square?

Tricking enemies is used in many MMOs, they are usually creative strategies that can make a fight easier in some ways, harder in other ways. A term for it is “creative use of game mechanics.”

Admittedly, the tank/DPS/healer trinity is brainless skill spamming in most cases

This is definitely not true in high end PvE in other MMOs.