Ranger Q&A

Tek7

Tek7

CGA President, Tribe of Judah Founder & President
Staff member
So far, all I have is Q's. No A's yet. Nevertheless, here are my questions:

What Elite skills would expert Rangers recommend for a level 30 Norn Ranger?

I have 13 Skill Points; I just don't know which to pick.

Here's a relevant screenshot.


What other skills would you consider "must-haves"?

I find that I'm fond of Muddy Terrain (especially when preceded by the longbow's Point Blank Shot) and Sharpening Stone.


What are your favorite pets?

I'm cruising around with a snow leopard and an owl at the moment.


What are your recommendations for traits?

My playstyle is mostly PvE (since I play with my wife) but I want to get involved in WvW now that I hit 30 and can unlock an Elite skill. I <3 pets and movement speed bonuses. I also like a bit of stealth, though I enjoy jumping headfirst into the occasional melee brawl.
 
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I find Healing Spring to be rather incredible for any kind of group combat. Not only does it have a really long duration (15s, 30s recharge), it offers Regen, constant condition removal, neat Combo Finishers, good radius, and it looks neat. Bear is a great tank, but I dig some of the Devourers mainly for the range attack + poison field every so often.
 
for a ranger i seem to be drawn to longbow/shortbow
traps for slots7-9
and entangle for elite.

it seems to work very well for me.
however im not sure where the traits for a aspiring trapper should be spent lol
 
I'll pull up my ranger later today and get back to you.

This was my first ranger, and I have to admit - I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

It will be fun to pull him out again.

One thing I do recommend - around level 30, do your crafting. You can take your ranger from level 30 to level 50 - have tons of skill and trait points - and able to go just about anywhere yo need to go.
 
Putting a fire trap and spike trap on the bar with the Elite Hounds of Balthazar has saved my bacon more'n once. Put the speed boost signet on too and of course heal of choice and you can survive most any where. Arcdotus or other bear for holding melee, and a ranged trusty spider for extreme condition damage(poison) and the ability to freeze a foe in their tracks. Both pets have pretty good durability. The half fall damage Muddy Terrain trait is almost a must also. My weapons are axe/torch and longbow. The torch skill Bonfire goes real well with Fire Trap, and combos real nice. Backed into a melee it goes right across, Bonfire, Firetrap, Spike Trap, Hounds of Balthazar. Pretty, pretty fire everywhere, and the victim is crippled so can't get anywhere in a hurry. In addition to burning, the Spider poisons. Use longbow for extreme range, pulling, and fire resistant critters. Bonwar calls me an arsonist.

edit: Another advantage of Fire Trap is relatively quick recharge rate. Use a con that increases burning damage or duration and you can chuck fire axes all day.

edit:http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fME...5oH9Uke1fxUlIB;TwAg0ypEQJlSNlSKKqMUJoyWjjKJVA
 
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My ranger is similar to Ursen's. Most of the builds I see that are good for leveling and PvE use the shortbow/axe and torch combo.

the skills I used for getting to 80 are Heal as One (+6,758 health for self and pet at level 80) - Spike Trap (bleeding with a 1,170 hit - great when being chased or they are on top of you) - Signet of Stone ( added toughness for self and pet - and pet gets no more damage) - Signet of the Wild (health regeneration for both - pet deals more damage). My elite, right now, is Entanglement - it is great when going against the big bad guys.

I forget whether I got this from Stc or Koeril - but it worked for me to get to 80, having a lot of fun along the way.
 
So what I've read leads me to believe that Rampage As One vs. Entanglement comes down to choosing between damage output and crowd control. RaO seems better suited to PvE and Entanglement seems better suited to WvW.

Thoughts?
 
What Elite skills would expert Rangers recommend for a level 30 Norn Ranger?

I would recommend Rampage as One as your primary elite skill. It syncs very well with Sharpening Stone and Quickening Zephyr for awesome spike damage (when something has to die very fast). The Spirit is good for dungeon healing. The Entangle is only good in PvE and very situational; too many people know how to "break" out of it in WvW to be effective. And Entangle does not seem to work on boss fights in dungeons. Even Champions seem to be immune to it.

What other skills would you consider "must-haves"?

Sharpening Stone and Quickening Zephyr are absolutes for spike damage. These are "required".
Signet of the Wild is good for passive regen.
Signet of Renewal is good for passive condition removal.
Signet of the Hunt is good for traveling (+25% movement). Its VERY nice!

What are your favorite pets?

Snow Leopard and Lynx are good for dps.
Black Bear and Polar Bear are good for tanking and farming solo.
Eagle and Hawk are good for traveling quickly across maps.
Wolf is a good "all-around" pet for unknown situations.
Brown Bear is a good for extra conditional removal and tanking/farming solo.
Carrion Devourer and Jungle Spider are good for dungeons (ranged pets).

What are your recommendations for traits?

PvE - 30/20/20/0/0. I run primary shortbow (secondary longbow) with focus on condition damage and kiting (mobility). Sitting still gets me dead (and I don't like "dead"). So I need skills that I can cast on the move and don't require me to stay in one place. Therefore skills like Healing Spring, traps, and spirits all call for me to be rooted (proximity fixed). So those are no good to me. I would use a tanking bear to hold my enemy in place while I run circles or semicircles around the target. Mobs can case me and cast at me, but my constant movement keeps me nearly invulnerable. My trouble is when I have to change directions or stop moving. The 20 points in Wilderness Survival is only really the lengthen Condition Duration. For this build, mathematically, it does more than the extra points in Precision. Rampager Gear is used with Chrysocola jewels (aimed at getting at least 50% critical chance and then maxing out condition damage). The numbers on the website aren't quite right.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fMEQFAVjIVJ2RWaWs2Bg1j96LwmCOlkpwQGLxWaB;T0Ag1yqEUJpSVliKqmMNJay2krJZTjKA In dungeons, you can drop the extra Longbow Range and damage because most fights are in close quarters; I change it to something that will give me more damage.

WvW - 30/30/10/0/0. Same basic idea above, except the Longbow is the primary weapon firing at maximum range (1500). For Longbow, Beserker's gear is probably better with aiming at high power, and critical damage. Ranged pets are good for here, too, as the current AI pathing makes dodging pets at normal speed way too easy. And a pet that does not damage decreases your dps output.


The question you didn't ask:
Buffs (food) - Rare Veggie Pizza (Chef) (extra condition damage)
Buffs - Master Tuning Crystal (Artisan) (extra condition damage)


So that's what I run: Shortbow/Longbow condition damage build with high kiting. I can solo Veterans without my elite skill. I solo Veteran Young Karka easily (though you have to watch you pet closely; sometimes it takes two pets to kill one). I don't know what's available for you at level 30, but I'm sure there's some kind of food and crystal buffs that you can get for a level 30.

At level 80, I'm averaging 101 damage per tick. Add food and crystal and it goes up to 112-117. Add Sharpening Stone and Quickening Zephyr and it can reach 127-133. Add Rampage as One and it can go as high as 154 (though that's the highest I've ever seen it go, so don't expect that "every" time). Its a good "melt your enemy" build. And the best part is that condition damage bypasses toughness (armor). Its a straight attack against an opponent's vitality. Even in WvW, with players carrying condition removal, you reapply it so fast, its almost impossible to keep off. Bleed is on the Shortbow auto-attack skill one. So you basically "auto-attack" enemies to death. The other skills are just "utility" as the situation calls for them.

Hope that helps!
 
One other point that I've discovered about condition damage (which doesn't affect your questions, so I'll keep this in a separate post)...

GW2 game mechanics only calculated condition duration in "whole" numbers. Fractions are lost. So if you can put bleeds on your target for 2 1/2 seconds, it only counts 2 seconds worth. So to get the desired effect, you need to put enough "duration" to reach 3 seconds. So keep that in mind if you are wanting to change something in a conditions build.
 
I currently have 2 rangers, one at 80 and the other I am leveling (currently around 20). I come from a mostly pve standpoint but have done some WvWvW. My level 80 is set up for crit and crit damage. I have 2 sets of gear for him, bot are berserker but one has Divinity runes and the other with Ranger runes. The one set is designed to give me some more survivability (over 20k health with that set) and the other is my glass cannon gear (60% crit and 101% crit damage), build is 10/30/10/20/0. I generally run short bow/long bow, but will sometimes swap long bow for a sword/warhorn setup (for the buff)

Traits I normally use are from Marksman: Steady Focus (10% damage).
From Skirmishing: Pet Powers (30% pet crit damage), Quick Draw (20% bow recharge), Trappers Expertise/Trap Potency (trap buffs depending on the fight).
From Wilderness Survival: Wilderness Knowledge (20% survival skill recharge).
From Nature Magic: Strength of Spirit (5% Vitality to Power), and Natures Protection (gain 5 sec Protection on 20% damage).

Skills vary a bit in WvWvW Quickening Zephyr, Signet of the Hunt, and Spike Trap are used a fair amount, though i try to be flexable depending on whats going on. Dungeons are pretty standard layout of QZ, Spike Trap and either Frost Trap for Flame Trap depending on how much kiting I think I may be doing. My elite skill rotates between Rampage as One and Entangle, depending on the fight.

After playing a hunter in WoW since vanilla, kiting and trap laying have never been an issue, so I can generally keep them dropped while moving around. With any type of glass cannon build, mobility is the key to surviving, but i took the extra health for those times when you miss a dodge roll. Heal wise I almost always use Troll Unguent, i know Healing Spring is great in groups but with the amount of movement I normally do I am almost always out of its healing range.

Pet wise in dungeons its either spiders/devourers or a pet that buffs (like a moa). Buff pets get left on passive to increase the chance it will live and the others are ranged pets so they last a little longer than a melee pet. Overall I just generally expect my pet to be dead through at least half of any boss fight, with is why until Anet fixes them I dont really worry about them. I treat them as an after thought (much like Anet has done).

My second ranger is going for a survival/condition build. I will post more on this toon later but after some research it looks like I will be using this build 0/0/30/10/30. I maximses condition damage (Wilderness Survival) and healing (Beast Mastery). It is unlikely my second one will see many dungeons but it will be great for farming and from some of what Ive read has done quite well in WvWvW. Thieves apparently hate the build because its very hard to kill them or even to get them down below 50% health so they can spam Heartseeker with better effect. In dungeons however pets will still get destroyed by boss AoE attacks. Currently I am thinking short bow and axe/axe,torch, warhorn as a weapon setup. All of them have some nice condition damage and the warhorn of course has the buff from Call of the Wild.
 
Nice reply Taran, I just wanted to add one thing. If you max Crit% with berserker gear and triats while using ruby orbs (around 60%) and use crit food/oil, you can then use superior sigil of strength to stack might with the shortbow. It shoots very fast and at 60% crit it crits alot, combining that with might stacks your fast shooting shortbow is consistantly hitting for 1k a pop auto attack.
 
UPDATE: March 8, 2013

For those fellow rangers who are interested, over this past week there have been some developments.
https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/ranger/Robert-Hrouda-on-pets-in-dungeons

Robert Hrouda, Dungeon Designer, plays a Ranger. During some comments in the Dungeon design, he referred to his experience as a ranger "doing great DPS". And that led to an uproar in the community. Since then, he has admitted that his experience is only in open world PvE (not dungeons, not WvW, and not tournament PvP). Which led to more dialog about the Ranger and its current status. He has been exchanging comments with the community for a few days now promising to take Ranger concerns to the two folks who work on profession design to improve gameplay. The major focus is on 'making pets work'. And he was adamant that the pet is 'here to stay' as a permanent extension of the ranger.

What does that mean? That means any and all hope of making pets 'optional' is 'never going to happen.' So if anyone has dreams of playing a 'pure archer' it won't happen with the ranger. The ranger will always be just a beastmaster. As such, ArenaNet is committed to making pets work with rangers (as a required mechanic). Therefore, we can expect pet improvement in the near future (weeks - months... no time table has been given). But you all might want to think seriously about how to make your pet the best it can be along with your skills.

PS: Buffing pets against dungeon AoE from boss fights was tried and failed. Apparently it made the pets "too strong". Multiple tries of numbers were tried, but it was just breaking too many "other things." More research is being done on pet survivability in dungeons. Whatever option is chosen, it won't be an "easy fix".
 
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So the dungeon designer hasn't played his favorite profession in dungeons?
 
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That's the reaction I got, too. However, he did say that the pet died frequently in dungeons and especially after fractal level 20 when Agony really impacted them. His argument is that just because rangers had trouble in dungeons didn't mean the profession was broken. Apparently when trying to adjust numbers for dungeons, open world rangers became OP. So they want to 'fix' ranger pets, but not so rangers become OP elsewhere. And so far, simple number adjustments haven't worked. So I guess I should have said "usually limited to open world" rather than "only".

On a side note, he argued that rangers could stop a zerg in WvW with well placed spike traps and barrage (long bow) because enemies would think twice about that kind of damage. My thought was, 'clearly this guy does play WvW on his ranger.' A long bow ranger even with great spike traps and positioning isn't going to stop a zerg. And then it occurred to me that he must play on low population servers where zergs are like 10 people. On Sanctum of Rall, zergs are numbering 50-60 people easily. So its a context issue. Which means, he's not experiencing the game like we are and thus, doesn't see the problem like we do.

PS: A patch is being made to some pets vitality stat. Seems after the initial vitality nerf between beta 3 and release, there was a patch to increase pet health. But many of the HoM pets were "missed". The community has been asking for someone to look into why HoM pets died much faster than other tamed pets in the world. Today, it was confirmed for at least the White Raven and Black Widow Spider that vitality is too low (to their in-world counterparts). So pet vitality is being checked and patched for the next patch release.
 
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Yeah, looked through the thread in greater detail a bit later.

I haven't played ranger yet, but it's on my list for some time down the road. The idea of running around with a tiger at my side just puts a smile on my face. I'm not sure I really care for microing a pet, though. Some pets can be used more like buff/heal bots for the ranger, rather than as a tank/damage pet, right?
 
Haven't heard of one dedicated to buff/heal, I guess it would depend on which one you choose. I do know you can set your traits so that the pet can do better healing while maintaining a decent damage. I use that trait and my pet, either the Black Widow or Polar Bear has pulled my bacon out of the fire more than once when I have been in a downed state. Speaking of Black Widow, yes it seems to be more fragile, but the gain in webbing up an opponent and doing massive amounts of poison damage makes it worth it. Other spiders work similar yet I don't know the fragility level there, I guess I'll just keep using Shirley Temple for now.
 
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