Ranger Builds and Strategy:

[Loggahead]

All,

Lets talk Ranger builds and strategy... I'm interested to see how differently each one of us play our rangers!

Here is my current build for Faran:

Weapon Sets:
Shortbow
Sword / Horn or Torch

Skills:
Signet of Stone
Signet of Renewal
Stone Spirit or Sun Spirit

Traits:
Marksmanship - going for signets recharge 20% faster
Skirmishing - Sharpened Edges (crits with chance to bleed)

Strategy:
I am spec'ing +Precision whenever I can to increase my critical chance (currently at 52%). I like to use the shortbow due to its attack speed, helps with criticals, and use its Daze skill to interrupt damaging offensive attacks. I also use it's poison quite a bit. Another strategy I like to use is to start with my Sword / Torch, lay down bonfire, switch to my shortbow, step back and fire the poison arrows through the fire to burn and poison grouped mobs.

As far as my pet goes, I've been rolling with my black widow and use signet of stone to stop incoming damage to her. As a back up land animal, I use the bear for tanking.

At any rate, with this build, I can pretty much maintain bleed and poison on mobs. This has proven to be a good condition stacking build. Also, I like to use the human skill Prayer to Lyssa to stack a random condition every 12 seconds on a mob while granting a random boon on myself.

Let's hear your builds!

-logga

[kipp]

I'm doing pretty much the same thing with these exceptions:

I use an axe instead of the sword so that I can stay at range.
I'm stacking +condition damage and duration since the shortbow is so good about bleeding
I'm running the polar bear and brown bear. Everything else seems to die really quickly
I'm using flame and spike trap instead of the signets you mentioned.

[donkslol]

www.gw2db.com/skill-builds/671-ranger-bear-solo-grind

I have a sword and war horn on my switch ATM. Current as of level 40.

Basic strategy is I have a Polar Bear (Pigbearman) if I have 3+ mobs on him for his aoe stun, and an Arctodus (Manbearpig) for 2 or less for his quick damage output.

Send in pet first, begin to flank or pull pet back after aggro to get behind mobs so I can bleed. Cripple shot so I had 4 stacks of bleed on top of the 8 stacks just through normal attacks. I'll generally pop a spike trap at the beginning if there are 2 or more mobs. With the marksmen +10% damage from not having to dodge due to aggro on pet (and can tank and do pretty good damage too) plus the frost spirit doing +20% damage, the mobs are dropping really quick.

If i'm in a bind, i'll swap to the horn and shoot off the Call of the Wild and get some nice stat bonuses for anyone around me. And if needed pop my elite Entangle to get distance and heal.

I wanted to try to make this toon remind me of my EQ ranger back in the day (back when there were only 2 expansions... not 22) so I have a sword. However it puts me right in the mix of battle and I'm VERY squishy, so I'm going to try to find a nice axe to keep my distance.

Precision and Condition Damage/Crit% are my main stats.

I'm having a blast discovering the world and until I get my new computer parts wednesday, I can't pvp without dying from consistent cpu load lag. Plus I cant continue on my story quest because its bugged at lvl 30 :x

[froot]

Those sound great guys!

I've been chilling with Truffles the spider lately mostly for the ranged poison damage. Build wise I have found that the shortbow/zweihander combo has been very nice for my style of playing. Basically I use the ranged power (usually rapid fire) to pull them in close enough to switch over to the zweihander, use 'swoop' to close the distance gap, and slice their face open from there. If I need some space for heal or recharge I'll usually switch over to use point blank shot.

Also... rampage as one is a sick skill.

[ralimar]

Truffles........Truffles the spider huh......really...