[48] Guild Wars 2 Build - Ranger: Longbow & Shortbow |PVE

By: teaandbickies (Updated 8/4/2012)

.: Ranger Build :.

Main Weapon: Longbow

Alt. Weapon: Shortbow

.: Utility Skills :.

Healing Spring

• Create a healing spring that heals you and your pet.  Once placed, the spring applies constant regeneration and also periodically removes conditions from allies within its vicinity.

Sun Spirit

• Summon a sun spirit that grants allies a 20% change to inflict burning.

Signet of Stone

• Passive: Improves toughness of you and your pet.
• Active: Your pet takes no damage from incoming attacks.

Signet of the Wild

• Passive: Grants health regeneration to you and your pet.
• Active: Your pet grows larger, dealing more damage and gaining stability.

Spirit of Nature

• Summon a spirit that heals allies.  Command the spirit to revive and remove conditions from nearby allies.

.: Traits :.

Marksmanship – 30 points

Attribute Bonuses:  +300 Power, +30% Condition Duration

Adept

Minor Trait: Opening Strike

• Case vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat.

Major Trait: Signet Mastery (IV)

• Signet recharges are reduced by 20%.

Master

Minor Trait: Alpha Training

• Pets have Opening Strike.

Major Trait: Eagle Eye (X)

• Increases longbow and harpoon gun range.  Increases longbow and harpoon gun damage by 5%.

Grandmaster

Minor Trait: Precise Strike

• Opening Strike always critical hits.

Major Trait: Signet of the Beastmaster (XI)

• Active effects of signets affect you as well as your pet.

Skirmishing – 0 points

N/A

Wilderness Survival – 20 points

Attribute Bonuses: +200 Toughness, +200 Condition Damage

Adept

Minor Trait: Natural Vigor

• Increases endurance regeneration by 50%.

Major Trait: Expertise Training (V)

• Pets deal extra condition damage.

Master

Minor Trait: Companion’s Defense

• You and your pet gain 2 seconds of protection when you dodge roll.

Major Trait: Hide in Plain Sight (IX)

• Apply camouflage when you are dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back, or stunned.  This effect cannot trigger more than once every 30 seconds.

Nature Magic – 20 points

Attribute Bonuses: +200 Vitality, +20% Boon Duration

Adept

Minor Trait: Rejuvenation

• Gain regeneration when your health reaches 75%.

Major Trait: Nature’s Protection (VI)

• Receive protection for 5 seconds when you take more than 20% damage in a single strike.  This effect can only trigger once every 30 seconds.

Master

Minor Trait: Fortifying Bond

• Any boon you get is shared with your pet.

Major Trait: Nature’s Vengeance (VII)

• Spirits activate their toggle skill on death.

Beastmastery – 0 points

N/A

.: Commentary :.

This build is more of a balance between offense and defense, as well as sharing benefits with my pet.  Opening Strike has proven to be very useful when I start attacking foes, decreasing their defenses to allow me to use my more powerful attacks to try to severely hinder it before its defenses go back to normal.

Also, for my ranger, I only use a longbow and a shortbow as my two weapon sets, so having more attack power and longer, more damaging conditions were an essential thing for me to have.  A longer range for my longbow and harpoon gun too will definitely be useful if I’m trying to pull enemies away from a massive group.

In terms of signets, I always equip Signet of Stone and Signet of the Wild, both of which have excellent active effects for my pet.  Also, SotW automatically revives my pet for me in its passive state, which definitely gives me (and my allies) less work to do when I’m trying to fight something!  :D  So, I wanted to make sure I have the trait that spreads the benefits of active signet effects to myself as well, just to make us even stronger.  ;3

Also, the camouflage skill sounds very useful (and fun!), so we’ll see where that goes.  XD  That, and automatically toggling spirit skills on death will definitely prove useful as I tend to forget to activate them to begin with.