Ranger, second profession?

What would you reccomend as a second profession for a Ranger? I was thinking about monk, but someone told me to go elementalist.

Any suggestions?

For pve i would use monk, because of rebirth. However if u choose ele, then you can take advantage of the conjure skills to deal extra damage.

For pvp i think mesmer secondory is the most popular, because of hex breaker, enchant strip spells, mantras.

edit: one more thing, with monk secondory u can use judge insight which gives you 20% armor penetration, and it deals holy damage so very useful against undeads.

I think I might go for monk, thanks.

Any more suggestions?

R/W gives almost free 33% increase to attack speed because ranger's expertise reduce Frenzy stance energy cost. You are backline attacker anyway so double damage doesn't matter that much. At least not before you ascend. You can also be a melee fighter and use reduced energy cost warrior attack skills.

Secondaries aren't that important for a ranger, you can go with anything you like. Monk would be a good choice for a reusable resurrect. My first character went R/N but I never used the necromancer skills.

You can get attack speed boost from ranger skills like tigers fury or lighning reflexes, without needing the warior skills. You've also got pretty good options for defensive stances and heals in the ranger line. Thus, 2 of the more popular secondaries are ele and monk, as others have noted. The reason for these are the attack boosts. If you're using kindle arrows, or the like, or an elemental string, conjure element from the appropriate ele line can be useful. Similarly, judges insight from the monk's smiting line is very popular... especially with barragers and fighting undead. Basically, rangers are pretty self sufficient, but if you want to boost your attacks even more, those are good ways to go. Otherwise, you can almost do without, and it would be hard to go wrong.

i recommend going R/Mo if it is ur first time... the reusable rez should come in handy

R/me = pvp, for the sake of mantra, this prevents you from interupted from laying traps, at the expense of energy each time. not bad, however, you're a ranger, and whirling defense is nearly as good. Very often, i offensive trap with 2 people swinging at me, and whirling defense is ussually enough to get 2/3 or even 3/3 traps down, and with high wilderness survival, it's nearly 20 seconds long. furthermore this protects you from damage as well, so it's multi purposed

my current offensive trap setup as a R/Mo

healing breeze, troll unguent, spike trap, dust trap, flame trap, storm chaser, whirling defense, res sig

i can heal my party up a bit, or at least slow down degen. i can heal the hell out of myself with troll/breeze, and i can trap like crazy. of course i use a staff with this setup for the extra energy, and a full druids set. 42 energy goes a long way with 13 or 14 expertise.

in pve, i switch out the sig for rebirth or restore life, rangers don't die a lot, so with storm chaser/rebirth i can ussually recover a wipe, even if you're dead at their feet.

judges insight gives a lot of damage potential in a pure marks build

there's a smiting aoe that hurts enemies around you, with the current ai, you can ussually get a dust trap layed down before they come back, and then lay the other 2 cuz they're blind.

a lot of options with R/Mo, i ussually run 5 or 6 ranger skills, and 2 or 3 monk skills, and i find i get a lot out of those 2 skills.

another option is to go R/W, making you a great runner, and with greater conflagulation (elite) and drakescale armor you can outtank most warriors. combined with the various ranger survival skills, and cheap warrior skills through expertise, it's a very fun combo.

my 12 cents, hope it helps

Well, you get Tiger's Fury at crystal desert where you can change your second profession anyway. Tiger's Fury cost base 10 energy and it is tied to beast mastery attribute so it requires attribute points to have at least same 8 second duration as Frenzy.

Lightning Reflexes has 45 seconds recharge and it last only 10 seconds with 12 expertise.