What is the most versatile build for a ranger..

I have a r/w but i want to know what kind of secondary is most versatile. If i want to make a trapper or what ever else i want, what secondary should i use?

i have a level 12 r/w ive been using poison arrow and other varieties of skills people tell me to use, but i dont know what i should use.

Mesmer is great for trapping as a secondary, but a bit useless (imo) for much else.

R/W is actually a great way to go, for general versatility. The shouts offer you lots of unique abilities (ie. using Victory is Mine as a trapper, since traps cause hecka conditions), and the stances are nice too (R/W forgerunners do exist, with balanced stance and "Charge!"). Not to mention, most of the skills for warrior are buffed by Expertise, hence Bunny Thumper builds (Ranger wielding warrior weapons, along with a pet)

R/N is nice for curses, but I found death/blood magic to be almost useless. However, skills like Vampiric Touch and Plague Touch go nicely, and a touch ranger buffing his skills and their recharge with his ranger skills is often very deadly in PvP.


If this is your first character, don't let anybody tell you how to play. Just play the way that works. If your strategy sucks, I promise you'll mess up somewhere. You should only really learn the builds once you ascend and hit 20 (or even after beating the Ring of Fire missions)

Id have to agree with Snoop I actually originally made my ranger for backline shout support. Which turned out to work pretty well.

Barrage seems to work well low energy cost aswell there are many easy fun builds out there that are workable.

Barrage
Hunters shot

Quote: Originally Posted by SnoopJeDi

Quote: Originally Posted by Iskrah

I tend to find secondaries for the most part useless when I use my ranger, with the exception of certain farming builds. I generally just stick with R/Mo for the rez spell.

If you want the most versatility possible, stick with ranger primary and use include a variety of skills such as apply poison/poison arrow, pin down/crippling shot, hunter's shot, stormchaser/dodge/escape, interupt of any kind, and troll or healing spring. Find a way to incorporate these types of skills into a single build without spreading your attributes too thin and you will be able to lay down conditions(which can be your source of damage), reduce damage taken, interupt, escape battles, and heal yourself all with one build.

Quote: Originally Posted by SnoopJeDi

so stay r/w or go r/me.

i want a PVP and farming able ranger.. soo.

So unlock every second profession. Doesn't take more than an hour.

guess it all falls onto this

do you want to be the aragorn styled ranger r/w, with amazing skill in warfare with tactics and weapon efficiency,

or do you want to be more of a mystical ranger r/me and subvert your enemies?

I found it easier to farm as a R/W even though I don't use warrior skills. I use power shot, penetrating attack, determined shot, troll unguent, barrage, storm chaser, barbed trap, annd dust trap. I use the traps to protect myself when they get close.

I farm with Imps and Golems outside Ice Caves (build learned from Master Shira at: http://wiseelben.com/rangersbeacon/). It's not as proffitable per run as farming FoW, but it doesn't rely on America having favor and doesn't cost 1k each time. I usually step outside and farm for a few minutes while waiting on a guildie or just to pass time and earn a respectable amount of cash pretty quickly and easily.

Quote: Originally Posted by Iskrah

There is a build for R/Mo as well.

Is there a chance any Ice Imp will drop a IDS or only the ones in the cave in MS?

Quote: Originally Posted by Dr. Fire

For versatility, Stick with the ranger only. The ranger is the most versatile as everyone knows. Warriors have a sweet skills for tactics and are good at hand-to-hand, but since you are limited to the number skills on your bar and the number of attribute points, you probably won't use too many skills nor put too many attribute points into other skills offered by other classes.

Having said that, you should look at what is the Ranger missing. Necros can steal life from many monsters almost at the same time. This gives you faster healing than troll ungeant, but takes more mana and more time to do. Curses are nice, especially Parasitic Bond + Weakness, but you would need lots into Curses for that to be useful. You can gain energy with one elite skill in blood tree, but it means no more greater conflag or barrage or anyother elite from the Ranger.

Elementalists have good defenses and powerful offensive powers, but unless you are willing to use glyphs to bring energy costs down, this secondary class is too expensive to be useful.

Warriors are great as a secondary class. As many people have noted about stances and shouts. Very little drawbacks here, but Rangers already have stances and abilities that outshine Warriors (unless you plan to use more of a warrior base character with Ranger armor)

Mesmers compliment the Ranger beautifully. They can cause illusionary damage, disrupt (causing damage/enemy loses energy/you gaining energy). You also gain extra damage resistance vs all types of damage (depending on stances you choose) and remove hexes on yourself or others. You also have the ability to make a copy of 1 skill or copies of 1 spell. You can inflict deep wounds via phantom pain and with poison and bleeding skills you can then make other monsters around target foe to feel the same conditions. Not to mention you can make your traps uninteruptable when laying them down.

Monks can heal you or the party. They can be used to heal NPCs that MUST be kept alive. They can remove hexes and conditions that antidote signet cannot. You can help monks heal the party (because you may have trouble finding them in PvE). In PvP you aren't considered to be a threat like Eles or Necros are, so you don't have to worry about being attacked while you help protect the true monks (via healing) or laying traps and have the squishees run over and players get hit by them.

My preferense is Monk, then Mez. You may prefer the Warrior or Necro or Ele, but for versatility the two Ms are both versitile and complimentary to the Ranger.

Just remember, just ask yourself, what do you want to do, and what is the best thing that will help you do it. Versatility means what you can do, and what are you missing from your primary.

Hope this helps.

Quote: Originally Posted by Meneldil

Quote: Originally Posted by Iskrah