Some questions about Ranger from an returning player.

Greetings adventurer,

i'm returning to GW2 after giving WoW one last try. I'm thinking to start over with a new toon. I like to have pets on my side so i've played Necro before my break. Somehow now he feels lackluster and the whole theme seems no longer to be my thing. I'm thinking about to start an Ranger. So my question is how is the state of the class at the moment? Are power and condibuilds are viable without using soulbeast ( don't like the merging thing)? Are rangers welcome in fractal pugs (all tiers) or will i be forced to play druid?

Thanks for reading and answering my questions.

Raids and fractals you'll be for sure would need to go into druid. Unless you can dish out rotation damage meta is condi for Ranger. But end game if that's your goal Ranger is still in a good spot overall. Main Ranger since GW1. IMO about Soulbeast honestly didn't like it at first when expac came out but looking at it again it's top 4 specialization overall in terms of usefulness. That's my opinion anyway. Tried all classes and new spec. Also not a fan of condition damage but right now that's meta so if you're into condition that's good news

that's not 100% true. If the group needs or wants you to heal then yes they will ask you to go druid but you don't have to. Condi ranger still works well but soulbeast has more tools and so gets more dps in raids/fractals. power builds are good for open world stuff but in raids/fractals condi is king for almost every profession. There are only a limited number of power builds that can put up high enough numbers to compete with condi.

@Prophet.1584 said:that's not 100% true. If the group needs or wants you to heal then yes they will ask you to go druid but you don't have to. Condi ranger still works well but soulbeast has more tools and so gets more dps in raids/fractals. power builds are good for open world stuff but in raids/fractals condi is king for almost every profession. There are only a limited number of power builds that can put up high enough numbers to compete with condi.

i think you have that reversed

power is king for fractals and there are limited number of condi builds that can compete with power

@infrequentia.3465 said:

@Prophet.1584 said:that's not 100% true. If the group needs or wants you to heal then yes they will ask you to go druid but you don't have to. Condi ranger still works well but soulbeast has more tools and so gets more dps in raids/fractals. power builds are good for open world stuff but in raids/fractals condi is king for almost every profession. There are only a limited number of power builds that can put up high enough numbers to compete with condi.

for ranger the only time power beats condi is in open world. even fractal trash mobs have high HP so condi will win out. Also, if you have a necro in the group your condis get added to the epi bounce. more unique condi's boosts ele dps i think. but hey, play what you like.

@Prophet.1584 said:

@infrequentia.3465 said:

@Prophet.1584 said:that's not 100% true. If the group needs or wants you to heal then yes they will ask you to go druid but you don't have to. Condi ranger still works well but soulbeast has more tools and so gets more dps in raids/fractals. power builds are good for open world stuff but in raids/fractals condi is king for almost every profession. There are only a limited number of power builds that can put up high enough numbers to compete with condi.

but you didn't say ranger

you said almost every proffesion while it just the reversedsome classes like a scourge are better with condi's ( reaper is power)

Will an GS Sword/Horn build be an viable option to play along? Or is condi the only way to go?

It's viable. And honestly if you're looking for suggestions forum should be on the bottom of your list cause most of the people who answer including my self have all different playstyle and opinion. Me personally I use gs axe/axe why? Because it's useful in pve perma drains boss' stability bar with rotation. Is it useful in pvp? No its crap. If you're just going to play pve play what you like to play. Gs sword/warhorn is good. No one will complain if you have God like skill. Trust me. Try heart of thorns map hero points if you can solo those ai then youre good to go to do fractals and raids. I mainly pvp so I'm not sure if my opinions credible in pve. But heart of thorns map hero point challenge in my opinion is one of the hardest thing I've encountered in pve cause I do them solo anyway. So if you can beat those you're good then.