Ranger Advice - new 80

Hi all - please feel free to direct me to an appropriate thread, as I'm sure these questions have been asked before. I'm a recent WoW convert, loving the game, and looking for guidance on some professions. I'm currently a new 80 ranger (longbow), eventually looking to get into fractals/raids.. What stats should I be primarily focused on for DPS/survivability ? Also, I'm currently using a longbow, but thoughts on best weapon combos would also be appreciated. And what would be the focus stats for the druid specialization? Thanks for your time :)

Depends on the other weapons you want to use.There are 2 different dmg types in the game. Condition dmg and power dmg.Condition dmg is DoT and power is direct.

Axe maainhand, Shortbow, Torch, Daggers are mainly condi.And sword, Greatsword, LB, Axe offhand, Warhorn and Staff are power.

Depending on playstyle it is recommended to always have either Power and/or condi dmg on your stats to atleast do some dmg.Atm Berserker is best powerset and vipers is best condition set.Power benefits drom crit and crit dmg and condi benefits from crits (to proc sigils and traits) and feom condition duration.

For survivability Druid is a strong elite spec, it has more CC than core ranger and is healing oriented. Only druid can use staff. You can play druid with condi and CC to do dmg, or power with Longbow/Staff or Greatsword to do dmg/support. Druid has also good sources of might for your group to buff them.

For pure Dmg core or Soulbeast is recommended. For group content you can also play either condi or power. Soulbeast provides stances that can be shared with allies to buff them and have high mobility to get out of trouble. Core ranger has spirits to buff allies and most often always use atleast one survival skill because they have good utility and many of them break stun. Signet of Stone is also very potent to safe your butt, but later in groups you will always have a dedicated support that heals the group, otherwise you will have a hard time.

Look into metabattle for all kinda builds, you can use the competitive ones for open PvE too. Deviation from one of them is also possible if it suits your playstyle better.Snowcrows and qtfy are also possible build sources.

And Last: Try to practice, go into the PvP lobby from time to time to practice skills stats and specializations, so you more or less know how they work.

Longbow thrives at long ranges, as the name suggests, which makes it a poor choice to use in most Raid scenarios where the team will mostly be fighting in melee range in order to stay close enough to buff eachother properly.

Generally speaking, Power Rangers (and ESpecs) are typically mobile and Burst-y in nature, but fall behind in terms of pure DPS. This makes them less suitable for organized team content in PvE where DPS is more desirable than Burst. If you're looking to fill a damage-dealing role in raids, Condition Soulbeast is the best bet as it comes with Stance-sharing as Support along with high personal DPS through conditions with Dagger/Torch+Shortbow. In this case, you'd use Viper gear.

But the most desirable role for Rangers is as a Druid Healer/Buffer using Staff and Axe/Warhorn. Keeping allies topped off with healing, providing them with Might and Regeneration (and oftentimes Protection as well), buffing them with powerful Spirits and CCing bosses/adds with pets and immobilizes. In this case, you'd use Harrier gear.There's also a Condi Druid build that deals more Damage but provides less Healing and boon duration, so it's only useful if you have a good team with you that won't need constant high-pulsing heals and can supplement a lower Might uptime. Most PuGs benefit more from having pure heal druids over Condi druids.

Optimum builds, often meta and slightly hard to pull of at maximum efficiency:https://snowcrows.com/raids/ranger/

Bookshelf of "working" builds for ranger:http://metabattle.com/wiki/Ranger

Wow, much to be reviewed and tested - thank you all so much for your thoughts and advice!

@"Code.6512" said:Wow, much to be reviewed and tested - thank you all so much for your thoughts and advice!

I think the thing here is that you are new to the game and these are rather overwhelming with information. First question is, did you level up this char or use free level 80 boost. If boosted you'll have all the core traits and skills unlocked for you. The 2 e-specs will need yo be unlocked with hero points and in my opinion, you want to build yourself for open world map explore. Probably mostly berserker gear, you can keep a few of the soldiers pieces you get with 80 boost for some survivability. Then just Google search "core ranger open world build" looking for something under 6 months old.

Thanks! I leveled the char - prefer to do it that way to learn the mechanics of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not above an instant max boost when I know how to play the game, but I'm new, so wanted both to learn the char (doing the same with an ele), and catch the lore. Thanks for the advice!