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Need advice - aggro in story mode as a ranger


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So I haven't played a ranger for that long, I am working through the story and am currently in Living World Season 3. Ever since around the Mordremoth fight I have started having issues with being the instance tank 100% of the time. It doesn't matter if I send my pet in first, or if I stand close or far away. Heck, I'll even get aggro at the start of the fight even tho I'm not even looking at the boss/mobs. It's as if the NPCs just doesn't exist and everything goes straight for my ranger. Obviously, this ends up with a ton of kiting/very long fights and dying when I get tired of running around doing one shot here and one shot there or get overwhelmed by adds focusing me.So am I doing something wrong?I run a longbow beastmastery build with berserker gear, I use the brown bear and wyvern as pets. Outside of story instances the pets can tank fine and I can solo champions, I only get this issue when trying to progress my story. Any advice on this would be appreciated because it is killing the fun of the story.As a side note, I have run the story as a guardian together with my boyfriend, and usually have no issues being the one tanking bosses/mobs. Since I have no previous solo story experience, I can't tell if this excessive aggro is intended or not and that's why I need some help.

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Add in some defensive gear, your damage is too high and is drawing all the aggro, and as you said in your post you can't survive in it. In the persuit of higher damage your gear is instead of becoming a liability for your playlevel.

Instead of gaining damage you're losing your DPS by struggling to survive, keeping your range, etc.

You could try a mixture of Cavalier & Knight's gear in your 2nd equipment tab. They're easy stats for anyone to get off the TP. You should also retool your build, you need Protection and Regeneration boons, a cleanse, a stunbreak, and some source of Stability.

Try to aim for 2k+ Power, 50%+ crit rate with Fury, 180%+ crit damage, 3k armor (but no higher), and 20k of health if taking Vitality.

Try a melee weapon such as a Greatsword, instead of trying to kite, just learn to brawl. Rangers are best as tanky bruisers, "Bearbow" builds are mostly a meme, since they're easily countered, even by NPCs with the better AI in LS3+; its going to get worse in PoF where most enemies are ranged and will be hitting you all the time even on the Longbow.

You might also want to spend some time in harder content such as Fractals to train yourself; the story is very easy.

As you get more comfortable later you can go back to DPS-centric gear and builds.

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Kiting is a big part of Ranger play. Speed boosts, LB 3, 4 & 5 help, dodge jumps (dodging and jumping at the same time to create distance while evading), evasion/blocking with skills like Hornet's Sting, Quick Shot, Counterattack etc. Having a pet maintain aggro 100% of the time is pretty boring play anyway.If the pet is not maintaining any aggro for you, at all, you may as well use a higher damage pet like one of the felines (Like Tiger, which can self buff with Fury while you pew pew to give it 90% crit chance) so you can kill things faster.Or, you could swap some traits for more CC. The Smokescale and Beastly Warden work really well together and you're already taking the BM traitline. LB4->LB3, F2. Create distance. LB5 to cripple, kite etc etc.

@"Hannelore.8153" said:

...Try to aim for 2k+ Power, 50%+ crit rate with Fury, 180%+ crit damage, 3k armor (but no higher), and 20k of health if taking Vitality...

...As you get more comfortable later you can go back to DPS-centric gear and builds...

Personally I do not agree with this. Going tankier will not improve your game play. You'll just get used to being able to take more damage and for it to take longer to kill things. Staying glassy will force you to get better at playing the class and play to it's strengths, it has the tools you've just got to use them properly.

Taking a couple of defensive traits and utility skills should give you a good up time of protection and -damage reduction which is a huge amount of toughness. -33% reduction from Dolyak Stance, "Guard!" or Protection is equivalent to about 900 toughness. Replacing all your trinkets with Cavalier only gains you 700 toughness. And you lose over 20% crit chance and 200 power.

Again personally, I think 50% crit chance is the worst possible break point you can be at. It's a large investment and still the flip of a coin, it's just as likely to be USELESS as it is to be of benefit, it also undermines the Ferocity investment at the same time and requires you to maintain the boon to get it.

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Some enemies are seemingly programmed to attack players, especially during S3 where they spawn when a player reaches a certain area. Though it settles down later and in PoF they go back to being dummies that focus on pets.

As far as aiding you, you can take more defensive traits and utilities:

  • "Guard" will provide damage reduction as your pet will share some of your incoming damage.
  • "Protect Me" will give you a barrier to help absorb damage
  • Signet of Stone can give you some more Toughness
  • You can go Soulbeast and gain access to Dolyak and Moa stances too (The former providing damage reduction, the latter providing boons as well as increasing the duration of other boons you create)
  • Beastly Warden can allow you to make your pet Taunt nearby enemies
  • Wilderness Survival specialization can provide some defensive traits

You can also consider trying some different pets. Moa for example, have a heal for one of their skills while having some nice utility on their F2 skill (Either AoE protection or an AoE Daze/Chill. Fern Hound has an F2 skill that provides a heal and some regeneration too.

If this all fails, you can try changing out some gear for more defensive stuff, such as Marauder.

If THAT also fails... Just go Druid and spam heals forever ;)

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Thanks for the help guys! I don't think the dps itself is causing my issue - seeing as they will attack me long before I shoot my first arrow. a glass build might not be great for forced tanking, so I guess some defensive traits could help me survive the onslaught at least. I do have the druid skills fully unlocked so using a staff as 2nd weapon to heal up if I take too much dmg might also be an idea. I swing a greatsword all the time on my guardian so I wanted a different playstyle for this character (ranged), that's why I'm trying to go with the longbow build. =)Thanks for taking the time to answer my query, I'll try playing around with some different skills and if I can afford it I might switch out some gear if it still feels necessary later.

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