Need help with my ranger build for Heart Of Thorns

[QueenOfChaos.3041]

Hi there I hope I'm posting this on the right forum but if not I'll try to move it. I'm a returning play who recently decided to hope back on after several years of not playing and have been wanting to work through my story quests so I was wondering I anyone had some advice on what exactly I could do for my ranger build. The last time I played was probably when I was 14 and had no clue what I was doing and nw I have finally sat down to work on going through my story quests and after much struggling presumably thanks to how I set my character up when I was younger I have finally reached the part in Heart Of Thorns where you go to storm Mordremoths inner sanctum and if I thought I was having trouble with the quests before this than I have certainly entered a whole new living heck. I can barely keep my girl alive for more than 45 seconds when enemies start to show up which least to say is a pretty big problem. Even now I honestly don't entirely understand how a lot of the armor and weapon set ups work despite looking up several guides. I don't have much money in game so buying better armor and weapons is a bit of a problem and unsurprisingly I have little to no levels in any crafting areas. I'm honestly at a loss on what I should do so I thought I'd ask on here. In case these are of any use this is a list of my current armor and weapons. Weapons are Soldier's Krytan bow of force with a superior sigils of  force and accuracy along with a Soldier's reclaimed Greatsword of Force with the same sigils. I prefer to use my bow. As for armor I have the Celestial Bladed Mask of the Soldier  with a Medallion of the soldier, Soldier's rascal Shoulder of the Ranger with a superior rune of the ranger, the Council watch Chestguard also with a superior rune of the ranger, Soldier's rascal gloves of the ranger with the superior rune of the ranger, Soldiers seeker pants of the ranger with the superior rune of the ranger, and Soldiers Rascal boots of the ranger with again the superior rune of the ranger. This is all the stuff I came in with when I rejoined the game recently and while I don't know how useful the list will be I thought I'd give it. Any help or recommendations are appreciated and if other information is needed I'll try to provide it the best I can.

[Danikat.8537]

Welcome back to the game! GW2 can be confusing, especially if you're not used to it and Heart of Thorns is probably the most challenging part of the game, so it's not surprising you're having some trouble.

 

I was writing a whole explaination of how gear works in GW2 but it was getting very long and the first point was that it's not that important, so lets skip that for now (if you want to know how it all works someone can explain later). What you need to know is better gear probably will help, but it's not enough on it's own. In this game having an effective build (skills, traits and weapons that work together) and knowing how to use it is more important.

 

But your equipment is a good place to start. There's 4 important aspects:

• Level requirement (as close to your character's level as possible - 80 is the maximum)
• Rarity: There are 7 tiers and each has better stats than the last: white (common), blue (fine), green (masterwork), yellow (rare), orange (exotic) and ascended/legendary (pink/purple) and at level 80 the only ones you need to worry about are exotic and ascended because exotics are widely available and relatively cheap so there's no need to stick to anything lower.
• Having a full set - weapons, armour trinkets (accessories, rings, amulet) and backpack and upgrades (runes and sigils).
• Stat combination, which is the tricky part.

 

The first three are simple: anything which isn't level 80 and exotic or ascended should be replaced with something that is. You can get level 80 exotics from the trading post and if you click the cog symbol next to the search bar you can use the filters to find cheaper options than searching by set name.

 

The tricky part is choosing the best stats for your build. You've got the general idea with choosing mostly soldier's, but ideally you want everything to have the same stats (or maybe a mix of 2 sets) because it's unlikely you'll need all of them (although there are exceptions, which is where celestial comes in) and it's better to boost the ones you do need more than spread it around ones you don't need.

 

You're using a longbow and greatsword which both focus on direct damage rather than conditions so your main damaging stat is power. Precision and ferocity will help too (those boost critical chance and criticial damage respectively). Toughness and vitality are both defensive stats (boosting armour and health respectively). So soldier's is a good choice, it's all stats you'll use and very defensive. At some point you might want to try swapping in some more damage focused equipment (probably beserker's which has power, precison and ferocity). That might sound contradictory but this game is very dependant on 'active defenses' like dodging and kiting so defensive traits will only get you so far and it can actually be helpful to use a bit less defense and kill things more quickly instead.

 

For a build have a look at something like this: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Basic_Ranger

 

Things to know are that it's got a good mix of offensive and defensive traits (which are passive skills) which compliment the weapons you're using and a range of defensive options which will help keep you alive. One thing to be aware of there is that it's not possible to keep enemies at range all the time so you'll need to switch to greatsword when they get close, dodge or kite away from their attacks or if there's too many around and consider your positioning during battles.

 

The final and most important part is simply to practice. It takes time to learn (or re-learn) the game but it makes a bigger difference than probably anything else.

[QueenOfChaos.3041]

On 8/12/2021 at 3:52 PM, Danikat.8537 said:

Welcome back to the game! GW2 can be confusing, especially if you're not used to it and Heart of Thorns is probably the most challenging part of the game, so it's not surprising you're having some trouble.

 

I was writing a whole explaination of how gear works in GW2 but it was getting very long and the first point was that it's not that important, so lets skip that for now (if you want to know how it all works someone can explain later). What you need to know is better gear probably will help, but it's not enough on it's own. In this game having an effective build (skills, traits and weapons that work together) and knowing how to use it is more important.

 

But your equipment is a good place to start. There's 4 important aspects:

• Level requirement (as close to your character's level as possible - 80 is the maximum)
• Rarity: There are 7 tiers and each has better stats than the last: white (common), blue (fine), green (masterwork), yellow (rare), orange (exotic) and ascended/legendary (pink/purple) and at level 80 the only ones you need to worry about are exotic and ascended because exotics are widely available and relatively cheap so there's no need to stick to anything lower.
• Having a full set - weapons, armour trinkets (accessories, rings, amulet) and backpack and upgrades (runes and sigils).
• Stat combination, which is the tricky part.

 

The first three are simple: anything which isn't level 80 and exotic or ascended should be replaced with something that is. You can get level 80 exotics from the trading post and if you click the cog symbol next to the search bar you can use the filters to find cheaper options than searching by set name.

 

The tricky part is choosing the best stats for your build. You've got the general idea with choosing mostly soldier's, but ideally you want everything to have the same stats (or maybe a mix of 2 sets) because it's unlikely you'll need all of them (although there are exceptions, which is where celestial comes in) and it's better to boost the ones you do need more than spread it around ones you don't need.

 

You're using a longbow and greatsword which both focus on direct damage rather than conditions so your main damaging stat is power. Precision and ferocity will help too (those boost critical chance and criticial damage respectively). Toughness and vitality are both defensive stats (boosting armour and health respectively). So soldier's is a good choice, it's all stats you'll use and very defensive. At some point you might want to try swapping in some more damage focused equipment (probably beserker's which has power, precison and ferocity). That might sound contradictory but this game is very dependant on 'active defenses' like dodging and kiting so defensive traits will only get you so far and it can actually be helpful to use a bit less defense and kill things more quickly instead.

 

For a build have a look at something like this: https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Ranger_-_Basic_Ranger

 

Things to know are that it's got a good mix of offensive and defensive traits (which are passive skills) which compliment the weapons you're using and a range of defensive options which will help keep you alive. One thing to be aware of there is that it's not possible to keep enemies at range all the time so you'll need to switch to greatsword when they get close, dodge or kite away from their attacks or if there's too many around and consider your positioning during battles.

 

The final and most important part is simply to practice. It takes time to learn (or re-learn) the game but it makes a bigger difference than probably anything else.

Thank you so much for this! It really helps to have a more clear guide on where i can focus and things to look into, this gives me a lot to build off and work on, thank you so much for taking the time to write all this out I really appreciate it!