Ranger Profession Guide | The Forgers of Orr (2024)

Jed’s Ranger Guide

(or How I Learned to Stop Fighting the AI and Embrace the Beast Without...and Within)

So you want to be a ranger... Well first of all, allow me to congratulate you on your impeccable taste in professions. Rangers are a highly underestimated, and very versatile profession. Only the classiest of GW2 players will ever excell at ranging, and you just might be that classy.

I'm Jason, and my ranger is Jed Eyemaster. I use my ranger in all aspects of GW2 with my primary focus being WvW, and this guide will be biased toward my own experiences with the ranger.

Before we continue, let’s take a quick look at how the ranger is described on the official website and wiki:

Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.
-https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

Rangers are flexible and durable--proficient with the bow, yet surgical with the sword. They rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature to slay their targets. Their loyal pets, which rangers tame and train, distract enemies while the rangers strike safely from a distance. As an adventurer profession, rangers wear medium armor.
-http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ranger

So these descriptions would have you believe that a ranger has access to a variety of weapons and skills; all of which are designed to support a diversity of build styles, and allow for a great deal of adaptability. As it turns out, those qualities are exactly what the ranger is all about. Anyway, let’s get started on the good stuff...

Pets - The unique mechanic

If the general chatter surrounding the ranger is to be believed, its pet is a liability that dies if the wind blows and that couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if that barn’s broadside fell on it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. A ranger’s animal companions are not only their unique profession mechanic, they are an impressive stable of diverse skills and abilities as well as a second body on the battlefield. When facing a ranger, never underestimate how much mayhem their pet can cause, and when playing a ranger, never neglect your pet. If you are a ranger, you should consider your pet a fifth (or sixth) limb.

One of the reasons that pets have such a bad reputation is that ANet simply didn’t do a good job of showing rangers how to use their pets properly. At lower levels (sub-60) in PvE, a ranger's pet will take nearly all of the aggro, and can tank as well as kill all day long with minimal attention paid to it. The ranger can simply stand at a distance applying damaging and control conditions while the pet does all of the dirty work. Easy, right? Well, regardless of how you answered that, I assure you it is easy. However, the tide turns once the unsuspecting ranger reaches ~level 60. Once there, enemies suddenly notice the ranger and ignore the pet forcing the ranger to come to the conclusion that pets are either broken, or require more attention than they originally thought.

The truth is that just as with every profession, mastery of its special mechanic is what separates the good rangers from the great ones, but before I talk about controlling your unruly phantom limb, let’s look at your general pet choices.

Bear - Amphibious. Very high vitality. Slow attack speed. Bears have the highest health pool of all the pets, apply regeneration to themselves, and have 5s of invulnerability every 45s. Special skills: single-target bleed, AoE weakness, AoE chill, poison field, AoE condition removal. Bears are highly resilient, and can stay up through anything but massive sustained damage. Their attack speed is too slow to consider their attacks as anything but light pressure, however the AoE nature of most of their special attacks can be very useful when deployed appropriately. For some reason polar bears have a little more power than the other bears.

Bird - Land only. High Precision/Vitality. Very slow attack speed. AoE swiftness. Single-target vulnerability. Special skills: single-target bleeds, blind, and chill. Birds are a great choice for burst damage since they apply vulnerability and because their attacks are nearly guaranteed to critical, and will hit twice quickly. The AoE swiftness adds mild group support. Their additional vitality pool can help with survivability, but don’t count on them to take a lot of damage unless you are supporting them with appropriate traits and/or skills.

Canine - Land only. High Toughness, Medium Power/Vitality. Medium attack speed. Single-target cripple, single-target knockdown. Special skills: AoE chill, AoE immobilize, AoE fear, AoE regeneration, call a second hyena. Canines are a good overall choice for any build, but are nearly a necessity in PvP. They are fairly resilient, apply moderate pressure damage, and toss out control effects with many of their attacks. The fernhound’s AoE regen adds some light group support. The hyena’s power is half that of the other canines to compensate for there being two of them.

Devourer - Amphibious. High Toughness. Very slow ranged attack speed. 2X 10% chance to apply single-target poison, single-target knockback, evasive retreat. Special skills: poison field, poison fan, single-target bleed. Devourers are another solid choice for any build. Like birds they attack slowly, but hit twice with each attack. Their knockback, and dodge help keep them out of harms way. They don’t do as much raw damage as many other pets, but the constant threat of poison keeps their target on its toes. Their evasive dodge can result in unwanted aggro in a densely populated PvE area, so be aware.

Drake - High Toughness, Medium Power/Vitality. Slow attack speed. Small AoE on auto attack, single-target attack that heals the drake, blast finisher attack. Special skills: Frontal AoE burning, chill, confusion, poison, lightning. Drakes provide steady damage and can take a punch pretty well. Their AoE special attacks are often very slow to activate, so be sure that you are keeping your targets in one spot if you want your pet to land those hits. Their tail swipe is the ranger’s only blast finisher and provides another way of utilizing all of the combo fields that rangers and their teammates can generate.

Feline - Amphibious (except Lynx). High precision. Fast attack speed. Single-target vulnerability and bleeding. Special skills: bleed, chill, stealth, AoE might. Felines are your choice for high, steady damage, but have glass jaws. Their auto-attack applies vulnerability, and bleeding is applied frequently. The jaguar’s stealth does not end on attack, and guarantees that every hit is a critical for the duration. Felines will require a lot of management to keep them in the fight even when traited for survivability, but the payoff is a substantial DPS increase. The lynx is land-only for some reason.

Fish - Water only. Armor fish have high toughness and vitality with very low power, and a slow attack speed. Sharks have high power with medium vitality, and a medium attack speed. Armor fish heal and apply protection to themselves. Sharks bleed and AoE fear. Special skills: stun, frenzy w/ bleed. These are your two extreme aquatic pets. One is tanky and the other eats stuff. Both are solid choices depending on what your needs are.

Jellyfish - Water only. High vitality. Very slow attack speed. AoE regeneration, AoE blind. Special skills: AoE chill, AoE immobilize. Jellyfish are highly resilient and offer some of the best skills available with any pet. They will control entire groups of enemies, heal your entire group, and stay alive through seemingly impossible odds. I honestly can’t come up with a good reason not to bring at least one.

Moa - Land only. High vitality. Fast attack speed. Single-target vulnerability, AoE heal. Special skills: frontal AoE daze, AoE chill, AoE fury, AoE protection. Resilience, steady damage, and the best group support out of all of the land pets. Moas are ridiculously underrated, but are my personal choice for dungeon runs and/or glass-cannon builds. Bring two and swap frequently to enjoy their moa-y goodness to its fullest extent.

Porcine - Land only. High vitality, very low precision. Fast attack speed. Single-target bleed, AoE knockdown. Special skills: forage. Hardy and heavy hitting. The porcine pets are seldom used and widely misunderstood. Each variety forages a different set of useful bundle items that can be picked up and used by you or your teammates. Pigs, for instance, forage a variety of healing-based bundles (eggs, seed pods, elixir of heroes). Basically, you get the same stuff that thieves get using their steal skill. The bundles can turn a fight around if you get lucky, but the random nature can be a bit of a turnoff. The knockdown takes out everyone at its destination.

Spider - Land only. High vitality. Very slow ranged attack speed. Single-target immobilize, brief poison field. Special skills: single-target weakness, single-target immobilize, single-target poison. The other ranged pet choice, spiders are good for single-target control and light condition damage. A lot of people swear by them, I am not one of those people. Devourers deliver more consistent damage from range, and canines deliver more reliable control. Spiders are somewhere in between.

Pet selection strategies

Pets basically follow the existing GW2 build archetypes, and clues to how you should use them are found in their attributes. Felines, for instance, have high precision and little defense - they put out big hits, but are easy to kill if focused. Put them in, unleash the hits, then heal them or pull them out. Bears offer big, slow hits and a high vitality pool. Toss them into the fray, position yourself behind them, and let them absorb some of that incoming damage. Canines have a ton of control skills and plenty of toughness. Use them as a tool to get yourself into flanking position, but don’t forget to heal them. Drakes utilize big, slow AoE hits and a blast finisher. Consider using them with a melee build to keep everyone in the same place and maximize their abilities. Moas have an AoE heal and fast, light attacks. Keep them nearby for team support and to help with enemies that want to encroach on your personal space. Porcine pets can drop a useful bundle at your feet, or deliver one to your front-line allies, all while knocking down anyone in their path. Anyway, you get the idea.

There is no inherently correct pet choice, and most rangers will change out their available pets depending on the situation. That said, here are some general guidelines that will help you figure out which pet you may want to use:

Leveling in PvE - all. Leveling in PvE is basically a really long tutorial. Collect all of the pets,and try every single one of them to familiarize yourself with their individual quirks. If I were to put some structure to the process, I would say start with the tanky pets (bear, moas), since they heal themselves and will be the most forgiving of your inexperience. After you get used to them, move on to drakes/canines/devourers. Those choices have a lot of toughness which is nice, but doesn’t make up for the lack of self-heals. Using those should help you to get used to interacting with your pets more and get familiar with their control skills. Lastly, try your bird/feline pets. I didn’t care for them until I was wandering around Orr. They don’t do well if they have all of the aggro, so the jaguar’s stealth (instant aggro break) and the raven’s blind are good tools to use while learning how to work with your high-crit pets.

Dungeons - bear, moa, porcine, and devourer. Those are your anchor pets in dungeons due to their self heals and/or ability to avoid damage. I always swap in something else if/when the situation calls for it, but for the most part these are your safe choices for dungeons. Try the murrellow set to “Avoid Combat” for a poison field at your location. Likewise, keep your moas nearby for team buffs and heals. Devourers will attack from range and can offer periodic interrupts. Porcine pets deliver something useful to wherever you want it dropped.

WvW - wolf. My typical WvW philosophy focuses on spreading my damage output, control, and defense between me and my pets. There are too many opportunities for either you or your pet to be temporarily disabled, so I feel that you should never put all of your eggs in one basket. For those reasons I prefer to run with a wolf (AoE fear), and a jaguar (crits and stealth). The wolf’s fear is a lifesaver, and timed properly can help you run a chain of three AoE denials when people are trying to stomp you while downed. It's also an effective tool for scattering a zerg for a couple of seconds. Jaguars paired with “Guard” and Quickening Zephyr (we’ll get to the skills in a bit. Stop being so impatient) are invisible vessels of destruction, and one of the best anti-siege tools in the game. My advice is wolf + whichever other pet compliments the specific situation.

PvP - canine. Wolf and drakehound are the popular choices. If you are running with a lot of pet supporting traits, you can probably get away with using birds or felines as well. Other stuff will work too, but the constant control that canines provide is key in PvP. At least one canine is almost a must in here.

Underwater - jellyfish. Jellys work in every situation, so you will never go wrong choosing them. I lean toward the blue jellyfish and a jaguar while underwater.

Overall, you want to choose pets that either enhance what you are already doing, or make up for a shortcoming of your build/play style. Swap them out frequently to adapt to any situation.

Pet control

Ranger pets are controlled with the F1 - F4 keys by default. F1 tells the pet to attack your target. F2 tells the pet to use its special skill. F3 calls the pet off of its target. F4 swaps between the two active and available pets. Dead pets take longer to become available to swap (60s vs. 20s), and obviously provide no benefit short of looking kind of cute limping around like they do, so keeping your pet alive and in the fight should be a high priority. Though you seldom want to, knowing when to sacrifice them is also important.

Another important point to remember is that the profession has been balanced to accommodate pet AI. ANet knows that you and your pet won’t be able to land every hit, and they give the ranger plenty of tools to help lessen that sting. You should always be thinking in terms of where your pet is going to be, and controlling the fight to put your target in harms way as frequently as you can. Skills like Barrage on the LB are not just AoE snares with some damage, they are area denial tools. Don’t always be concerned with your damage output. Instead be concerned with keeping your target’s attention divided between you and your pet and you will be well on your way to winning fights.

I’ll talk about a few common pet issues and how you can handle them, but overall you will just need to get used to paying attention to two bodies, two health bars, and two set of skills.

Special (F2) skills take too long to activate - 5 points into the Beast Mastery trait line gives you and your pet 2s of quickness on pet swap. Swap then hit F2 almost immediately afterward for a quick cast on your pet’s special ability. Your pet will be next to you when you swap, so this works exceptionally well for buff pets and melee rangers. Otherwise, Quickening Zephyr will accomplish the same goal when a swap is not desired or you don’t have 5 points in BM. Rangers have a lot of access to quickness, and it shouldn't be used for burst damage alone.

Pets don’t hit moving targets - They do, but it's possible to fool the pet by switching directions constantly. However if your opponent is concentrating on fooling your pet s/he makes for a very easy target for you. For the most part, use the myriad control skills at your disposal to keep your target in one place while your pet “loves” them to death. Also try using a pet with a faster attack speed. More attempts to hit translates to more hits. You can also use traits and skills for increased pet running speed, or pick a rune set that encourages swiftness uptime.

Pets die too easily - If you let your pet hang out in the damage, your pet will take the damage. There are tons of ways to mitigate this issue. The easiest methods are to heal when your pet needs it, call your pet back (F3), or swap (F4). There are also several traits and skills that will greatly increase your pets’ ability to handle damage. We’ll talk about those more in depth when we get to skills and traits.

Pets aggro everything - Put your pet on “Avoid Combat,” or swap your pet when it aggros.

Weapons and weapon skills

Rangers are light, fast, skilled fighters. They use speed and dexterity in place of heavy armor and strength, prefer martial combat to spell-based combat (though nature magic is at their disposal), and shun mechanical weapons in favor of traditional weaponry. Accordingly the ranger has access to swords, greatswords, axes, shortbows, and longbows. They can also use axes, daggers and torches in their off-hand. Underwater combat puts spears and harpoon guns in their capable hands. Let’s take a look at the skills.

Axe - Medium range (900) one-handed weapon.

1 Ricochet - .25s cast, no CD - Bounce your axe between multiple foes. - Pretty self-explanatory. Hits up to three foes and has a 20% chance to be a projectile finisher. By itself this skill is nothing special, but combine it with combo fields to spread conditions and boons.

2 Splitblade - .75s cast, 6s CD - Throw a spread pattern of five whirling axes that bleeds foes. - Each axe applies one 5s stack of bleeding, and the axes also pierce targets. So the closer you are to any given opponent, and the more clustered your opponents are, the more effective the skill becomes. Oh, and each axe is a 20% projectile finisher.

3 Winter’s Bite - .5s cast, 10s CD - Throw an axe to chill your foe. Your pet's next attack inflicts weakness. - This is one of many skills that combine effects between the ranger and his or her pet. This skill provides a potent combination of slowing your opponents movement speed and skill recharge with the 3s chill. The reduced speed will allow your pet to land it’s weakening hit which reduces your opponent’s ability to do damage and recharge their endurance for 10s.

Axe - Off-hand

4 Path of Scars - .5s, 15s CD - Throw your axe so that it returns to you, striking foes each way. - This skill is a 100% projectile finisher and hits everyone in a line on the way out and on the way back. That means that if you are in motion, you can potentially hit the majority of a zerg with the effects of a combo field. Spread the love (conditions...) to everyone!

5 Whirling Defense - 5.25s, 25s CD - Blocks projectiles while damaging nearby foes. - This is easily one of the most underrated ranger skills. It has a 100% chance to act as a 5.25s duration whirl finisher, so combo it up. Beyond that awesomeness, this skill actually reflects projectiles which makes this an amazing skill to counter any high burst ranged profession - I’ve reduced pistol thieves to goo in 2s with a well-timed Whirling Defense, and few things are more satisfying than reflecting a kill shot back at a rifle warrior. The claim is that you can reflect siege projectiles as well, and I can confirm that it works against ballistae. But wait...there’s more! Anyone unlucky enough to be caught in range (130) of the whirling axes gets damage plus stacks of vulnerability applied to them. 12 total stacks over the duration of the skill, with each stack lasting for 10s. The drawback is that you are rooted in place for the duration of the channel. Regardless, this is a potent skill when you are able to hit with the full effect.

For the most part, the axe is the ranged weapon of choice for a condition-based build. The raw damage is nothing to write home about, but it’s ability to spread conditions is as good as it gets in GW2. Try running with a high condition damage/beastmaster build to combine the DoT of your conditions with the raw damage of a DPS pet. Alternately, use traps to generate your own combo fields to use with all of the finishers available on the axe.

Dagger - Off-hand

4 Stalker’s Strike - .5s, 10s CD - Stab and poison your foe while evading attacks. - This one does exactly what it says. Apply 10s of poison to your target while evading all attacks. Simple, but very effective. The evade is the real star of the show here.

5 Cripling Talon - .5s, 15s CD - Throw a dagger to bleed and cripple your foe. - 900 range, 100% projectile finisher. Applies a 6s cripple and 3 stacks of bleeding for 8s. This one makes a great opener or pursuit skill.

There isn’t anything flashy happening with the dagger, but it gets the job done simply and effectively. Since it’s a single-target weapon, It’s probably best paired with a sword where you are more likely to need the extra evade, but it works well paired with an axe too.

Greatsword - Enhanced melee (150) ranged two-handed weapon

1 Slash/Slice/Power Stab - .5s/.5s/.75s, no CD - Slash your foe./Slice your foe./Stab your foe and evade attacks. - This is a three-part auto-attack. Slash/Slice have a slightly longer range than most melee weapons (150 vs. 130), and hit in a very wide arc (270 degrees). Power Stab has the typical melee range (130), hits in a 360 degree arc, and evades all attacks. This is one hell of a skill set, providing both AoE damage and a free evade every third attack.

2 Maul - .75s, 6s CD - Bleed your foe multiple times with a mauling strike. - Low cd, big damage, 3 stacks of bleeding for 4s, frontal AoE, and 150 range. What’s not to like? Use it whenever it’s off cd to keep the pressure on. 2012/3/26 update increased the bleed duration to 6s.

3 Swoop - 1.75s, 12s CD - Run and leap at your foe, hitting them and nearby foes. - The leap has a 1100 range, and the damage hits everyone within a 150 radius. Oh, and it’s a leap finisher. This is one of the best skills on any weapon in the game. Use it to close gaps, open gaps, and add a variety of combo effects to your arsenal. Did I mention that it hits like a truck too? If not, it does.

4 Counterattack/Crippling Throw - 3s/.75s, 15s CD - Block and counter an attack with a kick that pushes foes back./Throw your greatsword, crippling your foe. - This skill makes me giddy. Three full seconds of blocking all ranged attacks. If you want to cancel it early, you can throw your sword (600 range) to apply a 3s cripple. It’s also a 100% projectile finisher. If you block someone in melee range, you kick them resulting in a knockback (300 distance) and a potential interrupt. In reality it usually just knocks your opponent down due to a bug that prevents leaping between terrain levels, but it’s not any worse because of it. Did I mention that it hits like a truck too? If not, it does.

5 Hilt Bash - .5s, 25s CD - Daze your foe with a hilt bash. Stun them if you hit from behind. Your pet's next attack does 50% more damage. - Yet another asskickingly (it’s a word...sort of) good skill. Interrupt your target and slap 1s of daze or stun on them. Plus, your pet gets 20s to land an attack that hits for 150% damage. Oh yeah, and it has a 300 range - the same as the knockback on Counterattack.

Why use the Greatsword? Why not is the better question. Every skill on the bar except Maul can be used offensively or defensively, and most of the skills are AoE. There may be situations where the GS isn’t ideal, but there are none where it’s a bad choice. It’s THAT useful.

Longbow - Long (1200) range two-handed weapon

1 Long Range Shot - 1.25s, No CD - Shoot your foe from long range. The farther the arrow flies, the more damage it does. - So this is a pretty odd skill concept. It’s effectiveness is entirely dependent on your range from the target with the most damage being dealt from 1000+ range. It is also a 20% projectile finisher. With so many gap closers in this game, I find the range dependence to be an interesting choice. If you can stay at the proper range, this skill hits really hard, but maintaining that sort of range is simply not possible if someone really wants to close the gap.

2 Rapid Fire - 5s, 10s CD - Fire multiple arrows at your foe. - This skill fires ten arrows over the 5s channeling time, each of which is a 20% projectile finisher. There is no range requirement for this one, so get in close to make sure all of those arrows hit, or stay at range to finish off a downed opponent from a safe distance. Combined with quickness, you can unleash a substantial burst of damage in 2.5s.

3 Hunter’s Shot - instant, 12s CD - Fire an arrow to make your foe vulnerable. Your pet gains swiftness. - This skill is pretty amazing. Ten stacks of vulnerability for 8s plus your pet gains 10s of swiftness, and it’s a 100% projectile finisher. 10% more damage for 8s and speed to keep your pet landing hits at the same time? Yes please. Follow it with Rapid Fire for a punishing burst of damage.

4 Point Blank Shot - .5s, 15s CD - Push back your foe with a point-blank shot. The closer they are, the farther it pushes them back. - Knowing how Long Range Shot requires range to be effective, this skill is a no-brainer. It’s a 100% projectile finisher, and the knockback can be used as an interrupt as well. My only complaints are that the range on this one is only 600, and it only knocks back 600 at the most. Seeing as LRS needs 1000 range to be at its best, I really wish the knockback were longer. It’s still good, but it could be better.

5 Barrage - 2.75s, 30s CD - Barrage the target area with a hail of arrows that cripple. - So we’ve arrived at the reason why most rangers use the longbow. 240 radius AoE that applies damage and 1s of crippling per pulse, over 12 pulses. Barrage is undeniably great. The only real drawback is that it roots you in place for the duration of the cast time, or interrupts the channel if you move. Three or four rangers all focusing Barrage in the same area make a ludicrously effective zerg buster. Fire it up from the safety of a keep wall and watch the co*ckroaches scatter!

The longbow is best used in a group setting since it’s pretty tough to maintain the needed range one on one. It’s great for keep defense, and can absolutely be used to pull off a surprisingly potent single-target spike. I like the longbow best when paired with either a glass-cannon build, or a power/beastmaster build.

Healing Skills

Rangers have a diverse set of healing skills available to them. Each behaves in a very different manner, and careful consideration should be given to your personal playstyle when choosing which one is right for your build.

Heal as One - 1.25s, 20s CD - Heal yourself and your pet. - This is as straightforward as they come. Health goes down, HaO makes it go back up. The base heal (6520) is applied equally to both you and your pet, and it’s on a low cd, so don’t be scared to use it when your pet needs it. Your healing power (HP) is applied directly to the base heal, so this one scales very well. This is your typical burst heal. It works and it works well.

Healing Spring - .5s, 30s CD - Create a spring that heals you, your pet, and your allies. It also cures conditions on allies. - The description on this one doesn't do it justice. A burst (4920+HP) of healing is applied to you and your pet on activation. Additionally all allies in the AoE (240 radius) get 3s of regeneration and one condition removed. Then every 3s for the next 15s, another 3s of regeneration is applied and one more condition is removed. The AoE is also a water combo field and can be interacted with accordingly. This skill is exceptionally well suited for team builds and melee rangers. Pair it with axes to spread all manner of beneficial effects.

Troll Unguent - 1s, 25s CD - You and your pet regenerate health over time. - Another straightforward skill. TU applies a pulse (856 + .12(HP)) of healing to you and your pet every second for ten seconds. At first glance, the healing coefficient looks low (.12), however if you consider that ten pulses are applied you end up with a heal that looks like (8560 + 1.2(HP)) making TU the most potent heal in the ranger’s arsenal. Use early and often during any encounter. It should be noted that it is not applying the boon “regeneration,” so traits and gear that benefit boons will have no effect on TU.

HaO is a quick burst of healing with enough power to survive spike damage, and a low enough cd to make it useful against light condition damage as well. TU applies a huge amount of health over 10s, allowing the ranger to heal proactively through all but heavy spikes. HS is somewhere in between offering a moderate burst heal, a light but long-lasting heal over time, and excellent condition mitigation. There are simply no bad choices here. Personally I find myself favoring HS and TU in most of my builds, but it’s just a playstyle thing.

Healing strategies

Generally, you want to use the heal that compliments your build choices. If you are investing in Wilderness Survival, you will be gaining toughness, protection, vigor, and passive condition removal. A heal over time like TU may be your best choice. If you are investing in Nature Magic, you get a lot of regeneration and protection, as well as limited condition removal on dodge which makes a burst heal like HaO easier to manage. If you are investing heavily in Beast Mastery, you are bolstering your general healing power, gaining access to passive healing, and enhancing your pets’ buff effects. However your condition removal needs to become more active so HS is a good choice. Obviously you can combine effects, and not all are available at low investment tiers, so these aren’t hard and fast rules.

Utility skills

Rangers have access to a range of utility skills designed to complement and enhance the synergy between the ranger, and its pet. Other than the typical selection of signets, rangers also use traps, shouts, spirits and survival skill to turn the tide of battle in their favor.

Shouts - a set of skills that provide additional control and enhanced abilities for the ranger’s pets.

“Guard” - 1s, 30s CD - Your pet will aggressively protect the target area. - Immediately applies stealth and protection to your pet, and your pet runs to the target area (1200 range). Any enemy that enters a 1200 radius will be attacked. Your pet will continue to attack until you, it, or all enemies are dead. You still have full control over your pet while “Guard” is in effect (180s), and this skill can be used to send a pet up or down a wall. Use it to destroy siege/enemies in hard to reach places, or if you just need to be in two places at once. The 2013/02/26 update changed this skill so that the pet cannot reach any areas to which it couldn't walk naturally.

“Protect Me” - instant, 60s CD - Instead of attacking, your pet will protect you by absorbing all damage you would take. - For six seconds your pet stops everything, and attempts to return to your side and take all of your hits for you. This can be a lifesaver when used properly. Otherwise, it’s a worthless damage sacrifice and a path to a longer pet swap. Used in conjunction with a beastmaster build and a bear, your pet will hardly notice the extra burden. Your pet needs to be near you for this one to function, so use soon after a swap for best results.

“Search and Rescue” - instant, 85s CD - Your pet will seek out and revive a downed ally nearby. - This has the potential to be a great skill, but it seems to fall a little short. FIrst of all, it only revives targets that are within ~600 range. Second, it often fails if allies are dead rather than downed. Third, your pet needs to be alive for it to function. Now some of that sounds like common sense, but the reality is that meeting all of those requirements also means that you can probably just revive your ally yourself. Your pet does get a 25% movement speed boost though, so that’s a thing that exists.

“Sick ‘Em” - instant, 60s CD - Your pet runs faster and does more damage. - 40% more damage and 40% faster run speed to be exact. The effect has a 10s duration, and a 3000 range, but ends if the ranger orders a pet to use a special ability, attack a different target, heel, or swap. It also ends if the target becomes invisible or defeated. Like SaR above, this one falls a bit short. It does provide a short boost in damage under normal circ*mstances, but the long cd and long list of cancelling conditions makes it a little too fussy for my taste. It’s not bad, but you could make better use of the utility slot in my opinion

I use all of the shouts in various niche circ*mstances, but none stay on past that encounter. None of them other than “Protect Me” is useful in general play for most builds, and there are still better choices than that one. The exception is a full defense/beatmaster build where you may need more active control over the pet.

Signets - skills that provide a passive benefit to both the ranger and pet. When activated they generally provide enhancements to the ranger’s pet.

Signet of the Hunt - instant, 30s CD - Passive: Grants 25% increased movement speed to you and your pet. Active: Your pet's next attack deals more damage. - The movement speed is great for any scenario where you want to be faster. For me that’s nearly always, so this is nearly always on my bar. The active applies the Attack of Opportunity buff to your active pet for 16m 40s, which makes its next attack hit for 150% damage. Alongside “Sick ‘Em” in a pet-oriented build, the active effect can help to deliver a potent damage spike, but it does not stack with other similar effects. It’d be a lot cooler if it did.

Signet of Renewal - instant, 60s CD - Passive: Cures a condition every ten seconds. Active: Your pet pulls all conditions from nearby allies to itself. Breaks stun. - This is one of two active stun breakers, and one of two active condition removal skills. It’s also one of two signets with an active effect that benefits the ranger, and one of two passive condition removal abilities tied to your pet. You and any allies need to be within a ~600 radius to receive the active effect. Without traiting to reduce it, the cd is too long to justify triggering the active effect and sacrificing the passive unless its an emergency. I still bring it for the condition removal and for the odd occasion where a stun breaker will actually save you. It’s not awesome, but it is one of the better utility skills available to the ranger.

Signet of Stone - instant, 120s CD - Passive: Improves toughness for you and your pet. Active: Your pet takes no damage from attacks. - The passive gives the ranger 35 extra toughness, and the pet 120. The active grants 6s of invulnerability to the pet. The signet has it’s place in a Marksmanship build where you can use the Signet of the Beastmaster (active effects of signets affect you and your pet) trait, but the cd is long and the toughness is negligible otherwise. You can also pair it with “Protect Me,” but then you will have wasted two utility slots.

Signet of the Wild - .5s, 120s CD - Passive: Grants health regeneration to you and your pet. Active: Your pet grows larger, dealing more damage and gaining stability. - The passive heal is (62+6% of Healing Power) per second for the ranger, and (125+25% of HP) per second for the pet. Another pretty good choice of skills. That cd is huge considering the active only grants a 25% damage boost and stability for for your pet for 12s. Enlargement does increase the size of the pet’s hitbox which makes it a better meat shield. Paired with the Signet of the Beastmaster trait, you get a really weak version of Rampage as One (elite) with just as much cd. I like it for the passive regen if my Healing Power is decent and I want to solo something tough. Otherwise the heal is negligible and that cd is brutal.

Signets need a little bit of work, but are overall solid choices for the most part. SotH is in a pretty good place, and SoR is one of the only stun breakers and active condition removal options available. Otherwise, the cds are long, and the effects are pretty timid without investing 30 points in the Marksmanship trait line. Oddly, I still find myself turning to signets pretty frequently simply because there often isn't much else that’s more worth the utility slot.

Spirits - summon a companion spirit that has a chance to provide AoE team buffs. Activate them after summoning to provide a variety of additional AoE effects.

Frost Spirit/Cold Snap - 1.5s/instant, 60s/40s CD - Summon a frost spirit that has a chance to grant bonus damage to nearby allies./Your frost spirit releases a freezing blast of arctic air, chilling nearby foes. - The passive effect provides a 35% chance for each affected ally’s hits to be 10% stronger on a 10s cd. The cd doesn’t kick in on this one, so I don’t know if the skill is bugged or the tooltip is wrong. The active applies one pulse of chill to any enemy in the target area every second for five seconds. I’m not entirely sure what the range is for either effect.

Stone Spirit/Quicksand - 1.5s/instant, 60s/45s CD - Summon a stone spirit that gives nearby allies a chance to gain protection./Your stone spirit softens the earth around it, immobilizing and crippling foes. - The passive effect provides a 35% chance for each affected ally to gain 3s of protection whenever they hit an enemy, on a 10s cd. The active creates a field that applies one 2s immobilize when triggered, and a 1s cripple per second for four seconds. I don’t care for this spirit if it’s the only one I take. Combined with other spirits, I find the active effect to be perfect for holding someone in range while you spirt bomb them (I’ll talk about that in a second). Plus, AoE protection is always nice...

Storm Spirit/Call Lightning - 1.5s/instant, 60s/20s CD - Summon a storm spirit that grants nearby allies a chance to gain swiftness when attacking./Your storm spirit strikes the area with a powerful blast of electricity. - The passive effect provides a 35% chance for each affected ally to gain 8s of swiftness whenever they hit an enemy, on a 10s cd. The active effect is an AoE blast of damage (~1200 damage). I have very mixed feelings about Storm Spirit. The passive effect is a bit redundant in most situations, but the active is nice considering the low cd and AoE nature of the damage.

Sun Spirit/Solar Flare - 1.5s/instant, 60s/25s CD - Summon a sun spirit that grants allies a chance to inflict burning./Your sun spirit releases the brilliance of the sun, blinding foes. - The passive effect provides a 35% chance for each affected ally’s hits to cause 3s of burning on a 10s cd. The active effect applies 5s of blind to any enemy in the area. If you are investing in spirits, this one is kind of a no-brainer in my opinion. Both effects are useful, and the blind is on a relatively short cd.

Spirits can be tough to use properly. They don’t summon on top of you, nor is the casting targetable. They die in a few hits, and the CDs are frustratingly long when you accidentally summon them right as an enemy AoE hits. There are a whopping four traits that enhance spirits however, and some combination of them is practically a necessity if you want to be a spirit ranger. One of the traits causes the active effect of the spirits to trigger when they are destroyed, which leads to the aforementioned “spirit bombing.” Basically you want to drop three spirits in the same general area, then lure your target in. When the spirits inevitably die, your target(s) are suddenly inundated with a variety of annoying effects.

Survival Skills - A set of nature-themed utilities that produce a variety of desirable effects.

Lightning Reflexes - instant, 45s CD - Evade back with a crack of lightning, dealing damage and gaining vigor. Break stun. - This is the ranger’s other active stun breaker (beside Signet of Renewal). As the description explains, activating the skill applies damage to all foes in melee range while causing you to dodge roll backward. It also gives you 10s of vigor which increases your endurance recharge rate. My only complaint about this skill is that it doesn't remove any conditions, so if you are immobilized, you don’t roll backward. However, all of the other effects will trigger meaning that you will still dodge any attacks and apply the damage and vigor. It’s yet another evasion skill, and as one of two active stun breakers, this skill will find its way into many ranger builds.

Muddy Terrain - .75s, 30s CD - Use mud to cripple and immobilize foes. - This skill is ground-targeted and has a range of 900. Anything entering its AoE is immobilized for 2s, then crippled for 1s per second for the next 20s until they leave the AoE. There is nothing wrong with this skill at all. It’s an amazing AoE snare with a lot of staying power and is one the ranger’s best anti-stealth tools. My only wish would be to make the ground-targeting optional as I often lose my cursor in the visual madness that is WvW.

Quickening Zephyr - instant, 60s CD - You and your pet gain quickness, but cannot be healed during this time. - This is the ranger’s quickness skill. It’s like every other quickness skill in the game in that it is instantly casted, has a 60s cd, and gives 4s of quickness (+50% action speed for the duration). It’s unique drawback is that neither you nor your pet will gain healing from any source during that duration. All things considered, this is the effect that I prefer on my quickness skill as it’s easy to work around using it while your heal is on cd. It should be noted that it will negate the effects of any passive heals or regeneration during the four seconds as well. I’m of the opinion that since rangers are the only class with as much access to quickness as they have, that advantage should be exploited. I nearly always save a slot for QZ. 2013/03/26 patch added the stunbreaker effect and increased the quickness duration to 5s

Sharpening Stone - instant, 45s CD - Bleed foes with your next five attacks. - One stack of bleeding is applied for 6s per attack. This skill is just ok. If the cd were reduced to 30s, or if the bleed duration were closer to 10s I think this one would be in a perfect spot. As is, it’s satisfactory in a bleed stacking build, but I think it’s a bit of a waste of a precious utility slot. To top it off, it is currently bugged when used with the main-hand axe. Only one stack of bleeding is applied when used with Splitblade even though all five applications are used up.

The Survival skill set is home to what are arguably the most useful ranger utilities. If Signet of Renewal isn’t in my build, then Lightning Reflexes is, and I seldom leave home without Quickening Zephyr. Muddy Terrain seems custom made with the longbow in mind, and works well with other weapons too. Even Sharpening Stone has it’s uses regardless of my problems with it.

Traps - A variety of skills that apply various condition effects when any enemy enters their range. All traps have a trigger radius of 120, and an effective radius (after triggered) of 180.

Flame Trap - .5s, 15s CD - Set a trap that burns foes. - This one pulses raw damage and 1s of burning per second for 3s. It also produces a fire field for the 3s duration. This is the backbone of any trap build, and is useful outside of that context as well. Be sure to use combo finisher skills to help any non-burning enemies to burn. They’ll thank you later (...that part might be a lie).

Frost Trap - .5s, 30s CD - Set a trap that chills foes. - 1s of chill per second for 5s, and a 5s ice field. This one doesn’t look very impressive on paper, but it sure keeps people in your other traps when stacked, and the combo effects help you to snare any opponents that forgot to stand in the trap’s radius. If I can only bring one trap, it will be this one. Frost trap has saved my bacon, as well as helped me to seize my enemy’s bacon on more occasions than I can count. So much bacon...

Spike Trap - .5s, 25s CD - Set a trap that bleeds and cripples foes. - Any foe entering Spike Trap’s radius will be treated to damage, three stacks of bleeding for 5s, and 2s of crippling. I think this one is meant to be the go-to trap for non-trappers, but in my opinion all of the effects are too watered down for this to be used by itself. The bleed stacks are nice, but not on a 25s cd skill. Same with the cripple. Plus the lack of a combo field makes me a little sad. What’s that? No...I just got some dust in my eye is all.

Viper’s Nest - .5s, 20s CD - Set a trap that pulses poison on foes when triggered. - Applies damage and 3s of poison per second for three seconds to anyone in the AoE. Another perfectly good trap that is hindered by not producing a combo field. Still, I prefer this one to Spike Trap simply because it pulses and has a shorter cd.

Traps are obviously going to be important in a trap build. My choices are Flame, Frost, and Viper’s. The combination of damage from the burning, slow movement and skill recharge from the chill, and healing reduction from poison is perfect in my estimation. Outside of a trapper build, Flame and Frost’s combo fields are a valuable addition even if your focus isn’t condition damage.

Elite skills - elite skills offer very powerful effects and should be used strategically to turn the tide of a battle.

Entangle - .75s, 150s CD - Entangle your foe. They are immobile until the vines are destroyed. - Entangle is a survival skill and is affected by traits that affect survival skills. When activated, all foes in a 600 radius around the ranger are wrapped in binding vines. Anyone caught in the vines will suffer damage, one stack of bleeding for 8s, and a 1s immobilize every second for 20s. This is a very potent skill, and if used appropriately can allow a ranger to prevail against an otherwise completely unmanageable number of opponents. The drawback is that it is very easy to avoid and/or mitigate if you see it coming. If the casting ranger is blind when Entangle is cast, it will miss and go into full cd. Blind is your worst enemy when using Entangle. Individually, each foe in the potential AoE can dodge or run out of range to avoid getting snared. Even if your opponent(s) are snared, any melee weapon may be used to hack their way out of the vines. Likewise, their teammates can also target and destroy the vines. On the other side of that coin, even if dodged or otherwise avoided, the binding vines still manifest and will grab anyone that is foolish enough to run through them. I use the hell out of Entangle. It’s kind of a big deal in WvW and dungeons, and isn’t bad in PvP.

Rampage as One - 1s, 120s CD - Rampage with your pet, gaining stability, fury, and swiftness. You and your pet also grant might to each other when you attack. - You and your pet gain 20s of each of the three boons, and every single successful hit from either of you will grant one stack of might for 8s to the other. Those might stacks add up quickly, and really crank up your damage output. This skill doesn’t turn you into a juggernaut or anything, but it does turn you into a killing machine, and the stability makes it very hard to stop you. Obvious counters are boon removal skills. RaO is one of the rare elite skills that brings something useful to every situation and is never a bad choice. It’s great for turning a fight around in PvP, ranging in WvW, and for moving through sticky spots in dungeons. The stability alone will get you through many of the more annoying fractal spots.

Spirit of Nature/Nature’s Renewal - 1.5s/instant, 240s/30s CD - Summon a spirit that heals allies. Command the spirit to revive and cure conditions on nearby allies./Command your spirit of nature to revive and cure conditions on nearby downed allies. - The healing pulses once per second for (320+recipient’s HP) for 60s or until the spirit dies. The active skill will revive and cure all conditions on all allies in the AoE. It’s very powerful, but it suffers from many of the same drawbacks that plague the other spirit skills. While it is considerably more resilient than the others, it still can’t take many hits, and placement is still unpredictable. The effects are guaranteed to hit everyone in the AoE however, and if you trigger the active right before going down, you will self-revive. If you get good at using spirits, this one is exceptionally powerful.

Your elite skill should be swapped frequently depending on the situation. They are all good skills, so choose the one that will help you and your team the most.

Downed/Drowning Skills - for when you’re not quite dead yet.

Throw Dirt/Throw Knife - instant, no CD - Throw a handful of dirt to bleed your foe./Throw a knife at your foe. - Dirt is your on-land skill, Knife is your underwater. Both have a 900 range, and Throw Dirt adds one stack of bleeding for 5s per hit. As far as default downed attacks go, this is fine. Combined with your other downed skills, you should nearly always win a downed vs. downed fight, but it won’t get you out of downed vs. a healthy opponent.

Thunderclap - instant, 10s CD - Damages your target and dazes foes around that target. - The range on this is 900, but that is just the targeting range. It hits in a fairly significant radius (not sure of the exact range), so if you target someone at 900, you will hit others in the area that are farther away. Anyway, it’s an AoE interrupt (1s daze) which can prevent an entire team from stomping you. Chain this with your wolf’s AoE fear, and you can actually get three full AoE stomp denials which can obviously be a lifesaver.

Lick Wounds - instant, 20s CD - Revive your pet at your location to revive you. - Simply amazing...if you have time to use it. Even with all of the ways rangers can prevent stomping from downed, it still happens frequently since plenty of people will perform a stable stomp. While underwater, and with enough healing power, this skill makes a ranger practically invincible. There is a known issue that prevents your pet from reviving you if there are terrain elevation differences between you and your pet. It’s frustrating, but...oh well.

Bandage - 49.25s, 5s CD - Call your allies for help. Restores health while you channel it. - This is your self-heal. The healing increases the longer you channel it, but it is interrupted if you take damage, so don’t count on it unless you are alone while downed.

Traits

Ranger traits further enhance their ability to deliver damage and conditions from any range. There are also plenty of opportunities to enhance their already impressive survival techniques, and increase the effectiveness of their pets and utilities.

Marksmanship - Power/Condition Duration/Bows/Signets

Adept - Opening Strike - Cause vulnerability with your first strike when entering combat. - Five stacks of vulnerability for 5s. This one is designed to help administer a burst of damage at the beginning of a battle.

I - Steady Focus - Damage increases by 10% when endurance is full. - Great for sniping, chasing, and front-loading damage. Obviously not so good if you are a primary target. Combine this with traits that grant vigor for best results.

II - Malicious Training - Increases duration for conditions applied by your pets. - 50% duration increase. This can be very powerful with the right pets, but most pets tend to inflict pretty low duration conditions, so the gain is often minimal.

III - Keen Edge - Use Sharpening Stone when your health reaches 75%. - Your next five attacks apply one stack of bleeding for 6s after your health reaches 75%. 60s internal cd.

IV - Signet Mastery - Signets recharge 20% faster. - This is most useful with SotH, SoR, or if you take the Signet of the Beastmaster trait.

V - Predator’s Instinct - Apply cripple to foes you hit when they are below 25% health (15-second cooldown). - 2s of cripple every 15s on heavily damaged foes. It’s ok, but other traits in the line are more useful overall.

VI - Beastmaster’s Bar - Gain fury and might when your pet's health reaches 50%. - Fury and three stacks of might for 9s. Pumps up the ranger’s damage when they are about to lose their pet’s damage. Smart.

Master - Alpha Training - Pets have Opening Strike. - Five more stacks of vulnerability for 5s, applied by your pet. 5s of 10% damage increase for anyone aiming at your target. Good stuff.

VII - Spotter - Increases precision of nearby allies by up to 70 points. - At level 80, 21 points of precision = 1% critical chance, so this gives anyone near you (you and your pet included) an extra ~3.5% chance to critical. This one makes me feel a little better about sacrificing precision for power, and will obviously pump up a team’s overall damage output. Only applied while in combat.

VIII - Piercing Arrows - All arrow attacks pierce targets. - Every arrow will now hit up to five targets in their path. Amazing for skills that produce an effect, and generally good overall. Make sure you target the guy at the back of the line for maximum effectiveness.

IX - Beastmaster’s Might - Activating a signet grants might. - One stack of might for 5s. It doesn’t sound like much, but if you’re using Signet of the Beastmaster and three signets, you can turn yourself into an unkillable killing machine for 5s. Otherwise it’s pretty lackluster.

X - Eagle Eye - Increases longbow and harpoon gun range. Increases longbow and harpoon gun damage by 5%. - The increase in range is 25%. If you are running a sniper build this gives you even more range and damage, and more opportunity to do damage before your opponent can close the gap.

Grandmaster - Precise Strike - Opening strike always critical hits. - Two guaranteed critical hits against a target with ten stacks of vulnerability. Even more front-loaded damage. No complaints.

XI - Signet of the Beastmaster - Active effects of signets also affect you. - Here it is. I keep referencing it because it’s almost necessary if you are going with a full-damage, glass-cannon build. Suddenly Signet of Stone is useful...

XII - Remorseless - Regain Opening Strikes when you kill a foe. - This is your high-risk, high-reward Marksmanship trait. It is great in general PvE, and even better in an organized PvP team build. It should be noted that there is a bug wherein the effect may not always apply as advertised. It seems that unselecting then reselecting the trait cures that condition.

This entire trait line encourages the ranger to administer punishing damage and control conditions from the back lines, and let the pet get it’s paws dirty. If you like using the longbow, you will most likely want to invest heavily in Marksmanship. The power gain is great in any build, and any condition you apply will last a little longer which is also very useful.

Skirmishing - Precision/Critical Damage/Mobility/Weapon Swapping/Traps

Adept - Tail Wind - Gain swiftness when swapping weapons in combat. - 5s of swiftness on weapon swap. It’s useful if you need to close or open gaps, and if you need to pursue or flee. The effect is only applied in combat, but it will apply when picking up or dropping/using bundles, and if you change between land and water combat. Nothing wrong with any of that.

I - Pet’s Prowess - Pets do 30% more damage on critical hits. - If you are running a high-crit build with high-crit pets, this is the trait for you. Amazing in PvE, and pretty good in WvW/PvP.

II - Sharpened Edges - Chance to cause bleeding on critical hits. - One stack of bleeding for 1s. I’m not exactly sure what the chance is, but the consensus from independent testing is that it’s ~30%. There are other, better traits in this tier. This trait was stealth buffed in some patch. It appears to have a 50% proc rate and no internal cd. Not so bad now...

III - Trapper’s Defense - Create a spike trap while reviving an ally. - This one is fine, but I never use it because, again, other better traits in here... Also, I really wish that they would have called it Trapper’s Delight.

IV - Primal Reflexes - You gain 5s of vigor when you are struck by a critical hit. This can only trigger once every 15 seconds. - This is one of those better traits I was talking about. Well, great in WvW/PvP, but essentially worthless in PvE. This trait basically guarantees that you will have 33% vigor up-time.

V - Companion’s Might - Critical hits grant might to your pets. - One stack of might for 1s. Even with a high-crit pet you just get ok up-time on that one stack. One stack of might translates to 35 power, so if I want my pet to have a damage boost, I bypass this one in favor of Pet’s Prowess.

VI - Agility Training - Pets move 30% faster. - Pet’s Prowess increases your pet’s burst damage, and this one increases the damage over time by keeping your pet on top of its target more reliably. The speed boost does not stack, so if you have high swiftness up-time, don’t bother taking this one.

Master - Furious Grip - Gain fury when swapping weapons in combat. - 5s of fury on weapon swap. The effect is applied identically to how Tail Wind applies swiftness. I can’t think of a time when I’ve been upset that I have a 20% greater critical hit chance. If you were to swap weapons every time the cd expired you would end up with 50% fury up-time. This trait is simply amazing, especially because it automatically pairs with Tail Wind. Plus, the name is awesome.

VII - Carnivorous Appetite - Pets gain health on critical hits. - The amount healed is 276+10% of the pet's healing power. It helps your high-crit pets stay alive which means that your overall damage stays higher longer. Not a single thing wrong with this one.

VIII - Trapper’s Expertise - Trap skills use ground targeting and are 50% larger. - Allows you to throw traps at a 600 range. I’m pretty ambivalent toward this trait. On the one hand, I love the increased AoE, but on the other hand, I don’t like ground-targeted skills very much. Like it or not, if you are going for a trap build you want to take this trait.

IX - Honed Axes - Your do 10% more critical damage when wielding an axe in your main hand. - If you are using a main hand axe, this is a solid choice. I’m not sure that it’s better than your other choices in this tier, but it has its uses.

X - Quick Draw - Shortbow and longbow skills recharge 20% faster. - Rounding out a very strong tier of traits, this one gives you more frequent access to the amazing utility skills on both bows. I consider it a necessity if using a longbow. The shortbow’s skill cds are already pretty reasonable, but more frequent dodges, snares, and interrupts are not going to hurt my feelings.

Grandmaster - Hunter’s Tactics - Deal 10% more damage while flanking. - It does what it says it does, and works with any weapon. The effect does not apply to your pet. Since you want to be flanking with a shortbow anyway, this trait works pretty well with one. Sword, with its flanking dodge also meshes well with this effect.

XI - Trap Potency - Conditions caused by traps last twice as long and traps recharge 20% faster. - If you are running a trap build, you are going to want to take this one. If you are not, it will not be too useful.

XII - Moment of Clarity - Gain an attack of opportunity for you and your pet on interrupting a foe. This effect can only trigger once every 5 seconds. Daze and stun durations you inflict are also increased by 50%. - This trait ensures that it is about to get real all up in here. 50% more damage on your, and your pet’s next hits. That’s a damage boost exactly when your target is at their most vulnerable. The increased daze/stun duration basically ensures that a fleeing opponent is a dead opponent. The only thing that could make this trait better is if it also triggered when your pet interrupts.

Rangers and precision go hand in hand. They have quick attack speeds on most of their weapons, and plenty of access to quickness. Plus the slower attack weapons have plenty of AoE skills, so one way or the other you should be generating a lot of hits to trigger on-crit effects more frequently. To top it off, there are some amazing pet enhancing traits in here, and all of the trap boosts you can handle.

Wilderness Survival - Toughness/Condition Damage/Defensive Maneuvers

Adept - Natural Vigor - Increases endurance regeneration by 50%. - This trait gives you a permanent endurance regen boost. Just find 5 trait points for this. It’s awesome. This effect does not stack with vigor.

I - Soften the Fall - Create Muddy Terrain when you take falling damage. You take 50% less damage from falling. - 30s internal cd. This one is great for WvW where falling damage happens constantly. Otherwise, I don’t see the point.

II - Healer’s Celerity - Grants swiftness to you and your ally when you revive someone. - Not great, but not bad. This gets you and your freshly revived buddy out of harms way more quickly. I think the trait slot can be used better, but it’s still a solid choice when the situation calls for it.

III - Shared Anguish - Incoming disables (stun, daze, knockback, knockdown, sink, float, fear, launch) are transferred to your pet. This effect can only trigger once every 90 seconds. - It’s a passive stun breaker every 90s. Really good in PvP, but less useful in nearly every other scenario.

IV - Vigorous Renewal - Gain vigor when using a heal skill. - This applies vigor when you heal. That applies to anyone you heal. The effects of vigor do not stack with the trait Natural Vigor, so you will not end up with more than 100% increased endurance recharge rate. 5s of vigor if used with HaO or TU, 3s per pulse with HS. This is a very good choice for most builds, but really shines with HS.

V - Expertise Training - Pets deal extra condition damage. - Increases your pet’s condition damage by 350 at level 80. That is a fairly significant DoT increase if you are using pets that apply a great deal of damaging conditions. I like it a lot used in conjunction with eagles/hawks. Otherwise, I like other traits better.

VI - Wilderness Knowledge - Survival skills recharge 20% faster. - If you like using survival skills, this one is a solid choice. More access to quickness. More snares. More bleeds. More dodging. More Entangle. Sign me up.

Master - Companion’s Defense - You and your pet gain 2 seconds of protection when you dodge roll. - The effect only triggers in combat. This trait is not so much for your benefit as it is for your pet’s. When people complain that their pets don’t dodge big hits, I refer them here. Good used by itself, but great if combined with Fortifying Bond.

VII - Off-hand Training - Offhand skills have a longer range and 20% quicker recharge. - Makes your off-hand weapon skills better in all of the right ways. The range increase also increases the radius of Bonfire. If you don’t need the other traits, and you use an off-hand, this one is your best choice.

VIII - Oak Heart Salve - Gain regeneration for 5s when you suffer from bleeding, poison or burning. This can only trigger once every 20 seconds. - I honestly haven’t given this one a fair trial, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. 5s of regen might help you to mitigate the effects of those conditions if they are really weak, or you have a lot of Healing Power, but otherwise it’s barely a solution. Absolutely any form of condition removal is a better choice than this trait under most circ*mstances.

IX - Hide in Plain Sight - Applies camouflage when you are dazed, knocked down, launched, pushed back, or stunned. This effect cannot trigger more than once every 30 seconds. - This is another PvP trait. The stealth lasts for 3s, and is negated by attacking or moving. This is kind of good in that stealth breaks your opponent’s target lock, and the 30s cd makes it even better. It’s also kind of not that good in that it doesn’t actually negate the effects of the stun, etc. I’m not sure any Hundred Blade warriors care if they can see you while wailing on you...

X - Martial Mastery - Sword, greatsword, and spear skills recharge 20% faster. - Another reduced cd trait. It’s a solid choice if you are running a melee or hybrid build. Now if rangers could just get Marital Mastery they would be powerful indeed.

Grandmaster - Peak Strength - Deal 5% extra damage when your health is above 90%. - Toughness makes incoming damage smaller making it more likely that you can stay above 90% health. Personally, I think I would have put this one in Nature Magic, but it makes sense here too. I’m not that sure that 5% additional damage is really Grandmaster worthy, but it’s what you get.

XI - Empathetic Bond - Pets periodically take conditions from you. - Every 10s and all of your conditions. Your pet does need to be alive and in range (1200-ish by my estimation). This is a very powerful trait, and many rangers don’t bother bringing any other form of condition removal. Interestingly, the conditions are not transferred to your pet. Rather they are simply removed and tossed to the wind for someone else to deal with. It’s the American way. Use it if you don’t hate freedom, or if you do hate conditions. The 2013/02/26 update changed this trait so that the pet now removes 3 conditions, and the conditions actually get transferred rather than simply vanishing.

XII - Bark Skin - You and your pet take 30% less damage when under 25% health. - Another whopper of a trait. You and your pet get permanent protection when you need it the most. Good luck choosing between this and Empathetic Bond.

The Wilderness Survival trait line is home to some really good stuff. Along with Skirmishing, it’s a line where I have genuine trouble deciding between traits. There is a ton of access to damage avoidance effects, but points invested here also benefit your condition damage, so this is definitely your attrition trait line. Toughen up and boost your damage over time.

Nature Magic - Vitality/Boon Duration/Support/Spirits

Adept - Rejuvination - Gain regeneration when your health reaches 75%. - 5s of regeneration. It’s not a huge heal (regeneration heals like: ((130 + (.125 HP))/second) at level 80), but if you are investing in this trait line you are getting it, so...free heal... Enjoy.

I - Circle of Life - Create a healing spring on death. - This actually drops a HS upon entering the downed state. Accordingly, you will be stripping conditions and have regeneration applied to you while trying to fight your way back up. There is some debate as to whether or not you receive HS’s initial burst heal or not, and I haven’t ever been in a position to reliably test it. Since it also heals people trying to revive you, this can be very helpful in an organized team setting. Outside of that scenario, it’s a bit underwhelming and I prefer to just not die in the first place.

II - Concentration Training - Boons applied by your pets last longer. - 50% longer to be exact. This is another one that relies on the ranger being in combat for the effects to process, which is just fine. This is a solid choice if you are using a pet that applies a boon, and is exceptionally powerful in a team build. I often use this in dungeons in conjunction with moas.

III - Nature’s Bounty - Regeneration you apply lasts 33% longer. - Increases your regeneration duration. This is a good overall choice if you don’t see anything else you like in this tier.

IV - Vigorous Spirits - Spirits have twice as much health. - So now your spirits die in four hits instead of two. If you are using spirits, you will absolutely want this, but it doesn’t quite make up for the spirits’ abysmal health pool.

V - Strength of Spirit - 5% of vitality is given as a bonus to power. - This is another solid, generic choice. Obviously it scales better the higher your vitality is. I like that ANet has included traits like this that allow you to make up for a little bit of damage lost to improving your defense.

VI - Nature’s Protection - Receive protection for 5 seconds when you take more than 10% damage in a single strike. This effect can only trigger once every 30 seconds. - This is my personal choice from this tier most of the time. Even with relatively high hit points it is likely that you will get hit for 10% of your health at least once every 30s in WvW/PvP. Getting 5s of protection when it happens is f’n fabulous.

Master - Fortifying Bond - Any boon you get is shared with your pet. - Sounds innocent enough, but is actually one of the better minor traits available to the ranger. Any boon that is applied to you from any source is also applied to your pet, except for stability. So if you are using traits like Companion’s Defense, the protection is applied to your pet twice. Yep, you heard that right. This trait can single-handedly make up for nearly any shortcomings your pets have, and used with Rampage as One...oh dear. The odd part about its behavior is that it’s unaffected by traits that increase boon duration, but is affected by your boon duration attribute. Also the shared boons are applied with a set duration rather than the duration that is applied to you. http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Fortifying_Bond for a list of the durations.

VII - Nature’s Vengeance - Activated skills of spirits are larger and trigger when the spirit is killed. - Take this trait if you want your spirits to be good for more than a minor distraction. Don’t if you don’t.

VIII - Spiritual Knowledge - Spirit bonuses have a 15% better chance of providing their benefits. - This brings the chance of application up to 50%, but does not eliminate or alter the internal 10s cd, so this trait is functionally worthless. Never, ever take it.

IX - Two-handed Training - Greatsword and spear damage is increased by 5%. - It’s fine, but not great. If you are using the GS, going this deep into NM, and not using spirits, it’s really your only choice.

X - Enlargement - Pets get enlarged when you reach 25% health. - This is kind of awesome actually, and it’s your only build-independent choice in this tier. Enlargement increases the pet’s hitbox, grants them stability, and gives them a 25% damage boost. All of that right when you are in trouble. I really like traits like this.

Grandmaster - Bountiful Hunter - You and your pet deal 5% more damage while you have a boon. - Now this is more like it. I know I complained about a 5% damage boost on a grandmaster trait earlier, but this one is actually really good since you can easily keep boons on yourself 100% of the time.

XI - Spirits Unbound - Spirits can move and follow you. - This is a blessing and a curse. If you are trying to spirit bomb or are only using the elite spirit, this is exactly how you want your spirits to behave. However if you are interested in keeping your spirits alive, this effect becomes a burden and you would be better off hiding them rather than having them follow you. If you are interested in spirits, play with this trait for a while. It completely changes how you play your spirit build.

XII - Evasive Purity - Dodging removes blind and poison from you. (10s cooldown) - Also removes chill, though I’m not sure if that is intentional or a bug. Regardless, this trait is so close to being good it hurts. All they had to do was not give this an internal cd (or at least reduce it), or have it remove all conditions, and it’s a great trait. As it is, Empathetic Bond is the superior trait in nearly every way.

The Nature Magic line is often completely ignored by many rangers who see spirits as useless, and NM as “the spirit trait line.” My take is that more vitality is never a bad thing, and everything boon-related in this line is simply great. Go 30 deep if you are running with spirits, otherwise 15 or 25 are the magic numbers in my estimation. If you are looking to use any other combination of points, they can be more efficiently spent elsewhere.

Beastmastery- Healing Power/Pet Attributes/Pet Effectiveness

Adept - Zephyr’s Speed - You and your pet gain 2 seconds of quickness when you swap pets. - This effect only applies in combat, and provides 2s of guilt-free quickness every 16-20s. Let me say that again - 2s of guilt-free quickness every 16-20s. Use it for burst damage, to fire off a quick heal, to speed revive or to speed stomp, and to ensure that your pets’ F2 skill fires in a timely fashion. Hell just use it to see the cool blurring effect on yourself, but use it. This is the one trait that every single ranger, regardless of build, will benefit from taking. Just click on this first when you retrain your traits. There isn't any good reason not to.

I - Speed Training - Pets recharge their skills 10% faster. - Affects the pets’ normal skills, not the F2 skill. It’s not a massive boost, but since many of the pets’ better skills are on long cds, you get a decent boost to some important pet effect. I like it.

II - Master’s Bond - Your pet has a bond with you that increases its attributes each time you kill a foe. When it is defeated or deactivated, the bond is reset. - Each stack gives a boost to your pet’s attributes equal to 10% of its level (8% at 80). Up to 25 stacks total. Yep. That’s a 200% boost to your pet’s power, precision, toughness, and vitality alright. Unfortunately the stacks reset anytime your pet is swapped or downed - even if you move between land and water with an amphibious pet. With Zephyr’s Speed being the precursor to this trait, I have a little bit of trouble with the reset on swap. Swapping is too important for this to be useful outside of general PvE.

III - Shout Mastery - Shouts recharge 20% faster. - If you use shouts, and wish you could use them more, take it.

IV - Compassion Training - Pets heal for more. - This gives your pet an additional 350 Healing Power at level 80, and is only active in combat. This is pretty great if you are using pets that heal themselves. It’s really great if you are using pets that heal others. This one gets slotted in dungeons alongside moas for even better team support.

V - Commanding Voice - Pet skills (F2) recharge faster. - 20% faster recharge for your pets’ special skills. If you are not swapping your pets very much, this makes sense. Otherwise, swapping resets the F2 cd, and is already quicker than this would make the long cd skills recharge. Short F2 cds are already short and benefit less, so the sweet spot is with pets whose F2 cd is ~25s. I use this occasionally, but I prefer Speed Training for the similar, but generally more useful effect.

VI - Mighty Swap - Pets gain 3 stacks of might (10s) when they are activated. - This is probably the most generally useful trait in this tier, and I pick this one the vast majority of the time. Really, the only time this is a nuisance is fighting the boon-stealing Reef Riders in Southsun Cove, and that’s hardly worth mentioning.

Master - Loud Whistle - Pet swapping recharges 20% faster. - Pet swap cd becomes 16s for healthy pets and 48s for downed pets. Plus swapping resets your pets’ F2 skill cd, so if you are considering investing points in Beastmastery, this should be tempting the hell out of you. I almost never put less than 15 points in this line because the two minor traits are so incredibly, mind-bogglingly useful. With Zephyr’s Speed, swapping your pet becomes the single most important ability a ranger has, and this gives you more of it. Additionally, there is nothing at a ranger’s disposal that makes it easier to keep a fresh pet in the fight at all times. You don’t have to invest 15 in BM, but I doubt that you’ll regret it if you do.

VII - Rending Attacks - Drake, feline, devourer, and shark pets bleed on critical hit with their basic attacks. - This gets you one stack of bleeding for 5s. It’s pretty good with feline pets, but nothing to write home about otherwise. Combined with the other pet condition traits, this is actually really good, but makes for a strange build overall.

VIII - Stability Training - Ursine, porcine, and armor fish pets gain stability (3s) when disabled. - It does what it says. If you are running a sniper build and relying on your pets to take hits, this makes sense to take. Since at higher levels, and in PvP/WvW pets don’t tend to take aggro, I don’t tend to find it that useful overall.

IX - Intimidation Training - Activated (F2) abilities for canines and spiders cause cripple. - Applies a 4s cripple to anyone affected by the F2 ability. If you are predominately ranged, you won’t get a whole lot of benefit out of this one. For melee rangers however, this is crazy good stuff. Wolf’s fear plus a cripple while I wail on your head with a greatsword? Sold.

X - Vigorous Training - Moa, bird, and jellyfish pets grant AoE vigor (5s) when activated. - You know I like this one. It increases your team’s survival without the need to change a thing in your normal behavior. Plain old-fashioned good.

Grandmaster - Nature’s Wrath - 10% of healing is given as a bonus to power. - Exactly as good as it sounds. The Beastmaster line improves your healing power, so if you are investing this deeply this is a nice perk.

XI - Instinctual Bond - When you are downed, your pet gains quickness. - 5s of quickness on a 50s cd. As ridiculous as this one sounds at first, it’s actually very powerful. In a close fight (which is the only type you should be in if you’ve been downed), suddenly your pet is thrashing the bejeezus out of your opponent while they are trying to kill you. This one has put me back on my feet nearly every time I thought that it ought to. I don’t use it much outside of PvP, but it’s really good in there.

XII - Natural Healing - Your pets have natural health regeneration. - What they forgot to tell you is that so do you. 125/s for your pet, 133/2s for you. It’s not going to save you on it’s own, but stacked with all of the other heals and regeneration available to you it makes you and your pet really resilient. I take this one if I’m running with high toughness and low vitality. I take IB otherwise.

Pets are huge part of being a ranger, and the Beastmastery trait line makes them better. The additional Healing Power it provides is never a bad idea either. The master tier traits are fairly widely maligned in the ranger community because of their pet-family-specific nature, but you can always take two Adept level traits if you don’t like any of what’s offered. For my money, 5 points is mandatory, 15 is highly encouraged, and 30 is a fine idea.

Building your ranger

Now that we've had a chance to take a look at all of the stuff available to the ranger, let’s take a look at some build strategies and equipment choices. Don’t worry if you try something and it doesn't seem to work at first. Just keep at it until you get the feel for it, or try something different. Oh, and always remember that just because a build works for one person, it does not mean it works for everybody. Be aware of your strengths and limitations as a player and build to enhance and/or compensate. The ranger requires good timing and a strong dose of battlefield awareness to really shine, and those two things come with practice.

Which weapon should I use?

There is no weapon that you should be using other than the one that fits your version of the ranger. Do you envision a stealthy archer who rains death from a distance then escapes to safety? Longbows have the longest range in the game and a wide assortment of traits and skills to keep you out of the melee. Would you prefer to be a guerilla, moving quickly across the land and pouncing on your enemy when they least expect it? Grab a shortbow and run circles around your enemies. Maybe you prefer to be a beastmaster relying on your animal companion and punishing conditions to wear your opponent down. Toss an axe and a torch in your weapon slots and watch your enemies squirm. Regardless of which weapon you choose just remember to play to your and your profession's strengths and you’ll be just fine.

Well, what about utility skills?

Again, choose what works for you. If you know that you will be going for a trapper build, then you want to bring traps. If you prefer to passively buff yourself and your pet, take some signets. Want more control over your pets? Bring shouts. Team buffs? Spirits. Try everything, and swap your skills when you need what something else offers. Never worry about whether or not you have the “right” skills for your build. Instead bring the right skill for the situation.

Surely you can tell me which traits I should...

Let me stop you right there. My strategy is to pick traits that make the ranger do what I want it to do, then I adjust its attributes with my gear choices. Don’t worry about which attributes are associated with the traits you want. Your gear choices will contribute more to your attributes anyway.

Sample builds

Here are some fairly generic builds that I have used successfully. If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m going to tell you to look at these as general suggestions rather than hard and fast rules for what works and what doesn’t.

The Sniper

This build is designed to administer a lot of damage from a distance. It leaves you pretty squishy when you have exhausted your defensive tricks, so it’s probably best used in general PvE or in a team build.

30 - IV, IX, XI
30 - I, X, XII
05
00
05

HS SotH SotW SoS RaO

Longbow - Sigil of Accuracy
Shortbow - Sigil of Purity

Berserker’s gear
Runes of Dwayna

Red moa - Healing, Fury
Fernhound - Knockdown, Regeneration

Engage at max range with the LB. LB #5 > pet swap + F2 for quickness and boon > LB #3 > LB #2. If they close the gap, LB #4, then swap to SB. If they stay at range, keep at it with the LB. Use all signets when you need a burst of damage, or SoS when you need the invulnerability. Swap to SB for two quick bursts of swiftness to reopen the gap, or if you need to become mobile. HS for the condition removal and water field. Use Rampage as One as an escape or against a fleeing opponent.

The Survivalist

This build can take the hits all day long. It sacrifices direct damage in favor of condition damage, toughness and healing, and pet damage. I've used it to great effect in PvP, but it can be adapted for use elsewhere.

00
00
30 - VI, VII, XI
10 - VI
30 - I, VI, XII

TU LR QZ MT En

Axe/Warhorn - Sigil of Energy/Sigil of Hydromancy
Sword/Torch - Sigil of Hobbling/Sigil of Life

Shaman’s/Cleric’s PvP amulet
Runes of Altruism

Wolf - Knockdown, AoE Fear
Jaguar - Stealth

Engage with your Jag + Warhorn #5, and activate its stealth as it approaches the target. Cast TU to get your healing started, then fire off Axe #3 and Warhorn #4 as you close the gap. When you are in melee range, hit your target with Axe #2 and immediately switch to your sword set. Torch #5 > Sword #2 > Torch #4 > Sword #2. That combination will leave your target standing in a fire field which means that when you leap back in you will generate a fire shield on yourself. More damage! Sword #3 when you need to dodge. Sword #2 will do the same once recharged. If you need to disengage, swap back to Axe for the chill, and swap to wolf for the KD/fear. Try to finish people with your sword set for the +HP stacks. Refresh TU whenever it’s off cd. Use your wolf to fear people off of points.

The Naturalist

Use spirits and pets for team support. The longbow keeps you at max range, and the greatsword gets used defensively. Plenty of uptime on might for additional damage. This is surprisingly good in dungeons or any other organized PvE content.

20 - I, X
00
05
30 - IV, VII, XI
15 - I

HS FS SuS StS

Longbow - Sigil of Battle
Greatsword - Sigil of Battle

Soldier’s gear
Runes of the Fighter

Pig - Knockdown, Healing bundles
Wolf - Knockdown, AoE fear

Stay near the back, let your team engage, and keep your pet on “Avoid Combat.” Drop spirits and use the longbow from 1500. If anything tries to get near you and your spirits, drop your HS, swap to GS, and engage it immediately. Use the wolf’s fear or set either of your pets on them for the KD. Otherwise, stay in the back and send your pig to the frontline to drop healing bundles for your teammates when they need the help. You can do damage with this build, and you will actually have very good uptime on several stacks of might should you need to. The real strength of this build lies with the constant team support it provides.

The Guerrilla

This build combines boons, pet enhancing traits, high precision, and on-crit effects to spread outgoing damage between ranger and pet. It also has plenty of toughness, vitality, and healing to keep both of you in the fight longer.

00
30 - VI, VII, XII
10 - VI
15 - VI
15 - VI

HS SoR SotH QZ En

Shortbow - Sigil of Purity
Greatsword - Sigil of Battle

Berserker’s/Knight’s gear
Runes of Altruism

Jaguar - Stealth
Wolf - Knockdown, AoE fear

Engage with your Jaguar and SB. Cripple your target, and interrupt anything big and important that your opponent tries to use. Quickshot to open the gap and get you and your pet moving faster. Swap to GS for anti-melee, the boons, and/or simply to keep your opponent on their toes. Send your wolf after fleeing opponents, and use it’s fear to force people to give you their back. Above all, stay mobile and keep swapping for fresh pets, weapons, and boons. Entangle to help cope with large groups.

Tips and Tricks

Following are some interesting trait/skill/general combos and tricks that you can use with your ranger.

When engaging a melee enemy with the SB, dodge roll through your target, then immediately use Quickshot (#3). You will avoid all of their hits, and put yourself in flanking position while also maintaining your range advantage. You can do the same with a LB by using Point Blank Shot (#4). Follow with a cripple or stun for additional control.
Try using a porcine/ursine pet with Stability Training and Shared Anguish. The combo turns disables into stability for your pet.
You can stockpile porcine foraged bundles for about 60s. This means you can have several stealth, stun, otherwise helpful bundles available to you in a fight. Combine these with the SB and GS stuns plus Moment of Clarity, and you can keep your target stun-locked for a ridiculous amount of time (~13s or so).
Pink/black moas stun people in an AoE cone. Use both for a slightly less potent, but more reliable stun-lock build than the one mentioned above.
Need to make a quick escape? Counterattack (GS #4) blocks attacks coming in from any direction. Drop your target (Esc, or simply click on an unoccupied section of the screen), trigger it, turn tail, and run. Follow it with Swoop (GS #3) as it ends to ensure that you gain some needed distance. If you really need more of a gap, Lightning Reflexes used at the beginning or end of this chain will give you even more distance.
A slightly tougher version of the GS escape can be pulled off using Sword #2. Leap backward, turn 180 degrees (this can be bound to a key, or done manually), Sword #2 again. With practice, you can disengage very quickly.
For a quick and easy AoE speed boost, open your inventory, double-click on your warhorn, trigger skill #5, double-click on your original weapon.
For another quick and easy AoE speed boost, use a bird pet (raptor, not moa). The first attack that a bird uses 99% of the time is its AoE swiftness, so target something in range and hit F1. As soon as you see the swiftness apply, hit F3 to call your bird back before it engages and puts you in combat.
Rapid Fire (LB #2) is a great way to track stealthed enemies. Fire it when you engage a thief or mesmer and let the channeled shots show you where they are going.
Thieves using Shadow Refuge are standing in that circle. The moment they leave (before it ends), their stealth is nullified. Barrage (LB #5), drop traps, or swing your GS like a crazed maniac in the AoE. You will often see a dead thief materialize.
Traps in general are a good counter to stealth, and the AoE helps against mesmer clones as well. Same with the GS and Axe.
Having trouble with high-burst players (100 blades warriors, dagger thieves for instance)? Carry a weapon with a block or interrupt on it (LB, SB, GS) and hit that skill immediately after using your stun breaker (if needed). You will completely disrupt their chain and put them on the defensive. Get aggressive immediately afterward for the easy kill.
Bait your targets. Play defensively using your pet and auto-attack, and wait for them to commit. Once they've fired off their stuff (and you've dodged), use your stuns, cripples, disables, whatever CC you have handy and quickness burst them. Nobody expects rangers to burst, so they are seldom prepared for the onslaught when it comes.
Either of your melee weapons + your high-damage pet make a superb finisher. Plink away from a distance and apply as many conditions as you can. Once you have your opponent on the ropes, swap to your melee weapon, close the gap, swap pets, and hit F2. Start firing off as many damaging skills as you can during that 2s window, and watch your target’s health plummet. Use a feline or bird for best results.
Try swapping your pets while you are near/passing by your target. This tip keeps your pet on top of your target and helps them to take advantage of the 2s of quickness from Zephyr’s Speed.
Need to revive an ally in a seemingly impossible spot? “Guard” + “Search and Rescue”. You can put your pet in spots that you can’t reach, and send them over to revive for you.