Rangers in WvW.

Follow a necro around. Ranger necro is a deadly combination

Rangers have their place in group play and honestly if you prefer playing a ranger over other classes then who gives a rats what anyone else says. Ultimately it's a game for your personal enjoyment not somebody else.

Healing Spring is awesome! Water field.
Horn for group might, fury, swiftness buff great or a Torch for a flame field. Sword for a leap finisher, or a axe for multi-target harrassment.
(I wish spirits were invulnerable because that would make the Ranger absolutely cherry in zerg play)

Unfortunately, I'm not on my ranger much for WvW right now. I have this weird obsession with getting all profs to 80.

I play a Ranger and I honestly don't see whats so bad about it in WvW. I run short bow and axe/torch and am able to beat most classes fairly handily. I struggle with mesmers abit but that's life. Also, I've found the ranger to be the absolute king of underwater combat, I can take on any class underwater with a very good chance of winning. The speargun skills when used correctly provide hellacious DPS, with feeding frenzy basically murdering anyone it hits.

I honestly don't run much large group action since I usually duo, so your mileage may vary, but I do have alot of fun on my ranger. Its a great skirmishing class.

Part 3: Weapon Skills (Sigils to consider may come later.) No matter what flavor of utilities you bring to the table, each of your weapons will provide an integral part of your movements and skirmishes in the WuvWorld. One big thing I can stress is that you should always carry spare weapons to suit your needs in any specific type of gear - for instance, carrying a Warhorn is great for travelling long distances, but its damage is going to be wasted if you have no power; meanwhile, a Torch is great for our typical Might-bomb tactics (fire fields on demand!) but in a skirmish or a lonely situation, your damage is going to suffer simply by means of having poor Condition Damage if you're in the wrong gear. One big thing to note is that a lot of your weapon skills will provide passive benefits to your pet when active, which is placed into the balance of the class, and therefore an excuse to weaken most of our abilities. Still, they bring some utility to the table, so I give you, by effective ranges:

Melee
Greatsword - Greatswords are big, bulky, and clunky hard-hitters. They also appear to be ANET's baby and keep getting buffed, so picking one up is decent for now, but not for offensive purposes: through and through, despite appearances, Ranger's Greatswords are a mobile, defensive-focused weapon.
1-chain (Slash, Slice, Power Stab) is slow to connect, but the final hit provides a moment of automatic evasion.
2 - Maul - It has a noticeable windup and animation (gigantic phantasmal bear!) which makes it easy to dodge, but hits HARD and causes a couple stacks of bleed.
3 - Swoop - A mobility tool, used to quickly enter a fight (and apply Leap finishers) or to run away (providing you lose your targets while doing so.) Using it will burst you forward faster than any Swiftness. It has some side abilities built into it if you fall off a short cliff to extend your horizontal distance, but it'll cause you a bit of lag while your "wings" puff out again. It's also Greatsword's highest damage ability if you don't count the bleed from Maul, so bear that in mind.
4 - Counterattack - A defensive ability through and through, with a couple of nuances to it. If you stand still and are hit in melee range, the ability ends and you knockback your assailant (and nearby people) with a kick. If you are moving while hit with it, you will remain blocking but not counter. Finally, if you hit the ability again, you perform its followup (providing you're not in motion):
4-followup - Crippling Throw - You throw a goddamned Greatsword. You THROW. A Greatsword. It only causes moderate damage, is mid-ranged, and causes three seconds of cripple, but you're still throwing a damn Greatsword. Functions as a 100% projectile finisher on the fly.
5 - Hilt Bash - You perform a quick, low-damage hit that Dazes (from the front) or Stuns (from behind.) Also, it gives your pet an Attack of Opportunity, even if it doesn't connect, which causes your pet's next attack to deal 150% damage.

Main-hand Sword - In fitting with Ranger's melee-theme, Main-hand Sword is a defensive weapon, albeit much more offensive than a Greatsword. While your damage will not compare to a class that actually focuses on melee-range damage, it brings evasion-games to the table to rival a Thief and Mesmer (but not surpass, God forbid.)
1-chain (Slash, Kick, Pounce) - The second hit cripples and enemy and unfortunately roots you in place, if you leave mainhand Sword on auto-cast for the third hit to go off (a well-known bug.) It's a very fast autoattack chain - I believe it is amongst the fastest in the game when Quickened! Low damage, though, but it's more for pinning a foe down and having your pet maul it than yourself - after all, the third attack gives it a stack of Might.
2 - Hornet Sting - Strike for moderate damage, then leap backwards - during this leap, you are considered "evading" and your followup attack will ready itself for two and a half seconds.
2-followup - Monarch Leap - Deals higher damage than Hornet Sting and performs a Crippling attack at your target. You can actually leap further with this forward than you can the backwards attack from Hornet Sting. A big thing to note for both of these abilities - set a "Quick Turn" key for evasive maneuvers, as you can Hornet Sting away from your foe, quick turn, and Monarch Leap even further away, if running across a Zerg. It can be used out of combat with practice, but it's more effective when your movespeed is reduced inside combat. Another thing to note for this ability - it's a Leap finisher. Handy for a quick Healing burst if you throw yourself in and out of a Healing Spring on the fly.
3 - Serpent's Strike - Deals moderate damage and poisons the target after a weird, evasive maneuver (that will put you close to the target if you're far away.) As with most melee abilities, there is some automatic Evasion built into it, and the poison duration is fairly decent - 6 seconds on connect. There is a rather huge tell for it, so it's difficult to connect in a 1v1 situation, but it's pretty easy to poison multiple enemies in a pitched battle.

Off-hand Axe - Axes are a delightful main-hand weapon to use, but they can serve some excellent utility in a pinch in the offhand slot. Their main purpose is providing combo finishers in cramped situations.
4 - Path of Scars - Despite being in the melee section, offhand Axe is more useful for its fifth ability. This is evident in path of scars, a generic boomerang attack that deals moderate damage. It was considered so weak for a while that recently its damage was doubled and STILL you rarely see offhand Axes. Regardless, it's a 100% projectile finisher with no strings attached, so there's that to consider.
5 - Whirling Defense - The tooltip lies to you. The only above-water source of Whirl combo finishers for a ranger, Whirling Defense roots you in place but has a bunch of wonderful benefits. First, it reflects projectiles; it doesn't block them, like it claims. Second, it provides stacks of Vulnerability each time an enemy is hit by it. Third, it does a large amount of damage over a little bit of time. It's one of my favorite things to do in small battles - use it with a Flame, Frost, or Healing field beneath me then spin and provide the Bolts benefit in an area around me, while punishing any thieves/warriors that get too confident in their ability to murder me (and annoy enemy rangers straight out.)

Spear (Aquatic only) - Rangers are surprisingly beefy at underwater combat. Spears are essentially Greatsword 2.0, with more damage output in a faster period of time while remaining defensive, and the only other source of Whirl finishers for a ranger.
1-chain (Stab, Jab, Evasive strike) - Quick, hard hitting, and multi-target short range attacks. No muss, no fuss, just straight up damage.
2 - Swirling Strike - Deals a quick chain of moderate damage, provides a Whirl finisher, and reflects projectiles for one to two seconds. As a heads up, if your 1-chain is in autocast it may self-interrupt, so consider turning autocast off when underwater.
3 - Dart - Grow a phantasmal shark head and dash at your target. It's like Swoop, only it bleeds your target a bit, causes five stacks of Vulnerability, and gives your pet swiftness. And yes, it counts as a Leap finisher, too (but it's harder to take advantage of, with no Healing Spring access; however, using the instant ability of the Reef Drake underwater can give you some Chaos Armor in a solo situation.)
4 - Counterstrike - This is similar to Greatsword's counterattack, but a bit higher damaging. You block, and the first attack that connects with you will be knocked back with a hard-hitting kick. If you opt to cancel it early without being struck, you can perform the followup attack instead.
4-followup - Counter Throw - Throw your spear. Hits for moderate damage and provides a 100% projectile finisher underwater, but nothing special otherwise.
5 - Man O' War - Phantasmal Jellyfish. Scary. Five rapid attacks, with the highest damager being the last hit - on this higher damage last hit, anything struck is immobilized briefly. Fairly difficult for an enemy to dodge all the hits of it, but it doesn't deal too terribly much damage; it can, however, cause multiple Bleed-stcks for if you have the "Bleed on Hit" trait active, or the "Remove a Boon on critical" sigil on your spear.

Middle range
Main-hand Axe - If you use any sort of Condition build, this is your bread-and-butter main-hand weapon. It's strictly offensive and has access to multiple 20% projectile finishers, but isn't a straight-up Power weapon (unlike if you were, say, a warrior.)
1 - Ricochet - Deals light damage on up to three targets. I'm not certain if it's still possible to bounce an axe between two targets so the initial target gets hit twice to make its damage more respectable, but... well, it's a fast attack, so that helps.
2 - Splitblade - Launch five axes in a narrow cone. It will bleed and damage everything it hits - targets especially close or large can be hit by multiple axes. It has some decent range to it and can hit multiple targets with no trouble, but the damage will suffer the further away a target is.
3 - Winter's Bite - Lob an icy axe in a weird arc to deal minor damage and chill the first enemy that it hits. It's decent to use as an opener, especially since its projectile speed is so slow that it might force a dodge and still connect with its target. The main benefit of it (apart from Chill on demand) is to give your pet a buff that, for the next 15 seconds, its first attack will inflict Weakness for ten seconds. Tagging a runner with this ability generally wrecks their day.

Off-hand Dagger - Generally used for evasion tools and a bit of added conditions, the dagger deals some pitiful damage in its own right but anything they connect with is generally going to hurt in one way or another. Its abilities are generally useful for one on one situations and thus not entirely useful for WvW play; one benefit, however, is that they have impressively quick cooldowns for an offhand weapon, enough to keep poison on one target 100% of the time if done properly.
4 - Stalker's Strike - Deal light damage and poison your target for ten seconds, while evading for about a second and a half. Quick to hit, but low range - it's generally used with a Sword mainhand to keep Evasion and is pretty useless when it comes to group combat.
5 - Crippling Talon - Moderate damage 100% projectile finisher that causes six seconds of cripple and three bleedstacks to the first target it hits. It suffers by nature of being a slow (in comparison) projectile that's easily dodged by strafing if far enough away from the ranger... plus it can be intercepted by another target midflight. All in all, I wouldn't recommend the dagger (though it's been getting some buffs lately.)

Off-hand Torch - No tricks with this one. Rangers don't play the magic game like Guardians and Mesmers, they just light shit on fire and call it a day. Obviously not a power weapon, even more obviously a tool to burn the world gwahahahahem. It should be noted that if you're WvWing with us, you are going to want one of these puppies at all times, given it gives fire fields on demand.
4 - Throw Torch - Lob the torch in an arc/speed similar to main-hand Axe Chilling Bite. The first target it connects with gets burned for a long duration and takes mild initial damage. A good opening attack if you use a Sword, a better followup attack if you use an Axe.
5 - Bonfire - Area denial ability, it sets up a fire field underneath you that ticks for a second of burning and mild damage for any enemy inside it. Its real purpose is to provide an eight-second fire field, but it should be noted that if you trait into Offhand Training its range will rival a trap without the need to spring it.

Long-range
Warhorn - A good candidate for Ranger offhand if you don't like running Signet of the Hunt, a Warhorn is mostly used for out-of-combat/precombat situations to get where you and your allies where you need to be going, or to annoy the heck out of a single target from a distance when combat begins. It's a support weapon through and through... but dear God! It's better than a warrior at something! I consider it a Longrange weapon because, while its max untraited range is 900 units, Hunter's Call is generally used when approaching an enemy
4 - Hunter's Call - A long cast-time ability that deals moderate to heavy damage over time as birds swoop down to kick the crap out of the unfortunate target. Decent for "proc-on-crit" builds, too - each hit of it has a chance to critical, and if it connects (which it will, if you don't interrupt its long cast time) it is incredibly difficult to dodge every hit. I consider it a long-range attack, because while it has a similar range to the other offhand weapon abilities, it will continue to track its target until the ability ends or they break line of sight with you. And let's be honest - if you're being pelted by birds, you're going to panic.
5 - Call of the Wild - Provides a long-lasting Swiftness, Fury, and one stack of Might in an area centered on the Ranger. From what I understand, Fury is one of those buffs that a lot of classes have access to, but generally via traiting into it or using other special circumstances. This skips the middleman, and plays into one of Ranger's biggest strengths, especially for how long it lasts.

Shortbow - Generally, if you mention Rangers to anyone who cares, there is an ongoing debate on which of the two bow-types are better. Shortbows are just as long-ranged as Longbows, but are more for inflicting Condition damage than raw damage output, and aiding in the Ranger's theme of evasiveness while crippling an enemy. It's generally more useful than a Longbow if an enemy is running away from you. Damage output isn't what it used to be after Crossfire was nerfed due to QZ, but strangely Crossfire wasn't buffed back up when QZ was nerfed. It is, however, much more useful than a Longbow when interacting with Fields, what with all the 100% projectile finishers in its skillset.
1 - Crossfire - Standard autoattack that will add a 3-second stack of Bleed to its victim if they're facing away from you when the arrow connects. It actually takes longer to activate than its tooltip indicates, but even so, if you fire this blindly into a fray with Piercing Arrows equipped, the damage can really start to stack up.
2 - Poison Volley - Deals light damage in a cone. Remember Splitbade for main-hand Axe? Same thing, only longer range, and the shots poison for two seconds instead of bleed. It should be noted that it can "shotgun" poison a target, just like Splitblade, if you're at extreme close range, bumping the duration up from 2 to 10 seconds max, and the arrows pierce naturally without needing the Piercing Arrows trait.
3 - Quick Shot - Hop backwards and shoot a 100% projectile finisher at a long range for light damage. If the shot hits, you gain a brief burst of Swiftness (and you're evading during the leap-back period.) REALLY short cast time, so can usually be used as a followup to put some distance between you and a target.
4 - Crippling Shot - Cripple #2385 on a 3-second base duration for the Ranger. Same range as the other shortbow abilities, same low damage. It also adds a bleeding stack to the target hit, and also makes your pet have its next three attacks bleed for 5 seconds. Minimal (if any) cast time, and another 100% projectile finisher. Used to be home to a Skyrim reference. Meh.
5 - Concussion Shot - Low damage, 100% physical projectile finisher, same range as all other shortbow abilities, yada yada yada. Stuns if you hit from behind. Useful with the Moment of Clarity GM Trait in the precision line.

Longbow - Supposedly, Ranger's forte (even though Warriors can outDPS with their own at slightly less a range...), Longbow is a raw damage weapon through and through, but it's not without its own utility (even if its keepaway is a bit... well... weak.) Unfortunately hit quite hard by the Quickness nerf, but still useful in its own ways.
1 - Long Range Shot - 20% projectile finisher that deals more damage the farther away your target is when it connects. All too easy to miss entirely with "Out of Range!" if aiming for max damage without the Eagle Eye trait, unfortunately, but it still hits decently hard with a midrange shot.
2 - Rapid Fire - If you're using a Longbow in combat situations, this is one of your two main point-defense tools, which fires off ten arrows in rapid succession that each deal light damage. If quickened by a Mesmer or by Quickening Zephyr, it's your main source of burst damage. It kind of stinks in large clashes, as you'll get a bunch of "jump in front of the bullet" situations without the Piercing Arrows trait, but it should be noted that you can move and reposition yourself while the arrows are firing off, so you don't get one or all of the arrows blocked by a moment of bad positioning.
3 - Hunter's Shot - Give your pet Swiftness for a brief time and, if you hit an enemy with the arrow, apply ten stacks of Vulnerability to them. A single Ranger with at least fifteen points invested in the Marksmanship trait line can, with the pet attacking in conjunction, cause 20 stacks of vulnerability on a target (and 10 to any behind them, with the Piercing Arrows trait.) It lacks a cast time and comes out near instantly, so there is absolutely no reason you shouldn't lead with this. It's one of the two 100% projectile finishers, to boot, so try and make use of it in a clash by shooting through a fire/poison/smoke/dark/ethereal field.
4 - Point-Blank Shot - Having half the range of the other projectile abilities, the whole purpose of Point-Blank Shot is to give yourself some breathing room if you have a Thief/Warrior breathing down your neck. It deals some moderate damage in its own right, but has a slight windup cast time (but little wind-down, which lets you follow it up with an ability of your choice.) ANET has acknowledged that it's somewhat unimpressive for keeping foes at a distance, so expect some changes to it in the distant future.
5 - Barrage - If you aren't using this in WvW, you're doing it wrong. Barrage keeps you rooted in place while you cast it, but essentially mimics an arrow cart in form and function, crippling and damaging up to five units in the AoE up to twelve times. Its only real flaw at the moment is the whole "rooted in place while casting" thing, but it's all too easy to score multiple loot bags with even a modest amount of Power. And yes, each individual hit can crit/proc critical effects such as boon-stripping or bleed-on-hit.

Harpoon Gun (Aquatic only) - Further cementing Ranger's place as being underwater, the Harpoon Gun combines the long range Condition-dealing prowess of the Shortbow with the bouncing of a main-hand Axe and the area control of a Longbow. The theme of it is "slow, low damage abilities that quickly spiral out of control." Almost like an aquatic, wieldable necromancer.
1 - Splinter Shot - a bouncing, low damage shot that adds a 4 second bleedstack to any target hit by it. Pitiful damage even after a buff, but the bleed stacks do add up quickly, and it bounces nicely, too. Functions as a 20% projectile finisher.
2 - Coral Shot - a slow-moving shot that deals moderate damage and 1-4 stacks of Bleed depending on how far away the target is when you hit them with it. Note: you will basically never hit a player with it, but it's decent for the close-range cripple, at least.
3 - Feeding Frenzy - A moderate windup, slow moving attack that will bombard the area where it hits with a large damage over time effect; it also gives your pet a brief Fury buff when cast, for if you want to play Catsassin underwater.
4 - Mercy Shot - a standard moderate damager with a light windup. The important thing to note is it will deal 95% more damage if the target is under 33% health, and half that bonus damage if the target's just under 60% health. Best used in the middle of a fight unless attempting to take advantage of the 100% projectile property.
5 - Ink Blast - Make like an octopus and blind the area where you just were for six seconds (base duration,) launching yourself backwards in the process Why it doesn't provide a combo field is beyond me (let's face it, Smoke/Dark field would be perfect here) but it's important to note that it is one of the Ranger's three sources of blindl Try to take advantage of it by quickly swapping to a Spear and hitting your Dart ability for a heavy hit.

gw2buildcraft.com/calculator/

dear lord guys. Less text more build calc. It does all the explaining for you