I moved and edited my rather old ranger guide from 2013 as I received so many questions on ranger builds/tactics and all nerfs makes it obsolete fast.
Bon apetit'
Aylee's Ranger Tutorial
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A Ranger is an Archer = common misunderstanding 
The Ranger is a skirmisher rather than anything else. Hmm, it’s easy to think it’s mainly a straight forward “stand up and release arrows pew pew pew” kind of toon,,, well you do get away with that simple approach fighting bosses with a good tank or early solo play. But then you don't understand the class and when clearing trash in the dungeons the Ranger must move around for effective use of the dps on MULTIPLE targets while focusing on ONE target, and the use of TRAPS is a MUST.
Traps boost weapon damage and by a lot (+45%) with maxed out Master Trapper skill for 13 seconds. If the bosses do heavy AoE (for example Spellmasters in Kyllikki raids) run in and out to set a trap to get that buff and back to nuke from safe distance. Let’s agree on maxing out Master Trapper in the Feat Tree.
General Skirmisher Tactics
Target one mob then move around to get more mobs between you and the target, then use multiple target combos such as Penetrating shot or Clout (AA perk) etc to hit everything standing in the way. Thus stacking multiple dps 
Stun and Root
If you encounter many strong mobs alone or with a team, you may use the stun attack (called Mezz shot): break line of sight and go in hiding and move in to shoot a mob (preferably a mob attacking your team from range) and this will stun for 8 seconds if left untouched, and then switch to nuke the other mobs. This skill is essential when clearing Thoth-Amon Stronghold when tough mobs are moving in pairs, stun hit will not aggro the mob until the stun effect is gone and by that time the other mobs have moved away and you can successfully pull one at the time (else it may be a wipe party).
Also use Legohold traps, roots 2-5 mobs for 2-8 seconds depending on your skill tree investment (go with default 2 mobs/trap as it consumes one skill point per extra mob you can affect with traps and rooting two mobs is normally sufficient). Pull mobs from a fight, kite them few meters and root them, buying precious time for your group (though this may not work on all mobs in harder dungeons as some are immune).
Booby Traps, knock back that is very very useful in both pve and pvp.
Concussive Blast, only if booby traps are on cooldown. Contrary to traps that can be set while nuking this one works as a combo (like a police stun grenade) and is only as last resort. For PvE no reason at all and for PvP it has some use to stun enemies if you are hugged to get away.
Jarring Shot (AA perk), I actually found no use for this until T4 raids to stun "Jade Citadel Courtyard Runners" and to kite adds in Ardashir Fort. For PvP it is good after some invested points as it uses up only one AA slot and you have a long lasting stun to block a tank and go for them dps toons.
Ranger AoE
There are some AoE skills, but normally with poor dps and a complete waste of skill points for 99% of the time. Exhausting traps, for example, are mainly useful on one boss in Thoth Amons Stronghold to drain mana so you need to change to use this in skill tree only for T3 "Favoured Louhi boss".
Ranger Melee
There are Ranger Combos to either attack as an assassin with two daggers (and nice animations) or with sword + shield utilizing knock-back, stun, shield bash etc. I tried these a bit, but the true damage comes with the bow/crossbow (though I gained some serious dps going all out with melee when I tried it for fun in T1-T2 raids). This makes the class fun to play and you can switch between ranged/melee weapons as the shield offers protection and you can hit multiple targets with swords/daggers in crowded fights. However, there is no penalty using bow/crossbow in close combat but can be slow to aim and shoot in close quarter combat.
Fun, fun, fun.
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Skills to buff up your friends
Marked Target (skill tree - important)
+85% damage for everyone !! on your selected target for 10s (2 min cooldown). Very good stuff. Note: If you team up in dungeons and the tank is rather fresh, cast this one when the tank pulls to let the tank accelerate aggro build-up with this buff for a few seconds (this should always be on cooldown).
Shattering attack: Significantly boosts damage to your next shot and de-buffs the target after impact (a buff that can spread too). Learn when to use it as the added damage output is pure crap if you don´t hit it before your main damage shot.
Low priority: Absolute Precision (skill tree, need to fill up points to reach higher combos so one can take this one)
+25 Hit Rating and +1013 Penetrating Rating for everyone over 10s (30 s cooldown). Not really fancy, but in some fights it helps for example when fighting Strom (T4) to let necropets do more damage while the ranger can´t hit at all.
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Ayleetahs AA’s
I only summarize the main ones.
Bronze AA’s
As with any class swap between Chromatic Wardens lvl5 to withstand AoE in raids and HM dungeons together with Pressing Strikes/Decisive Strikes etc (just remember to match any perk to your fight).
Silver AA’s
Flanking (Perk) Permanent boost to the soldier class toons in your group (+7.5% weapon damage, +355 Health, +16% Evade Chance), pretty much up all the time unless there is more rouges in the group.
Tainted Weapons (Perk) for some hardmodes or newer dungeons and of course pvp (cripple heal over time effects)
TW can, for example, be used to remove 
(Palace of Yun Rau).
Heal buffs most often looks Aurora Borealis (Lesser regeneration) or like a blue circle on the mobs.
Finely Honed (Advantage) for some hardmodes or newer dungeons and pvp (removes some buffs).
Gold AA's (see how combos are used below)
Deadly Draw combo (perk) your main PvE combo to boost dps with Penetrating shot as follow-up!
Clout combo (perk) can use another, but I decided to train this one as it has a cone area of effect.
Taking the Shot combo (perk) when PvP, or PVE with a new toon. Not sure anymore about this one at all.
Jarring Shot block them adds or stun from max range in PvP.
Hunting Hawk silences casters targeting you.
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PvE combos to max out DPS and Feat Tree
Always use Upper White Hit + Lower White Hit before a Combo to reduce the cooldown, increase the damage and increase the duration of damage over time (DoT), then use white upper and white lower attack after each combo to always maintain the buffs (and keep them active for next combo).
(In PvP with less time, then make lower white the priority over upper as lower boost damage and upper duration of DoT)
With a geared up lvl 80 toon with decent AA XP:
In good raid teams you can skip the right part of the skill tree to add Marked for Death and more dps abilities without hate modification.
Link PvE raid feat tree: High DPS Build with Team Buffs
As most abilities give about 10 seconds buffs, don't start any buff until you are firing a main combo after Upper White and Lower White hits if you want to max dps.
For PvE: Deadly Draw and Clout,,, requires a crapload of AA points to be useful.
#1 Combo: Deadly Draw (AA perk) that gives dps + significant boost to Penetrating shot:
Upper white Hit + Lower white Hit + Deadly Draw followed by Upper white Hit + Lower white Hit + Penetrating Shot (1 critical hit for Ayleetah does presently up to about 8k damage in good group/raid settings and 4k+ solo).
Clout (AA perk) is also good as it fires multiple dps arrows in a cone in front of the ranger and got quick cooldown.
Upper white Hit + Lower white Hit + Clout
Fill in with other combos during cooldown of deadly draw/penetrating shot. I don’t fill in long explanations of other variants as this combo does the job well and situations decide what else you do.
When the Ranger is properly used you should be able to see your Ranger ending up in top 3 of damage dealt in a raid (when you have a dps build with decent AA).
A ranger easily achieves 1000+ dps in normal dungeons/raids, but higher dps depends strongly on each situation if there is time to max out all damage (so far maxed out about 1800 dps not being interrupted, but around 1k dps is more standard in shorter fights as there aren't many times one can nuke for periods without interruption to let all buffs sink in).
Don't be fooled by looking in parsers if Rangers dps seems low in raids,,, because Rangers often do CC's or balancing boss damages with ranged damage, swapping targets often so buffs don't have time to build up all bonuses. It is just easier to balance and CC with a ranged toon compared to a melee toon.
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Weapons and Gear
A crossbow doesn’t improve the Ranger image, IMHO,,, like arriving to a fancy party with a mining truck, ya that will impress people 
The bow gives a better impression and the animations are looking better using the bow too. Off the record the crossbows do deal nice damage with Ranger combos/advantages and does the job (hence my hint on arriving with a mining truck). And I used the T4 crossbow *cough* for a long time, but you need to kill the Emperor in T4 to be able to roll for it.
Weapon (T4 and higher Tier weapons are self explanatory better so I add in what to go after when you start)
Wolves faction Bow or Brittle Blade faction X-bow (they are equivalent to T3 but with 5 m less range, however normal dungeon/raids has no long distances needing more range). Crafting the T3 bow from Hathor-Ka is of course a good one, but not easy to get your hands on.
Ammo
Scarlet Circle ammo, go for this as it’s only surpassed by T4 ammo (and T4 is a little improvement).
Faction armor
Tamarin Tigers: For high dps and critical damage. Tigers are your mates in Khitai and default priority 1. However, Yag Kosha is very important in zones with area magic damage, especially T4 Entity.
If mainly considering Epic gear with factions as basis this is a rather maxed out combination of Gear
Wish I knew this when I started to play in Khitai.
Helmet: Tamarin or Yag Kosha for Entity
Chest: Tamarin or Yag Kosha for Entity
Legs: Shadows (about same dps, but better survivability than Tiger legs with constitution and immunity)
Boots: Tamarin and buy the Yag Kosha Boots too for any protection fight.
Wrist: Tamarin and buy the Yag Kosha wrists too for any protection fight.
Hands: Tamarin or Yag Kosha.
Belt: Tamarin, Shadows or Yag Kosha.
Rings: Finish Milestone quest for the epic rings (optional Bone Loop Ring from Yellow Monks, but Monks ring got the same stats as milestone rings so don't make Yellow Monks a priority) or T3 dexterity quest ring from the Keeper of Artifacts. After the latest expansion maybe the Clan Vigdis ring is something to aim for after some grinding.
Necklace: Scholars of Cheng Ho,, but the blue necklace "Trophies of the hunt" that drops in Enigmata of Yag is very good. T3 necklace is nice too and you can buy it with T3 relics.
Back: Last Legion, though the Vile of Nativity one is better.
Note: Hyrkanians and Yellow Monks got Ranger gear but it's not really useful (stamina stats on gear is a waste as you won't run out of it, I hardly even use a stamina bottle/potion if lower/upper white hits are buffing combos as that means a lots of white hit not using stamina). Health tap can be interesting, but normally only useful when magic AoE are activated in raids/dungeons. For early pvp better use protection gear because you mainly need to get out if you start taking magic damage and the health tap rate is too low to keep you alive.
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PvP,, ok here I only add basics as this can be varied and tweaked into absurdness...
Basic build for PvP: PvP build with decent damage and extra evade abilities
In this tree you got some more anti CC survival abilities, but when you get the hang of pvp replace some here for more high dps bursts.
Traps and other skills you use as for PvE, but some are extra useful like the knock-back trap.
AA's for anti Combat control of course... as one prefers.
Higher PvP Tier
To be more effective when you get the hang of pvp,, move in Line Breaker and some more dps: Higher dps PvP Feat Tree
Also the traps will drain a bit mana (that is optional, I just use 1 point as I learned going in as caster that mana is drained easy, especially with DT´s in opposing team).
AA gold perk: Deadly Draw and Running Shot (as you got the hang of PvP now you need less CC).
After revamp in Aug 2014 Taking The Shot in PvP is no longer that good.
#1 TTS (Taking the Shot) is (was) your main starting PvP skill
TTS is an AA perk. TTS is fired almost instantly (animating that you launch an arrow into an open wound to do very high damage). The drawback is that TTS only can be used when your enemy is below 35% health. Ayleetah can do 4k+ crits using TTS (with various buffs on of course), but a 1.5k hit normally does the job. With TTS you will “steal” some kills when a melee toon is low on health and tries to escape + your group does get the kill instead of breaking up for a chase.
TTS perk is a reason why people hated Rangers (and some flame in chat over this *sigh*), as a nab can finish off quick moving experienced players on low health and now why it was heavily reduced in pvp to only have melee range.
Jarring Shot as gold perk is a good started to stun people in PvP (as it has use in PvE too) and deadly draw rank 5. Running Shot is useful as Penetrating Shot is your main damage attack and may get some seconds CC immunity to run off, but first make Jarring Shot priority as it is important in PvE such as T4 to stun Runners.
Hunting Hawk is an interesting perk when many opponents are casters. It is also looking damn nice with the hawk hovering above your shoulder. Well, I´m using it almost only as vanity skill :P
TW (Tainted Weapons)
TW is an AA perk which removes healing significantly, and using TW is surely helpful to take out a priest class with active healing on.
AA pvp anti CC perk Liberation.
FH (Finely Honed)
Removes some protective bubbles, buffs instantly and doesn't take up a perk slot. Just use it when you are in melee battle especially with a DT.
Tracking
Don’t forget you can use tracking and see the location of enemies on the playfield. Also the ones in hiding appear on the minimap, but you can’t see them visually. Timing is everything so an alert of incoming toons may tip the advantage to your side (tracking saved the team more than once in Bori).
Things go easier with a Ranger 
