Guild Wars 2

After a rash of being kicked from parties just for joining as a ranger, I’d like to ask:

Assuming all skill equal (Ruling out BowBear, non-stacking, etc),
Why would you rather take another class into a dungeon or fractal than a ranger?

We’ve had quite a few posts from Rangers saying what they believe needs to be changed. What do people who main other classes think?

Rangers played properly are always a delight to have. The fact that almost all of them are bearbows is what creates a stigma, however. Then again I hate pugs of every class, tank guards and shout heal warriors included.

Couldn’t care less about the build, but most seem unable to control their pets resulting in refuges breaking aggro drawn when skipping and general rolleye shenanigans.

Also people cant seem to stop channeling their shortbow 1 even when people are 3 red pixels from dead and lying on to them, but I guess that’s irrelevant.

It’s indeed not the Ranger as a class itself, its the players attitude while playing as a Ranger.

The pet seems to be the number 1 problem of most rangers, since they can mess up LOS luring, activating fights too early etc.
Second thing is, not a single Ranger I have dungeoned with, is benefitting the team what so ever, by which I mean, giving out usefull buffs. Even worse, I seem to always run across rangers who spam their healing fountain, which messes up my fire field blasting build.

And Third of all is the distance they keep. I prefer everybody to be close to each other to benefit from all boons. While keeping a distance rangers are not receiving those, and making sure they don’t get hit, which automaticly means I will be hit more. (As a Zerk Ele that is no fun).

One of these things is just bound to happen when a ranger joins my team lately. I have come across 1 very good player who did none of the things above, proving that rangers do no have to be like that, and even more he used the spirits to buff the overal damage.

So again, not the class itself but the players playstyle…

I don’t think rangers are particularly bad for dungeons. Their water field heal is nice and they can provide group might and fury.

I just think rangers suffer from the same thing that a number of other professions suffer from. Not being a Guardian/Warrior. While rangers water field is nice, they just dont bring any of the necessary utility, and dont have enough damage to make up for it.

Thats my theory anyway.

I like having rangers in my party, too bad most of them suck

i don’t dislike rangers… only people i ever kicked from dungeon were:
- thief who refused to use daggerstorm on fractal shaman fight but chose to use basilisk venom with argumen" it is not my playstyle"
- warrior who didn’t communicate at all and ran around in circles in cof p1 so we could never open the door untill we kicked him
- another warrior, same issue: 0 communication screwing up the party
- mesmer who kept falling down on harpie map in fractals even though we went and killed all those harpies… we just couldn’t progress so ya~
- guardian who had 0 AR but joined lv 49 fractal run

that being said, i don’t mind any classes and run with w/e, the only requirement i have is 1 guard for lv 49 fractal

2 reasons:

poor pet control

that stupid bow 4 skill that keeps knocking the enemies back while we are trying to burst them down.

I guess its just the abundance of poorly played rangers.

Bad rangers always stick to one weapon set: Longbow.

Bad rangers always spam every ability on cool down.

Nothing infuriates me more than having a ranger (or mesmer) knock away a perfectly set up boss from my HB.

i met some great ranger players maybe you met one of those only warriors and one guardian zergrushlol groups

Cuz no Zerker stacking makes ppl sad. xD

Personally I don’t like certain multiples of classes, wouldn’t really leave a group with it tho.

But it’s really the situation… AC, CM, HotW idc what my group is. But if we’re doing CoF P3 I know the waves during the territory control is a pain with 2-3 rangers, Or the two golems at the end of SE can be tedious. (Even worse when they are terrible and somehow die far away, probably checking a text while auto attacking.)

Rename the class druid, turn 1hs into mace and GS into hammer and it would be fine

Too many rangers using bows and too many rangers that cannot control pets. If I was seeing spotter and frost spirit around, I would be ecstatic, but I have literally never run into a pug ranger using those

maxinion.8396:

Too many rangers using bows and too many rangers that cannot control pets. If I was seeing spotter and frost spirit around, I would be ecstatic, but I have literally never run into a pug ranger using those

If I am not mistaken (I could very well be, I’m not well versed with rangers), I think the reason you don’t see them is because spirits are in the defense tree, and with the current “Everyone go balls to the wall max DPS!” meta when it comes to dungeons, it would be like a warrior putting points into Tactics or Defense and calling it a DPS build.

• running sub optimal builds
• camping longbow at 1000+ range
• knockback on cd for no reason
• full signets
• unnecesary agro by pet
• general stupidity (eg: insta rapid fires the target you DON’T want to kill in Cliffside)
• don’t even know they have warhorn with party buffs
• sitting a mile away in their healing spring or even worse just drop it and they move out from it

Just a few examples i see almost every time from them.

Kravick.4906:

If I am not mistaken (I could very well be, I’m not well versed with rangers), I think the reason you don’t see them is because spirits are in the defense tree, and with the current “Everyone go balls to the wall max DPS!” meta when it comes to dungeons, it would be like a warrior putting points into Tactics or Defense and calling it a DPS build.

You only need to devote 10 points for Frost Spirit, 15 if you want your pet to receive boons from stacking. Then 20 into Marksmanship for Spotter, and the rest you can put into whatever you like, preferably Skirmishing.

I just dislike the fact that a lot of them camps at a comfortable range and shoot the target while the rest of the party:
a.) cant properly apply boons to all
b.) melee party needs to tank more damage and thus all are more suspectible to wipes

This could obviosly apply yo any party member going ranged, but I had a lot of bad exp with them. One time, I was going for CoE and ended up in a party consisting of 2x ranger, 1x necro, 1x thieg, me warrior. At the first encounter of subject alpha I realized I am the only one going melee and instadowned. Whole party wiped, I said “guys we need to stack him up” none cared, wipe no.2. I left the party and from that point on, I carefully check the team comp I am joining.

Ive told many a ranger, if you want to sit at full range ALL the time, atleast roll an ele or mesmer and have some party use

Kravick.4906:

maxinion.8396:

Too many rangers using bows and too many rangers that cannot control pets. If I was seeing spotter and frost spirit around, I would be ecstatic, but I have literally never run into a pug ranger using those

If I am not mistaken (I could very well be, I’m not well versed with rangers), I think the reason you don’t see them is because spirits are in the defense tree, and with the current “Everyone go balls to the wall max DPS!” meta when it comes to dungeons, it would be like a warrior putting points into Tactics or Defense and calling it a DPS build.

My god you really do have no idea what you’re talking about.

A 7%+ DPS increase is always worth traiting for, it’s why the meta DPS ranger build includes it.

I’m a Main ranger. I use my pet as the mechanic I rely on. I also use Lb/Sb. I Always go to the dungeons as such. I sometimes ask if ppl want me to bring any special pet that offers anything special. There are those that do bring boons to the Group etc. I usually bring Healing spring so that I can drop it where the Close distanced DPS’ers stand to support them. Some of them take much DMG due to being Zerkers…

The thing is. Ppl NEVER have suggestions in how they want me to support them even if I ask. How the heck will we be able to help if ppl dont communicate as a team.

Sometimes I SEE ppl need mor regen and bring a fern hound. Sometime there is an grand enemie that needs to be prevented from regenning – then I bring something toxic, like a spider. I try to read the situation and do my best from what I see. If Nesecary, I change skills/pets as we go, or as the situation demands. I try to contribute any way I can. Still ppl are being suspicious (The ones that know me well never are. They know how I can help and that I indeed know how to handle my class). And, Pets pull very Little aggro. If they attack they do but not until then.

I Believe there are mora rangers like me out there. Actually trying hard to contribute!

Stop using longbow/shortbow then you’ll begin to stop being useless.

You want sword/offhand

They often stay outside of my TW with their semi good sb dmg.
Agains crowds they still seem to use single target weapons.
They grant almost 0 support compared to other classes.
They deal less damage than warriors.
They cause less vulnerability and passive damage than engi (ex).

Overall they are like weaker warriors tbh. Their ranged dps may be the highest but sadly ranged is semigood in this game. Harder enemies?

So skill-based things aside, basically what Rangers think too.

We don’t have enough pet control because of its horrendous AI, and we don’t bring enough support to a party.

Pet naming is horrible, as the names are never saved, which makes changing pets to every occasion a literal chore that people actively ignore, even though this is one of the best ways to contribute to a group.

We don’t do enough damage to justify the low amount of utility we do, and we don’t bring enough utility to justify the low amount of damage we do.

There are plenty of angles to fix ranger from. One just needs to be chosen.

Sword is actually great damage, and spotter and frost spirit are great utility. There’s a reason many record setting runs include a ranger. For whatever reason though, these builds have not been picked up by the pug community. Rangers really aren’t bad, but it is incredibly rare to see them played well.

Sword is fine as long as you don’t need to dodge much and you don’t mind getting flung off a ledge to your death every once in a while. I personally only use it for the CoF gate control, and the first phase of the Arah p2 boss. In pretty much all other situations, Greatsword brigns more utility.

It’s got a very tight cleave, and tends to push the monster targeted.

All we bring are two damage buffs that we get from traiting that prevent us from actually playing ranged if we want to use them to support the party.

<- main ranger and i hate most of the other rangers, they play worser than the most other classes and if you ask to join the group playstyle it seems to me it would be worse than I had huffily their mother -.-

And thats the problem. People runs ranger because they want to use ranged weapon. If they actualy wanted to pick up a melee class theid run warrior or guardian or actualy thief for melee glass cannoning. Running ranger as sword is absurd to most player and you wont or nearly never run into one who does. Its not a damage issue its a mentality issue because people are stuck with the idea that ranger = ranged or nothing. While i do agree lorewise a ranger may use melee weapon efficiently (especialy dual wield) id rather run it as the classic bowmaster wich everyone who played interupt spam build in guildwars 1 will always have in mind. Ranger needs to have a complete revamp of all its ranged weapon to keep them competitive with swords value in a dungeon run. Actualy Axe could easily make it trought as an interesting dual wielding close range spec if they actualy put some heart into it, and id realy look forward to sword if it was even possible to dual wield a pair of them as ranger.

I dont. Only noobs who think since 2012 that warrior dps is best dont like it.

The game is just full of noobs who think they have a big knowledge but in rewality they know nothing.
Yesterday a groupmember wanted to tell me that warrior has better dps than guard and a tank guard is better than dps guard.

Noobs everywhere

I love my ranger but have been using Warrior lately. The only time I hate having a ranger in the group is if:
1 – No Spotter (not that big of a deal, but it is helpful)
2 – No frost spirit – the benefit is huge
3 – LB #4 wildly. If you are positioning a boss, then its Ok
4 – Only using Bear pets

I only like Ranger’s when they’re using the proper things.

Spotter (gets me up to the 99% crit chance cap)

Frost Spirit. 7% extra damage is nice on top of all other damage boosts

Extra Fury/Blast Finisher Might from Warhorn.

Decent Vulnerability

and a Jungle Stalker for 5 stacks of party wide Might

Grok Krog.9581:

I only like Ranger’s when they’re using the proper things.

Spotter (gets me up to the 99% crit chance cap)

Frost Spirit. 7% extra damage is nice on top of all other damage boosts

Extra Fury/Blast Finisher Might from Warhorn.

Decent Vulnerability

and a Jungle Stalker for 5 stacks of party wide Might

This… And if a ranger joins my group with a bow equipped. They are insta booted.

Problem is being at range going pew pew pew doesn’t help your team in terms of damage, support, or control. Now should ranger be buffed for pure range? Nah every class has the option to stand in the back and pew, rangers just happen to do it more. It’s like a warrior going rifle/bow or a thief going dual pistol/bow… I don’t mind if they take a ranged option but double range is silly on almost every class. I get “play the way you want” PvE is to easy to get ruffled feathers about fully optimal groups but for a strange kind of fashion there’s a wrong and right.

Of my ranger friends the ones I face palm at are the full regen BM builds that auto attack day and night… But I met this other one going GS short bow (dunno of that’s PvE viable) rocking 2 birds being tanky but also being in the bosses face with me and the guardians and although he was typing mid combat and needed a few Rezes it wasn’t a bad time I didn’t feel like it was a 4 man run with extremely minor shaves at the bosses health.

I just feel like they are Auto-Shot AFK at theyre 1600 Range and when they get hit they need about 5 seconds to recognize. but most of them are dead after 3.

Thats for Random rangers tough. My guildmates play some pretty good Rangers with combo fields Might-Stacking and lots of dmg. so i like some rangers.

And like everyone says:
Bearbow. WHY?! it just adds nothing to the dun. Team.

I’m a ranger.

My primary weapon set is S/W and GS

I hate to say it but I invested in a mostly knights as far as how damage heavy I will go.

For me, while zerker is the best for meta, since my pet doesnt scale with zerk I am hesitant to invest in any heavy damage set. If im going sword, I’ll bring a little, tough and vit to help.

I’m also usually flammed for this even though i feel im better than pug. I don’t bring frost spirit but I am bringing spotter and sword…..

Thing is I dont get the opportunity to prove it to the party

Majority of rangers can’t seem to control their pets and aggro everything in the room. Also alot seem to love using point blank shot and pushing mobs out of combo fields screwing over the rest of us and when asked multiple times to stop doing so, keep doing it. I generally auto kick rangers unless i know them and know they are competent because it’s always the same problems with them every time.

maxinion.8396:

Too many rangers using bows and too many rangers that cannot control pets. If I was seeing spotter and frost spirit around, I would be ecstatic, but I have literally never run into a pug ranger using those

I once saw a ranger with Spotter but he was a bearbow and standing too far away for it to affect anyone else. He managed to die to everything in SE despite being at 1500 range too.

And that was literally the best ranger I’ve ever encountered.

Most ranger´s are wasting my time. They use useless weapons, bad pets, bad builds, they can´t keep their pets alive (if they don´t use a bear). They die often or can´t skip.

Ranger´s can be pretty good, but most ranger players not. They want to play a egomanic “play what u want” playstyle, so they should not be surprised if other people want other classes/builds in their partys.

Necromancers and engineers have go the same problems. U can wait weeks to meet a good playing engineer or necromancer in pve….

Its not a problem with the class, it’s a problem with the players. Most rangers just refuse to actually do anything that actually helps the group. they hang back shooting at stuff, wont stack when we need to stack against a boss, and pull mobs with their pets that they cant seem to control. But not all rangers are like that. There’s a ranger in my guild who i’d take over any random zerk warrior any day of the week. They know what they’re doing. Rangers just need to change their attitude when they’re in groups and actually try to do something that helps the group. There’s nothing wrong with the class, but there is alot wrong with the majority of ranger players who refuse to learn.

+Spotter is great
+Frost spirit is great
+healing spring is great
+pets can adress the lack of certain buffs
-Sword roots you every odd second
-other weapons wont compare to the damage other classes put out
-pet can’t dodge

I wont hestitate to take a good ranger even when I want to get fast trough the dungeon. However I don’t know that many good rangers.
Sitting back at 1200-1500 range they wont benefit from party buffs, wont provide any buff to your party and can still annoy the living crap out of every melee player by kiting mobs away from you.

When running fast dungeons with my guildies (we use TS and we kind of know each other for about 6-7 months already), I get jokingly picked at for not playing bow bear. I run sword/warhorn + axe/axe with bloodlust on one axe; grouped up with frost spirit and jungle stalker’s might it goes nicely. But then again, when we just chill and we want to waste 30m mindlessly in Arah, I swap my axes for LB (after bloodlust stacks are capped), and continue from that point.

What I do dislike: not having the ability to bring an edge in dungeon runs when using other weapons – like SB/LB. Other than that, even the pet is easy to control. You just need to be one step ahead and know when/where to guide your pet to.

Laughed hard….

So basically you say to people “kitten off” because Anet have kittened all the meta with only usefullness in spirits?

Would like to see how you would react if your class were kittened as hell in gameplay with one build but you needed this build to perform in the game while other class can perform the way they want…

Ask Anet to put a “buff bot afk” class you can walk around with for next major update

kyubi.3620:

And thats the problem. People runs ranger because they want to use ranged weapon. If they actualy wanted to pick up a melee class theid run warrior or guardian or actualy thief for melee glass cannoning. Running ranger as sword is absurd to most player and you wont or nearly never run into one who does. Its not a damage issue its a mentality issue because people are stuck with the idea that ranger = ranged or nothing. While i do agree lorewise a ranger may use melee weapon efficiently (especialy dual wield) id rather run it as the classic bowmaster wich everyone who played interupt spam build in guildwars 1 will always have in mind. Ranger needs to have a complete revamp of all its ranged weapon to keep them competitive with swords value in a dungeon run. Actualy Axe could easily make it trought as an interesting dual wielding close range spec if they actualy put some heart into it, and id realy look forward to sword if it was even possible to dual wield a pair of them as ranger.

Not really, I love Melee Ranger, reminds me of some D&D Archetypes. Though it’s anyone’s right to do so, I never do shortbow/longbow at all, though like both of those weapons paired with Sword/offhand or Greatsword. Rangers in GW2 aren’t exclusively Archers, unlike many other games (thankfully enough, IMHO.)

No offense intended if you prefer Archers, however.

I love having good rangers in my group. High damage, spotter, frost and stone spirit.

My biggest worry is 90 percent of the time they are poorly specced and played.

fadeaway.2807:

I love having good rangers in my group. High damage, spotter, frost and stone spirit.

My biggest worry is 90 percent of the time they are poorly specced and played.

This. I see warrior shouts and banners in every run, same with guardian walls/shouts, mesmer feedback, etc. But honestly I can’t remember last time when I’ve seen ranger with spirits+spotter.

may I ask what “spotter” means? ._.’’

Xyonon.3987:

may I ask what “spotter” means? ._.’’

Master trait in the Marksmanship line: Gives 150 precision to all players in a 600 radius of the ranger
Ps: it also effects you

So it equals to ~6% crit chance for everyone – neat o.O Why should one not take this? Again the “passive dmg doesn’t exist” disease?

Xyonon.3987:

So it equals to ~6% crit chance for everyone – neat o.O Why should one not take this? Again the “passive dmg doesn’t exist” disease?

Because bearbow is the one and true way i guess.

Just wondering: I allways hear Sword is great with ranger, but what else? Horn? Greatsword? Still shortbow??? Also as pet a kitty or a big fat lizard? xD

I generally do not dislike rangers in dungeons, but there are plenty of builds not suited to the current meta of all berzerker. This is probably the biggest reason so many are booted.

On the other hand if you play a party with no players wishing for stupidly facetanking everything without any skill, exept the knowledge when to dodge or reflect, it proves to be an interesting, versatile, very durable proffession, the pet supported res can get the ranger out of situations most classes would be guaranteed to die.

I consider a lot of classes worse then sword/warhorn & longbow ranger for example…

- A ranger can give buffs, it requires the ranger to select the right pets the might stalker and the fury moa… and for Oh **** moments a jungle hound can be nice, though I prefer the might cat.
- The ranger should be aware of the interface he has with his pet, and actively use it.
- The ranger should (unfortunately) bring a standard set of skills& traits & weapons. Warhorn, spotter, healing spring are basics, allowing for healing, regen, condition removal in 1 nice AoE package, improved precision, fury, might and speed, as spirit build can be a help to others… It can self-stack might although not impressively, it has it’s own source of quickness, has possibility for some auto regen, making it possible to go and stand and outside the stack in some situations when it’s needed functioning autonomously providing self heal, self res, self buff, self condi-removal , still providing dmg.
-A ranger starting the attack with rapidfire will do 10-14k dmg, give 15 stacks of vunerability on a target increasing dmg 15% for the party in 4 seconds.. for a while adding 6 might, fury and 150 precision will go a long way of upping dmg… a frost spirit could add to this
-And the pet even tough it is a loose cannon can do damage quite well if the player uses it well… Rangers should be very mindfull of their pet or will just die needlessly
- It might be usefull to consider longbow not to be useless in all situations, but communication of pulls is essential…. having a ranger who is pulling without putting his pet on passive is not aware of the limitations and benifits of his pet, and will disrupt gamplay in a wide range of situations, including the present meta.

In the end:
Ranger will do less DPS then your average berzerk warrior, thief, ele, necro or mesmer, but it surely can benifit your party. It will outlast a berserk warrior or any other class except maybe guardian with most builds and I think if you would take 5 zerk/sin rangers to dungeons they could be very effective, not needing other classes to function…

- I consider a newb pug-group with masterwork and rare armor doing a dungeon and succeeding with a set of random, but thought through, builds more skilled then a guild group with full zerk exotic/ascended who are mindlessly stacking,facetanking and reflecting, using all the same builds.

-I also do not think you would be able to kill lupi in 4 seconds with 5 rangers, but I play this game to do something with my time and have fun doing it. Not to kick and offend everybody and scream murder if someone does play something which shows an interest in the other options this game presents, and has the skill to do it in ANY situation with a huge variety of builds and proffesions.

I do hate a 5 guardian clerics stack thoug… or a 5 condimancer group… but understand those are extremes. And not viable in the present meta.

In the end gold will buy you everything in the game, I know, but destroying the game by getting it makes your efforts useless non the less… Kicking , offending and raging to everybody who cannot fit in some people’s small perception of this game makes this game less fun to play and makes your effort getting your bought instead of earned legendary useless so much sooner.