Guild Wars 2

I’ve been playing ranger as main since the game started. I’ve played ranger in many other games so am not new to ranger mechanics or how to play one. This game, by far, has been the most disappointing ranger experience for me to date. Rangers seem to do the lowest damage in comparison to other classes as well as be among the slowest. And of course the pet situation….I’m sick and tired of hearing that our damage takes into account having pets, so we shouldn’t complain. BUT>>> again, it must be stated that pets are not capable of attacking moving targets, the commands still do not work as they should, they are still far too squishy, they aggro everything in sight. I can hit my speed spell with my warhorn but STILL get slowed down simply because my pet is being attacked or attacking something behind me…I mean COME ON, the list is ridiculous here. I LOVE playing ranger classes, its why I started mine as main, still play it mostly regardless of its kittenness and I’ve actually had to learn to play it even better due to the kittened characteristics. But that doesn’t make it OK, just because I learned to play it better and deal with the problems should I have to accept them? No…I want to play the ranger as it should be….effective and up to par with other classes. I shouldnt feel as if my ranger isn’t keeping up with damage or running with groups. I’ve been reading and hearing the same complaints from the beginning, including the SB nerf which happened to be our only decent dps choice for weapon. I know there will be some replying and refuting these same complaints which have been around since the beginning. To them I say kudos to you for playing a kittened class and accepting to play it as it is, but for those of us who wish to play the ranger without the ridiculous issues so many have mentioned its not fair to ask us to accept to play a broken class. I played ranger in GW1, played ranger in many other MMOs and RPGs, hell I even play FPS games so I’m not unfamiliar at all with how a ranged character should be played. Is there one thing in the game as it stands right now that the ranger excels at? Can anyone honestly say that the ranger class is on par with other classes taking into consideration the poor pet command system and pets inability to deal damage to moving targets? My arrows can’t even hit moving targets for crying out loud, and my pets simply chase them around confused aggroing everything in its path…

Wall of Text is best Wall.

Also:
>Claims Rangers are bad
>Every single bot is a Ranger

One of these things is not like the other.

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

Wall of Text is best Wall.

Also:
>Claims Rangers are bad
>Every single bot is a Ranger

One of these things is not like the other.

Rangers have a ton of bugs, while the Short Bows spam attack (1) just makes things silly (since you don’t have to switch between the different attacks to dish out good damage, i.e. the poison volley/etc., it makes it a no brainer for a bot, since really no more complicated attack rotations are necessary other than “1,1,1,1,1,1,” etc… and maybe a heal once in a while).

Also, botters like to use Warriors and Guardians too (although the spammy-ness of the shortbow makes rangers take 1st place lol).

Rangers (still) have issues with their pets: pets running in circles (chasing their tails?) when they should be attacking an enemy (99% of the time because the enemy is moving… although I have had several instances where my pet and the enemy ended up in a loop chasing each other back and forth because neither could hit while the other was moving lol; wish I had fraps up for these moments, funny in a kind of sad way lol); f2’s not activating when players want them too; pets can’t hit moving targets… oh, pets can’t hit moving targets.. oh and pets can’t hit moving targets… did I mention that pets can’t moving targets?

Ranger longbow (not sure about shortbow since I don’t use it…) has a random bug where it will randomly show attacks either “Obstructed, Out of Range, or Invulnerable” even though there is no visible issue (nothing in the way, well within range, and invulnerability at times and in situations where it clearly doesn’t seem appropriate, let alone make sense…)

Ranger Sword locking players in place with (1) attack.

Among other various issues =/

Well , pretty much every single class got problems right now , rangers are no star and will be addressed like everybody else , little by little.

Also , while i agree with some of the stuff you said , parts of it were simple things that are not broken , but do not work the way you want them to work, which does not mean they will ever be “fixed”.

Spirits are still weak lol.
I took my thief out from the shelf and actually geared him up and im pretty much enjoying the playstyle more exhilarating and im actually contributing to my team more

id like to play a ranger, but they are too reliant on pets..
just like wow , i think they should have a build that isnt so reliant on pets, “marksman” but being able to have them just because they do make up a small portion of the dmg.. just not all of it.
and i really dont see why they cant use rifles… if they were changed to wear they could use rifles. i would play one in a heartbeat.
hello predator.

BaconCatTheGreasy.9542:

Wall of Text is best Wall.

Also:
>Claims Rangers are bad
>Every single bot is a Ranger

One of these things is not like the other.

Not accurate.
I’ve seen warrior bots, guardian bots, and even a few engi bots.

powercore.7021:

ust like wow , i think they should have a build that isnt so reliant on pets, “marksman” but being able to have them just because they do make up a small portion of the dmg.. just not all of it.
and i really dont see why they cant use rifles… if they were changed to wear they could use rifles. i would play one in a heartbeat.

out of curiosity..

if you don’t want to be reliant on a pet… and… want to be able to use a rifle instead of a bow. /why/ do you want to be a ranger at all? i mean.. there is already a medium armour class that isn’t reliant on a pet, and can use a rifle.. it is an engineer. So why not be that?

also “traits” wise, it seems to me that you can make a ranger build that’s less reliant on your pet. isn’t that what the “Skirmishing” trait does? Possibly “marksmanship” too?

i admit i’m not a guru when it comes to “best possible builds” for each profession, but it seems like there are options to decrease your reliance on a pet already.

DinoDoll.3682:

out of curiosity..

if you don’t want to be reliant on a pet… and… want to be able to use a rifle instead of a bow. /why/ do you want to be a ranger at all? i mean.. there is already a medium armour class that isn’t reliant on a pet, and can use a rifle.. it is an engineer. So why not be that?

also “traits” wise, it seems to me that you can make a ranger build that’s less reliant on your pet. isn’t that what the “Skirmishing” trait does? Possibly “marksmanship” too?

i admit i’m not a guru when it comes to “best possible builds” for each profession, but it seems like there are options to decrease your reliance on a pet already.

Even if you fill those trees the pet still makes up a significant part of your dps output, sadly. You also have to take 15 points in beast mastery to reduce the pet swap cooldown, since the only way to keep it alive is is by frequent swapping.

Rangers are more reliant on pets and take more pet micro than WoW hunters and in GW1 you could actually remove the pet from your build entirely, so people might not have been expecting quite such an emphasis on them.

You also can’t stow the pet if you need it out of the way for certains fights in dungeons since any damage (even fall damage!) brings it back out again. The AI is quite dodgy and they have an awful tendancy to run in front of the ranger at random intervals, which is just great for ninja pulls. The F2 ability is also still quite unresponsive, though it’s improved since launch.

I have no complains about dmg/utility, except the longbow bug with insisting target is obstructed when it’s sitting directly in front of my face…. Pet design on the other hand is absolutely atrocious.

A pet:

1. Never runs by your site out of combat – usually 10-20 yards behind (most of the time, can’t even see it on the screen behind me)
2. Attacks everything in sight, instead, as per ability tooltip, assisting on your target
3. Does not return upon command (huge delay)
4. Some special abilities have some sort of a massive lag ( you press it once, nothing appears to happen, press it again, start spamming, then it finally shows as used?)
5. Completely useless on all undead when on the move (all they do is chase the mobs that are being kited by me, rarely managing to hit anything)
6. Lack the ability to be put away when not needed – it’s most annoying when doing jumping puzzles, every time you fall and die, the pet re spawns with you – while I can, to a degree, understand why you want rangers to have pets active at all times in combat, I can’t see any valid arguments for having them forced on us out of combat. They aren’t even particularly good looking, not by the high standard the game’s art presents in all other aspects.
7. Squishiness – again, to a degree, I like the idea of a tradeoff between dmg and survivability, but as it stands now, with pets not reacting to commands without delay, having anything but a bear/ranged pet is completely pointless in dungeons. You can’t recall one swiftly in and out of mele range/aoe area to make sure it doesn’t get squashed 30 sec into a fight while not even having aggro. Yes, you can swap between the two pets mid fight, and that works flawlessly, however it’s not always beneficial if you’re relying on a special pet ability for something.

As it stands at the moment, they are more of a nuisance then an asset.

Hope at some point, you will find time to address these issues. You’ve created an amazing framework, for what could be an outstanding mmo, sadly, the amount of various bugs or unfinished concepts in game has turned fun into frustration, more often then not.

DinoDoll.3682:

powercore.7021:

ust like wow , i think they should have a build that isnt so reliant on pets, “marksman” but being able to have them just because they do make up a small portion of the dmg.. just not all of it.
and i really dont see why they cant use rifles… if they were changed to wear they could use rifles. i would play one in a heartbeat.

out of curiosity..

if you don’t want to be reliant on a pet… and… want to be able to use a rifle instead of a bow. /why/ do you want to be a ranger at all? i mean.. there is already a medium armour class that isn’t reliant on a pet, and can use a rifle.. it is an engineer. So why not be that?

also “traits” wise, it seems to me that you can make a ranger build that’s less reliant on your pet. isn’t that what the “Skirmishing” trait does? Possibly “marksmanship” too?

i admit i’m not a guru when it comes to “best possible builds” for each profession, but it seems like there are options to decrease your reliance on a pet already.

To be fair, a Rifle-using Engineer does not play at all like a ‘Marksman’ archetype would. Engineer rifle skills are mostly close range, shotgun-like attacks. Warrior rifle skills are more in line with what you might expect from single-target, long range sniper attacks, but then you’re stuck with a slow-moving heavy armor class. Not sure what’s so special about using a rifle over a bow, though.

360 hours on a Ranger here.

My damage output is massive. 80% crit chance most of the time, +75% dmg on crit, frequent quickness, pet has a very high crit chance and damage boost the longer it stays alive and so on…

Only thing I have a big issue with is sword autoattack locking, extremely frustrating.

I have a Ranger (lvl 80) and i must say that damage isnt a problem. Bordom is, i have found that as a ranger profession is boring and have switched to a different profession because of it.

bramblefeet.4385:

360 hours on a Ranger here.

My damage output is massive. 80% crit chance most of the time, +75% dmg on crit, frequent quickness, pet has a very high crit chance and damage boost the longer it stays alive and so on…

Only thing I have a big issue with is sword autoattack locking, extremely frustrating.

The problems with the ranger class aren’t necessarily about the damage as more or less pet mechanics and things like the sword auto-attack locking players in place.

I play the ranger class just fine survivability wise and even dish out some decent damage, but when a pet doesn’t hit anything because its just running and can’t catch up to a mob chasing a kiting player… or you have to spam the f2 button just to get the stupid thing to work (which it still doesn’t, as most of the time my pet tries to run after the enemy farthest away and then use for whatever reason… or it just plain ignores the command… then uses it like a minute later when you didn’t want it to be used… ya, there is a problem).

The other problems lie mostly with weapon bugs or faulty design.

Examples:
Sword 1 attack locking players in place (crappy design and counter intuitive; an evade like on the greatsword would make sense, but a cripple that you don’t even use because you are locked in place anyways?),

Longbow missiles taking so long to reach the target that they miss half the time unless they are moving directly towards you (pve this doesn’t happen as much because the AI are crap)

Longbow relying a mechanic that doesn’t even make sense (aka doing more damage the farther away you are; doing next to nothing if they are anywhere even relatively close to you). Maybe a cripple when attacking at 1000+ range or something, but this “you must play at max range to do damage” idea was a poor design choice.

Projectiles randomly “Out of Range” or Obstructed" when there is no reason for them

The “fair fight” rule in PvE where you can’t attack an enemy unless they have a path to you (preference, but still just dumb; “hey guys no strategy for you other than brute force in fights hehehe” says Anet).