Guild Wars 2

lol most rangers are fully unaware of the meta, or 95% of them wouldn’t bother bringing that class to a dungeon. Another reason I hate seeing R/N/E players join my dungeon groups is they’re usually bad players stuck in the “play whatever you want” mindset on top of being on a bad class.

I have a hypothetical question for you…if they changed the meta somehow and made it so guardians/mesmers/warriors were suddenly the low-end classes for the dungeons, would YOU still bring them?

randomfightfan.4091:

obal.3218:

It seems like many used the theives guild skill and learned by example.

?

The NPCs summoned by Thieves Guild aren’t clever – they spam attack skills, don’t position themselves well, never dodge to avoid damage, and often die within ten seconds.

obal is saying that an unskilled Thief player is simply mimicking his NPC allies: “This is awesome look at how much damage I’m doing! Thief is the best profession ev… oops. Could someone revive me?”

RyuDragnier.9476:

I have a hypothetical question for you…if they changed the meta somehow and made it so guardians/mesmers/warriors were suddenly the low-end classes for the dungeons, would YOU still bring them?

Absolutely not, because I play dungeons with a mind towards efficiency and speed. I have all professions at 80 in full exotics/some ascended, so aside from needing a little bit of practice on the best DPS skill rotations, I’m ready to pick any of them up if the class balance ever changes so that they’re even close to viable for speedclearing*. In fact, I can’t wait for Rangers to be viable cause I love the playstyle and feel of Rangers.

I’m not saying that people who play G/W/M are automatically better players than everyone else, but the point that all of us have been trying to make for months and months is that you don’t have to be a great player to contribute well on one of the tier 1 dungeon classes. And all else being equal, we’d rather have a good class join our group than an objectively subpar class.

*I could do this now with my Thief but I’m honestly just not good enough to play a thief well. Gotta be godkitten twitchy!

And that Broadicea, is why you will never understand why Rangers/Necros/Engineers still bring them to dungeons…because they truly enjoy the class, and don’t care what people think, or how long the run takes. And those who bring them to dungeons and run with them the entire dungeon really don’t care about doing it as fast as possible. It’s more for enjoyment than efficiency.

RyuDragnier.9476:

From what I can tell, most Rangers are fully aware of the meta, and almost every run I have with one (I always ask for people experienced in the dungeon) has them doing what they’re supposed to, with little to no problems. If you’re running into problems with them, you’re probably not asking for players experienced in the dungeon, as almost every single person I run into on dungeon runs nowadays who meets that criteria is on an alt of some kind.

And what exactly are they doing?

RyuDragnier.9476:

And that Broadicea, is why you will never understand why Rangers/Necros/Engineers still bring them to dungeons…because they truly enjoy the class, and don’t care what people think. And those who bring them to dungeons and run with them the entire dungeon really don’t care about doing it as fast as possible. It’s more for enjoyment than efficiency.

Oh I fully understand why people do, and for the vast, vast majority of players in this game it’s because they have no clue what a well optimized group is even capable of. So they think they’re doing just great on R/N/E because they get a participation ribbon from everything, or the few times they actually fail a dungeon they feel like it’s no big deal because it must happen to everyone.

I uploaded a video of myself, a couple guildmates and two pugs running SE Path 3 in about 13 minutes to youtube. I know DnT’s video was quicker, but I enjoyed our run and wanted to show it to my guild with some commentary. The related videos are all showing 25-45 minute runs, and some of those say SPEEDRUN!

This game gives people no feedback on how well you’re doing compared to what your maximum efficiency could be, so people playing those crap classes have no idea. I’d say the proportion of people who bring R/N/E to dungeons because they’re clueless (and thus most likely awful players) versus those who know how much better the tier 1 group is but would rather play the other classes anyway is something like 90-10.

Oh no, I know how efficiency looks. Ran with a speed run group in CM on my ele a few times (I needed the tokens for his armor), and we BURNED through it. That can be enjoyable, but no class I enjoy more than my Ranger, which is why I prefer doing dungeons on it.

Didn’t you just say you thought 30-45 minutes on a single CM path was really fast? lolol

Nikaido.3457:

Zenith.7301:

Hello banners/fury uptime/best vulnerability stacking besides engineer in the game?

Warrior is far from being the only class that has good vulnerability stacking. DPS guardians have pretty decent vuln stacking.
Fury uptime is a great thing to have, but again, if you were to lower the war’s dps to everyone else’s dps, I’m not sure perma fury would be seen as such a great thing overall. If you slow down the killing speed you might benefit more from other abilities and war have nothing but dps like I said. The magic works so well because of the level of damage, if not for it, warriors would be a pretty sad sight.
As for banners, you wouldn’t need more than one war to bring the only two useful banners, Discipline and Strength.

If you nerf the thief’s and warrior damage, all you’ll be doing is create two miserable classes that will be as undesirable as the ranger, and it’ll just be a new era of guardian, elementalist and mesmers.

Warriors do it easier and with less sacrifice.

More importantly, it’s kind of funny how you consider taking only 1 warrior or thief as a damage to the class, when you see no groups with more than 1 mesmer, let alone any other class except a guardian in fractals.

If the change causes you to take 1 per class and consider bringing other class distributions, then it’s good enough for me. Because when group comp is just a token mesmer while stacking 3-4 warriors or 2 warriors 2 thieves and a mesmer, that’s garbage design.

Zenith.7301:

Nikaido.3457:

Zenith.7301:

Hello banners/fury uptime/best vulnerability stacking besides engineer in the game?

Warrior is far from being the only class that has good vulnerability stacking. DPS guardians have pretty decent vuln stacking.
Fury uptime is a great thing to have, but again, if you were to lower the war’s dps to everyone else’s dps, I’m not sure perma fury would be seen as such a great thing overall. If you slow down the killing speed you might benefit more from other abilities and war have nothing but dps like I said. The magic works so well because of the level of damage, if not for it, warriors would be a pretty sad sight.
As for banners, you wouldn’t need more than one war to bring the only two useful banners, Discipline and Strength.

If you nerf the thief’s and warrior damage, all you’ll be doing is create two miserable classes that will be as undesirable as the ranger, and it’ll just be a new era of guardian, elementalist and mesmers.

Warriors do it easier and with less sacrifice.

More importantly, it’s kind of funny how you consider taking only 1 warrior or thief as a damage to the class, when you see no groups with more than 1 mesmer, let alone any other class except a guardian in fractals.

If the change causes you to take 1 per class and consider bringing other class distributions, then it’s good enough for me. Because when group comp is just a token mesmer while stacking 3-4 warriors or 2 warriors 2 thieves and a mesmer, that’s garbage design.

What will happen after a warrior and thief dps nerf:

1x warrior for banners/fury
1x mesmer
3x dps guardians (mix of greatsword and 1h sword/focus)

You know what’s still not going to be the meta? Rangers. OH SNAP.

Nike Porphyrogenita.8137:

Zenith.7301:

Nikaido.3457:

Zenith.7301:

Hello banners/fury uptime/best vulnerability stacking besides engineer in the game?

Warrior is far from being the only class that has good vulnerability stacking. DPS guardians have pretty decent vuln stacking.
Fury uptime is a great thing to have, but again, if you were to lower the war’s dps to everyone else’s dps, I’m not sure perma fury would be seen as such a great thing overall. If you slow down the killing speed you might benefit more from other abilities and war have nothing but dps like I said. The magic works so well because of the level of damage, if not for it, warriors would be a pretty sad sight.
As for banners, you wouldn’t need more than one war to bring the only two useful banners, Discipline and Strength.

If you nerf the thief’s and warrior damage, all you’ll be doing is create two miserable classes that will be as undesirable as the ranger, and it’ll just be a new era of guardian, elementalist and mesmers.

Warriors do it easier and with less sacrifice.

More importantly, it’s kind of funny how you consider taking only 1 warrior or thief as a damage to the class, when you see no groups with more than 1 mesmer, let alone any other class except a guardian in fractals.

If the change causes you to take 1 per class and consider bringing other class distributions, then it’s good enough for me. Because when group comp is just a token mesmer while stacking 3-4 warriors or 2 warriors 2 thieves and a mesmer, that’s garbage design.

What will happen after a warrior and thief dps nerf:

1x warrior for banners/fury
1x mesmer
3x dps guardians (mix of greatsword and 1h sword/focus)

You know what’s still not going to be the meta? Rangers. OH SNAP.

It won’t be 3 DPS guardians. More likely ele than guardians, but the likelihood is you’ll find a couple of thor eles coming in.

And you’ll still have thieves if only because they are godly for fractals with shadow refuge, projectile destruction, and Dagger Storm for grawl shaman.

Broadicea.8294:

Didn’t you just say you thought 30-45 minutes on a single CM path was really fast? lolol

No, I said 30-45 minutes was a good run because the difficulties were minimal. The speed run on my ele had us done with the 1st path in less than 16 minutes. There’s a difference between good and fast. A good run is minimum difficulties, but not very fast. A fast run is almost a perfect run, with minimum difficulties and enemies being curbstomped.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Broadicea.8294:

Didn’t you just say you thought 30-45 minutes on a single CM path was really fast? lolol

No, I said 30-45 minutes was a good run because the difficulties were minimal. The speed run on my ele had us done with the 1st path in less than 16 minutes. There’s a difference between good and fast. A good run is minimum difficulties, but not very fast. A fast run is almost a perfect run, with minimum difficulties and enemies being curbstomped.

I can walk 26 miles in 9 hours but I wouldn’t call that a “good” marathon time.

Uhh Broadicea, most players take any dungeon run under 1 hour to be a GOOD run. You have to remember that anybody who has come from another MMO expects quite a bit of time spent on a dungeon, since in most MMOs a dungeon run takes about 30 minutes to 2 hours to do, with 30 minutes being at the speed run standard. All the MMOs I played until now had the norm for dungeon runs at an hour and 15 minutes. So to me, ANYTHING under an hour is a good run.

Zenith.7301:

It won’t be 3 DPS guardians. More likely ele than guardians, but the likelihood is you’ll find a couple of thor eles coming in.

And you’ll still have thieves if only because they are godly for fractals with shadow refuge, projectile destruction, and Dagger Storm for grawl shaman.

Ele dps is much lower than guardian except that gimmicky lightning hammer but it doesn’t have any utility.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Uhh Broadicea, most players take any dungeon run under 1 hour to be a GOOD run. You have to remember that anybody who has come from another MMO expects quite a bit of time spent on a dungeon, since in most MMOs a dungeon run takes about 30 minutes to 2 hours to do, with 30 minutes being at the speed run standard. All the MMOs I played until now had the norm for dungeon runs at an hour and 15 minutes. So to me, ANYTHING under an hour is a good run.

Broadicea.8294:

Oh I fully understand why people do, and for the vast, vast majority of players in this game it’s because they have no clue what a well optimized group is even capable of.

RyuDragnier.9476:

Uhh Broadicea, most players take any dungeon run under 1 hour to be a GOOD run. You have to remember that anybody who has come from another MMO expects quite a bit of time spent on a dungeon, since in most MMOs a dungeon run takes about 30 minutes to 2 hours to do, with 30 minutes being at the speed run standard. All the MMOs I played until now had the norm for dungeon runs at an hour and 15 minutes. So to me, ANYTHING under an hour is a good run.

For me any time above 20-25 minutes (30 for Arah Path 4) is a BAD time.
Really GOOD times are below 15 minutes (20 for Path 4) and thats mostly about Arah.

Dub.1273:

RyuDragnier.9476:

Uhh Broadicea, most players take any dungeon run under 1 hour to be a GOOD run. You have to remember that anybody who has come from another MMO expects quite a bit of time spent on a dungeon, since in most MMOs a dungeon run takes about 30 minutes to 2 hours to do, with 30 minutes being at the speed run standard. All the MMOs I played until now had the norm for dungeon runs at an hour and 15 minutes. So to me, ANYTHING under an hour is a good run.

For me any time above 20-25 minutes (30 for Arah Path 4) is a BAD time.
Really GOOD times are below 15 minutes (20 for Path 4) and thats mostly about Arah.

20min path 4? How do you do Grenth so fast?

Most players are completely unaware of the meta, much less Rangers.
Especially in this game, since the meta isn’t about ‘completing the dungeon’ it’s about ‘one way to farm gold’. There’s really not much incentive for joe player to get involved in the whole discussion. For better or worse.

I think 30-45 minutes is expected because it’s standardized across the industry for current gen MMORPGs, but not really a commonly accepted measurement of a good or a bad run. Remember, if you have a history with MMORPGs outside the Guildwars franchise it’s entirely possible a Speedrun (especially as it’s performed in this game) can be an entirely new concept to you. Dungeons are usually fixed experiences in other games, because of mechanics like mobs never losing aggro, so there simply isn’t much variance between the time it takes one group or another to complete it. Furthermore the system of value for the entire meta revolves around other accomplishments like Ranks, Rare Armor or Achievement Firsts which may have no relationship or a tangential relationship with dungeon completion speed. Especially when you start to consider the existence of of things like raid timers and multiple-branch dungeon mechanics that effectively make dungeon ‘completion’ last a week or more.

To other demographics of players the time it takes to complete a dungeon is something they seem to feel entirely neutral about, because it’s not usual for that to matter.

haviz.1340:

nachtnebel.9168:

And the rest of us dislikes those glas cannons that think they are any good outside of a pure dps oriented group.

Pure dps oriented group failing at lupi. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvaZYxGG23w

This is awesome
The first part looks like dancing …

…..But it does not negate the fact that the game is full of gs zerk warriors who spam 2 and spend half of the dungeon dead and zerk guradians who hack away like warriors and ignore all other skills their class has.

Not everyone has the experience or interest to learn to play as shown above and that is the problem. It’s not about what can be done with berserker gear. It is about what is currently being done with berserker gear by what feels like a large majority of zerk builds. I have seen berserker warriors that die less than a full pvt guardian and I have seen berserker warriors who rush in and that die faster than the rest of us have time to close up. The latter seem to be the majority.

Rangers are very strong in the right hands. But there is this often problem – people choose rangers hoping they would coward out of fights and seeking comfort in great range. But they are terribly wrong. Playing like a chicken punishes them and the whole team alike.

Rangers are not very strong. Not even strong. Not even average. Not even close to beeing average.

Grenth is annoying and takes about 40% of the whole run. (2 minutes clearing area, 4-5 minutes slaying wraths).

The problem is with the way the game operates.

In old MMOs, your squishy characters had the highest dps, but you couldn’t use these squishy characters without tanky characters up front soaking. GW2 is the complete opposite. It follows the belief that melee dps >>> ranged dps forever and always. The reason being that with melee dps comes being in melee range, and thus closer to the threat of the enemy. This is why the Ranger will never be as good as the Warrior, the Guardian, or the Thief in terms of dps. It’s in the class’s name, for heaven’s sake. As far as ranged dps goes, the Ranger really is king if played properly, but the fact of the matter is that ranged dps is practically never necessary, meaning the Ranger’s dps is inferior to that of the primarily melee classes. Furthermore, so long as spirit’s are terrible compared to banners, there’ll never be any kind of support that a Ranger can bring that is meaningful to the group or superior in any way to other classes’ support.

That all said, I still let people bring whatever they want and play what they want. I don’t care when my runs take 5 minutes longer if the dude enjoyed himself more as a result. So long as he isn’t a complete deadweight and does “decent” dps, no biggie. That said, typically I bring my warrior in order to speed up runs that would otherwise be unbelievably slow (and typically I bring multiple banners because the group needs the support).

What needs to happen to really make these lesser-loved classes shine is to beef their dps significantly in PvE only. The Warrior GS 2 could use a decent PvE nerf too, honestly. For instance, I am convinced that a Necro’s condition damage value could be doubled in PvE and it would still have a tough time contending for a spot on speed-clear groups.

Ranger’s highest Direct Damage build comes from a melee weapon and a melee pet, just like everybody else.

The only reason you don’t often see Rangers wielding it is because the auto-attack chain roots you in place. Between trying to survive as a glass cannon that self-roots and keeping up a glass cannon pet that can’t dodge, there’s a very good reason you don’t see this too often. You could probably count on one hand the number of people who can hit the efficiency point of a build with such a ridiculously high skill floor.

Vox Hollow.2736:

Ranger’s highest DPS comes from a melee weapon and a melee pet, just like everybody else.

The only reason you don’t often see Rangers wielding it is because the auto-attack chain roots you in place. Between trying to survive as a glass cannon that self-roots, and the fact you have to also keep up a glass cannon pet that can’t dodge, is it really so surprising Ranger direct damage builds get such a bad rap? I think there might be, like, ten people in the entire game that can hit the efficiency point of a build with a skill floor set so ridiculously high.

The problem with meleeing as a Ranger is that you’re trying to do something the class isn’t good at. That dps is terrible compared to Thief, Guardian, and Warrior melee dps. Furthermore, those three classes have far superior support options when in melee, something the Ranger cannot boast. Lastly, the Guardian and Warrior both can take the occasional hit significantly better than a Ranger can. If the DPS were significantly higher, the downsides would probably be overlooked and good players would find a way to make it work, but as it stands, a Ranger is heavily outclassed in melee, and is usually better sticking to a 1500 range zerker LB build that, if nothing else, is good enough at doing its job from 1500 range away. That said, it’s still not as good as a WGM, but regardless, that’s the best a Ranger can do.

I feel like we’re making two different points here, Rising.
What is and what we’d advise people to do.

I think Sword is one of, if not the, best way to build your Ranger for direct damage.
But I don’t think I’d advise people to use it’s current iteration either. Because at the end of the day the point of giving advice is that other people are capable of taking it, and I did just go through describing how user unfriendly the weapon is.

Just to add to the point I’m always making of it being way more likely to encounter terrible players on Ranger versus ANY other class, I just did a P1 run for SE and our awesome pug ranger, who was running shortbow/wrongbow (whoever coined that a few days ago, it’s hilarious and I’m stealing it) with bear/lynx, dropped back to 1200 range on Tazza with the longbow and just cycled through auto attack and skill 2. His bear died and retreated to master’s side and he left it there dead for almost the entire fight until I politely mentioned in /p that you can swap your pet out and the other one will join at 100% HP.

That’s why we kick rangers.

Broadicea.8294:

That’s why we kick rangers.

I’ve had bad experiences with pubs of every class. By your logic, that is why I should kick all classes. I don’t think you intended to use such a fallacious argument, but well, there you go.

I would seriously like to see a decent thief doing big plays in pve. This class isn’t just cnd→backstab. But one can just dream.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Broadicea.8294:

That’s why we kick rangers.

I’ve had bad experiences with pubs of every class. By your logic, that is why I should kick all classes. I don’t think you intended to use such a fallacious argument, but well, there you go.

You probably missed the statistical portion of my argument, where I said that (anecdotally, I’ll admit) I find it way more likely to see terrible players on Ranger than on any other class. I know Ranger players aren’t the most observant folk, but do try to R>C>P.

Ranger doesn’t NEED to keep up with Warriors or skilled-Thieves on DPS.
So stop beating that dead horse everyone. Plz…. quit epeeing your Speedclears.
Anet just needs to let us evolve or change the roles of our pets.

Right now, even when we tell them to avoid-combat, they still stand around while something Beats on them, instead of kiting around the Area like monk-AI’s in GW1 used to do. The support skills pets offer are also pathetic. For comparison… look at the Gw1 Gaki: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gaki_%28summon%29 …now THAT was a “pet” that was worth bringing along to a Dungeon. We won’t ever get Heal-spamming pets obviously but we could certainly use ones that automate all the other support stuff AND INTERRUPTS that our Ranger is lacking currently on its own. The only thing missing here is Anet’s usual Creativity. Where’d it go?? They can somehow explain all the weird crap a Mesmer does, but they can’t even let us have pets that stand back and buff us? And now they’re also saying that our Melee pets were doing too much damage on top of that??

This isn’t the Anet I knew. ….not even close.

aophts.9862:

I want to start a new char, but last time with my lvl 50 RANGER i had a hard time with groups for dungeons. Do i still need to choose between WARRIOR or GUARDIAN to not be kicked from a party?

You should probably hold off until 80 to do dungeons. A lvl 50 is not going to do well in any dungeons that you can join. It’s more your level than your class.

haviz.1340:

Zenith.7301:

It won’t be 3 DPS guardians. More likely ele than guardians, but the likelihood is you’ll find a couple of thor eles coming in.

And you’ll still have thieves if only because they are godly for fractals with shadow refuge, projectile destruction, and Dagger Storm for grawl shaman.

Ele dps is much lower than guardian except that gimmicky lightning hammer but it doesn’t have any utility.

Lightning hammer spec does far more damage, and you don’t need more utility in a team than a mesmer and MAYBE a single guardian.

Utility stacking is overrated in most instances. We do high level fractals routinely with 1 guardian or less. A guardian and a mesmer is more than enough utility.

The ideal party comp if warriors and thieves were nerfed in damage would be:

-Guardian for reflection/pull/defensive boons and good damage.
-Hammer ele for raw DPS, little utility.
-Thief for spike, shadow refuge (godly in so many ways) and projectile deflection from utility and elite.
-Warrior for banner and offensive utility while being a good offensive soaker.
-Mesmer for Time Warp and Reflection/pull/portal tricks.

At the current damage differences there is just no reason for a team to take more than one guardian and mesmer, and then stack warriors with a thief if banners are covered.

Ele hammer is highest sustained at the moment but it brings no utility, is more fragile than warrior, and because his lead over the warrior is marginal, the warriors’ immense offensive utility contribution for group DPS means there’s even no point in taking a hammer ele.

And the other classes just can’t compete.

I also doubt DPS buffs for the ailing classes given the tantrum that will happen with spvp players if mesmers or eles or rangers or engineers or necros get DPS buffs.

Gaki has been extremely stupid in terms of fighting. The only uses it ever had were keeping plains reaper alive or to break aggro in various speedclears.

@Zenith

You don’t seem to be fully aware of guardians dps. My autoattacks easily hit for 5k 5k 8k while whirling wrath climbs up to over 20k. While passive bringing 5-8 stacks might, 6-9 stacks vuln and aegis to the group, increasing dps output. And things like aegis, stability, and blocks like Offhand Focus #5 is the utility haviz was talking about. Not condition remove, cc, protection, projectile reflection and healing.

And now look what a lightning hammer ele brings. ~2k dps more through autoattacks, 2-3 stacks vuln, no might, no blocks, no selfprotection like focus #5, well, a few blinds which you can’t even time.
Also they have less ability to burst which helps in fighting large groups of trashmobs.

LH ele has 0 utility since you don’t use any skill beside autoattack. Not too mention squishiness for which your only defense is aoe blind (and maybe defensive aoe field to get blast combo out of it) every 2.82s.

Plus, playing Lightning Hammer ele is dismal. It is, by far, the most boring build to play of any class. Also you cannot use the build with pugs because every bad player in the game thinks the second lightning hammer is there for them.

I rerolled thief so i’m allowed to steal them!

Exactly, boring as hell. You don’t create multi-role class just to spam autoattacks.

I don’t mind if one or both of those classes (one of each) are in a group. I just don’t want any more than that. If the players are very skilled then an exception can be made but for the vast majority of the time having more of those classes in a group slows things down.

DeathPanel.8362:

aophts.9862:

I want to start a new char, but last time with my lvl 50 RANGER i had a hard time with groups for dungeons. Do i still need to choose between WARRIOR or GUARDIAN to not be kicked from a party?

You should probably hold off until 80 to do dungeons. A lvl 50 is not going to do well in any dungeons that you can join. It’s more your level than your class.

My own guildmates swore up and down that the reason we were failing explorables when I was on my GUARDIAN (level 40, & then again at 65 @ the time) was because he wasn’t 80. Guess what happened the instant I started pugging with people who actually played the first game and understood Anet’s Gimmicky nature…. We passed with flying colors. I can do the same thing on my Ranger. Unfortunately most people can’t b/c they don’t have those rote reflexes ingrained by GW1 or other action/arcade style gaming . …. or the other big factor that’s also a learned response: DONT PANIC, just focus fire and keep your skill rotations in order. The reason most groups fail is not Team composition, or Gear and it’s not always skill either. It just getting ahead of themselves & panicking instead of falling back / regrouping and actually getting eachother back up.

There’s never ANY case where something can’t be beaten by sub-par builds so long a people focus and work together. Anyone who says “this is the only way”, “that’s useless here, do it my way only”, or just calls everything and everyone stupid —- Should just instantly be put on ignore and avoided completely for the sake of your own health. It’s a wide world out there, and there’s a lot more to “success” than just number-crunching.

Dub.1273:

Gaki has been extremely stupid in terms of fighting. The only uses it ever had were keeping plains reaper alive or to break aggro in various speedclears.

Anyone know how to ignore through the Forums plz?? I just got a really good reason to…

As a Ranger, I really do not find it too hard to find a party. There are a couple of genuine kitten hole players who insist souly on Guardians and Warriors. I’d say about 80-90% of the time I am on the of the last players alive in my party and able to finish a boss off with little to no trouble while ressing people at the same time. (usually everyone else is warrior/guardian meat bags)

The biggest problems that newbie rangers have that really get them turned away by larger parties are the following:
-Not knowing when to switch your pet to Guard
-Not knowing when to stow your pet *
-Not knowing how to kite

• Stowing your pet is a glitchy kitten function at times due to the lack of care the devs have put into testing it….

Wolfey.3407:

The biggest problems that newbie rangers have…
…
-Not knowing how to kite
…
-Not knowing how to kite

….

and yeah I know “they” exist. I’ve seen them.
And every single time, I die a little more inside

I wonder what would have happened to me if i had chosen a ranger as my first toon.

Dub.1273:

I wonder what would have happened to me if i had chosen a ranger as my first toon.

You would have gotten AIDS and died…

On a serious note, it’s Anet we’re talking about here. I knew what their class balance was going to be like from the start, because it would be the same as in GW1, and it is. Ele’s OP, then continuous nerfs until they suck. So far, they’re on the right path with that one. Warriors OP, but they would never admit it. So far, also right. Guardians, like monks, OP for what their role is, also never admitting it. Rangers, terrible in PvE, OP in PvP, and never admitting they suck in PvE (for the record, they still haven’t done the ranger fix in GW1 they promised 4 years ago). Mesmers is one of the 2 I was wrong about. I thought they’re be OP in PvP and sucky in PvE, but then they’d get buffed up the kitten in PvE. And I thought Necro’s would be OP both in PvP and PvE, but was wrong on that one too. I didn’t know how Engi’s would turn out, so didn’t predict anything.

Well, I had 5/7 correct, not bad.

Mesmer was the strongest damage dealer by far in gw1 and rangers have been extremely strong in solo’ing areas. Warriors have been absolutely useless in gw1.

Hard to compare gw1 and gw2 since the combat system is different. The only thing that never changed are huge differences between what would be balanced and how anet “balances”.

Dub.1273:

Mesmer was the strongest damage dealer by far in gw1

Not until 4 years into the game

rangers have been extremely strong in solo’ing areas.

And that was the only thing they were strong in. 1 gimmicky build that revolved entirely around the Elite skill from another profession. Remember how many ranger skills that build had? 1. Whirling Defense. That was the only ranger skill on that bar. Some bars took Serpent’s Quickness, but I never understood why.

All other aspects of PvE: doing damage etc, they were useless. B/P was popular for a while, until people realized it was complete trash and after that, Rangers were never used in PvE until 3 years later, when people started to realize the strength of Whirling Defense.

Warriors have been absolutely useless in gw1.

That’s why the first <30min DoA records involved 100b spikes? For general PvE, warriors were super strong. In the end, Assassins outdamaged them in melee quite easily. Not to mention how OP warriors were in PvP until Dervishes were made the gods of PvP. And even after that, warriors were still used. Warriors got replaced by Mesmers after their buff, but that’s only because mesmer spikes were safer. Not because warriors did less damage.

Hard to compare gw1 and gw2 since the combat system is different. The only thing that never changed are huge differences between what would be balanced and how anet “balances”.

This is true though. Anet and balance… But then again, they made Izzy have a function with responsibility… After he took over, profession balance went straight down the drain…

Well i started playing gw1 about 1 year before gw2 release so i can’t tell anything about previous balance. When i started playing warriors only had little use in FoWSC where they were the weaker alternative to VoS in slow pugways. And Mesmers had Ineptitude/Lyssas Aura, Wastrel’s Worry, Wastrels Demise, Empathy and few more. Also Energysurge for DoA and not to mention Cry of Pain before it’s nerf.

And yeah, rangers had only whirling defense – one skill to rule them all.

Dub.1273:

Well i started playing gw1 about 1 year before gw2 release so i can’t tell anything about previous balance. When i started playing warriors only had little use in FoWSC where they were the weaker alternative to VoS in slow pugways. And Mesmers had Ineptitude/Lyssas Aura, Wastrel’s Worry, Wastrels Demise, Empathy and few more. Also Energysurge for DoA and not to mention Cry of Pain before it’s nerf.

And yeah, rangers had only whirling defense – one skill to rule them all.

Again, they ruled FoWSC for a good year or so, after Ray of Judgement got ‘nerfed’ so enemies would scatter when in it. VoS didn’t see any use until after the Dervish buff, and people were still rooted in their warriors and didn’t like the change.

Mesmer’s didn’t get used in FoW until late 2010-early 2011, though.

Esurge didn’t get used in DoA until mid 2010. Before that it was mainly ele’s and necro’s. It was mainly due to this update that they saw more widespread use. Before that, there was usually only a VoR mesmer in a DoA team, because VoR was OP from the start.