"Rangers Can't Play Their Class"

"Rangers Can't Play Their Class"

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Posted by: Aphrodesiac.2913

Aphrodesiac.2913

Q:

Ok this really isn’t meant to be a flame-bait or whatever but…why do a lot of people say this? I’m really confused to be completely honest lol. Is it skill rotations? Or using the wrong weapons or the lack of using skills or something?

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Posted by: Lucas.9157

Lucas.9157

A:

Aragorn was a sword/x Ranger.

Legolas seems to be the problem. That longbow 360noscope camper.

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Posted by: maxinion.8396

maxinion.8396

Using the wrong weapons and skills.

Rangers should be bringing sword mainhand for their weapon, since it’s the only one that does good DPS. They should be bringing spotter and traited frost spirit. And they should be bringing cats and birds and drakes (I think? Not a ranger player myself, so not sure about this) as pets.

Instead we see bearbows, and we cry.

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Posted by: Sins.4782

Sins.4782

A lot of players will use their pet as a tank while ranging from afar. While this may work in open world PvE, it is about as useless as you can get in a group setting, where everyone shares aggro and attempts to share buffs/heals/etc.

That and there are a lot of PUG rangers who like knocking enemies away from players who are bursting them, using longbow’s point blank shot.

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Posted by: Flissy.4093

Flissy.4093

The builds the majority of Rangers seem to use offer next to nothing to the group:

  • Extremely low damage
  • Out of range of buffs (because they sit at 1500 range with a longbow)
  • No support at all – they never use Frost Spirit or Spotter, and even if they did the people playing decent builds would not benefit (see above).

Basically it. I can’t say I’m surprised, because they are called “Ranger”, so people misinterpret the name even though it’s meant as some form of “roaming the plains” kind of Ranger, like a Forest Ranger.

A decent Ranger will use Sword/X and Greatsword, with Frost Spirit & Spotter to be of some use to groups.

TL;DR: People using ranged weapons get insta-kicked from good groups, most the players who fit that pick Ranger.

Light Up the Darkness
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Posted by: Ryn.6459

Ryn.6459

Actually I cry of happiness when I pug with one with spotter and mh sword XD

Learning English, any correction is very welcome.

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Posted by: Stooperdale.3560

Stooperdale.3560

Ranger sword is one of the least liked weapons in the game and it is only appreciated by the players who control the #1 skill manually. Most players don’t want to micro manage skill #1 even if they know how and why. They have enough to think about with health, dodges, utilities, camera, boons, etc without worrying about the skill #1 chain getting them killed with a badly timed leap.

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Posted by: Aphrodesiac.2913

Aphrodesiac.2913

Oh wow. I didn’t expect so many actually insightful answers haha. I love this game’s community above any other’s.

This actually kind of makes me want to try ranger now…thank you all for the responses.

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Posted by: Marcus Greythorne.6843

Marcus Greythorne.6843

I would have no problem having a Ranger with axes, bows or swords in my group. Not everyone who runs dungeons is about maxing damage output, some of us still prefer the credo “play the way you want” & let others do the same. I don’t care if a run takes 5min longer. Personally, when I’m playing ranger, I love using axe/wh,axe and greatsword… it’s just more fun than sword to me.

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Posted by: Dee Jay.2460

Dee Jay.2460

Since the dawn of MMOs the Ranger archetype has attracted and catered to the laziest and most casual of players.

It’s an archetype that plays itself really, with pets doing most of the tanking, augmented by ranged damage from the Ranger himself, leaving him far from any danger.

This low-risk game-play allows players to progress without learning or understanding many fundamental game-mechanics. Hell, you could probably level a Ranger from 1-80 without ever dodging.

The results of creating such a class that can achieve so much with so little effort is then seen in stuff like the Marionette fight where you could count on Rangers screwing things up somehow.

This isn’t an issue unique to Guild Wars 2. The combination of pet + ranged combat has always catered a very lazy play-style. Hunters in vanilla WoW had an equally terrible reputation when it came to controlling their pets and doing anything really aside from auto-shot.

It’s not that the class can’t be good. But players playing it have to improve on their own accords because the game never asks them to. And very few bother.

(edited by Dee Jay.2460)

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Posted by: Slither Shade.4782

Slither Shade.4782

bad player can be decent on a warrior but bad player is bad on ranger

its just not a face roll class

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Posted by: RemiRome.8495

RemiRome.8495

Ranger sword is one of the least liked weapons in the game and it is only appreciated by the players who control the #1 skill manually.

first part true
second part not so much

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Posted by: Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Guanglai Kangyi.4318

Actually I cry of happiness when I pug with one with spotter and mh sword XD

You mean hypothetically? I’ve never seen any such thing.

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Posted by: rfdarko.4639

rfdarko.4639

Ranger sword is one of the least liked weapons in the game and it is only appreciated by the players who control the #1 skill manually.

first part true
second part not so much

Even if you have aa turned on, you need to be aware of where you are in the chain and sometimes use skill or weapon swap canceling to dodge. You’re still micromanaging the animation lock even when the skill is autocasting. I think that’s what he means.

guildless hobo who likes to solo – [x]

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Posted by: Warlord.9074

Warlord.9074

Just going to say that ranger have been the underdog in some game modes. The recent patch gave them some tools to be more viable in some of the game modes they were lacking before.

That being said. Rangers have always been decently strong in sPvP.

The problem with rangers is people who want to play this class play it because they think its an archer like in other games and try to play it like one. Its just not and thats not the most optimal way to play in a few game modes.

Lastly the class also attracts some type of players that want to Pew Pew behind a pet and pet mechanics kinda are bad so they don’t learn how to play the ranger right cuz they just pew pew and it make them bad.

“Just press 2 to win all the dps was us cuz we’re a
warrior and we’re the best class” Eugene

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Posted by: Rym.1469

Rym.1469

Unless they add some new ranged class, you will se rangers with bows. You won’t change something that has been always present for past 20 or so years.

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Posted by: Lalocat.6793

Lalocat.6793

Ranger sword is one of the least liked weapons in the game and it is only appreciated by the players who control the #1 skill manually.

first part true
second part not so much

I hate ranger sword so much. Rather just play a different class where I don’t have to micro manage my autoattack of all things.

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Posted by: Lyralei.5920

Lyralei.5920

I would have no problem having a Ranger with axes, bows or swords in my group. Not everyone who runs dungeons is about maxing damage output, some of us still prefer the credo “play the way you want” & let others do the same. I don’t care if a run takes 5min longer. Personally, when I’m playing ranger, I love using axe/wh,axe and greatsword… it’s just more fun than sword to me.

Wait till your beloved bearbow causes your normally 30 minute Arah run to end up taking 3 hours including but not limited to aggroing everything in sight and bringing them to us, causing lupicus to eat 3 grubs and making lupicus chase her all over the place into us, causing the rest of us to die.

Because that is what exactly happened to me. We kept her until the end because the Ooze boss made her bear bounce nonstop and we found it hilarious.

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Posted by: Marcus Greythorne.6843

Marcus Greythorne.6843

I would have no problem having a Ranger with axes, bows or swords in my group. Not everyone who runs dungeons is about maxing damage output, some of us still prefer the credo “play the way you want” & let others do the same. I don’t care if a run takes 5min longer. Personally, when I’m playing ranger, I love using axe/wh,axe and greatsword… it’s just more fun than sword to me.

Wait till your beloved bearbow causes your normally 30 minute Arah run to end up taking 3 hours including but not limited to aggroing everything in sight and bringing them to us, causing lupicus to eat 3 grubs and making lupicus chase her all over the place into us, causing the rest of us to die.

Because that is what exactly happened to me. We kept her until the end because the Ooze boss made her bear bounce nonstop and we found it hilarious.

If that person causes such problems and wouldn’t listen / react to this then of course I would vote to kick him. The thing is: there are a lot of rangers who use bows quite effectively and throwing all of them into the same cup is just stupid.

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Posted by: Lyralei.5920

Lyralei.5920

If that person causes such problems and wouldn’t listen / react to this then of course I would vote to kick him. The thing is: there are a lot of rangers who use bows quite effectively and throwing all of them into the same cup is just stupid.

Unfortunately many rangers fall into this cup.

Don’t get me wrong. I love rangers and I’ve played with some insanely good ones who can carry themselves kitten well but the number of said rangers I could probably count with one hand.

Part of the problem lies in the discrepancy between open world and dungeon ranger play which is completely set apart from all the other classes so by the time one actually makes it to level 80 dungeon running, most rangers haven’t experienced nor used the full repertoire of weapons and skills at their disposal.

Amazing skills like Frost Spirit get little if any use open world (unless the user explicitly takes the mobility trait for spirits) because they don’t stick around 1 spot for long enough to use them.

Its an exposure problem really, one which other classes suffer less of.

(edited by Lyralei.5920)

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Posted by: Agony.3542

Agony.3542

You could make a flow chart on how much/little use a ranger is for your group, judging on his playstyle.

The majority of all ranger players would land in the worst category.

There is a huge difference between “not wanting to use sword because of it’s disadvantages” and “playing complete kitten ”.

None of the ranger specific group support is bound to the weapon set or pet you use. Along the same line, none of your weapons is bound to the support you bring to the party as a ranger.

Deciding to not bring spotter/frostspirit AND camp on longbow max range AND needlessly kite enemies away will make a lot of people rage.

Not only is your contribution to the party minimal, you’re also causing the run to take longer than it would without you (and no other player in your spot).

RIP game 2012-2014

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Posted by: DonQuack.9025

DonQuack.9025

I can take “a lot” but it is the use of one skill that flips my switch. I also have this problem with necro’s/GS mesmers.

LB #4. It has caused me many times ingame to stop fighting, turn around, and stare at said offending char. It simply gets my panties in a bunch.

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Posted by: Tachii.3506

Tachii.3506

Much has been said already, but for my own opinion’s sake:

1) Anti-group behaviours: Point-blank shot that knockback an enemy when the other 4 is already meleeing it and doing DPS. Standing ridiculously far from the rest of the group and not getting boons and conversely not giving boons/buffs to the rest of the group.

2) Rarely has traits that actually improve DPS for the rest of the party. The whole selfish mentality isn’t the only thing exclusively seen in rangers, we have full signet warriors, D/D + P/P thieves that adds nothing to the party either, but at least they have better DPS by themselves than relying exclusively on range weapons.

3) Sole reliance on ranged weapons: To the point that even when stacked, they’ll be using a shortbow or longbow at melee range which is really bad DPS when even a Greatsword would be a better alternative (due to cleave and just the fact it’s a melee weapon).

SBI – Thief and the occasional Guardian & Warrior.

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Dalanor.5387

Picture is related.

Attachments:

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Posted by: Soa Cirri.6012

Soa Cirri.6012

Dungeons go like this:

Run through trash
Stack
Run
Stack
Move, to stack again
Run through final trash to boss
Stack
etc.

Rangers aren’t a stacking class.

I have two rangers, my first character was a ranger, and I still play it, but rangers are horrible for dungeons. One big reason is that their weapons are scaled to balance with the damage done by pets, but there are so many idiotic gimmicks in dungeons that one-hit-kill pets that you’re looking at working at reduced DPS capacity at inopportune times. You’re forced to then ignore your pet and focus on your own DPS exclusively (which, again, scaled to balance with pet DPS, is going to be lower than everyone else’s, and on top of that requires mostly selfish traiting), or on creating some sort of hybrid support build. if you go Hybrid/support you’re pretty much kissing DPS goodbye and edging limply into territory dominated by other classes.

Fundamentally, their abilities require room to move around so they can really dominate a wide space (traps, sword #1 leaps, a pet that flaps around closing gaps like crazy). So, in just about any other circumstance the Ranger really shines: open world, PvP, WvW (really great fun imo). But in dungeons there is nothing they can do that most other classes can do better. Which is stack.

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Posted by: Marcus Greythorne.6843

Marcus Greythorne.6843

Picture is related.

how boring would this game be if every player/profession would play the exact same spec. Optimized – yes. But boring.

There are tons of factors which would lead to less dps: positioning, mistakes at combo-finishers, buff-food, rotation, etc. etc. … but people prefer to have a scapegoat, in GW2 called: Ranger

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Posted by: dlonie.6547

dlonie.6547

Picture is related.

:-(

hugs

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Posted by: dlonie.6547

dlonie.6547

Picture is related.

how boring would this game be if every player/profession would play the exact same spec. Optimized – yes. But boring.

When you start running dungeons, this is true. It’s way more fun to play how you want, comfortably learn the dungeons at your own pace, use the playstyle you’ve been learning in open-world PvE, etc. It doesn’t matter if it takes an hour to do a path of AC, it’s all about fun.

After your 600th AC run, you start looking for ways to speed things up. That’s where most of us are at, and which is why many people on this forum don’t like party members that just slow down the runs by doing any/all of the things listed above.

If you want to have casual runs, great! Join casual groups, it’s all good. We want to have fast runs, we join speed-clear groups. Everyone’s happy.

Unfortunately, many players (on both sides) refuse to see the other’s perspective, and it leads to much bickering about nothing :-/

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Posted by: DonQuack.9025

DonQuack.9025

Picture is related.

how boring would this game be if every player/profession would play the exact same spec. Optimized – yes. But boring.

There are tons of factors which would lead to less dps: positioning, mistakes at combo-finishers, buff-food, rotation, etc. etc. … but people prefer to have a scapegoat, in GW2 called: Ranger

I think it would be more boring to watch the respawn screen or be in a dungeon for over 1hr/1.5hr.

By this rational in fps’s the people with the highest deaths are having the most fun.

As a person who has phiw friends. It sure doesnt sound like fun when they die/ party wipes for the xth time. I get no exclamations of “YES! we have to do this mob again because we do crap damage! FEEL THE RUSH!!!”

All I get are sighs and silence.

When you start running dungeons, this is true. It’s way more fun to play how you want, comfortably learn the dungeons at your own pace, use the playstyle you’ve been learning in open-world PvE, etc. It doesn’t matter if it takes an hour to do a path of AC, it’s all about fun.

Forgive me if this is sarcasm. But no. I have yet to encounter a group of new players who randomly did what they wanted, died repeatedly, then went “That was fun”.

Ive started pretending to be new on an alt char just to observe and most of those 100-250ap players LEAVE. And that is STORY MODE AC. Ive watched a group get stuck in the beginning of ACs and disband after 45mins because they couldnt handle the crappy spider spawns.

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(edited by DonQuack.9025)

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Posted by: dlonie.6547

dlonie.6547

When you start running dungeons, this is true. It’s way more fun to play how you want, comfortably learn the dungeons at your own pace, use the playstyle you’ve been learning in open-world PvE, etc. It doesn’t matter if it takes an hour to do a path of AC, it’s all about fun.

Forgive me if this is sarcasm. But no. I have yet to encounter a group of new players who randomly did what they wanted, died repeatedly, then went “That was fun”.

Ive started pretending to be new on an alt char just to observe and most of those 100-250ap players LEAVE. And that is STORY MODE AC. Ive watched a group get stuck in the beginning of ACs and disband after 45mins because they couldnt handle the crappy spider spawns.

No sarcasm intended :-) If their builds are so poorly suited to dungeons that they’re wiping a lot and encountering tons of difficulty, they might start to see the light and change things up. Many (obviously, we see it daily…) come here to complain and refuse to adapt their playstyle or improve their skill level, but there are many others who move forward and try to learn to do better.

Or they give up, which is fine. Dungeons aren’t for people who give up when they meet a challenge :-P

Personally, I viewed my early difficulties as a reason to learn my utilities and skills better, work on on dodging and reflexes, timing aegis, etc. After I got those down, I started learning how to improve might/vuln uptime. You gotta have that drive to do better to be a good party member.

(edited by dlonie.6547)

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Posted by: Karolis.4261

Karolis.4261

Dungeons go like this:

Run through trash
Stack
Run
Stack
Move, to stack again
Run through final trash to boss
Stack
etc.

Rangers aren’t a stacking class.

I have two rangers, my first character was a ranger, and I still play it, but rangers are horrible for dungeons. One big reason is that their weapons are scaled to balance with the damage done by pets, but there are so many idiotic gimmicks in dungeons that one-hit-kill pets that you’re looking at working at reduced DPS capacity at inopportune times. You’re forced to then ignore your pet and focus on your own DPS exclusively (which, again, scaled to balance with pet DPS, is going to be lower than everyone else’s, and on top of that requires mostly selfish traiting), or on creating some sort of hybrid support build. if you go Hybrid/support you’re pretty much kissing DPS goodbye and edging limply into territory dominated by other classes.

Fundamentally, their abilities require room to move around so they can really dominate a wide space (traps, sword #1 leaps, a pet that flaps around closing gaps like crazy). So, in just about any other circumstance the Ranger really shines: open world, PvP, WvW (really great fun imo). But in dungeons there is nothing they can do that most other classes can do better. Which is stack.

Pick up melee weapon, full berserker gear, spotter, frost spirit and trait accordingly.
Run through trash
Stack
Run
Stack
Move, to stack again
Run through final trash to boss
Stack
etc.
Oh look Ranger is as much of a stack class as everyone else.
Your welcome.

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Posted by: Soa Cirri.6012

Soa Cirri.6012

Pick up melee weapon, full berserker gear, spotter, frost spirit and trait accordingly.
Run through trash
Stack
Run
Stack
Move, to stack again
Run through final trash to boss
Stack
etc.
Oh look Ranger is as much of a stack class as everyone else.
Your welcome.

You could have just said “tl;dr” and saved yourself time and characters.

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Posted by: Esmee.1067

Esmee.1067

Dungeons go like this:

Run through trash
Stack
Run
Stack
Move, to stack again
Run through final trash to boss
Stack
etc.

Rangers aren’t a stacking class.

I have two rangers, my first character was a ranger, and I still play it, but rangers are horrible for dungeons. One big reason is that their weapons are scaled to balance with the damage done by pets, but there are so many idiotic gimmicks in dungeons that one-hit-kill pets that you’re looking at working at reduced DPS capacity at inopportune times. You’re forced to then ignore your pet and focus on your own DPS exclusively (which, again, scaled to balance with pet DPS, is going to be lower than everyone else’s, and on top of that requires mostly selfish traiting), or on creating some sort of hybrid support build. if you go Hybrid/support you’re pretty much kissing DPS goodbye and edging limply into territory dominated by other classes.

Fundamentally, their abilities require room to move around so they can really dominate a wide space (traps, sword #1 leaps, a pet that flaps around closing gaps like crazy). So, in just about any other circumstance the Ranger really shines: open world, PvP, WvW (really great fun imo). But in dungeons there is nothing they can do that most other classes can do better. Which is stack.

I don’t quite experience Ranger like you do.

Pets:
Only few fights it’s challanging to keep pets alive due to 1-shots (Subject Alpha, Tazza for example) just for some fights you have to make sure your pet isn’t eating cleave which is often done with a quick f3 -> f1. Pets hardly get the aggro due to their low toughness (yes, I’m simply assuming you run Jaguar/Stalker.) There’s always f4 for moments you weren’t paying enough attention. I’m not saying pets aren’t annoying to manage, but it’s not impossible like you seem to think. If there’s any complaint I’d have about pets is that in runs where trash is significant (low-dps PuG or Fractals) Felines have no cleave, though for those kind of groups you can luckily swap to Frost Drake and Reef Drake. In some Fractal Fights I take Spiders to make it easier for myself, but I’m quite sure those fights are simply a learn to play issue from my side, my Ranger doesn’t get enough play-time. I almost exclusively PuG and most groups, even without X-class only descriptions, kick the second they see a Ranger. I can’t quite say I blame them.

Mobility:
I find Sword works just as well in stacking as it does for any class. Just sometimes I have “oh kitten” moments with the leap, but that’s because I’m bad at my class, not the class. Only fight I can think of where Sword is a problem with stacking is in fights like Old Tom fight because there’s no way the leap allows you to stay behind the Earth Elemental or any other anchor or fights where max-melee range is a must (Mai Trin) So for those fights I simply pack Greatsword, adjust the trait and sure, I lose some DPS, but once again, it’s not impossible.

I think Rangers are a wonderful class and I really enjoy playing them, much to my surprise, I thought I’d absolutely detest them because you have to use a pet. There’s just one thing that makes me incredibly sad; the moment someone picks up the Banner of Discipline/Strenght next to your Frost Spirit and you can’t carry Frost. (traits are too valuable.)

TL;DR: I don’t think it’s the class that’s the problem, but simply players mentality. Sadly Rangers seem to have more players with that mentality, but it’s exactly the same as ending up with a Staff (+ Scepter/Shield) Guardian, D/D or P/P only Thief, Grenades-only Engineer and so on. Due to this Ranger becomes unbeloved in PuGs and some people (like me) simply take a different class to be more desired and the image of Rangers never changes. (PS: not saying I’m a good Ranger, but I atleast try to be useful :p)

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Posted by: Azrael.4960

Azrael.4960

I’ve played my ranger for hours on end and usually stick to sword/x, which is often an axe since I’ve been too lax to get a warhorn, and LB or GS. I absolutely love the sword animations even if they are a pain in the butt because of the lockdown (and no I do not leave the auto attack on)

I think that the biggest problem that people have with rangers is they don’t like the fact that they require significantly more compromise than warrior or guardians. This can apply to thieves as well. You can balance out the gearing and traits of the heavies and still have excellent survivability and damage output. Rangers have a much steeper leaning on one or the other. With good survivability your damage output drops much more steeply than does a heavy. On the flipside, with higher damage output your damage resistance drops dramatically. I haven’t rekitted my ranger yet since the latest patch, but I’d been tinkering with a half knights half assassin’s armour with ranger runes and her damage output is really quite impressive, but I really have to be on my toes to minimise damage.

This is the nature of the class and that is how it should be. The heavies should be able to balance damage with survivability and this balance becomes more weighted at the extremes as you go down towards the light classes. (Although the necro is very weird in that it has probably the best survivability of all of the classes, despite being light)

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Posted by: Big Jay.1479

Big Jay.1479

… It doesn’t matter if it takes an hour to do a path of AC, it’s all about fun. …

You bring back a bad memory of this weekend…

My second time running AC p1 properly on my warrior, I say so in the LFG (“p1 – AC Novice – Will listen”). I was the second most knowledgeable one on the run.

We get 2 40-ish pugs (Necro and Mesmer iirc), a 70s warrior, and an 80 guardian (the most knowledgeable in the run). The whole run took over 2 hours.

Never again… I REALLY don’t want to be an elitest jerk – but I don’t want to lose another 2 hours of my life on a path that should take < 30 minutes.

Thanks to these PUGs, I am only going to run AC with 80s or guildies from now on.

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Posted by: Soa Cirri.6012

Soa Cirri.6012

I don’t quite experience Ranger like you do.

Pets:

Pets:
I’ve run three different ranger builds, one of them completely pet-centric. I generally prefer birds with master’s bond, since the stacks+ high precision (almost 100% crit chance with fury) and vit+carnivorous appetite as well as permaregen/protection (HS and traited “Guard!”) and Signet of the Wild and near permanent 25 stacks of might (on the pet) using sword/horn and companion’s might make for a fairly tanky animal with more than decent damage. And yes, under these optimal conditions the pet’s results are great. But.

I haven’t run CM in a while, but AC 1&2 final bosses will generally one-hit or easily melt-down (without serious CC, unlikely in PUGs), TA final bosses are pretty much off-limits if you melee (I haven’t run a group that’s ranged the end of F or U since last year) and the Laurant guard bubbles also one-hit if the pets run into them. SE P1 without a Guard or a couple of mesmer/thieves is going to be trouble for everyone, especially a pet that can’t dodge, and I find very difficult to F3 pull from the trash mobs that everyone skips (but when skipped can tunnel down a lagging pet quite easily, thanks to their tendency to chill spam). CoFP1 acolyte room pretty much always downs pet (at least for me, spamming F3 never saves it, and even when it does pull it aggroes the room until it dies), as does the P2 assassin room. HotW isn’t too bad, although the troll buff means setting the pet passive or it’ll likely get flattened, and the ending underwater segments make me lose all my Master’s Bond stacks, and the jellies/boss can easily one-hit the pet if it’s not passive as well. CoE has alpha, as you mentioned, and I can’t remember the last time I ran my ranger through Arah.

So, pretty much every dungeon has a boss/mechanic which instantly kills or quickly kills pets, much quicker than the 20sec cooldown on F4 can be sustained (which, by the way, resets Master’s Bond). And that’s with a highly pet-centric, tanky-pet build.

Mobility:

I learned long ago to set sword entirely to manual, and still encounter problems. Unless your group (in my case usually a PuG) can get a stackboss wedged perfectly into a corner, it will wander slightly, wiggling from one thing to another, and as long as everyone stays stacked it will normalize back to the stack spot (usually) but when it does it in the middle of a #1 chain, more quickly than I can react (somehow Alpha has a tendency to do this the most) it results in flying off towards it, and effectively breaks the stack. Sure you can backpeddle away, but in a full zerker group you’ve effectively interrupted and reset the Melt Phase. If you don’t have a corner then yeah, as in the example you mentioned, kitten ensues.

Yes, you can switch to GS which is a nice training wheels weapon, but it remains precisely that. Remember my point was that Rangers are not good at stacking, not that stacking is impossible. Compare them to Ele with its light hammer and FGS, Warrior with its GS and axe, Guard with its GS/Hamm, thief with d/d and s/p, etc. None of them have to say, “well hey my high damage weapon is really annoying to use in this situation, so I’ll have to switch to my lower-damage weapon.”

tl;dr
Dungeons are a lot of stacking. Stacking is not impossible with a ranger, but it’s much better suited for wide-open terrain, and is ill-suited in comparison to other classes. The pet, a significant percentage of its innate DPS, is rendered useless in certain content that other classes aren’t required to suffer for.

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Posted by: dlonie.6547

dlonie.6547

Haha, running with guildies is always the best option. Unless your guildies suck. Then join a better guild :-)

The first time I did AC with my wife was similar. We did p3, and put up an lfg (back in the old days, on the gw2lfg site) saying it was our first time. Someone exp joined, and then left we cause we didn’t know to stack spider queen, but eventually we got a group of people, mostly other newbs, that were willing to push through everything. We failed to defend the collectors about a dozen times, but finally made it through.

After a few goes at Collie Rumbletard we finally beat him. This was at least 2 hrs since we started the dungeon.

My wife and I dc’d at the moment he died and missed out on the rewards. Very sad. Much lame. So poor.

It takes longer with an inexp/poorly-prepared group, but it’s totally doable. Especially after the last “balance” patch xD

And even without getting the rewards, I had fun in that group. It was an actual challenge. Too many people think everything should just be “stack and press 1”, since that’s all open-world is. The idea of paying attention and dodging/using utilities/etc while stacked is something they’ve never experienced before.

Anyway, this is rambley and OT.

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Posted by: Marcus Greythorne.6843

Marcus Greythorne.6843

I’m curious why some people have that black/white attitude. If it’s a ranger with a bow, the dungeon-run MUST last more than 1 hour, it MUST have at least 2 wipes.

I could say the same to any other profession. Mesmer, keep your clones out of aggro! Necro, those minions are the reason why we wiped again. GS-Warrior, why don’t you have banners instead of full-signets? Thieves, just get rid of sword, please! … and so on.

In truth, every profession can be played in a lot of different ways and be viable. Not necessarily speedrun-viable, but wipeless viable without doubling the run-timer.

If you want to have casual runs, great! Join casual groups, it’s all good. We want to have fast runs, we join speed-clear groups. Everyone’s happy.

The best quote in this thread imho. Every one of you can choose which group you wanna join. I wouldn’t join a speedrun-group with an experimental new build with any profession. I don’t expect others to have a certain build when doing normal runs though, you don’t turn 30 minutes into 90 minutes just because of a build, it’s the player skill that matters, and how he/she can work with the chosen skills.

http://gw2style.com/index.php – show your look and rate others – great filters!!

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Posted by: dlonie.6547

dlonie.6547

I’m curious why some people have that black/white attitude. If it’s a ranger with a bow, the dungeon-run MUST last more than 1 hour, it MUST have at least 2 wipes.

I could say the same to any other profession. Mesmer, keep your clones out of aggro! Necro, those minions are the reason why we wiped again. GS-Warrior, why don’t you have banners instead of full-signets? Thieves, just get rid of sword, please! … and so on.

Those prejudices also exist. Look for the phrases “staff guard”, “gs mesmer”, “signet warrior”, or just plain “necro” in this forum. Not much hate for sword thieves, but p/p is a problem.

As described above in this thread, the biggest problem with *range*rs is that people who want to … range … play them… for some reason ;-) In an experienced group, ranging screws up a lot of the techniques used to clear dungeons. It’s a player issue here, not a class issue.

And ofc, there are some kick-kitten rangers out there. But you won’t see them carrying bows.

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Posted by: XacTactX.6709

XacTactX.6709

This stereotype is really frustrating because it stops people like me from pugging dungeons on my ranger. I really wanted to turn my ranger into my PvE main but every once in a while I get insta kicked out of a group because they assume I’m bad. Bottom line when people ask for a meta zerker party I do what I’m supposed to and that’s all that should matter.

Anet likely didn’t want to remove the armor stats entirely because…well,
we’ve all seen what happens in games where there’s no disadvantage to taking your pants off.

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Posted by: DonQuack.9025

DonQuack.9025

There is only 3 reasons I will instakick a ranger.
1. Below level req posted
2. Signet of the hunt. / Combat Healer —( NEVER SEEN A GOOD PLAYER HAVE THAT TITLE)
3. Bow in your hands.

Otherwise you get a chance. Just like engi’s. Necro’s only have 1 chance though. I see staff I kick.

Concerns about HoT pre-order? Check here!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am9gVQB8gss

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Posted by: Marcus Greythorne.6843

Marcus Greythorne.6843

I’m just curious, (I really have no clue), isn’t shortbow with piercing arrows at close range pretty good against groups of enemies too?

http://gw2style.com/index.php – show your look and rate others – great filters!!

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Posted by: Karolis.4261

Karolis.4261

I’m curious why some people have that black/white attitude. If it’s a ranger with a bow, the dungeon-run MUST last more than 1 hour, it MUST have at least 2 wipes.

I could say the same to any other profession. Mesmer, keep your clones out of aggro! Necro, those minions are the reason why we wiped again. GS-Warrior, why don’t you have banners instead of full-signets? Thieves, just get rid of sword, please! … and so on.

In truth, every profession can be played in a lot of different ways and be viable. Not necessarily speedrun-viable, but wipeless viable without doubling the run-timer.

If you want to have casual runs, great! Join casual groups, it’s all good. We want to have fast runs, we join speed-clear groups. Everyone’s happy.

The best quote in this thread imho. Every one of you can choose which group you wanna join. I wouldn’t join a speedrun-group with an experimental new build with any profession. I don’t expect others to have a certain build when doing normal runs though, you don’t turn 30 minutes into 90 minutes just because of a build, it’s the player skill that matters, and how he/she can work with the chosen skills.

You realize that sword(P) is best weapon for thief in stacks and in most situations provides best dps unless targets back is easily accessible for D/D +infusion of shadows backstab stream, right?

PvP hero Valentin in action!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HiYUlhsO_M
cough*keyboardturningclicker*cough

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Posted by: Faux.1937

Faux.1937

I’m curious why some people have that black/white attitude. If it’s a ranger with a bow, the dungeon-run MUST last more than 1 hour, it MUST have at least 2 wipes.

I could say the same to any other profession. Mesmer, keep your clones out of aggro! Necro, those minions are the reason why we wiped again. GS-Warrior, why don’t you have banners instead of full-signets? Thieves, just get rid of sword, please! … and so on.

In truth, every profession can be played in a lot of different ways and be viable. Not necessarily speedrun-viable, but wipeless viable without doubling the run-timer.

If you want to have casual runs, great! Join casual groups, it’s all good. We want to have fast runs, we join speed-clear groups. Everyone’s happy.

The best quote in this thread imho. Every one of you can choose which group you wanna join. I wouldn’t join a speedrun-group with an experimental new build with any profession. I don’t expect others to have a certain build when doing normal runs though, you don’t turn 30 minutes into 90 minutes just because of a build, it’s the player skill that matters, and how he/she can work with the chosen skills.

You realize that sword(P) is best weapon for thief in stacks and in most situations provides best dps unless targets back is easily accessible for D/D +infusion of shadows backstab stream, right?

This is True I have done 21k PW before, (trying to get my Max) in CoE, that is ever 2.7s I can do that, With the Evade and Blind it is THE BEST stacking set for thief.

D/D is for Single fights/bosses.

SAB or RIOT

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Posted by: Alora.6841

Alora.6841

This is the Dungeon Subforum. Which means there is exactly one way to play your class. If you do something else you are a noob.

I am Commander Shepard and Evons Company is my favorite store in Lion’s Arch.

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Posted by: Aphrodesiac.2913

Aphrodesiac.2913

Oh wow this is a lot to read from when I posted it ._. lol

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Posted by: Lilith Ajit.6173

Lilith Ajit.6173

This is the Dungeon Subforum. Which means there is exactly one way to play your class. If you do something else you are a noob.

False.

[ARES]
And all who stood by and did nothing, who are they to criticize the sacrifices of others?
Our blood has bought their lives.

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Posted by: JohnLShannonhouse.1820

JohnLShannonhouse.1820

Ranger sword is one of the least liked weapons in the game and it is only appreciated by the players who control the #1 skill manually. Most players don’t want to micro manage skill #1 even if they know how and why. They have enough to think about with health, dodges, utilities, camera, boons, etc without worrying about the skill #1 chain getting them killed with a badly timed leap.

Amen. Every once in awhile I go back to sword on my ranger outside of stacking situations. Sooner or later, it will cause down 3-4 times in a row by rooting or leaping back into the attack I just dodged. Then I go back to greatsword and take the hit in damage and offhand utility for awhile.

It is not that sword is bad. In fact, it is fun chasing a kiting enemy because they usually cannot get away. It is annoying, though. At a certain point the emotional toll from annoyance outweighs the satisfaction of DPS.

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Posted by: dlonie.6547

dlonie.6547

This is the Dungeon Subforum. Which means there is exactly one way to play your class. If you do something else you are a noob.

Not really…though there are good ways and bad ways to play a class, especially when it comes to team play.

I wish we could have these discussions without all the rage and over-defensive passive-aggression.

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Posted by: Mesket.5728

Mesket.5728

I don’t use my Ranger for dungeons. I didn’t rolled one to play a thief. It’s annoying that EVERY character is played the same… that is why I don’t use my Ranger for dungeons.

Ergo, I agree with the OP. Rangers can’t play their class in Dungeons. Whoever is still holding to the argument “you can bring a sword” is not understanding something VERY basic…

Zerk is the average Joe build. Don’t pat yourself in the back too hard.