Guild Wars 2

Metherlance.9204:

I present to you:
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

None of the bolded stuff has anything to do with archery. Archery is just one part of what a Ranger is.

Yes, and my point being it would be nice if rangers had an elite spec that DID revolve around that central point. There is not a lot in there stating that rangers are meant to remove conditions and provide healing support for their allies. You might find things like that in other professions descriptions but not in the rangers’.

As has been suggested, swap Guardian Dragonhunter and Ranger Druid and the world starts to make a lot more sense for the people who chose those professions based on the described design philosophy.

Sandpit.3467:

Metherlance.9204:

I present to you:
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

None of the bolded stuff has anything to do with archery. Archery is just one part of what a Ranger is.

Yes, and my point being it would be nice if rangers had an elite spec that DID revolve around that central point. There is not a lot in there stating that rangers are meant to remove conditions and provide healing support for their allies. You might find things like that in other professions descriptions but not in the rangers’.

As has been suggested, swap Guardian Dragonhunter and Ranger Druid and the world starts to make a lot more sense for the people who chose those professions based on the described design philosophy.

Druids do fit the nature theme though. Other than that you need to factor in overall class balance so it isn’t under or overpowered or have an elite that’s simply redundant.

Druids are basically nature priests.

Sandpit.3467:

Metherlance.9204:

I present to you:
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

None of the bolded stuff has anything to do with archery. Archery is just one part of what a Ranger is.

Yes, and my point being it would be nice if rangers had an elite spec that DID revolve around that central point. There is not a lot in there stating that rangers are meant to remove conditions and provide healing support for their allies. You might find things like that in other professions descriptions but not in the rangers’.

As has been suggested, swap Guardian Dragonhunter and Ranger Druid and the world starts to make a lot more sense for the people who chose those professions based on the described design philosophy.

“Central point”? What central point?! Did you actually read the entire Ranger page? Archery is mentioned once. The majority of the Ranger page focuses on nature – wildlife companions, nature spirits, and traps are brought to attention – given full paragraphs and images, and you feel that the central point of the Ranger class as proposed by Anet is the single sentence about archery? …What? The central point of the Ranger class has always been it’s close ties to nature. If Archery were it’s central focal point, why would Ranger have so many melee weapons? If archery were it’s central focal point, why is there an utter lack of arrow-based utility skills and elites? Look at what elites Ranger has available – Vines, a healing nature spirit, and a shout for its companion. Archery where??

So tell me, why is a single line and two weapons (LB and SB) somehow the defining feature of a class with so much more?

Only that two liner comes from ANet, the rest of the page is player content, opinion and discussing the features put in the game, I was using the description provided by ANet and archery is a very central aspect of that description. Also agreeing with you in so much that a very common complaint amongst rangers is that ranger archer is actually pretty poor in the game. The Elite spec was a wasted opportunity to fix a central mechanic of rangers that was poorly implemented (they could have done a lot more with beastmastery too which is poor) but instead they went with healer. Not something any ranger would have rolled ranger for in the first place.

Druid was a wasted opportunity and I regard it as somewhat of an insult as ANet chose to ignore 3 years of criticism about how poor the ranger class is, they chose to re-introduce monk as a poor attempt to deflect ranger criticism. I want them to address rangers properly next time. I know they won’t get rid of druid, that ship has sailed but boy do they OWE rangers big after that slap in the face (on top of all the other ranger hate they peddle).

Sandpit.3467:

Only that two liner comes from ANet, the rest of the page is player content, opinion and discussing the features put in the game, I was using the description provided by ANet and archery is a very central aspect of that description. Also agreeing with you in so much that a very common complaint amongst rangers is that ranger archer is actually pretty poor in the game. The Elite spec was a wasted opportunity to fix a central mechanic of rangers that was poorly implemented (they could have done a lot more with beastmastery too which is poor) but instead they went with healer. Not something any ranger would have rolled ranger for in the first place.

Druid was a wasted opportunity and I regard it as somewhat of an insult as ANet chose to ignore 3 years of criticism about how poor the ranger class is, they chose to re-introduce monk as a poor attempt to deflect ranger criticism. I want them to address rangers properly next time. I know they won’t get rid of druid, that ship has sailed but boy do they OWE rangers big after that slap in the face (on top of all the other ranger hate they peddle).

Ha! Let’s take this in small portions here…
1) Presuming for even a second that Anet did not provide the pages for each class – which they did – Even within that single paragraph Archery is one third of what a Ranger is. The rest? One third Nature and one third precision. Druid fits the theme of Ranger just as much an archery-based specialization – even more so when taking the entire page into context.
2) Druids are now the single most useful specialization in the game. No other class – after Chronomancers’ nerf – can provide such a raw amount of damage to a group. Arenanet “owes” Rangers? Hah.
3) Rangers were never meant to be entirely reliant on their pets as beastmasters would be, and we all knew that within 5 minutes of looking at the UI for companions. Rangers were never meant to be solely archery-based either, again when looking at the skills provided to Rangers, the weaponsets available, and the specializations possible…There is absolutely no doubt that if you’d spent 5 minutes looking at the class you would know that the class is clearly nature-based.

There is no reason, whatsoever, when looking either at the available webpage on Ranger or the in-game resources that you should have held any inkling of a notion that archery was the Ranger’s main selling point.

I gotta be honest…I’m really glad that there is a support role out there and that Druid has brought that to GW2, but I really do wish that it was possible to play druid as a non-healing, damage-focused character that wasn’t built around Sparkly Form.

Sadly, Rangers were never really great at DPS and with the Druid spec, there’s pretty much no better way to build a ranger for 95% of the game.

I think the problem with these kind of players is they see the word “ranger” and assume it means long range, when in actuality its being used in the context of like a forest ranger, someone who patrols the forest and nature

Kayberz.5346:

I think the problem with these kind of players is they see the word “ranger” and assume it means long range, when in actuality its being used in the context of like a forest ranger, someone who patrols the forest and nature

Was about to post pretty much this exact thing. Ranger refers to a person or being that patrols, wanders, or travels the lands. A “range” is a plot of land or an area in which you would travel across. Not to be mistaken with the “range” which is used for judging distance. If Anet were to make a purely “long-ranged” based class they would, like most other games, likely use a term such as “Archer” or “Bowman” to make it clear that they would be a ranged based class with limited melee use.

And just because the official site states that they are “unparalleled archers” does not mean they are to be taken as ONLY archers. It simply means they are unmatched when it comes to the bow.

From the official site: “Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”

Going to pull that part down: “With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.” Now putting that into perspective. Rangers are a class that is essentially meant to be the jack of all trades. And for them to pick up support healing makes perfect sense. When your allies are in trouble you adapt to the situation and try to keep them on their feet.

And as for the statement about giving Guard the healer spec. Guardians can already go full on healer. All Anet really needs to do to make it official is make the staff auto attack heal. They are effective melee range healers. They just lack that range healing. But other than that if they did get another heal spec it would seriously shoehorn them into that support healer role as a whole.

I’ve not played a druid yet, but I also have no interest in trying one out. I love my zurker pew pew LB ranger way too much.