Guild Wars 2

everyone has been telling ArenaNet that the one sized fits all mentality doesnt work.

I find it amusing people think Thieves are the worst open world PVE class.

I really liked the way you handled this; keeping the results secret till the end.

I did:
Mesmer
Thief
Necro (conditions, ’cause they never last any time at all)
Necro (conditions)
..and then I said necro again, because I was on a roll.

…but what I really found interesting was how it never even occured to me that there was a ranger class to vote for.

That’s how dead the ranger class is to me, I don’t even remember to vote for them when asked what the worst class is.

For-the-love-of-god, Anet, give people the ability to store away those dull, boring, uninspired pets.

OP, the issue with your poll is that it was done right after a huge nerf to rangers. It’s only to be expected that people would have a knee-jerk reaction and claim rangers are the world profession in the game.

Azure Prower.8701:

I find it amusing people think Thieves are the worst open world PVE class.

The archetype thieves comes from is basically the “ganker” – the dual wielding low armor high damage profession meant to use stealth to gank unsuspecting people and run away quickly if the gank doesn’t work. It’s a concept suited for open world PvP, but it does look odd everywhere else.

Ezeriel.9574:

For-the-love-of-god, Anet, give people the ability to store away those dull, boring, uninspired pets.

That’s more or less the same as removing rangers from the game and replacing them with warriors. ArenaNet should fix how the pets work, not remove one of the very few elements unique to rangers (with the other being spirits, which, well…).

These results are about what I expected. Rangers are horrible in dungeons and WvW because the pet gets melted instantly and it accounts for a large chunk of our dps, at which point we have to rely solely on our own weapons (with the worst scaling in the game by a huge margin). As much as I hate Thieves and their ganking in WvW, they deserve some serious love on the PvE and general support front. Warriors in PvP are self explanatory at this point.

every class i chose had the highest percentage, on an on topic note, lol rangers

My only complain is that the Ranger is considered bad in sPVP, seriously? Maybe it’s because there were very very recent nerfs to Rangers that affected sPVP and people still haven’t recovered, but Ranger isn’t weak in sPVP

just my 2 cents

Erasculio.2914:

That’s more or less the same as removing rangers from the game and replacing them with warriors. ArenaNet should fix how the pets work, not remove one of the very few elements unique to rangers (with the other being spirits, which, well…).

Problem is, they can’t “fix” pets in dungeons without completely altering how they work and play. I tried the new AR dungeon with my Ranger and it’s impossible for the pet to survive at the boss fights (lasers and cannon parts). In encounters that require moving around, or risk instant death, an AI controlled ally is practically useless. The ability to stow the pet during those phases, and then calling it out to help again, would go a long way to help.

Giving the pet immunity to AoE (or a substantial reduction) could also work, but the devs need to be careful not to create exploits/abuses of this.

maddoctor.2738:

Problem is, they can’t “fix” pets in dungeons without completely altering how they work and play.

I wouldn’t be against a pets rework. We probably need different rules for different content anyway (I doubt pets could work the same in sPvP and in dungeons while being equally effective in both). IMO, the solution is something like the AoE damage mitigation you described, but exclusively in dungeons, and maybe exclusively for a few kinds of pets.

Erasculio.2914:

OP, the issue with your poll is that it was done right after a huge nerf to rangers. It’s only to be expected that people would have a knee-jerk reaction and claim rangers are the world profession in the game.

…

That’s a speculation w/ confirmation bias undertone and no statistical importance attached to it. Secondly, you assume 45% of people voting out of 1500 voters are emotional less stable than you. Which I think you take yourself too seriously.
The OP could enhance his survey to cover that but ranger class was considered a poor class in dungeons and other contents even before the Search & Rescue fixed.

maddoctor.2738:

My only complain is that the Ranger is considered bad in sPVP, seriously? Maybe it’s because there were very very recent nerfs to Rangers that affected sPVP and people still haven’t recovered, but Ranger isn’t weak in sPVP

just my 2 cents

The Warrior is considered a lot worse in sPvP than the Ranger. What I really do think is interesting is that three classes – Guardian, Mesmer, and Elementalist – almost consistently got very few votes. Perhaps they are in a relatively “sweet spot” as far as balance is concerned?

Thank you for the time and effort put into this. I hope anet reads this….

Looking at the results i sort of guessed ranger would be the worst in pve, i think if a-net had made ranger a little more like gw1 ranger and allowed the player a build without a pet could perhaps work.

Say for example short bow on equip stows pet whilst decreasing the cds of skills and increasing short bow damage.

I think mesmers are pretty horrid on their own.

Thieves have the potential to be good in all areas of the game, but because the backstab builds are so stupidly overpowered, everyone use one, which severely limits your character in every other aspect.

Erasculio.2914:

maddoctor.2738:

Problem is, they can’t “fix” pets in dungeons without completely altering how they work and play.

I wouldn’t be against a pets rework. We probably need different rules for different content anyway (I doubt pets could work the same in sPvP and in dungeons while being equally effective in both). IMO, the solution is something like the AoE damage mitigation you described, but exclusively in dungeons, and maybe exclusively for a few kinds of pets.

They could give pets an active dodge, like people have suggested for a solid year.

And for PvP, they could make pets attack moving targets, like any intelligent AI programmer would have done in the first place!

Neither of these are difficult to implement, ANet’s designers are just obstinate children when it comes to taking critique from the community.

Wow, as a person who main’s a ranger, I’m actually a bit shocked by these results. Specifically, by what a landslide ranger got voted for. I thought they’d come close to the “worst” for dungeons, but that they’d have a rival or two.

My votes:

Open world PvE: “I don’t know”
I think the ranger is awesome at open world PvE. I leveled and did map complete before the defense buff on pets and the attack nerf, but I imagine that a beefy agro-drawing pet would have made it even easier. Compared to the ele, mesmer, and even warrior, I thought the ranger with their loving companion wasn’t bad. I almost voted for thief or mesmer, but mesmer gets much better as you get their level up, and I haven’t tried leveling a thief, so they might be much easier than I think. I’m surprised Ranger got as many votes as it did.

Dungeons:
Ranger… To be fair, I don’t know how useful/useless an engi is to have, because it’s SO RARE that I have one in the party. Ranger has a dead limping pet half the time, even with proper recall and pet swapping. I run spiders because a pet in the enemy’s face is a dead pet. Pre-patch I ran drakes, because in many dungeons and lower-level fractals (below 20) I had little issue keeping them alive. Pet management is a significant learning curve, and in some situations it’s just impossible (haven’t done the recent dungeon yet, but couldn’t keep the pet alive in the final boss in Molten Facility, and the Southshore instance where my pet triggered bombs made me a huge liability to myself and my team.)

Large-scale WvW: Ranger! Easily. Dead pet. Dead pet always. Aside from an awesome water field, or dead spirits, no support. Stability only accessible through an ultimate utility in which warrior’s have a shorter cooldown of and an inactive effect. There’s just so little we can do. A thief at least brings blast finishers, can stealth in and take out enemy siege in open field combat, stealth stomp to rally allies, and, unless it’s been fixed yet, lay down a supply trap in the middle of an enemy zerg.

Small scale and PvP: Warrior, if the small-scale is 3 people or less. Warrior in PvP. Ranger can handle these. It is not suffering in spvp, which is probably why their issues won’t be addressed for a long time, if ever :/

Again though, I’m very surprised at the clear trend. It’s obvious that the member base doesn’t view the classes equally, and it hurts that the ranger is perceived as the worst (or near worst) in almost every category.

I never knew rangers are that bad, and I do like rangers, they do good damage and have a lot of survivability.

id vote ranger even tohugh its my main … free buff for me please

For open world PvE, I was surprised that people put Ranger. We’re rather powerful in open world PvE, and do quite a good job of killing things and surviving. I voted they were all equal.

For instanced, the landslide vote for Ranger doesn’t surprise me. I’m practically shoehorned into my Trap build just to be useful to the party (due to field combos and the heavier conditions such as Chill and Burn), all because spirits do nothing worthwhile when they die so fast (seriously, my hatred of the current spirit setup is pretty big).

Large scale WvW, I’m surprised people put Ranger. Does nobody put down traps for the opposing zerg’s members to get hit by? I voted thief for this.

Small scale WvW, while I can see Rangers being slightly bad, I was actually surprised that they beat out Warriors, which are a joke to begin with in anything PvP.

The sPvP, I voted Warrior and was not surprised when they won this. But Ranger? Seriously people, get over the QQing over the pet nerfs for sPvP, we ARE overpowered in 1v1.

The poll shouldnt have been done yet, until a few weeks after the patch when everyone is more calm about it. Of course people will vote emotionally as of now.

I suppose I can see why Rangers were voted worst in dungeons although I’ve seen rangers solo things that no other profession could.

Open world PVE? No way. I understand they were voted 2nd worst but if anything they should be voted the best. I’ve soloed champions where none of my other characters could (except for my engineer).

I suppose WvW zergs I could see but even then you still have options.

I guess I just don’t see it. The sky really isn’t falling for Rangers as some seem to think it is.

Lol @ mesmers being worst open world PvE class. xD

Interesting results, though. I guessed a couple of them!

You should also do a poll on what people think are the best classes for the respected aspects of the game, and then compare it to the results that you got here.

You might get a different picture or view.

This is interesting, but if you do it again in the future you should probably also include a portion for which profession(s) they play most often, since that skews results, and like someone else said, a bit longer after a balance patch :p

That said, statistics like these really do tell us a lot about how players view the state of the game and are always nice to see. I wonder how this would look next to a “best” study as well, although that topic is kind of old.

As for ranger pets- I don’t think the option to stow them permanently removes something that makes them unique. I rather liked the way gw1 had them as optional things you could spec into. Rangers back then could mostly focused on, well, ranging things.

I called it: I said in the thread yesterday that Rangers would do crappy across the board.

Arale.4207:

Lol @ mesmers being worst open world PvE class. xD

Interesting results, though. I guessed a couple of them!

Well most people that play mesmer want to do attrition clone builds rather than shatter or phantasm builds. And unfortunately due to ANet having the worst AI programmers in the history of gaming, clones are utterly useless as anything but shatter fodder against most of the games AI.

I’m shocked as well on these results, namely as I play a Ranger since release.

I believe these results are based on, like someone above mentioned, a knee jerk reaction (i’m talking of Ranger) from this recent patch.

Ranger is excellent in open PvE, if not the top best. Again, someone above mentioned soloing champions many professions cannot do on a regular occasion. Dungeon… Yes we all know about this… horrid. Of course.
sPvP: again, at the top. There’s countless videos in the Ranger forum showcasing this exact discussion.

I find it funny how Elementalists are not mentioned at all, though…

Its a shame we didn’t have a poll just before the patch. I am willing to bet the ranger would show the same, except in PvP.

Azure Prower.8701:

I find it amusing people think Thieves are the worst open world PVE class.

Open world PvE is not terribly challenging and can be done adequately well by any class. But, between being very squishy, not having any real form of aggro deflection, and having a horrible downed state, Thieves are the weakest, especially at lower levels.

If you don’t think so, then the only explanation I can think of is that you don’t have enough experience with other classes.

Otherwise, I agree with most of the above patches that some of the explanations are based on knee-jerk reactions. Rangers need some help, especially for dungeons, but they most certainly not second worst at open world pve. If anything they’re substantially better than most classes.

Einlanzer.1627:

Azure Prower.8701:

I find it amusing people think Thieves are the worst open world PVE class.

Open world PvE is not terribly challenging and can be done adequately well by any class. But, between being very squishy, not having any real form of aggro deflection, and having a horrible downed state, Thieves are the weakest, especially at lower levels.

If you don’t think so, then the only explanation I can think of is that you don’t have enough experience with other classes.

Otherwise, I agree with most of the above patches that some of the explanations are based on knee-jerk reactions. Rangers need some help, especially for dungeons, but they most certainly not second worst at open world pve. If anything they’re substantially better than most classes.

I can tag and kill more enemies faster with my short bow thief. Than most other players.

Navzar.2938:

This is interesting, but if you do it again in the future you should probably also include a portion for which profession(s) they play most often, since that skews results, and like someone else said, a bit longer after a balance patch :p

That said, statistics like these really do tell us a lot about how players view the state of the game and are always nice to see. I wonder how this would look next to a “best” study as well, although that topic is kind of old.

As for ranger pets- I don’t think the option to stow them permanently removes something that makes them unique. I rather liked the way gw1 had them as optional things you could spec into. Rangers back then could mostly focused on, well, ranging things.

The pet undoubtedly should be more utilitarian and mostly optional, because the Ranger contains a lot more archetypes than just a beastmaster. Currently, the pet is far too intrinsically tied to the Ranger’s overall performance, which is annoying and results in a lot of the profession’s problems.

Results are pretty much what I expected. However I do think the results are skewed a littled with the recent ranger nerfs.

Redo the survey in a month and see how the results compare.

Thief is currently completely dead in large WvW because zerg WvW takes place at 1200 range and thief is the only class that can’t reach over 900 range anymore. This also kills them in WvW defense since the walls are 900 high and they can now only hit the tops of rams.

In dungeons thief is subpar when using a backstab build. However using a venom or sword build they can be quite strong. The problem is that Anet won’t split up the builds/balance between WvW and PvE so most thieves run a backstab build and then do poorly in PvE.

Once Anet realizes they need to completely separate PvE/WvW/PvP then balance will vastly improve.

Theif is much worse than a ranger in zerg combat.

Rangers can provide long lasting water fields and fire fields, and is very survivable and can help absorb aoe damage. As well as decent range.

Thief pretty much only brings blast finishers to zerg combat and stealth fields to slip a Mesmer out with a portal ready.

Now I have ~1600 votes. I’ll do another update of the results when I get 2000.

I have an 80 thief and ranger, and I am baffled as to how people think they aren’t very good.

Obviously both are starter classes in terms of how easy they are to play. So that might affect the results somewhat, since the people playing those classes are probably not the most skilled players to begin with and might find content difficult.

I actually 3 man dungeons with 2 other guildies, and in those situations I’m pretty much forced to use my ranger since it outperforms my guard/engi.

I approve of this thread, nice work OP.

It might bring some attention to the fact that Rangers are still ArenaNet’s neglected runt child since release and SERIOUSLY need some buffs.

Conncept.7638:

Arale.4207:

Lol @ mesmers being worst open world PvE class. xD

Interesting results, though. I guessed a couple of them!

Well most people that play mesmer want to do attrition clone builds rather than shatter or phantasm builds. And unfortunately due to ANet having the worst AI programmers in the history of gaming, clones are utterly useless as anything but shatter fodder against most of the games AI.

Certain specs of every class will be bad in open world pve. While mesmers don’t have the huge AoE, we can tag reliably with shatters and greatsword/staff. Just takes a bit longer. While we start off slow, by level 40 I was soloing everything I came across. My experience with mesmer leveling up was very different from what others seem to have encountered. I would say Mesmer is one of the better open world PVE classes. :o

Also, the attrition build can work. It’s just not as optimal. I leveled til 50 using staff mainhand and condition damage, so I wasn’t even doing the power shatter stuff until later. Clones can be stupid, but by that level you can pump them out fairly quickly if you need to shatter them or create non-kittened variants.

Conncept.7638:

Arale.4207:

Lol @ mesmers being worst open world PvE class. xD

Interesting results, though. I guessed a couple of them!

Well most people that play mesmer want to do attrition clone builds rather than shatter or phantasm builds. And unfortunately due to ANet having the worst AI programmers in the history of gaming, clones are utterly useless as anything but shatter fodder against most of the games AI.

Dude, did you even play a mesmer? I went glass (like I do with every class) and let me tell you, it was an ordeal. The damage was good but doing the Vigil quests ended in me often getting overwhelmed, at least as a phantasm mesmer. It was so annoying that I just stopped leveling the mesmer in PvE and went 21-80 in WvW alone.

Yeah thieves aren’t very good in pve because they do purely dps and warrior does same exact thing but better.

Thieves need serious increase in damage. Especially since they aren’t as tanky as a warrior.

Azure Prower.8701:

I find it amusing people think Thieves are the worst open world PVE class.

Indeed. Yesterday I did both Cursed Shore and Malchor’s Leap with my thief. I have done 100% Orr maps with 3 other characters before that. Everything went smooth. Malchor’s Leap went super fast, around 2 hours total, while doing one temple event chain, but I was solo moving to all places and biggest time was spent doing the Malchor’s finger’s vista, because I suck at jumping (and that is as painful with any profession).

Very high mobility, combined with tons of stealth makes it very easy to skip content. You can commune the skill points and loot chests in stealth without defeating the mobs or the champion / veteran boss next to it.

People are still raging at thief forums about the cluster bomb nerf. I was using shortbow about 70% of the time. Tons of caltrops from uncatchable trait, high endurance regeneration, tons of vigor, dodge, dodge, might stacking, lots of boons, spamming mostly choking gas + cluster bomb to clean the mobs alone. And occasional dagger storm. D/P against strong melee opponents and bosses. While my thief was still around 40 level I used the same strategy to farm Southsun Cove alone, despite I didn’t have all the useful traits nor that good sigil/rune combination.

Three easiest professions for pve in order: Warrior, guardian and thief.

Also ranger is not that bad at all when it comes to open pve content.

I cannot much help with dungeons as I do them only few times per month, but if you have trouble with open world pve and you’re on an EU player, I can maybe give a help and show very simple builds for all professions.

SkyChef.5432:

Erasculio.2914:

OP, the issue with your poll is that it was done right after a huge nerf to rangers. It’s only to be expected that people would have a knee-jerk reaction and claim rangers are the world profession in the game.

…

That’s a speculation w/ confirmation bias undertone and no statistical importance attached to it. Secondly, you assume 45% of people voting out of 1500 voters are emotional less stable than you. Which I think you take yourself too seriously.
The OP could enhance his survey to cover that but ranger class was considered a poor class in dungeons and other contents even before the Search & Rescue fixed.

Please don’t pretend this poll proves anything. What you’re basically looking at is ‘forum consensus’ which is hardly analytical. And it’s not even the full forum consensus, just those that feel limited internet polls provide any statistical integrity.

Leo G.4501:

SkyChef.5432:

Erasculio.2914:

OP, the issue with your poll is that it was done right after a huge nerf to rangers. It’s only to be expected that people would have a knee-jerk reaction and claim rangers are the world profession in the game.

…

That’s a speculation w/ confirmation bias undertone and no statistical importance attached to it. Secondly, you assume 45% of people voting out of 1500 voters are emotional less stable than you. Which I think you take yourself too seriously.
The OP could enhance his survey to cover that but ranger class was considered a poor class in dungeons and other contents even before the Search & Rescue fixed.

Please don’t pretend this poll proves anything. What you’re basically looking at is ‘forum consensus’ which is hardly analytical. And it’s not even the full forum consensus, just those that feel limited internet polls provide any statistical integrity.

I don’t think the results would be much different if the poll were conducted purely in game or on GW2G or reddit.

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Leo G.4501:

SkyChef.5432:

Erasculio.2914:

OP, the issue with your poll is that it was done right after a huge nerf to rangers. It’s only to be expected that people would have a knee-jerk reaction and claim rangers are the world profession in the game.

…

That’s a speculation w/ confirmation bias undertone and no statistical importance attached to it. Secondly, you assume 45% of people voting out of 1500 voters are emotional less stable than you. Which I think you take yourself too seriously.
The OP could enhance his survey to cover that but ranger class was considered a poor class in dungeons and other contents even before the Search & Rescue fixed.

Please don’t pretend this poll proves anything. What you’re basically looking at is ‘forum consensus’ which is hardly analytical. And it’s not even the full forum consensus, just those that feel limited internet polls provide any statistical integrity.

I don’t think the results would be much different if the poll were conducted purely in game or on GW2G or reddit.

And what do you think you gain from gathering bias opinions?

Although numbers can’t lie (the one posting them can however) I have to question those people’s votes. Thief is really solid in open pve, because of their stealth access and traits around it. Wouldn’t say they are the best (personally I’d say ranger is the best in open pve because they can solo a ton with little effort) but thief shouldn’t be near the bottom. Again the % difference may not mean much but thats just my opinion.

Ranger as the worst in closed pve? Yeah thats obvious… its because they are pet bound and the thing is a brainless leg weight.

Ranger worst class in small scale wvw??? LOLOLOLOL
They’re one of the best in small scale combat!

Azure Prower.8701:

I find it amusing people think Thieves are the worst open world PVE class.

I actually thought my Thief was one of the more fun and effective characters for PVE. Perhaps there have been changes that I was unaware of. Maybe the thief is different now than when the game first came out?

Iluth.6875:

I have an 80 thief and ranger, and I am baffled as to how people think they aren’t very good.

Obviously both are starter classes in terms of how easy they are to play. So that might affect the results somewhat, since the people playing those classes are probably not the most skilled players to begin with and might find content difficult.

I actually 3 man dungeons with 2 other guildies, and in those situations I’m pretty much forced to use my ranger since it outperforms my guard/engi.

I was baffled by the ranger results too. I just got my Ranger to level 80 about a week ago. It is by far my favorite in PVE. (I’ve had one of each profession.) I actually did Ranger last because I thought I would enjoy it the least.

I’ve found that the ranger is very versatile. Plus with the right pet, build and gear ranger is quite stout. I don’t do dungeon/ PVP s I won’t comment on that.

Was Ranger buffed or changed a lot recently? I’ve been seeing a disproportionate number of Rangers on my server. Feels like everyone is playing one. This makes the results on rangers even more confusing.

I can understand rangers being weaker than some in dungeons….I have two rangers. One for general WvW and one for sPvP, I don’t generally take them into dungeons. I have warriors, guardian, mesmer (etc) for that.

But rangers are by no means the worst in a WvW zerg. This shocked me. Here are some of the benefits I have found running a full zerker LB/SB ranger in WvW.

The longbow, while too slow in small scale fights, is excellent in a zerg battle. Especially if traited for it. Barrage (#5) is an aoe cripple and high damager (also an excellent way to farm badges). Point blank shot (#4) is a good way to save someone from being finished before you get there to revive. Rapid fire (#2) can finish off anyone downed from a distance. Piercing arrows trait? No explanation needed there.

If traited, a ranger has 12 seconds of “endure pain” (taking no damage from attacks) available through utilities. More than enough time to revive someone caught under arrow cart fire or get into towers to defend. Or to simply get away from a failed push.

As for the pet in a zerg, get a ranged pet and stay on the outskirts. You are a ranger, so range! The rest of the zerg is your meat shield.

Barrage is second only to staff elementalists for aoe on walls.

Healing spring: water field.

For taking camps (especially with a 2 man team), Entangle (elite) can keep all NPCs in the camp clustered, immobilized, and bleeding until they are dead. NPCs are too stupid to get out of vines. Makes taking camps a cake walk.

Granted this is my opinion on the matter, others may have had different experiences. I think the hate for all the rangers out there comes from either not knowing how to play with yours adeptly, or being on a team with someone who didn’t know what they were doing.

Leo G.4501:

TheKillerAngel.3596:

Leo G.4501:

SkyChef.5432:

Erasculio.2914:

OP, the issue with your poll is that it was done right after a huge nerf to rangers. It’s only to be expected that people would have a knee-jerk reaction and claim rangers are the world profession in the game.

…

That’s a speculation w/ confirmation bias undertone and no statistical importance attached to it. Secondly, you assume 45% of people voting out of 1500 voters are emotional less stable than you. Which I think you take yourself too seriously.
The OP could enhance his survey to cover that but ranger class was considered a poor class in dungeons and other contents even before the Search & Rescue fixed.

Please don’t pretend this poll proves anything. What you’re basically looking at is ‘forum consensus’ which is hardly analytical. And it’s not even the full forum consensus, just those that feel limited internet polls provide any statistical integrity.

I don’t think the results would be much different if the poll were conducted purely in game or on GW2G or reddit.

And what do you think you gain from gathering bias opinions?

Aren’t opinions, by definition, biased?