Guild Wars 2

Ive been gone and when I first started the game I always wanted a necro but they were severely broken at launch.

I have a level 80 Engy and want either a ranger or necro. I like pets and being a minion master but also the ranged DPS of a ranger is enticing. In D3 I have been stuck back and forth on a witch doctor and demon hunter as well.. its always the battle of the summoning minion man and the archer. What class right now is in a better place for the whole of the game? (pve and all pvp types)

I don’t play a minion master Necro, but I imagine that MM necros are nearly unplayable right now, due to non responsive minions.

Been an issue for at least a month now, minions will simply idle half the time. Just a heads up.

I can only talk for the (power) ranger here. My LB were criting pre-patch for around 4k at lvl80. Now it’s 1k less. the new traits are most likely a bad joke.
Read the Wind is a bugfix. With this trait the LB can hit people like any other weapon already can (exept guardian scepter). It also requires Eagle Eye to be worthwhile.
Strider’s Defence is pretty useless since it’s only active while you’re fighting.
Poison Master is nice for the permanent poison uptime but it’s not that great since it only strengthens our least damaging condition. Low damage will stay low. Survival of the Fittest is a great new trait but it’s defensive all the way.
And Invigorating Bond is useless for the very most part.
Meanwhile, the warrior gets a 10% attackspeed boost on his strongest (damagewise) weaponset.
And pets are more responsive now. Another fix.

Also kind of depends if you’re talking from a PVE or sPvP or WvW perspective.. the answers are a bit different.

In sPvP right now, Necromancers are very strong because of the general condition-y meta. They don’t usually (from what I’ve seen) go minionmancer, but instead go a straight up condi build. Ranger also seems to be in a pretty good place.. their damage has gotten boosted a bit and over all I’m seeing a lot more of them!

I think this patch helped bring rangers to a bit better spot.

You HAVE to run Frost Spirit, and Spotter. Otherwise you are a waste of space in PvE. People are going to look for more ways to increase dps this patch, and I think ranger has always been pretty good just because of those 2 things alone, of course most pug rangers dont use them (hence the stigma against rangers… a ranger not using those 2 things is just as bad as a 5 sig warrior not using banners)

Ranger has always been pretty good in PvP, nothing extreme like mesmer or ele, but definitely good.

Necro on the other hand, waste of a slot in PvE thanks to no group buffs that increase DPS that are unique to the class, PvP necro not sure…. I think they got buffed condition wise thanks to the life steal.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

Read the Wind is a bugfix. With this trait the LB can hit people like any other weapon already can (exept guardian scepter). It also requires Eagle Eye to be worthwhile.

…if you are willing to do without Piercing Arrows (which provides AoE-like damage when firing into clumps of opponents), Spotter (a useful support trait for dungeons and WvW), and Signet of the Beastmaster (which lets signet active effects work on the Ranger). I’m not.

The “Collaborative Development: Ranger Profession” thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Collaborative-Development-Ranger-Profession/) ran for 67 pages and went over the various problems Rangers have. The little ANet feedback we got during that thread tells us that ANet intents Rangers to be a “slow and steady” damage class and so they don’t want to give the Ranger viable power builds for doing burst damage.

Well, I main ranger since beta. I have noticed in WvW alone that I survive longer due to the less amount of damage being put down on me. I did notice that people were starting to congregate in team groups MORE though in order to make up the loss in one on one damage fights. Basically an increase to havoc teams, and a larger buddy system it taking place.

Did the event for Lyssa and, usually I’m downed 0-2 times per event… if even that. Due to the change in the Lyssa Runes however, I was downed 5-6 times. The #6 ruin was changed in such a way, that when I hit my elite, I no longer receive all boons for so many seconds. Instead any condition, up to 5, will be changed INTO boons. I survived longer in WvW fights due to the Critical changes, but I became less helpful during a chain Event in PvE due to changes in my ruins that I use.

I’d have to say it’s a case by case study. There were a lot of rangers doing Zerker, and I was not one of them, so that whole doing more critical damage, was NOT a big loss for me personally.

I did take advantage however of the Two Sigils for two-handed weapons. I’m still experimenting with my version of a Tormented Ranger build. But it looks promising.

Zepidel.5349:

You HAVE to run Frost Spirit, and Spotter.

Which means I’m giving up all but one of Piercing Arrows (AoE-like damage firing into clumps), Eagle Eye (extra range), Signet of the Beastmaster (active signets effects apply to Ranger), and the new Read the Wind (faster arrows). I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing if you are normally running as part of a dungeon team or team in WvW, but it’s not necessarily desirable for other types of play, including solo roaming in PvE or WvW. Not everyone spends all their time in PvE or WvW in 5-person parties.

The damage of the ranger got increased since our pet didn’t got hit by the ferocity nerf.
So our pet has now 10% more damage, if it hits, if it utilizes crits and if it’s alive.
Since the pet eats up 30% of our damage, we got 3% additional damage (If the pet would be reliable). The warrior on the other hand got his strongest weaponset buffed by 10%.