Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone!

I’ve been playing the game now for about a month and I have three classes at level 80 now, a Ranger, Necro and a Warrior. Only the Ranger has the elite spec available though as it just takes more time than I have to grind those points.

Anywho… my question revolves around a “jack of all trades” concept in playing the game. I was about 75% convinced that my Ranger was going be my main character until I joined my server’s massive WvW team the other night. With TC, BG and MG all fighting their blobs against each other, I quickly noticed how little impact my Ranger really has on any outcome of the battle. Sure, I can heal folks well enough but I didn’t create the character to be a healer… With that, I changed over to my condi Warrior and found bag collection to be sort-of crazy. With all the AoE damage, I figured the Necro will probably be the same.

For PvE, I found that any of the three are pretty easy with the Ranger or Necro being so simple at times that I could probably play the game while checking my eyelids for holes…

As for PvP, I like them all to some extent but have really been working hard on my pew-pew Ranger which I’ve found to be really fun once you learn to balance the LB with GS.

My concern though is that the class I initially picked just has no real place in one aspect of the game that I really, REALLY enjoy! It also frustrates me as my Ranger is almost fully decked out in ascended gear now too and has her primary crafting skills maxed to 500 as well.

Is there something I can do to make the Ranger more effective in WvW?

Sorry, but I have always struggled with the thought of picking the wrong class.

Thanks!

-Jalassa

Hello Jalassa,

I’d like to answer that your feeling may result from gaps between “what you like” and “what actually works”. Those gaps may vary accordingly with the game mode you’re playing.

In your exemple, WvW blobs fighting each others, the main point is to spam big AoE attacks and condis in the blob without even need of defining your enemy. Ranger is very bad at this (so are some other classes), mostly because of lack of cleaving and AoE skills.

Rangers are more of a “duel” class that works better in the small scale scene in WvW, so you may want to favor roaming and small teams with your ranger.

ThomasC.1056:

Hello Jalassa,

I’d like to answer that your feeling may result from gaps between “what you like” and “what actually works”. Those gaps may vary accordingly with the game mode you’re playing.

That is an EXCELLENT point and something I never considered. Things that make you go, “hmm…”

The other night was actually the first time I ran with a large group as I’ve almost always been going solo or with a small team. In both of those areas, the Ranger did rather well and even found it funny to crush the delicate ego of some of those friendly roaming Thieves out there.

With adding a Sigil of Fire to the LB, I figured it would help put more pressure on a group considering the crazy range the weapon has. Still, it didn’t appear to matter all that much. /sadface

I’ve had several folks suggest a Guardian really fits well in every aspect of the game but after reading over their weapon skills, they don’t appear to have much in the way of sustained mobility. It’s hard to ignore my Ranger’s +33% movement speed.

Guardians and Dragonhunter are indeed really slow. The only way to have them run faster is use of Staff 3, runes or shouts. I think staff is widely used in WvW because of mobility and the autoattack that’s an AoE that can come in handy in blobs.

Yet, I’m really not fond of staff so I won’t tell more, and maybe some other people will be able to talk better about it.

Well, another thought then after reading the Ele forums: What about giving a D/D Ele a chance again? I mentioned in their forums that I played the class for a bit when the game was first released and LOVED it. It was so exciting to play and just never felt boring. After trying it again in PvP, it felt extremely difficult to really pressure folks. That, and Rangers like mine would eat my little Ele alive in their opening burst.

If I remember right, their fire #3 ability grants immunity while being used so long time ago, I’d use my other travel skills to get close to the zerg, then fire 3 into the middle, pop a few skills, then leap away. It was so funny to watch how that would trip so many people up.

When i think of jack of all trades professions i generally think of elementalists, engineers and revenants since they can change attunements/kits/stances to fit the situation.

Use Axes. They bounce between targets. If you’re looking to hit more players use axes.

Have you tried solo roaming? Ranger is arguably one of the best at that right now. They arent amazing in large fights, but pretty OP in smaller fights with the right build.

If the ascended gear is an issue for you you might try engineer before you try ele? They’re both what I think of when I think jack of all trades (though I’ve little experience in either).

I don’t know if my experiences of wvw will be similar enough to your’s to be helpful but I find ranger really fun there so I wouldn’t say they have no place there, they’re just less effective at long ranged aoe spam than some other classes, but between bouncing axes, piercing spread shots and piercing arrows I’ve never really had a problem tagging enemies even with the current amount of antiprojectile stuff. The key to my enjoyment of it is in constantly swapping around what I’m specced into though. Particularly utilities, I change them around a lot while running depending on what’s going on. In more cramped fighting scenarios traps can be nice aoes too. Both of their melee weapon choices have nice survival and mobility options (even if main hand sword can take a bit of practice) and the longer you stay alive through defence and mobility the more help you can be to your group.

As an update…

I spent a good bit of time playing around with a few variations of the D/D ele last night in PvP and at the end, I felt like I just had to play a perfect match if I really wanted to do enough damage/healing to make much of a difference. As much as I “wanted” to make it work, it just wasn’t as good as what others could do to support the group.

I went back to testing my Ranger a bit more and as luck would have it, I got completely destroyed by a thief and another bunker druid. Frustrating…

I then changed over to my new warrior (bunker/condi) and with all the +healing I have, it felt like I couldn’t die even though I don’t have the zerker spec yet. I dueled another GS/Mace/Shield warrior and it became clear that neither of us would win the fight. On this character, it just feels like there isn’t much to worry about when it comes to solo or small groups. For large groups, I played around a bit with the rifle and that was crazy fun to see those massive crits. I’m sure it’s crazy with the zerker spec.

Anyways, I’m wondering now what you all think about the warrior filling the “jack of all trades” role. With looking through the weapons and utility skills, it really looks like she can be easily modified to fit any role w/o much trouble. As I like the condi so much, I guess I’ll have to have a condi and a marauder set of gear though.

Any other thoughts?