Guild Wars 2

As someone who’s gotten two rangers to 80 simply because I wanted a different race, I can say (or hope at least) that I can classify myself as one of the better ranger players. I’ve also got an ele and a necro at 80 but nothing quite has the same feel of sicking your wolf on an enemy and watching them fall face down in the dirt.

Only time I failed a platform was when I spawned alone on top of three red rings of death with no time to respond. Every other time I’ve been watching the “preferred” classes struggle to even get their champ to half health. An exaggeration of course, since not every platform has bad players. Besides that, my pet actually held a boss over its own mines while I was downed and rezzing myself! Usually a low toughness pet won’t even cause a problem and if you suspect a ranger might be inexperienced just ask if they need help. No need to be a kittenhat about it.

Phoenixlin.8624:

A waste of wall of text.

Rangers with pets are bad for lane 2’s boss, there is no exception. Elementalists with an elemental also bad for this lane; but still elementalists > rangers ^^

This is so incorrect. I went into lane 2’s boss to help out as a ranger (bomb boss). The party went wiped at 25% except for me. I guess they didn’t know how to dodge. I tried to run in and save some of them but the spinning boss of death was right on my heels so I was unable to pick them up. They died shortly after by being in the bomb aoe. I soloed the champ until it was dead and killed the reactor before the time was up. Everyone else who watched was amazed. Unfortunately another platform in the far distance had 100% wiped and the event failed. Their group was an ele, warrior and 2 necros. There are good rangers out there and I am sick of map chat being filled with this hatred for them. I beat Liadri on my ranger, and all of these champs are easy as pie compared to her. Bring it on.

Yeah this is nothing but bs and speculation, I’ve done lane 2 many many times with a MM necro and a ranger and the pets don’t cause any issues. They might trigger a mine sometimes but theres tons of mines for the boss to hit, and a player runs into them just as often as a pet does.

Spicyhash.7605:

I don’t like playing with rangers because of point blank shot. They use this whenever it is off cooldown – knocking foes out of AoE or skills like hundred blades/other high burst skills. The only rangers I like playing with are sword/whatever because they have no skills that can really interrupt the flow of battle. Knockbacks should never be used in small group roaming or in PvE.

When you play with a lot of rangers you can count on someone moving a target around the battlefield with no thought as to the impact on other players. Actually, if it weren’t for the knockback I wouldn’t have a problem with rangers at all. I actually have two rangers and have no hate for the class—just one skill. Maybe you could have a skill unlock that requires training in using any knockback skill.

Raine.1394:

Spicyhash.7605:

I don’t like playing with rangers because of point blank shot. They use this whenever it is off cooldown – knocking foes out of AoE or skills like hundred blades/other high burst skills. The only rangers I like playing with are sword/whatever because they have no skills that can really interrupt the flow of battle. Knockbacks should never be used in small group roaming or in PvE.

When you play with a lot of rangers you can count on someone moving a target around the battlefield with no thought as to the impact on other players. Actually, if it weren’t for the knockback I wouldn’t have a problem with rangers at all. I actually have two rangers and have no hate for the class—just one skill. Maybe you could have a skill unlock that requires training in using any knockback skill.

The same claim can be made for any other class. It’s just convenient for people to blame rangers.

The amount of bad cc I’ve seen is astounding and it usually doesn’t come from rangers at all.

even if u prefer doing this event as warrior i did sometimes with my ranger.
sword + horn /sword + axe is the proper setup for champion2

Call of the Wild Grant fury, might, and swiftness to yourself and nearby allies.
Whirling Defense Blocks projectiles while damaging nearby foes.

if u are not using these two skills for boss 2 fight you should stay outside . that’s it.

ppl hates ranger for a reason. even if i have a ranger too i do not like when ppl from party when i see them using boar + autoshot only in dungeon

xenon.3264:

even if u prefer doing this event as warrior i did sometimes with my ranger.
sword + horn /sword + axe is the proper setup for champion2

Call of the Wild Grant fury, might, and swiftness to yourself and nearby allies.
Whirling Defense Blocks projectiles while damaging nearby foes.

if u are not using these two skills for boss 2 fight you should stay outside . that’s it.

No. Just no.

Shortbow works as well for DPS and doesn’t have the much-hated knockback. Better damage output in the small arena too. I don’t like using Sword because the few times I have, invariably I wound up with mines under my feet and getting blown up.

Also I find my pet works well as a “lure” for the silly mines if it’s aggro’d and I recall it.

ppl hates ranger for a reason. even if i have a ranger too i do not like when ppl from party when i see them using boar + autoshot only in dungeon

This is one reason I kicked bears to the curb, aside from them just not being worth it to me.

It’s not rangers, it’s just people who cant play their class.
In the example of OP, Lane 2 failed due to rangers not knowing to recall pet and mucking up the boss mechanics.

TheBlackLeech.9360:

Sorry… I will always prefer any one of the other 7 professions over ranger when doing anything as a group. Usually the people defending pve ranger have yet to play the other classes up to 80, or are generally terrible at the game and are using terrible builds on all their characters.

There is nothing a ranger can do that another class cannot do better.

I have 2 Mesmers, a Ranger, a Necro and an Engi at 80.
I have done Mari on all but my Engi
I much prefer my Ranger for platform fights and my wells Necro for lane defense.
Mesmer is the most balanced- so I take her most of the time

I did Gauntlet on my Ranger.
I have done Teq on both my Ranger and Mesmer

I would like to disagree with you.

I can still do things on my Ranger that I cannot do on any of the others- just as on each of those I can do some things the others can’t do.

Each class has it’s own strengths and weaknesses- It is up to the player to use the class effectively.
There is no such thing as a bad class.

Of course YOU can do this, of course YOU can solo any Marionette champion as a ranger, I don’t deny it. But it’s not the rule for the remaining rangers. Of all the classes, this one seems to attract inexperienced and/or careless players at most. Is it because of pet tanking everything and player safely shooting from distance? Probably.

Josh Foreman said that a certain amount of players don’t know that there is a trait system. There are past dev statements claiming that most of the players don’t know how the combo fields work. How many rangers do you think don’t know how to control their pet? 20%, 30%, 40%?

Thanks to the open world raid system, whether you fail or not may be entirely dependant on such a player, who also happens to ignore map chat suggestions.

Konrad.9587:

Of course YOU can do this, of course YOU can solo any Marionette champion as a ranger, I don’t deny it. But it’s not the rule for the remaining rangers. Of all the classes, this one seems to attract inexperienced and/or careless players at most. Is it because of pet tanking everything and player safely shooting from distance? Probably.

Completely agree. This game is polluted with bad and mediocre rangers. Once in a blue moon you might get a good one that uses sword, but 99.9999% of the time rangers stay with their horrid dmg bow and pew pew away. It seems ranger attracts a large amount of inexperienced/not willing to learn players. And that’s great! Play how you want right?…… until it starts affecting other players……

People just keep blaming classes because they don’t want to take responsibility for:

A. Their inability to employ mathematics for buildcrafting.
B. The inability to search for/listen to people who can do A.
C. Their lack of skill.
*D. They don’t want to blame bad players for being bad. Partially because that looks more offensive, partially because someone they want to suck up to may be one of those bad players.

And when 80% of people bully the bespectacled freckled kid in the corner, most people joining will bully the same kid, not find a new target.

It doesn’t change the reality about the class, it simply reflects the lack of intelligence on the side of the bullies. Don’t worry about it too much. If the class sucks it sucks whether or not people hate on it. If it doesn’t it doesn’t whether or not people hate on it.

Meh, every class attracts inexperienced/not willing to learn players, just as every class has its share of very experienced players. It’s just more obvious on a Ranger when someone isn’t so sure of what they’re doing.

Also, one thing that people forget, it seems, is that not everybody joins the learning curve at the same time. So while they admit it takes time to learn the encounter, they don’t admit that by this time some people wouldn’t have had time. The first time I had time to sit down and tackle the Marionette was last weekend. So others had obviously been doing the boss for 4 days. Some were absolutely amazed that I asked how the encounters worked before we started. There will be people at the end of this week only just coming to the fight for the first time – people in this game are not existing according only to one timeline.

Some also assume that watching a video of someone else doing something makes you very good at it yourself. No, it does not. If that were true, I’d be a brilliant comedian and also a concert pianist. I know technically the “rules” for holding an audience, setting up a joke etc, but that doesn’t mean I’m any good at it. That takes practise. And for some, that practise stage is longer. Phrases like, “If they even have to ask at this point then they should just leave” (which I have actually seen in map chat) only encourage newer people NOT to ask. Knowing you will attract aggro before you’ve even opened your mouth is not encouraging.

Spicyhash.7605:

Gbok.1039:

Spicyhash.7605:

I don’t like playing with rangers because of point blank shot. They use this whenever it is off cooldown – knocking foes out of AoE or skills like hundred blades/other high burst skills. The only rangers I like playing with are sword/whatever because they have no skills that can really interrupt the flow of battle. Knockbacks should never be used in small group roaming or in PvE.

You do realize that rangers are not the only ones that have knockbacks right?

Are you honestly trying to tell me that you have never seen or even believe that another class could have used a knockback to push the target back…..ever?

This is the real issue here… For some ungodly reason people think that only rangers suck at this game which is just ignorant and silly to even think.

knockback != knockdown. i don’t mind knockdown. it simply.. knocks them down. it doesn’t blow them out of range of an aoe or burst skill. this discussion was about rangers, and not mesmer (gs 5), necro (fear), thief (scorpion wire), ele(the especially annoying updraft), guardian (banish) and engineer (B.O.B). knockbacks are fine in large zergs when there is so much ridiculous aoe damage that all it does is get your target killed quicker, but not in pve or roaming in <5 man groups. guardian gs pull is infinitely more useful for clumping mobs than point blank shot is.

What was the point of this response?

I know the difference between a knockback and a knockdown.
There are other classes that have them both.

People playing those classes can use them in any area of the game just like rangers can.

You go on to state that this thread was about rangers then in the next few statements make a comment about how guards pull is better.

How about you go a figure out your point and try to make it again because you completely missed my question and failed to respond to it.

Again….are you trying to tell me that no other class has ever used their knockbacks when they should not have?
Are you trying to tell me that all the bad players in this game only play rangers?

That was the point. Any class can fail at the game like you described rangers failing with point blank shot. And they do as I have seen it many times over.

Rangers have issues but this is not one of them. We can complete any content in this game in a very timely manner. The hate is uncalled for and not needed.

Hamsome the pig was a hero during a recent marionette boss 3. Twice he got to “Search and Rescue” the Hurr Durr must 100blades Warden #3 warrior on my platform. We finished the regulator with 0:02 on the clock. We were the last platform and the chain got severed. If I had to stop and rez the war myself we wouldn’t have made it.

Sum up why rangers are scoffed at is BOWS… and only do to the fact that they can not blast finish / combo field the group and to use them effectively the Ranger is out of range off all the group buffs. THIS IS THE PROBLEM!!

All the other class’s can in effect be in melee and get help or give buffs with out effecting there damage.

On the other hand rangers are the only class punished for using there primary iconic weapon in melee range. You want to fix rangers… extend the buff range to effect them and give them some way to give buffing fields or blast finishers with bows.

As far as lane 2 ranger pet has no effect.. in fact it can be a boon. Allowing the group to run behind the boss then the player switch’s or recalls there pet and instantly the boss turns around and into its own mines.

Rather than being mad at other player’s for pointing out the uselessness of the ranger class, point it out to Anet as there is far more likelihood of something being done about it.

Getting mad at the truth does nothing, work towards changing the truth.

I remember a WvW guild on SoR that would kill rangers on sight. I think it was Aco/ward. Was pretty hilarious seeing 20 people chase a single ranger in a group of 5.

Well, I use sword/x and greatsword on my ranger, switching to a bow when only absolutely necessary. Maul for opening strike and switch to sword for dps, switching again when I really need to dodge and sword auto might screw me up. I use spotter and frost spirit when grouping and buff/dps pets. I guess I’m a rare breed, as most I see are running around with bows. I love the greatsword animations on ranger, so I use it when soloing, but I am smart enough to know that 1 hand swords are the best for dps overall.

While ranger does need help from anet, the problem here is more about the players. My main is ranger and I know to use passive pets and swap between my bow and sword based on what’s going on. People like rangers in any game often for bows and pets and the dps issues are something for anet to look at. Rangers causing a lane to lose are the players fault.

Nick.6972:

Ranger seems to be extremely dull and boring profession, in my opinion, I got my ranger to level 30 and was so bored of the whole play style I deleted it. That bow shooting sound was just annoying.

Uh…compared to what? An engineer or ele? This statement is a pure falsehood to the reality of the class. By your statement I have to assume you were bored of dying because you couldn’t learn the class by the 30th level. Ranger is a very hard class to play well. People hate rangers because so many ineffectual players bring them into areas where they are not suited. In a boss situation where the pet draws agro to the players, you shouldn’t be there with a pet since you cannot 100% stop the pet from attacking (I wish we could, trust me).

Making a statement like this when you didn’t even level the toon makes me think you just mash the 1 key with some high DPS build. Dungeons and LS events may not be the best place for the ranger, I concede that fact but I have taken my ranger to rank 155 in WvW with 6500 kills (I know this is a pretty useless number since I only have throw a couple of swipes with my great sword to get credit for the death), have world completion and have solo’d multiple champs with him. It’s work, you gotta know your class so it is an insult when someone makes a statement like you did even if you used “seems” as a preface.

The true solution to this endless argument about rangers is up to the rangers themselves to solve. It’s up to us who play this class to prove to others that not only is the class a viable one but that also it exceeds many classes in many ways (such as roaming, healing AoE, 1V1 fighting, escape methods and AoE control through Muddy Terrain or Entangle). Once people see rangers played well, they will back off but until that time, to the OP, you are going to have to put up with the ignorance of others.

Cassocaster.4576:

The true solution to this endless argument about rangers is up to the rangers themselves to solve. It’s up to us who play this class to prove to others that not only is the class a viable one but that also it exceeds many classes in many ways (such as roaming, healing AoE, 1V1 fighting, escape methods and AoE control through Muddy Terrain or Entangle). Once people see rangers played well, they will back off but until that time, to the OP, you are going to have to put up with the ignorance of others.

The player cannot fix bad mechanics. The in ability for rangers to blast fields or make fields with a BOW is not something player skill can fix. When end game is about stacking fields and blasting them a bow ranger is totally left out. This is the problem. No player skill will fix the issue with the bows and given that is why ranger is played more often is to be a range dps class its a glaring issue.

It’s really the player and not the class. I’ve seen plenty of great rangers in Marionette, but the awful ones are TRULY awful. This is more prevalent in Boss #2 where they fail to lure the boss into mines. It is more the ranger himself running around in a circle AWAY from the boss instead of INTO luring the boss into the mine by standing between a mine and a boss. This isn’t limited to the class itself as I’ve seen so many not so smart players who would waste 45 seconds running around and not luring into the boss. It would usually take 3 or 4 people yelling obscenities at the other player to get them to stop wasting time. Usually that offending player stops to type something and dies allowing the other players to properly engage the boss.

The reason why rangers get pinpointed the most is because it is more likely that it is indeed a Longbow ranger with a brown bear in tow not knowing what to do or flat out refusing to listen. It’s the bad players putting the spotlight on rangers and the pets, when it’s really just the player who doesn’t understand how to play the class.

I second this. Seen such chat at least 2 times in the last 2 days.

Lately all boss encounters are based solely on DPS. Mechanics are being mechanics, but the timers they keep slapping on every encounters does not leave a window open for many to play various classes. Because even if you’re great with mechanics and do what you gotta do, if you can’t get their Health bar down in X-Amount of time, you fail.
So it’s great that the mechanics are there, it really is, but the timer makes it all about DPS in the end, creating another single minded objective…

Gbok.1039:

Spicyhash.7605:

Gbok.1039:

Spicyhash.7605:

I don’t like playing with rangers because of point blank shot. They use this whenever it is off cooldown – knocking foes out of AoE or skills like hundred blades/other high burst skills. The only rangers I like playing with are sword/whatever because they have no skills that can really interrupt the flow of battle. Knockbacks should never be used in small group roaming or in PvE.

You do realize that rangers are not the only ones that have knockbacks right?

Are you honestly trying to tell me that you have never seen or even believe that another class could have used a knockback to push the target back…..ever?

This is the real issue here… For some ungodly reason people think that only rangers suck at this game which is just ignorant and silly to even think.

knockback != knockdown. i don’t mind knockdown. it simply.. knocks them down. it doesn’t blow them out of range of an aoe or burst skill. this discussion was about rangers, and not mesmer (gs 5), necro (fear), thief (scorpion wire), ele(the especially annoying updraft), guardian (banish) and engineer (B.O.B). knockbacks are fine in large zergs when there is so much ridiculous aoe damage that all it does is get your target killed quicker, but not in pve or roaming in <5 man groups. guardian gs pull is infinitely more useful for clumping mobs than point blank shot is.

What was the point of this response?

I know the difference between a knockback and a knockdown.
There are other classes that have them both.

People playing those classes can use them in any area of the game just like rangers can.

You go on to state that this thread was about rangers then in the next few statements make a comment about how guards pull is better.

How about you go a figure out your point and try to make it again because you completely missed my question and failed to respond to it.

Again….are you trying to tell me that no other class has ever used their knockbacks when they should not have?
Are you trying to tell me that all the bad players in this game only play rangers?

That was the point. Any class can fail at the game like you described rangers failing with point blank shot. And they do as I have seen it many times over.

Rangers have issues but this is not one of them. We can complete any content in this game in a very timely manner. The hate is uncalled for and not needed.

The problem with Point Blank Shot is that it is a ranged knock back on a ranged weapon. When warriors, guardians, and eles use their knock back, they then have to chase after the target, which teaches them not to spam it. Mesmer’s knock back requires melee range with a greatsword. Similar with engineers. Rangers, see no personal consequences to using their knock back: sit at range, knock back an enemy being meleed by others, it’s still in ranger’s range so keep attacking. Everyone else is annoyed.

It is too easy for rangers to spam this skill thoughtlessly, hindering the efforts of everyone else. Thus, intentionally or not, it becomes a troll skill that turns other players against rangers.

Anet should reconsider how this skill works. I recommend a stun or daze instead of knock back. It would keep it’s primary function as an interrupt, but be useful to a team. If not that, then make it work like the mesmer greatsword: set it to melee range.

Morgash.3165:

Cassocaster.4576:

The true solution to this endless argument about rangers is up to the rangers themselves to solve. It’s up to us who play this class to prove to others that not only is the class a viable one but that also it exceeds many classes in many ways (such as roaming, healing AoE, 1V1 fighting, escape methods and AoE control through Muddy Terrain or Entangle). Once people see rangers played well, they will back off but until that time, to the OP, you are going to have to put up with the ignorance of others.

The player cannot fix bad mechanics. The in ability for rangers to blast fields or make fields with a BOW is not something player skill can fix. When end game is about stacking fields and blasting them a bow ranger is totally left out. This is the problem. No player skill will fix the issue with the bows and given that is why ranger is played more often is to be a range dps class its a glaring issue.

What’s an issue is how stacking fields with blasting them is now considered vital instead of a neat trick.

And a bow ranger isn’t totally left out. We have Warhorn #5 since we can, of course, wield two weapon sets. (That’s twice as many as Elementalists.)

Could probably do away with the auto attack setting for pets or at least not have it as the default setting. That way new rangers will learn pet control as many have likely not ever set their pet to passive or even know that setting exists. What I mean by passive is the setting where the pet does nothing without the player having told them to do it. The default setting has the pet automatically attack whatever the player is attacking. Also learn to use knockback intelligently and dont just spam it whenever it is available.

Slither Shade.4782:

Could probably do away with the auto attack setting for pets or at least not have it as the default setting. That way new rangers will learn pet control as many have likely not ever set their pet to passive or even know that setting exists. What I mean by passive is the setting where the pet does nothing without the player having told them to do it. The default setting has the pet automatically attack whatever the player is attacking. Also learn to use knockback intelligently and dont just spam it whenever it is available.

A pet will attack, even in passive mode, if you take damage. The real trick is having rangers use F3 to draw the pet back to the player if the pet bolts after your target.

I love rangers (even I do not play one) I think indeed that people say they are bad. But I duelled some very good ones. If you are a ranger and you do duellish Pvp or WvW videos. Tell me and I sub. The really duel channals are just War , thief ,war ,thief ,war ,war,war ,mesmer , war ,thief ,mesmer,war,mesmer,war,mesmer ,thief, guardian , war , thief ,guardian. (You get where I go with this)

I would love to C some duels from rangers/necro.

I play necromancer myself and alot of people switched to thief/war/mesmer.

I have been playing lane one to get the stomp AP. Aggro against the pet can be great with the devourers because they auto retreat away so they draw the arrow towards the wall. As long as the pet survives the champ is facing the wall. And yes we complete our circle each time but sometimes others do not so it took me about 3 tries to get the stomp. The kick with the second boss is actually the first attack dodge that I got in this event and that was shortly after release.

Phoenixlin.8624:

A waste of wall of text.

Rangers with pets are bad for lane 2’s boss, there is no exception. Elementalists with an elemental also bad for this lane; but still elementalists > rangers ^^

lol right…
I just set my pet to passive and dodge between mines… win

Confirmation bias is confirmation bias. Getting reeeeally tired of it.

Hayashi.3416:

People just keep blaming classes because they don’t want to take responsibility for:

A. Their inability to employ mathematics for buildcrafting.
B. The inability to search for/listen to people who can do A.
C. Their lack of skill.
*D. They don’t want to blame bad players for being bad. Partially because that looks more offensive, partially because someone they want to suck up to may be one of those bad players.

And when 80% of people bully the bespectacled freckled kid in the corner, most people joining will bully the same kid, not find a new target.

It doesn’t change the reality about the class, it simply reflects the lack of intelligence on the side of the bullies. Don’t worry about it too much. If the class sucks it sucks whether or not people hate on it. If it doesn’t it doesn’t whether or not people hate on it.

Not entirely true. I’ve been saying for some time, the problem isn’t classes, it’s bad players. However people flip their lids over this.

It ‘reeks’ of elitism, I’m told. These events are being spoiled for all of us by ignorant, lazy, and horrible players who don’t know the basics of the game. I was stuck 2 manning a warden with a great player who was a Ranger. We did fine. No problem. Didn’t bother rezzing the other players once they went down for their second time.

Those bad players are the problem there. This is a team event. Contribute or leave please and let a motivated player get into the server. We are willing to teach and work together. That’s what an MMO is about. If you’re lazy and ignorant, you deserve nothing…no reward, no victory, no achievement, and no spot on the team.

DaShi.1368:

The problem with Point Blank Shot is that it is a ranged knock back on a ranged weapon. When warriors, guardians, and eles use their knock back, they then have to chase after the target, which teaches them not to spam it. Mesmer’s knock back requires melee range with a greatsword. Similar with engineers. Rangers, see no personal consequences to using their knock back: sit at range, knock back an enemy being meleed by others, it’s still in ranger’s range so keep attacking. Everyone else is annoyed.

The problem is created by indiscriminate use of the skill AND by the design of the weapon, which makes the knock back a good thing for the ranger. If the “lose damage the closer you are” mechanic on LB1 was not present, then PB Shot could become an interrupt rather than a knock with little loss to the ranger. As it is, the Knock serves the ranger by increasing (at least momentarily) his damage.

Laurelinde.4395:

Confirmation bias is confirmation bias. Getting reeeeally tired of it.

I’m confused, what does this have to do with this thread? Pardon my ignorance in advance.

Not gonna read whole thread, but will give my point of view. Having 2 80 rangers, I have played them a fair bit. Also having every other profession I can compare and contrast them. That said, imo, the ranger suffers from 3 major drawbacks, 2 of which concern pets.

1) Pet ai. This will draw aggro to unwanted places. If the player is not able or willing to control his or her pet with the limited options, then the ranger is more of a liability as a class. The inability to store pets while in combat is part of this issue.

2) Split dps with pet. Rangers that control pets effectively still have to deal with split dps. As most controlled pets are passive their dps lacks while reducing the negative aspects of pet ai. If dps were to be increased while pets were passive or stored and/or pets were able to be stored while in combat…this would be a non issue.

3) Attack animations. I’m looking at you sword auto attack chain. Well this has been acknowledged and hopefully we will see some resolve which’ll increase ranger viability.

Conner.4702:

Raine.1394:

Spicyhash.7605:

I don’t like playing with rangers because of point blank shot. They use this whenever it is off cooldown – knocking foes out of AoE or skills like hundred blades/other high burst skills. The only rangers I like playing with are sword/whatever because they have no skills that can really interrupt the flow of battle. Knockbacks should never be used in small group roaming or in PvE.

When you play with a lot of rangers you can count on someone moving a target around the battlefield with no thought as to the impact on other players. Actually, if it weren’t for the knockback I wouldn’t have a problem with rangers at all. I actually have two rangers and have no hate for the class—just one skill. Maybe you could have a skill unlock that requires training in using any knockback skill.

The same claim can be made for any other class. It’s just convenient for people to blame rangers.

The amount of bad cc I’ve seen is astounding and it usually doesn’t come from rangers at all.

Well, the same claim can’t actually be made for any class and that’s why I specified Rangers. It is only rangers where this happens repeatedly and without a doubt.

That’s what happens when ANet never considers pets when they design content. It’s all about them guardians and warriors.

Aeonblade.8709:

Laurelinde.4395:

Confirmation bias is confirmation bias. Getting reeeeally tired of it.

I’m confused, what does this have to do with this thread? Pardon my ignorance in advance.

As applied to the subject of the thread, confirmation bias would mean that people perceive rangers as causing the problem because they are predisposed to blame issues on rangers. If one expects something to be the cause, it’s pretty easy to find “evidence” that that is so, and to ignore evidence to the contrary.

Rangers have Spotter, which is arguably one of the best traits in the game, and in general have amazing DPS and offensive support. Play your Ranger awesome on that platform and I’ll take you over a Warrior any day of any month. Hell, on the platforms where you really need to range, Rangers are king. Just keep that pet ranged or on passive and you’re good to go.

Bad Rangers are really bad on this event, so I can understand the hate, but just ignore them if it doesn’t apply to you. Keep on keeping on and show them what’s up.

I soloed a platform as my Necro after four other players died and you cannot imagine the number of exclamations from onlookers about how amazed they were that a Necromancer of all things could do that. I live for that sort of show of skill, and you should too.

A+

Rangers need a lot of TLC from devs, however no amount of buffs will fix mistakes of players.

A good player can take a Ranger, make a good build, and play it well. A bad ranger can take a flawed profession and make it even worst by being a noob.

Rangers are not as bad as their reputation but its very easy to play a ranger badly.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Rangers have Spotter, which is arguably one of the best traits in the game, and in general have amazing DPS and offensive support. Play your Ranger awesome on that platform and I’ll take you over a Warrior any day of any month. Hell, on the platforms where you really need to range, Rangers are king. Just keep that pet ranged or on passive and you’re good to go.

Bad Rangers are really bad on this event, so I can understand the hate, but just ignore them if it doesn’t apply to you. Keep on keeping on and show them what’s up.

I soloed a platform as my Necro after four other players died and you cannot imagine the number of exclamations from onlookers about how amazed they were that a Necromancer of all things could do that. I live for that sort of show of skill, and you should too.

A+

Well, I dunno about AWESOME DPS (at the best within a very narrow build, Ranger kinda falls middle of the pack), but the class does have useful survivability (probably the hardest to kill medium armor class toe to toe; Thief is more annoying than sturdy), as well as useful group utility.

But all of that only matters if the players knows how to use it properly, and knows their own strengths. For example, while I know GS is a DPS drop off in terms of pure numbers, I’ve never been able to really grasp how to use Sword #1… so GS is more viable for me.

But at the end of the day, it’s easier to spot a bad ranger than say a bad warrior, and why the stereotype exists.

What needs love from the devs is both pets and the archetypal ranger, i.e., one with a bow. Rangers are actually OK if they are not using a bow, which, of course, is silly on the face of it.

Sinikka.2794:

snip
>>> Rangers just need to learn <<<
snip

Yes they do, lol. I know this is anecdotal, but in my experience, I’ve only met maybe 1 in 20 rangers who are even remotely good at combat. Basic things like dodging, weapon swapping, using their skills properly instead of just spamming LB 111111111 5 111111111 5, etc. In PvE it’s hard to discern if the class is bad or just the players in general. Something about the class seems to attract baddies. Probably the idea of having cute pets.

In PvP I’ve met plenty of what appear to be competent players playing ranger, but I can always faceroll and beat them. I feel kind of bad for them sometimes.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Aeonblade.8709:

Laurelinde.4395:

Confirmation bias is confirmation bias. Getting reeeeally tired of it.

I’m confused, what does this have to do with this thread? Pardon my ignorance in advance.

As applied to the subject of the thread, confirmation bias would mean that people perceive rangers as causing the problem because they are predisposed to blame issues on rangers. If one expects something to be the cause, it’s pretty easy to find “evidence” that that is so, and to ignore evidence to the contrary.

Sorry, yes, that is what I meant, I should have been more clear. I am painfully aware that there are not-great rangers out there, and honestly, I would be the last person in the world to say I’m amazing, just reasonably competent (I have managed Warden 2, etc – as soon as I knew about the mines I realised I needed pets to be passive and/or called back and forth so the boss would move. I’m not brilliant, but it’s not my first trip to the rodeo, either.) I am also aware that the ranger class needs some love as our core mechanic can be troublesome, let’s say, and that the concept of a primarily ranged class doesn’t jive well with the melee-heavy/stacking buffs meta.

That said, I think that people are noticing bad rangers and generalising this to all rangers in a way that isn’t the same for other classes, partly because (along with necros and mesmers) I think we are fairly immediately recognisable thanks to the pet and its sometimes frenetic pathing. I’ve mentioned in before in regards to ‘bearbows’ since I genuinely don’t see that many of them, yet from reading the forums you’d think that rangers with bears and 2 bows were carpeting Tyria like a plague of locusts.

It’s not a huge condemnation – everyone has confirmation bias, we all do it for different things – it’s just something to keep in mind.

I don’t really care about the range attached to it but a pet is ALWAYS bad. You never want one in your party. Ever.
Shame ranger’s can’t opt out of pets.

I run platform #2 on my ranger, to prove we’re not all idiots. Won it the last six times I was there.

The problem isn’t the ranger class, it’s the idiot behind the keyboard. Alas, you can’t see the player, so you get judged by the toon.

Honestly, I’d rather have any other class on any other spec instead of ranger in ANY situation.

There are so many bad rangers that it gives you all a bad name. Sorry but it’s the truth. Just yell at ANet to give you the option to disable your pet. That should fix everything.

Ramiel.4931:

Honestly, I’d rather have any other class on any other spec instead of ranger in ANY situation.

There are so many bad rangers that it gives you all a bad name. Sorry but it’s the truth. Just yell at ANet to give you the option to disable your pet. That should fix everything.

Since Rangers won’t get a DPS boost with a permastowed pet, they would then get kicked for not delivering the DPS that a warrior/guard could deliver, despite them (very likely) giving Frost spirit, Heal spring (plus warhorn to blast it) and Spotter.
Problem is the same, just a different flavour.