Guild Wars 2

I play ranger, and I avoid going into dungeons ‘cause I get blamed for everything XD. For reference, I play sw.x/gs or axe.x (I’m sure people will want to wring my neck for even thinking about bringing an Axe mainhand, but I prefer it to bows as a ranged weapon).
I love sword, which makes my life easier than most

For example, my buddy who plays warrior thinks its funny to bring kick or another knock back, and use it on the bosses when pugging and stacked to see how fast I get kicked. Its programmed into players mind that a knockback is obviously a bowbear using pbs and if I’m the only ranger in the group, I’m obviously the cause =P

And there was that time that one guy kept pulling the boss and breaking the stack and saying it was cause my pet messed up the boss agro..while it was on passive and acting as a buff bot, and before long the whole group were yelling at me for it XD (I bring buffbot kitty on passive with manual f1ing to dungeons along with frost spirit, healing spring and spotter)

So I stick with pvp as Ranger, so the more people I’m making scream in rage, the better I’m doing.

But I agree with several people here, Rangers traits are a mess and their team abilities are niche, and high aoe conflicts screw them over every time. And the “end game” content is mostly team content, with many aoes…

I love my ranger, and am kitten good at playing it. The problem is, most rangers are bad and give us a bad reputation. Most just sit there with zerker gear and longbow behind spirits/pets. Boring and suboptimal. The spirits and pets get one shotted in nearly every situation, even with the spirit HP trait.

Ranger tips for dungeons:
-ALWAYS keep the pet on passive.

-Never leave a melee pet in combat constantly, use it’s ability when needed, then recall it. Otherwise you’ll be stuck trying to juggle dead pets, which helps no one.

-Switch out of the longbow when you are forced into skirmishing range (throwing axe range) and switch to your secondary weapon. You would think this is obvious, but i see way too many longbow rangers stay within close range with the longbow.

-Rangers are a utility based class whether you want to acknowledge it or not. Be smart and switch your slot abilities between fights to play optimally. I see too many rangers camping with signets and spirits. This leads to you not being able to cope with the situation if something goes wrong, then you get blamed.

It’s not the class that is bad, (although admittedly the traits are kind of messed up) It’s the general incompetence of most rangers. It’s the class that requires the most effort to shine, which is what i personally love about it.

Myth: Rangers are Bad
False. Rangers are a very good class. Once the sword auto is fixed (which Anet expressed interest in doing), it will be even more enjoyable to play. We take Rangers into many of the dungeons. It brings a lot in the way of party wide DPS.

Much of the ‘hate’ comes from community experiences with bear bows in Dungeons. Perhaps nothing wrong with open world roaming with a bearbow or leveling with one. There is something wrong with camping range, not providing any benefits to the party and receiving none yourself. There is something wrong with spamming skills on CD just because they are off CD and ruining cleaves by constant knockback.

Now, as far as kicking goes…PuGs are mediocre at best. If they cared much about times, they would be doing Dungeons as a guild. Groups looking for ‘speed runs’ with 4 Wars and 1 Guardian are lol worthy. These are generally the groups that say ‘no rngrs or kick’…and these are the slow as molasses groups that you want to avoid anyways; bad players masquerading as experienced ones.

Forum sentiment rarely reflects in game sentiment.

The only time I’ve EVER been kicked from a group when playing my Ranger are on occasions where I intentionally trolled groups that specifically said “NO RANGARS!”

And that has been twice in all of two years.

The “ranger hate” is WAY overplayed on these forums.

The next time you’re in a dungeon and there’s a ranger with a longbow and brown bear in the party, just try-as politely as humanly possible, explain why that set-up brings nothing to the group. See how they react and you’ll understand one part of why people are very intolerable of rangers. That’s the sad part I feel-only the silliest of the silly 13 year old elitist hates the profession as a whole. It’s that one set-up: brown bear+long bow that makes people say ‘screw rangers and anyone who play them’.

Yes the pet isn’t the most wonderful thing and support isn’t as varied, but I for one will stay in a party with the ranger as long as they are using ANYTHING other than a longbow and a brown bear as it means at least they are thinking/experimenting. Which also ties into another thing-yes there are players who play the other professions and aren’t particularly good, but you can’t tell at a glance. You have no idea if that GS guardian is any good, but you are 100% certain the best you can hope for from that bearbow is he doesn’t actively hurt the group, so it would be a 4 man dungeon rather than 4 man and one saboteur.

I’m not an elitist and whine will people don’t follow what other people do and kitten about the ‘optimal’ way to have fun, but it does pain even my soul when I see the other 3 members of the party cleaving, giving boons, reflecting, cleansing conditions, debuffing, applying blinds, using combo fields (I mostly pug so I bet this one is purely coincidental-but the possibility at least is present) all that good stuff…then I see the ranger perched somewhere in the back (and STILL not even at max range so the LB’s attack are reduced anyway) just autoattacking ONE mob. Oh…and don’t forget such classics as using the lb at point blank range and firing knockback randomly whenever it’s off cd.

Personally I’ve spent over 2,500 hours playing ranger, and another 2500 hours with the other 7 profs. Have rarely seen a so-called “bearbow” ranger. I don’t do pug dungeons, never have, never will, would much rather do with guildies as whatever prof (I have 14 80’s). Those so called 13-yo elitists could be my g-grandchildren, in which case they are their parents’ problems. LOL To reiterate, I don’t use bears at all, mostly sword/d or gs with a bow, and I’m just as happy turning off my healing spring, spirit, spotter, and search and rescue, rather than revive 4 different players during maw or Jormag as I did today. I’ll just worry about my own dps & life. The forums have become exceedingly caustic which is a commentary on the status of the times today, I suppose. And, it is a sad state of affairs. After all this is just a game. Will still pop in to see the Dev’s comments.

DaShi.1368:

Probably about as many that have seen the rare Spotter or Frost Spirit. Despite so many people playing rangers, that trait and that skill aren’t common at all.

Spotter is terribly placed, for starters (Marksmanship is horribly backloaded, with Piercing Arrows, Eagle Eye, and Spotter all in the same tier and Signet of the Beastmaster one tier up).

Substance E.4852:

Oh if the ranger had a “Wave of Wealth” option I’d certainly use it.

Axe works pretty well.

@OP

I don’t hate rangers. The class can be played quite well, just depends on the person though. I’ve played with some good ones, I’ve played with some bad ones. But truth is, that can be said for any and all classes.

Sadly, too many people see a ranger and automatically assume that they are bad. This is because with rangers there seems to be no middle ground.. you either play the class well, or you don’t. Most people find the latter to be more common, which colors their judgement. Instead of taking each case for what it is – unique, they just hit the kick button. People forget that players should be judged by their merit as a player not by what class they role, ie – never judge a book by its cover. However, human nature just doesn’t work that way. We like jumping to conclusions.

Now, the next question is.. how do we resolve this issue? There really is no answer to this though because everyone plays differently, and what works for one may not work for another. Beyond that, there are simply those that either don’t care to learn or (for any number of reasons) can’t seem to get better. We simply need to be more tolerant of others and appreciate that we aren’t all ‘ubertastic’ gamers.

Ranger has poor dmg?
20k dmg with Rapid Fire in a legendary boss,4k crit with auto attack in most of the players in wvw(both without food or bloodlust stacks).You can build your ranger to not take any dmg for many seconds.
Ranger is my favourite class,played on it 1000+ hours and i can asure you many wars,ele etc. wish to have my dps.

I don’t hate rangers, it was my first character in GW2 and even though I play it a bit less these days I still love it a lot however, when I see other people play rangers I often end up kicking them because they lack one or more of the following:

1. They don’t know how to control the pet.

2. They use the wrong pets (not just the bears), There’s the Lynx pet gives a nice 5 Might stack and I hardly ever see someone use that.

3. Signet of the Hunt, this skill is almost completely useless in Dungeons yet 95% of all the rangers I met use it.

4. Melee, I won’t say ranged is bad especially since we’re talking ranger, but melee can do some nice damage too and is useful in some situations yet most of the rangers I met seem to have the bows glued to their hands.

5. Team support, Rangers can give some nice team support such as AoE condition removal, Might stacks, 150 precision from the trait.

These are my top 5 and have to say Signet of the Hunt Rangers are the ones I kick the most, waste of a utility slot, Wrong pets comes second.

Players are mentioning why Rangers use only bow and not melee too,when someone asked you why you use only staff on ele,only gs on war or only hammer on war etc. and don’t switch? Many players think they can dictate what weapons should the ranger use because thy think that’s better.Be sure you do your job with your class and if the ranger sucks kick or do whatever you want but don’t ask a ranger to play with what weapon you want him to play since nobody tells you what weapon to use.

Nury.3062:

Ranger has poor dmg?
20k dmg with Rapid Fire in a legendary boss,4k crit with auto attack in most of the players in wvw(both without food or bloodlust stacks).You can build your ranger to not take any dmg for many seconds.
Ranger is my favourite class,played on it 1000+ hours and i can asure you many wars,ele etc. wish to have my dps.

And you think this are good DPS? Without food or bloodlust

Warrior
Hundred 25k and 35k.
Whirwind and Rush : 10K
Axe Auto-attack : 3-4K while i hit 3 time faster than your Bow.

Ele
Fiery Rush on wall : 200k
Fiery Whirl : 10k
LH auto-attack : 3-4k with the third hit for about 8k, and again i hit attack faster than your bow.

So ya, your bow do decent dmg. Except when you compare then to actual decent dmg. And if you max thing up, these numbers are even higher, hundred blade can do between 40 and 60K dmg in a good group setup and can reach up to 80k (only in perfect situation).

I suppose the easy answer to this question is the perception that ranger DPS is weak along with poor pet micro on the part of many players. The DPS is actually pretty decent and commensurable to other classes provided you are a. using a 1H sword and are b. using a full set of berserker gear. Pets can be heeled or set to passive to keep them from being where they shouldn’t be. So, both of these issues can be conquered. Lack of acceptance from groups, on the other hand, is not so easy to overcome

I think the Ranger’s problem is actually multifaceted.

Pet AI is too unreliable to use them for most anything except aggro tanking and their damage output is poor even if you trait to max them out. Arenanet has actually stated that Ranger damage as a whole has been balanced to compensate for pet damage. I get the sense that pet damage output is slightly overstated and Arenanet is looking at numbers rather than using a pet in practice. I loved pets in GW1 but they were hokey in that game too, so I’m puzzled as to why it is now a “class mechanic” for the Ranger in GW2.

If you play PvP you might be aware that the Ranger’s condition spec, while better than Guardian’s, is woeful overall. The bread and butter of Rangers in GW1 was condition spam, now it’s more of an augment to raw damage builds. I honestly think, especially with the nerf to it’s range, crossfire should be given unconditional bleeds. They’re short duration as it is so I think it would still be balanced.

The “Jack of all trades” moniker applies well to the Ranger as it’s alright at everything but not good at anything. This makes the Ranger viable for skirmishes in PvP and a formidable 1v1 class. Anywhere the class must specialize to be of use, it mostly fails. Some people feel the class is boring, well it absolutely is boring if you feel ineffective no matter what spec you’re running.

There are some other issues but those are the most prominent for me. I imagine that Arenanet is already looking over possible changes to the class since people have been very vocal about it’s problems.

i absolutely love my ranger, i’ve taken down tanky geared people quite often in WvW ~ when i used to play just to lvl since i actually hate WvW – though that’s not the point >.<

i switch to great sword/sword/horn – longbow/great sword – sword/horn – short bow
etc… the thing is i switch weapons when they need to be switched. though as some have mentioned having the pet separate from the ranger is just sometimes a must. while my pet sometimes lags behind, if it gets hit i automatically get slow.. i absolutely hate that.

I find it funny in the wild a bear can catch a leaping salmon, yet a moving target moving passed them is missed. The bear is a tank. Love it in PVE. WvW not as much fun though. Not because players are so much more awesome, but because the traits of a real bear versus a wimpy non armored human is not equally shown. Toss any real thief into a cage with a bear and lets see if the packet hack works there

anyway that is another topic.

There are many things the ranger can do, and are fun to run. But the dps is kept low. ask anet. But for a farming class there is none better (except a minion army of a necro).

I have one of each profession and at least one of each race. My best solo farmer in Southsun is my Ranger. nuff said.

As most people say the pet is 50% of the rangers build so there should be a way to turn off the pet and transfer the pets 50% or so back to the ranger.