Guild Wars 2

Evening!

So it seems I’m stuck… I play my ranger in pve and pvp as my main so I’m very used to it, know all the little tricks with bearbow and Condi builds etc etc… When I try play my engi Ele or Mesmer it seems I just die like I’m naked. I just flop so fast I don’t get why or how it happens. I think I’m just very very rusty on them as there’s not a great skill cap on ranger whereas ele engi Mesmer is quite high…

Any general tips I guess? I’m trying soldier rifle engi, dd ele, staff/gs Mesmer and also condi Mesmer… Feeling a bit down lately coz I just suck at everything but my ranger or warrior lol!

Foremost, I reckon you are simply not as experienced in playing the other professions, as you stated that Ranger is your main. So the more you play the other professions, the more you will be able to use all of their mechanics to your advantage and experiment with other builds.

As for finding some other builds and tips, I recommend you read or even post a question to the profession forum that you are most interested in learning.

Of course that seems to be it. For example I still have no idea how to properly setup combo fields :/

I’m happy on ranger and warrior, to be honest the only other class I kinda enjoy is engineer. I just feel like Mesmer and elementalist are a little too deflated to me, don’t know why… Necro lack of mobility annoys me and thief is just a bit too squishy/added for me lol, never a fan of thieves anyway. I solo queue a lot as well so can’t solo carry well on a thief. Works Ok on warrior, ranger and engineer though.

Wish I was half decent at engineer so I could survive burst and take people down

I have that issue with my guardian. Been playing guardian for over 2 years and I still suck at it.

I find most encounters (pve) much easier as a ranger, even with a full melee setup.

Yeah lol. I definitely want to learn to master my engi as its such a high skill capped profession, seems it’ll take an eternity though zzzz… I just die so kitten fast it’s embarrassing my team has to carry me and I can’t 1v1 anything. On my ranger however I can farm dd Ele all day -.-

Adjust.6903:

On my ranger however I can farm dd Ele all day -.-

That’s because at lower levels of play, ranger is easier to get results from than ele. At high level play, a ranger is never going to beat a d/d ele. I can duel you on my ele if you don’t believe me

Part of it is just what you’re used to. I find I die a lot more on my thief than anything else (including my ele), but that’s because it’s the one I play the least, so every time I do I have to spend a bit of time reminding myself what my skills do and how to use them properly.

But also as other people have said the ranger is very easy to use in most open-world PvE and even some WvW situations. Especially if you’re using a bearbow set-up (which means relying on your pet to tank while you stay safely away from the enemy and rarely need to think about positioning, dodging and other active defences).

Here’s something you could try: switch your ranger to a greatsword, or sword + offhand and use DPS pets like cats and birds. This means you have to get into melee range, where it’s much harder to avoid getting hit and your pet won’t easily soak up the damage for you. This means you’ll need to start doing a lot more, and thinking more about what you need to do to survive.

Then switch to something like staff ele, which allows you to stay at range somewhat and focus more on which skills you’re using than on movement like you do when you’re playing d/d.

That may well help bridge the gap and make shifting to other professions easier.

Danikat.8537:

Here’s something you could try: switch your ranger to a greatsword, or sword + offhand and use DPS pets like cats and birds.

This is basically what my ranger does.

She melts mordrem teragriffs (both kinds) and thrashers (both kinds) without breaking a sweat. My guardian gets trounced hardily by most mordrem (except husks).

Quarktastic.1027:

Danikat.8537:

Here’s something you could try: switch your ranger to a greatsword, or sword + offhand and use DPS pets like cats and birds.

This is basically what my ranger does.

She melts mordrem teragriffs (both kinds) and thrashers (both kinds) without breaking a sweat. My guardian gets trounced hardily by most mordrem (except husks).

Yep. One of the best decisions I ever made with my ranger was that just using a bow was boring and I wanted to use a sword too. It got me to learn a lot more of the mechanics which many people who main ranger just don’t pick up because they fall into the ‘bearbow’ approach of staying at range and letting the pet handle everything.

But it’s also a lot more fun IMO. Especially against teragriffs. I aggro a few of then during the defense events, plant a spike trap, drop a bonfire on top of it when they arrive and then just tear them apart.

Learn how to dodge

It sounds like this is more aimed at PvP. You did say PvE though and I can help with that if you wish. I’m on Na and engi is my main with ranger as my 2nd\sub whatever you wanta call it ^^

I guess it can also come down to your individual playstyle as well as practice. I actually started off with Guardian and Ranger and hated both, even after quite a few months of playing with them. I sucked. But I made the switch to Thief and picked it up incredibly quickly and noticed my gameplay improved tremendously with it over a relatively short amount of time. (This is from someone that mostly does WvW/PvP btw)
Thief just suited my playstyle alot more, so it didn’t matter to me so much that it was considered higher skill cap than, say, a Ranger. I pretty much play Thief exclusively now.

Everyone is going to be terribad with at least one profession, so don’t worry if you pick up a few that you just can’t get to grips with. It could well be lack of practice, but you might find that you enjoy/are simply better with Ranger or Warrior more so than Mesmer or Engi even after having practiced with them an equal amount. Or vice versa.

Oh and, as a side note, I’ve seen plenty of high level rangers beating equally skilled D/D eles. I think it’s abit unrealistic to say one just can’t beat the other.