Guild Wars 2

Hi everyone,
I need some help choosing whether to go with Ranger or Thief. I don’t want anyone to make my decision for me but I would appreciate it if people could help me make a decision by maybe telling me the strengths and weaknesses of each class and what each class is better at than the other.
I will mainly be doing PvE with this character with some WvW but no sPvP really.
Any help or general feedback would be appreciated!
Thanks for reading!

For PvE, Ranger because;

Broad selection of weapons, superior bow weapon skills over Thief
Pet companion can rezz you if you go down, and takes some of the ‘heat’ off of your character in combat

This is just from my personal experience and I know different people have different stories, but generally:
– ranger is survivable because your pet can take aggro from you, good switching between ranges, great downed skills; some people find pets aren’t tough enough or get bored because they never have to dodge with the pet in the way.
– thief can go down very quickly if hit, but has a lot of ways to avoid that (including dodge traits), plus condition dmg and sneak attack damage spike options; stealth is much used in WvW and thieves are the masters there.

Thief has alot of stealth and resets, excellent for WvW, but currently not as good in sPvP and PvE (not bad by any means tho). On the bursty side, uses an energy system instead of cooldowns.

Ranger is great sustain damage, more innate survivability but less escapes than thief, great in PvE, ok in sPvP but considered subpar in WvW. The pet is a big part of the Ranger, so it can make or break the class depending on whether you enjoy pets or not.

Thanks for your help everyone! I like the idea of using a bow so I think the ranger is better with bows than the thief from what I’ve heard. Never used pets though so I might not like those.