Guild Wars 2

Hey guys I need some help choosing a class and for the life of me I can’t decide and I feel I’m just wasting time here. I love Ranger, since I was a kid I loved archers and bows in general. I also like Warriors and played both classes to around 25 ish and still can’t decide. My main goal is PVE and I might do some WvW later on.

For open world PvE both classes are strong and you can have fun with the ranger pet. In hard content and WvW the warrior is strong and the ranger pet isn’t good enough. Don’t think of the ranger as a ranged class btw. All classes do more damage in melee and the warrior arguably has better ranged damage and ranged skills than the ranger.

The Warrior is vastly more straightforward and easy to pick up and go play with.
The Ranger is more of a Jack-of-all-trades class but more challenging to play, and thusly more fun, to me atleast.

Warrior is more whack-a-mole playstyle, while the Ranger is more thought dependent.

Still waiting on more opinion from folks who have both classes at high levels

80 messer and Ranger, 69 guard, 70 warrior, 16 necro. I don’t min/max and in general suck but succeed just fine in solo PVE play.

Ranger is alright, I went more beastmaster. Never really melee’d with it, shortbow/conditions till the nerf then longbow. Never worried about dying from conditions. In Orr the mobs tend to ignore the pet though which gets annoying. Longbow 4 then 3 gets things back under control. For WvW, which I rarely do, and only with a zerg it’s my goto char because it’s so simple to play.

Way more single target focused then Warrior but can take more then one if needed with good pet management. (just FYI: ranged Messser with clone on dodge and vigor can practically take on a whole map though since mobs focus on the clones/spawned clones attack closest threat from spawnpoint and Ranger is diffinatly not even near that level.)

The Warrior just hit 70 and while it can take a beating and more then one PVE mob at a time easily, conditions flat out hurt. Trying to get that under control now but it’s a bear in taking on 5 then having to run because conditions are stacking faster then they can be purged. Stability is a problem also. Basically you have to think alot more about your equipment/runes/signets/dodging and blocking then Ranger (as ranged Ranger anyway). I’d compare it to a messer but kills alot faster while being less hectic, and in some cases less sturdy.

Warriors also get only one single combo field that is F1 off longbow but tons of finishers. But an Asura warrior gets a racial field, Radiation Field which I use all the time- 15 sec AOE weaken/poison with 4 finishers with axe/axe? Sure. The also have access to Tormet from the sword if they want it.

Haven’t WvW with the Warrior yet. But it’s longbow skills are better then the Rangers, except Rangers Barrage is nice.

It’s a wall of text, sorry.

If you had to choose one as your main, whichone would u choose?

Ranger is my main. Warrior may replace the Ranger once I’ve got the condition/stability issues worked out.

Messer is when I want some brain activity because they’re so complex and fun I’m only playing it at maybe 25% capacity. Also fantastic for node harvesting.

Also want to add in that little necro. Not sure why I haven’t leveled it more. That little sucker completed an upscaled event (10+ mobs vs him) in Metrica solo which the Ranger, Messer, Warrior and Guard would have failed at.
Actally let me edit that: A properly played staff messer probably could have pulled the event off just not me playing a messer.

Final edit: it was a lvl 15 event @ lvl 15, the messer would have died since they kinda suck till later levels so original statement stands.

War is anets favorite class, you cant go wrong choosing it.

I have both at 80 and both are fun to play. Warrior does have the advantage, however, as the Ranger class does have rather large flaw in a major aspect of higher level play.

The Pet mechanic a Ranger is burdened with, is NOT capable during encounters with hard hitting AoE or single hit damage. These encounters also present a problem for player characters too, but avoiding these high damage sources is part of the higher end game strategy (via intelligent use of motion, dodges, blocking and evasion skills). Pets (and all NPCs) to do not posses these abilities (or lack the intelligence to use them to full effect) and thus go down rather quickly when encountering high damage sources. Rangers with a dead pet are limited in their effectiveness (but how dependent their build is on their Pet determines the magnitude of this limitation). Still, no other profession’s main ability is removed from game-play so quickly under specific instances. All players are aware of this issue and will often chose NOT to take a Ranger over another Class choice due to this potential loss of group effectiveness.

This aspect of the Ranger’s Pet Mechanic has been the long lamented “kitten ” of the Ranger class and has been the subject of many a debate thread here and elsewhere. While the Devs have put some minor changes in place (beefed up Pet health, etc.), a real solution has not been presented yet (I’m not overly hopeful one ever will be).

TL;DR: Don’t expect a warm welcome with a Ranger in Dungeons, Fractals or other end-game content that includes high damage sources due to their Pet Mechanic….it is flawed in those types of encounters.

i would say warrior is better all in all
good selfheal and the big base armor and health make it easy to survive even while going full zeker

and most people prefer warriors over rangers in dungeons too

Bows in general tend to be pretty bad weapons in this game. It’s just the way the characters that can use bows tend to be designed. Warrior longbow is total crap though except as a support weapon so don’t even bother with that if you’re only planning to run bow.

If the bow isn’t an essential thing for you then it’s actually sort of a toss-up. The common myth is that the warrior is some kind of super DPS class which isn’t remotely the truth. In fact, both the ranger and warrior are middling to low DPS classes that make up for it by offering lots of support buffs. The warrior’s support buffs are more straightforward and power-oriented (lots of might, banners, Empower Allies giving flat power boost to allies) while the ranger’s are more control and crit-oriented (lots of fury, snares, Spotter giving flat precision boost to allies).

That said, most pug groups are uninformed at best so if you’re trying to join a speedclear pug group you’ll actually see them kicking higher-DPS classes for lower-DPS ones. Mesmers and elementalists are on top of the DPS tierlist but I have actually had pugs ask me to switch to warrior because “we don’t have enough DPS”. Which usually turns out to be their fault, not mine.

My main is a level 80 Ranger who I enjoy playing, however having tried WvW I’ve decided to level up a Warrior to try in WvW. Ranger was too squishy espescially as real life opponents will ignore your pet, which doesn’t happen with NPC enemies in PvE, (I know I need to learn to play better but my game time is limited by real life). I’ll still use my Ranger in PvE but once my Warrior is levelled up hopefully I’ll be a little more successful in WvW. I don’t know if this will help your decision or not.
Good luck & happy hunting!

Depends what PvE you want. Open world either one is okay. Dungoens/Fotm you DEFNITELY want warrior.

Don’t expect to range too much with a ranger. The range is good for wvw (backline DPS), but in pve you’ll most likely use GS or Sword. The ranger isn’t anything like GW1 ranger, so you might be disappointed.

If you’re going to PuG dungeons, 99% of pugs will be MUCH happier with you on warrior than ranger.

Edit: That’s about as nice as I can be towards rangers. It was my very first class (as I have a love for archers) and it has been nothing but a disappointment. The second I gave up on ranger and tried a mesmer, was the best decision of my life ;-)

Ranger would be a horrendous idea.

While the damage is comparable (in theory) when factoring in the class and the pet, the pet is always going to hold you back. If you keep the pet up even 75% of the time it’s a miracle sometimes. And given the way new content has been headed, 50% would probably be pushing it.

Bow damage is also dreadful for PvE with the Ranger so you’re left with only the sword as a realistic option. Sword is a pain to use because of the auto-sticking and leaping it does. Know how you attack through the wall to hit targets in Caudicus? LOL, try it with Ranger 1h Sword.

Warrior will be far more effective overall and far less aggrivating in the long run as well.

Ethics.4519:

Depends what PvE you want. Open world either one is okay. Dungoens/Fotm you DEFNITELY want warrior.

Don’t expect to range too much with a ranger. The range is good for wvw (backline DPS), but in pve you’ll most likely use GS or Sword. The ranger isn’t anything like GW1 ranger, so you might be disappointed.

If you’re going to PuG dungeons, 99% of pugs will be MUCH happier with you on warrior than ranger.

Edit: That’s about as nice as I can be towards rangers. It was my very first class (as I have a love for archers) and it has been nothing but a disappointment. The second I gave up on ranger and tried a mesmer, was the best decision of my life ;-)

I would actually prefer a properly played ranger over a second warrior even if the warrior was also played well. Then again I’m not the average LOL MOAR WARRIORS PLZ pug.

I decided to leave Ranger out for now, which now struck me into another dilemma, now I can’t decide between Guardian and Warrior which I wanna play both as melee, front of the line combat. again this is mostly PVE.

For some reason even with Healing Signet equipped my Warrior seems more squishy than my Guardian.

Guardian has built in get put of jail free cards like aegis and stuff, that’s why you don’t feel squishy. Guanglai is correct about ranger.

It’s up to personal choice, really. Dungeons are pretty well balanced for any profession casual players want to play. Min/max in gw2 is more about skill than profession (watch rT steamroll dungeons and you’ll be amazed at what timing and boons can do for you). Just be sure to find meta builds so you know you’re starting from a good foundation.

I prefer Ranger anyday. Don’t do the typical build and maximize your dps. In PvP with rapid fire I can hit 10k, so to those saying it has “mid to low” dps that’s bs. But it honestly all just depends on your personal preference of play style. Any class can be as good as the other.

If they ever intro some sort of multi-class system I’d like a Necro Ranger.

But I find my rangers are just as good as my warriors in pve.

Oh god this topic was year ago !!!