Guild Wars 2

So, great job with making Elementalists viable.

So I took the time to speak with some high level players on the viability of Rangers. I was initially of the impression that they were in a good spot right now.

My discoveries unveiled the reality that though they are better, they are still not yet viable in high end competitive play.

I have even discovered that even Spirit Ranger (yawn) is losing its foothold in a competitive comp.

I’m slightly saddened by this and I don’t even play a Ranger. I think the developers should probably go back to the drawing board with Rangers.

Unless of course, I’m wrong?

Has anyone found my previous statement to be untrue? Are Rangers fine?

Rangers are subpar but still usable from what I’ve seen.

imo rangers are fine in hj and soloQ.

as for high end, i dont think entire game should revolve around ten or so players liking to swap into an alt once in a while.

afk #1 aa outlives half of the builds in the game. some ppl like this option and I’m fine with anet letting them to have it.

gesho.9468:

as for high end, i dont think entire game should revolve around ten or so players.

Yes, but ALL professions should have solid representation on a competitive level.

Their power specs need a buff but not condi

Condi variants of Ranger are imo relatively balanced now. You can run spirits or survival skills, or mix them. BM builds are fun, but don’t pack the punch needed for conquest.

In order to have a real impact on the course of a fight now, you really have to be getting off good combos with your pet skills, using finishers in your healing spring, and generally in order to beat other classes, your evades need to be on the money. The nerf to Sun Spirit and Frost Spirit also mean that you actually have to be applying your conditions and spike smartly to be able to actually have enough dps to kill people on standard spirits.

When a person like Gesho talks about how Ranger is about spamming auto attacks, he’s referring to what he has seen bad rangers do in hotjoin and % solo queue.

A good ranger is: cleaving downed bodies with drake attack, fearing enemies while ressing his teammate, interrupting thief and mesmer heals/invis with shortbow 5, applying poison/cripple to warriors with s/d, blinding with sun spirit for stomps, immobing with earth spirit for burst, etc. The playstyle can be very diverse due to the number of decent offhand weapons and pet selection.

The increase in d/d celestial and staff eles is basically a perfect counter to spirits because they bring AoE healing/cleanses and staff eles can basically instantly kill spirits in the mid fight. I’d personally say that ele seems to be stronger than spirits now.

Power ranger builds are in desperate need of help because they are easily trained by thieves and mesmers, as well as engineers and necros. Ranger power weapons (GS/LB) deal garbage damage compared to kits that other classes can bring… Glass thief has much more burst, survivability and utility than GC ranger.

The fact is, Rangers haven’t been OP in a long time. Every ranger build has a counter from multiple different classes, and they have easy counters in the midfight as well (kill the spirits, and then it’s just a ranger with crap damage).

The biggest thing that would force rangers out of the meta is strength runes. Warriors were able to destroy rangers before the patch, and now they have an extra 20 stacks of might to do it with. Eles are back and D/D is full on cleave and aoe heal/cleansing.

In the right team composition, a power ranger is fully capable of being a dps support in mid-range pvp, but they also compete with thieves and mesmers in the exact same regard.

They can offer displacement and point DPS from a range that requires the enemy to send someone off to get you, while still staying safe, being able to freely hop between mid and close points.

The only problem is that Thief and Mesmer offer better duelist power, while thief is safer, mesmer adds more condis and CC from a power build at range but takes longer to get its full effect into place.

Barrage and Rapid fire can practically negate aegis from a bunker guardian on a point with the amount of “hits” registered, while throwing in 20-25 stacks of vulnerability and some good crit damage.

Wolf howl and point blank are CC on demand.

But in the end, you are essentially a wasp just annoying the crap out of people until they come hunt you down. If your team isnt capable of spiking a target down, you are useless as an offpoint DPS.

I can’t comment on TPvP but they are somewhat viable in Solo Q.
Longbow/GS is alright at the moment.

I think the last I played Ranger I ran something like this

I can’t remember the exact trait set up, but I believe it was something along those lines. And as far as I can remember, it played quite well.

The Power Longbow Rangers was buffed for exactly 2 days, then with few hotfixes our dmg was toned down to the place we were before. For those 2 days we were viable to clean the point from distance, now… better play spirit or trapper but I find them very boring. Thieves and hambow Warriors all over the place again, nothing changed much.

And mesmers…I swear every match I’ve had for days has at least 4+ mesmers. The rest is usually hambow warrior or bunker guardian with the occasional cheese build engi. Every other class is hit or miss at best atm. Nice balance

July.5361:

The Power Longbow Rangers was buffed for exactly 2 days, then with few hotfixes our dmg was toned down to the place we were before. For those 2 days we were viable to clean the point from distance, now… better play spirit or trapper but I find them very boring. Thieves and hambow Warriors all over the place again, nothing changed much.

Those two days were fun.

No Power ranger is still in a extremely subpar place and will continue to be so.