Guild Wars 2

So yesterday I got killed by a spirit ranger (and a thief but everyone knows those are underpowered and don’t even do damage.
In all seriousness I think the issue with spirit ranger is not even the ridiculous amount of passive effects but the fact that they’re probably the most survivable condi bunker class with the ability to use their spirits and pet to bodyblock burst.
Yes I did make the mistake of playing shatter mesmer against a spirit ranger and while I did down him on far he got me locked while in downed state while also applying conditions on me due to spirit passives. (Burning to be precise). I know rangers are no match to proper warriors but does that mean they’re balanced? Does anyone else want to see other ranger builds viable other than spirits? (Power, bm, etc)

I had in 1 game a spirit ranger. He stood without moving on 1 place and auto attacked people. He did not move and he killed people.

He trolled people and wrote in chat that he does not move and have success. I killed him in 1on1 but some other classes died on him. The passive effects are pain in the kitten

To make power prec rangers viable, the class would need a complete overhaul.

By complete I mean a complete rework on its system mechanics.
The way the weapon skills are designed, the way the pet attacks is designed, it is impossible to make ranger a bursty class like a thief or mes.

Its not just a problem of trait allocation and number buffing, its a problem with the design.

But I recognize, developers will opt out in any case to buff actual numbers in order to give some burst to ranger class. But anyway, the role of burst will always be hold better by thieves and mesmers, because of their stealth.

Ranger is best designed as a condition damage class as most of the weapons inflict conditions, small damage, and are hybrid.

Right now lot buffs would need to happen to make any other build more efficient than spirits, because spirits have everything.

1. support (swiftness)
2. Defense (protection, blind, immob)
3. Burst & offense (burn, call lightning)

BM is still a strong spec imo- I have played it a lot in soloq, even after the spirit buffs/pet nerfs, and had good to great results as a home point defender. (Most assailants are confused when no spirits come up trolol)

Since the OP mentioned skill factor -I think it takes a bit more skill to play than a spirit ranger (why I stuck to bm), it still a build on the passive side- partly due the near useless active effects of the signets (no fun… t.t) commonly used in the builds.

Since my main is a ranger, I am currently using 3 slots for 3 different ranger builds.

My spirit ranger is using GS and Sword + Dagger. Lots of dodges, stun, block, knock – perfect to hold close.

For the second ranger I’m using a funny beastmaster build with the hyena and a wolf. Similar to the Angry-Birds-Build my weapons of choice are LB and Sword + Horn.

My third ranger is currently under construction. I was inspired by an engineer’s decap-build. I’m using LB and Axe+Axe. Almost no damage, but lots of toughness and life. Worked pretty well so far but has to be improved.

Same old story, along with warriors…the only real problem is that some classes can go almost bunker while dishing out pretty high damage too (Both condition and direct) while other classes can’t due to stupid class mechanics like permavigor, permaregen, broken signets (Yeah i’m looking at you braindead warriors), traits, skills, broken pets/spirits and so on…someone still need to go for power/crit specs in order to deal decent dmg someone just have to put right traits allowing them to use way more “bunkerish” setups….it’s a basic design error and noone is giving a single kitten to it..

Rallad.3802:

BM is still a strong spec imo- I have played it a lot in soloq, even after the spirit buffs/pet nerfs, and had good to great results as a home point defender. (Most assailants are confused when no spirits come up trolol)

Since the OP mentioned skill factor -I think it takes a bit more skill to play than a spirit ranger (why I stuck to bm), it still a build on the passive side- partly due the near useless active effects of the signets (no fun… t.t) commonly used in the builds.

funny you said that… BM is the easiest build on ranger, dude. you just leave your pet on a node and kite from afar. spirit ranger build gets all the action compared to power and BM builds.

I would scrap and redesign ranger to be a true ranged dps class, personally.

Ashanor.5319:

I would scrap and redesign ranger to be a true ranged dps class, personally.

this………………..

Ranger has been my main in sPVP for the last few months (previously ELE). I mainly play as a Power Ranger (I don’t like spirit builds) and I haven’t had any trouble killing people or bursting anyone down. I use longbow/ GS combo, and I’ve seen my AA on longbow hit for 3-5K a hit on people and rapid fire easily do over 10k dmg. As a power ranger I’ve noticed that the class excels at 1v1’s the most. I wouldn’t mind seeing a small buff to them TBH but I wouldn’t consider the ranger as useless as you guys make it seem.

CountzuCrytus.7256:

Ranger has been my main in sPVP for the last few months (previously ELE). I mainly play as a Power Ranger (I don’t like spirit builds) and I haven’t had any trouble killing people or bursting anyone down. I use longbow/ GS combo, and I’ve seen my AA on longbow hit for 3-5K a hit on people and rapid fire easily do over 10k dmg. As a power ranger I’ve noticed that the class excels at 1v1’s the most. I wouldn’t mind seeing a small buff to them TBH but I wouldn’t consider the ranger as useless as you guys make it seem.

Sure, you can dps down a few hotjoin bads here and there, but that doesn’t mean power ranger is good.

Valentin.2073:

funny you said that… BM is the easiest build on ranger, dude. you just leave your pet on a node and kite from afar. spirit ranger build gets all the action compared to power and BM builds.

You can’t quite do that whilst defending home though :p
You might be right, I won’t really argue since they have similar passive dependence.

D/D thief here. I find that I don’t tend to have too much trouble with spirit rangers anymore. ~shrug~

Dahkeus.8243:

D/D thief here. I find that I don’t tend to have too much trouble with spirit rangers anymore. ~shrug~

Lol

Rallad.3802:

Valentin.2073:

funny you said that… BM is the easiest build on ranger, dude. you just leave your pet on a node and kite from afar. spirit ranger build gets all the action compared to power and BM builds.

You can’t quite do that whilst defending home though :p
You might be right, I won’t really argue since they have similar passive dependence.

good point. i can say BM can be really fun to play and it annoys the hell out of people. good for trolling.

Dahkeus.8243:

D/D thief here. I find that I don’t tend to have too much trouble with spirit rangers anymore. ~shrug~

you might be a really good thief if that’s the case or you’re just fighting really bad spirit rangers.

Valentin.2073:

Dahkeus.8243:

D/D thief here. I find that I don’t tend to have too much trouble with spirit rangers anymore. ~shrug~

you might be a really good thief if that’s the case or you’re just fighting really bad spirit rangers.

According to the posts above, a spirit ranger can just stand in one spot and spam abilities, so I’m not sure how that comes into play.

However, I am playing D/D and not D/P. It’s been maybe a month since I played D/P, but I do recall having more trouble with them then, so I think the build I’m running has a good bit to do with it.

Also, one thing I’ve found is that the occaisional Death Blossom can do well against spirit rangers with the right timing. Since the patch, I have more ini to play with in my build, so I can use this to help AoE down spirits while evading attacks without wasting a dodge.

The blind on stealth talent is particularly helpful as well.

Well, aside from spirits, there’s very little to anything that Ranger can bring for his group in tPvP. All spirits affect up to 5 people, which means that they’re especially superior when it comes to teams clash on mid point or sth like this. Spirit Ranger being 1v1 spec… Hard to say. I’ve never played Mesmer for longer than needed to get basic knowledge about the class and traits for pvp as I’ve never enjoyed it’s feeling. But from duelling experience of Power Ranger, Trap Ranger, CC aka 9 second fear Ranger, D/D Thief (not that much, honestly), Warrior (not Hambow – I always giggle when I hear name of this build, Polish raw translation of it kind of fits the player behind ;p ), Engineer, Guardian and a lot, lot of Necromancer I can say that 1v1, if you don’t rush in, facerolling for greater purpose, you can easily take out even good Spirit Ranger.
As other said – most Rangers don’t like playing and don’t enjoy rolling with Spirit Builds. It’s clunky, easy to counter, all about spamming and simply not fun. We roll it because people in meta demand it from Rangers and, as said above, our power play is in simply unhealthy, stagnant and sick state. Sure, you can get Rapid Fire for over than 10k. But with cost.
That’s said, I’ve recently made some major scrap&remake for a lot, a lot of Ranger weapons, traits, pets and overall mechanics, working on other classes revisions and got some ideas even for classes I play the least (the pink ones^^).

a decent spirit ranger doesnt stand still waiting to get Backstabbed by a thief. rangers have good evasion/dodges rates compared to other classes and they get rewarded each dodge they make.

it depends who they are fighting against if they will use their dodges or not. fighting a guardian do not require for a ranger to keep dodging since the intention is to poison and dps the guard as quick as possible.