Guild Wars 2

@OP

I am confused. Are you saying the ranger class could use some buffs (yeah baby) or are you saying ranger players suck and you can crush them because they are so bad?!

Your ambiguity is on purpose?

On my ranger I managed to get 1,560 points (50 from top stats, 10 for match ready, and 1,500 for winning) for being in the right place at the right time and it was against two eles too. Like any other class it’s about skill management. I know personal score and top stats don’t really mean much other than being in the right place at the right time to acquire the rezzes and kills whereas someone tanking or spending a long time in a 1v1 may have a lower score.

We were three Sapphires and two Rubies against three Rubies and two Sapphires, so if you believe in yourself you can overcome any kinds of adversity to achieve your goal just don’t give up! We had two dragon hunters while they had two eles and I queued in that match as a thief but switched to druid too.

Archon.6480:

@OP

I am confused. Are you saying the ranger class could use some buffs (yeah baby) or are you saying ranger players suck and you can crush them because they are so bad?!

Your ambiguity is on purpose?

I don’t think Ranger players suck, the class itself seems to weak compared to other classes with HoT builds . I am not particularly good and use non-HoT builds so I was just surprised at how easy it was most of the time to kill rangers/druids this season.

I don’t know whether buffs are needed, they just seem comparatively the easiest class by far to play against.

I don’t think Ranger players suck, the class itself seems to weak compared to other classes with HoT builds .

Does chrono or reaper have an effect similar to Healing Seed or Lunar Impact? Those rangers were easy to kill because they didn’t spec properly or pop Protect Me or Signet of Stone at the proper moments. Some also don’t take advantage of the terrain or their pet skills. The problem isn’t the class but user error.

Agemnon.4608:

I don’t think Ranger players suck, the class itself seems to weak compared to other classes with HoT builds .

Does chrono or reaper have an effect similar to Healing Seed or Lunar Impact? Those rangers were easy to kill because they didn’t spec properly or pop Protect Me or Signet of Stone at the proper moments. Some also don’t take advantage of the terrain or their pet skills. The problem isn’t the class but user error.

Well I would think that normally, but this season I have been constantly killing most rangers with ease while other classes are are nearly always a challenge or impossible. That suggests an underlying class weakness, not user error.

Btw, is protect me and signet of stone in the meta build? Otherwise your claim that “they didn’t spec properly or pop Protect Me or Signet of Stone at the proper moments” is somewhat contradictory. Not that either of those utilities would have any impact whatsoever when fighting any of the condition builds I run.

Rangers aren’t the weakest class but imo they aren’t meta either. If I was putting together a semi-optimal type group they would be skipped right over.

Here is some footage showing how easy it is to melt Rangers. Most fights seem to pan out like this, same on my burn guard:

So you posted a video of a Ranger nuking Rangers to show that Ranger is the weakest class?

Wouldnt it be more accurate to say that the majority of the weakest players you encounter seem to pick Ranger?

It is also the fact that you play condi trap ranger. Since the seed nerf, rangers can be quite vulnerable to that, and you can quite easily nuke them down when they dont have SOTP up. Also, quite many of ur opponents didnt even play Druid it seems. Almost any build can be hard countered by a certain non-meta build, while that build is not so useful in many other situations → reason why we barely see any trap rangers.

Sandzibar.5134:

So you posted a video of a Ranger nuking Rangers to show that Ranger is the weakest class?

Wouldnt it be more accurate to say that the majority of the weakest players you encounter seem to pick Ranger?

If I had played five or ten games then that would be logical to assume, but after about 150 or so games this season seeing the same thing no matter what class I play its hard for me to believe that the “majority of the weakest players you encounter seem to pick Ranger”.

Also note that in no way am I saying that the players in that video are bad: I have total respect for them and enjoyed playing with them. Even the best of players can make mistakes or get taken by surprise.

However, there is a very tangible difference for me playing against other classes:

I would say condition warrior, bunker-type ele, and engi are almost impossible to beat, and that is always- again hard to believe that only the best players I encounter seem to pick those classes.

Then there is reaper which seems to be very strong but not “invincible”, and its like every reaper seems to be the same in terms of skill. DH can also be overall strong, but I notice a quite a difference between players on that class/build.

Next thief, mesmer, revenant: seems to be about 50/50 chance of meeting a really skilled player/build that will totally destroy me, or a walkover.

Last is ranger: the bunkerish druid build seems to be the strongest, but it is quite easy to lock down and burst in a team fight, and I can even 1vs1 them sometimes. That’s never going to happen against ele bunker, and I think in a 1vs1 I have only ever beaten one condi warrior and one engi (don’t know the build- its the one with heaps of reflects and invun, then if you get close switches to hammer and kills me in a couple of hits), but I assume they were drunk or something.

I only started getting footage a couple of days ago because people were trolling me on this thread, I’ll try for a burn guard version next.

no its not, you probably have a lot of things to learn yet

It’s fine to have chosen ranger to demonstrate your point that you find rangers consistently easier to beat than the other classes. In the last season I found many necros easy to beat because so many people were flocking to the new flavour of the month that there were tons of bad ones….

HeadCrowned.6834:

It is also the fact that you play condi trap ranger. Since the seed nerf, rangers can be quite vulnerable to that, and you can quite easily nuke them down when they dont have SOTP up. Also, quite many of ur opponents didnt even play Druid it seems. Almost any build can be hard countered by a certain non-meta build, while that build is not so useful in many other situations -> reason why we barely see any trap rangers.

I think that must be a large part of it because I have only been playing condition builds this season. Even on thief, which is (was?) my favorite class, I can’t play power anymore (kind of sad).

Note though that every ranger (except me) in that video had HoT and most of them seemed to be playing some kind of druid build.

Ranger at 3:30 using wyvern and spamming axe autos…trust me it’s not the class.

That being said, if you can load up condis on a ranger after he’s used CA, he’s dead unless he has the 60 s CD signet up.

Yasha.5963:

Here is some footage showing how easy it is to melt Rangers. Most fights seem to pan out like this, same on my burn guard:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BboUpdAtR94

Let me follow this logic. OP claims to rekt rangers > Gets called out by good rangers > Dodges the challenge > Finds random bads > films it to “prove” his point only he doesn’t

Joke of the year. 4/10 troll.

Yasha.5963:

Here is some footage showing how easy it is to melt Rangers. Most fights seem to pan out like this, same on my burn guard

Burn Guard will Never beat a good Ranger… he has too much condi cleanses.

I can post a video of me killing bad Rev players too and proclaim they’re worse class in PvP. Only difference between my claim and yours, I don’t dodge duels and don’t mind getting proved wrong.

When it comes to measuring Baddies in SoloQ PvP, Rangers are not the weakest class it’s Thieves.

Rangers are far from weak. Hit me up for duels if you care to prove me wrong.
Season 1,2,3 legend. 0 loss in season 3.
All done with druid and solo queue.

You were lucky enough to face bad rangers constantly but was there a need to start this thread?

If he hasn’t seen very many good ones, then why not ask if others have noticed the same thing? At least he took the effort to go and video his point. And having an excellent druid smoke him doesn’t really prove things one way or another does it? So what would be the point, he’s already admitted that good ones exist out there.

It could be that this class just has a high skill floor to be effective. Its not weak when used properly but very suseptible to being used improperly. Theif is the one most like that in my opinion.

shion.2084:

It could be that this class just has a high skill floor to be effective. Its not weak when used properly but very suseptible to being used improperly. Theif is the one most like that in my opinion.

That’s probably closer to the truth. Playing a druid involves a fair bit of multi-tasking. Emphasis on watching the mini-map like a hawk (because they have mobility to make game-changing rotations), their teammates healthbars and condi bars to support, as well as manage their pet positioning/CD’s to maximize DPS, on top of the basic mechanical part of doing DPS while sustaining that every class requires.

I wouldn’t say ranger is bad. I would say its just the current meta team builds. Assuming other team has an ele, scrappers etc bows are useless. Maybe sword/torch or something could be decent but even then other builds are just easier to play at lower levels.

Also a lot of your burst (assuming longbow) is like a thief’s dual pistol on unload. Sure it does great damage but it can be easily evaded with just dodge.Only really good when you are +1’ing and they are fighting in mid and don’t see u coming.

Yasha.5963:

I have noticed that I can easily kill nearly all rangers, when I see one on the enemy team I feel great because its almost a guaranteed free kill. Of course there are some very talented players who are good at getting away or kiting, but in 100 games I might see 2 of those.

In contrast it seems either the other classes are very strong or are only played by very skilled players. With most of the other classes its more like out of 100 games I might see 2-5 players that seem to be weak and the rest are either unkillable (condi warrior, some ele builds, and most engis) or at the least a challenge.

Weakest class is guardian DH. Get your facts strait. As a ranger druid you can facets a guard while dancing and letting your pet solo them

shion.2084:

If he hasn’t seen very many good ones, then why not ask if others have noticed the same thing? At least he took the effort to go and video his point. And having an excellent druid smoke him doesn’t really prove things one way or another does it? So what would be the point, he’s already admitted that good ones exist out there.

It could be that this class just has a high skill floor to be effective. Its not weak when used properly but very suseptible to being used improperly. Theif is the one most like that in my opinion.

You have restored my faith in humanity. Thank you.

Salamander.2504:

Ranger at 3:30 using wyvern and spamming axe autos…trust me it’s not the class.

That being said, if you can load up condis on a ranger after he’s used CA, he’s dead unless he has the 60 s CD signet up.

Yes, I use wyverns and also spirits, and used ax and torch, the same person video already defeated his ranger or was his guardian, I believe that was his same druid.

The issue of video perdir for this ranger was because I tried to remove condition using only lightning reflexe and it was my fault to have changed the trait in which transferring conditions for the pet.

Without it, I would not have missed it for much less any other ranger or druid.

You can see in the video I am very accumulating condition by simply having placed to remove every 38 s using a single utility.

The fact that you beat me in the video does the ranger a weak class, I lost simply because I tested change something in the trait that did not work, the others who call all the rangers that noob video when they want to come face me can talk \O/

Not gonna lie, I laughed quite abit at this post. I can count really good rangers in SPvP with one hand.

It’s easy to say a certain class is bad when you only play against mediocre to average players. I would love to 1v1 you sometime.

@OP, thanks for posting the video, it clears things up quite a build. The build you are using is actually a pretty nice counter to many Druid builds. At range you can gank them pretty fast and if they don’t press you, you will ruin them at range.

The problem is that the build you are running is not great for team play, as it has severe weaknesses to the other classes (meta Rev, scrapper, thief, Mesmer, warrior and Ele). The opponents you are facing are also failing to react to you properly most of the time.

Regardless, I’ve gotten ganked a few times by rangers jumping me at the wrong time with LB. Doesn’t matter, though, the build is weaker in team fights so usually ends up costing the match.

One final point, it looks like the majority of those Rangers (and especially their allies) are a little weak. Is this in unranked?

Rap Tiger.1257:

The fact that you beat me in the video does the ranger a weak class, I lost simply because I tested change something in the trait that did not work, the others who call all the rangers that noob video when they want to come face me can talk \O/

Thanks for commenting Rap. I have total respect for you and all the other rangers in that video, I want you guys to know that wasn’t trying to paint anyone out as being a bad player.

The thing I find playing against rangers is that they don’t seem to be both really tanky and able pump out lots of damage (some classes/builds seem to do this atm). Also it seems fairly simple to condi burst and interupt/cc them (relative to other classes). That has nothing to do with player skill, its just how the class is.

Awwww, this thread is such an adorable roundabout attempt to get ranger buffs!!

<3 cute

I r8 8/8.

Vicky.4563:

Awwww, this thread is such an adorable roundabout attempt to get ranger buffs!!

<3 cute

I r8 8/8.

Hey, what else are we supposed to do with all the non-ranger PvP Pansies running around crying like babies? Waaa! The pet killed me pull its teeth out! Boo Hoo ranger remove my condition spam, get rid of condi removal! Search and Rescue too stronk! Please make it utter trash again!

The only thing worse than the Developers are the whiny babies who play other classes!

Yasha.5963:

Also it seems fairly simple to condi burst and interupt/cc them (relative to other classes). That has nothing to do with player skill, its just how the class is.

It’s easy to condi burst them if their Celestial Avatar isn’t up or don’t have Signet of Renewal equipped. Which is why you have to always kite at first when you fight condi builds, which none of your opponents did. Player skill does matter in these cases.

Archon.6480:

@OP, thanks for posting the video, it clears things up quite a build. The build you are using is actually a pretty nice counter to many Druid builds. At range you can gank them pretty fast and if they don’t press you, you will ruin them at range.

The problem is that the build you are running is not great for team play, as it has severe weaknesses to the other classes (meta Rev, scrapper, thief, Mesmer, warrior and Ele). The opponents you are facing are also failing to react to you properly most of the time.

Regardless, I’ve gotten ganked a few times by rangers jumping me at the wrong time with LB. Doesn’t matter, though, the build is weaker in team fights so usually ends up costing the match.

One final point, it looks like the majority of those Rangers (and especially their allies) are a little weak. Is this in unranked?

Thanks for the feedback Archon. All the footage was taken this week in ranked at ruby tier (which seems to be a mix of ruby/sapphire players).

“it has severe weaknesses to the other classes (meta Rev, scrapper, thief, Mesmer, warrior and Ele)” YES! Does druid ranger also suffer from this? The trouble is because I don’t have HoT I can’t see how druid ranger fares against the meta builds; I just know that to play against druid on my non-Hot builds (on various classes) doesn’t feel anywhere near as scary or futile as against say ele or condi warrior.

shion.2084:

If he hasn’t seen very many good ones, then why not ask if others have noticed the same thing? At least he took the effort to go and video his point. And having an excellent druid smoke him doesn’t really prove things one way or another does it? So what would be the point, he’s already admitted that good ones exist out there.

It could be that this class just has a high skill floor to be effective. Its not weak when used properly but very suseptible to being used improperly. Theif is the one most like that in my opinion.

Thief has a higher skill cap & there’s more bad Thieves in SoloQ. So does that mean they’re the worse class in PvP like the op is saying about Rangers? Absolutely not…

Condi Thief, Condi Guard & Condi Ranger/Druid only works in Hot joins or Amber/Sapphire divisions. This thread is absolute shenanigans….

Yasha.5963:

“it has severe weaknesses to the other classes (meta Rev, scrapper, thief, Mesmer, warrior and Ele)” YES! Does druid ranger also suffer from this? The trouble is because I don’t have HoT I can’t see how druid ranger fares against the meta builds; I just know that to play against druid on my non-Hot builds (on various classes) doesn’t feel anywhere near as scary or futile as against say ele or condi warrior.

You are playing one of the best (maybe the best) core Ranger builds. Congrats on making it to Ruby with core Ranger. Yes, Druid fares much better against the other meta classes. I kind of see it like this in 1v1 scenarios:

Meta Druid > Meta thief
Meta Druid > Reaper
Meta Druid > Guardian (I mess this up sometimes and die)
Meta Druid = Meta Scrapper (You can stalemate the best of the best)
Meta Druid = Meta Ele (They won’t harm you, and you won’t harm them)
Meta Druid = Meta Chrono (someone will die)
Meta Druid =< Meta Rev (R Heisenburg kill me often, the rest stalemate or loose)
Meta Druid < Meta Warrior

Condi Druid (ADST Sage) mostly fares the same but utterly destroys Rev, Thief, Guardian, and some warriors.

The real benefit of a well played Druid is realized in group fights 2v2 – 5v5. If they let you free cast heals it is pretty much GG.

Nerfs hurt druids a bit, pets and utilities especially, by no means is it weak though.

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Nerfs hurt druids a bit, pets and utilities especially, by no means is it weak though.

The Ancient Seeds nerf was unfair. Nothing else to say about that.

Archon.6480:

Yasha.5963:

“it has severe weaknesses to the other classes (meta Rev, scrapper, thief, Mesmer, warrior and Ele)” YES! Does druid ranger also suffer from this? The trouble is because I don’t have HoT I can’t see how druid ranger fares against the meta builds; I just know that to play against druid on my non-Hot builds (on various classes) doesn’t feel anywhere near as scary or futile as against say ele or condi warrior.

You are playing one of the best (maybe the best) core Ranger builds. Congrats on making it to Ruby with core Ranger. Yes, Druid fares much better against the other meta classes. I kind of see it like this in 1v1 scenarios:

Meta Druid > Meta thief
Meta Druid > Reaper
Meta Druid > Guardian (I mess this up sometimes and die)
Meta Druid = Meta Scrapper (You can stalemate the best of the best)
Meta Druid = Meta Ele (They won’t harm you, and you won’t harm them)
Meta Druid = Meta Chrono (someone will die)
Meta Druid =< Meta Rev (R Heisenburg kill me often, the rest stalemate or loose)
Meta Druid < Meta Warrior

Condi Druid (ADST Sage) mostly fares the same but utterly destroys Rev, Thief, Guardian, and some warriors.

The real benefit of a well played Druid is realized in group fights 2v2 – 5v5. If they let you free cast heals it is pretty much GG.

Thanks, that is insightful.

One thing I have found in group fights is that if my team targets the enemy ele, unless the team is really good, it ends up taking too long to take the ele down – or the team wipes before they get the ele down. However, if we target the druid its quite easy to take down, and the enemy team starts to collapse. That has also added to my sense that “rangers are weak”.

Many games have started like that and we would be down by quite a bit, only to turn around and win once I started calling target on the druid.

So in that sense I am not really sure what the role of the bunkerish druid build is: ele seems to do better support and has more survival, its not overwhelmingly strong in 1vs1, it doesn’t have extreme burst, and its relatively easily pinned down.

When you play, what role do you fill and how do you cope with being focused?

Archon.6480:

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Nerfs hurt druids a bit, pets and utilities especially, by no means is it weak though.

The Ancient Seeds nerf was unfair. Nothing else to say about that.

Notice how no one complained about the skill. It was just about one of the only ways of counterplaying massive condi spam. If a necro boon corrupts then the entire reason for your booning up was defeated so you may as well help the party cleanse all that.

Agemnon.4608:

Archon.6480:

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Nerfs hurt druids a bit, pets and utilities especially, by no means is it weak though.

The Ancient Seeds nerf was unfair. Nothing else to say about that.

Notice how no one complained about the skill. It was just about one of the only ways of counterplaying massive condi spam. If a necro boon corrupts then the entire reason for your booning up was defeated so you may as well help the party cleanse all that.

Yep can’t remember someone ever complaining about it.

Simple fact is ranger is pretty weak again for the 2nd season in a row. It’s not the weakest, but may very well be second weakest to guardian. Last season it was second weakest to warrior. Anet seem to like to consistently keep engi and ele stronger than Druid, (maybe to please some of their favorite pro league players).

Mesmer was stronger than Druid yet they nerfed Druid harder than Mesmer. The seed nerf was completely unessasary and makes Druid much less dynamic without being able to take glyph of equality and tides to good effect.

A Druid played well can be effective but it has much bigger glaring weaknesses than engi or ele which good teams know how to take advantage of.

One thing you’re not going to see this season is any “Rangers op, nerf Rangers” threads but there are already several threads complaining about engis and eles, which engi and ele mains flock to to try and defend their OPness

this thread though….

I’ll be another person to lay down the gauntlet, both with core ranger and druid.

I think the sole reason you do well against rangers is because you play and understand the class a lot. You know what the mistakes and animations look like so you can capitalize on them. It frankly has nothing to do with how weak or strong the class is, you simply understand what to do against them.

Ranger isn’t the best class at any particular role or fighting style, but they are well rounded. Arguably more rounded than any other class other than engineer. Ranger in general has a low skill floor but a high skill cap. So yea you’ll see tones of bad people that pick up and play the class, and rarely you’ll see a good player. That does not mean that a class is bad.

suffish.4150:

Ranger is certainly not the weakest class. I win 90% of my 1v1 on ranger and I have very high burst (I can kill things like thieves and marauder revs in seconds if I land all my burst), great healing and support and good mobility and disengage.

Maybe you are just a much better player than the Rangers you have fought because a condi guard/trap ranger should not beat an equally skilled player using the meta Druid build. Rangers are especially good against condition builds because they have 2 full condi clears, one (celestial avatar) on a 15 second cooldown.

Thats not true, The meta druids just melt against my necro, even the really good one have very hard time.

mazut.4296:

suffish.4150:

Ranger is certainly not the weakest class. I win 90% of my 1v1 on ranger and I have very high burst (I can kill things like thieves and marauder revs in seconds if I land all my burst), great healing and support and good mobility and disengage.

Maybe you are just a much better player than the Rangers you have fought because a condi guard/trap ranger should not beat an equally skilled player using the meta Druid build. Rangers are especially good against condition builds because they have 2 full condi clears, one (celestial avatar) on a 15 second cooldown.

Thats not true, The meta druids just melt against my necro, even the really good one have very hard time.

Duel mine? My Druid hard counters condi necros…literal hard counter. No chance in hell for any condi necro.

Lettuce.2945:

mazut.4296:

suffish.4150:

Ranger is certainly not the weakest class. I win 90% of my 1v1 on ranger and I have very high burst (I can kill things like thieves and marauder revs in seconds if I land all my burst), great healing and support and good mobility and disengage.

Maybe you are just a much better player than the Rangers you have fought because a condi guard/trap ranger should not beat an equally skilled player using the meta Druid build. Rangers are especially good against condition builds because they have 2 full condi clears, one (celestial avatar) on a 15 second cooldown.

Thats not true, The meta druids just melt against my necro, even the really good one have very hard time.

Duel mine? My Druid hard counters condi necros…literal hard counter. No chance in hell for any condi necro.

Huh, what are you running? My experience is I can consistently beat a (good) necro 1v1 if I’m willing to give them the cap (by kiting shroud), but once you start vying for the point things get dicey for me (exception is mid @ foefire because it’s huge).

I think Druids can beat necro when they have their celestial avatar ready to go and use that and the Sigil at good times, but if you don’t have your CA ready you can melt to a good necro before you go even get the chance to build up your CA.

It was much better before with the double glyphs you had 2 interrupts and 4 Condi clears while you were waiting for your CA to charge.

• Anet seem to like to consistently keep engi and ele stronger than Druid, (maybe to please some of their favorite pro league players).*

I’ve defeated both classes 1v1 on my staff/longbow druid but typically stalemate them.

• Last season it was second weakest to warrior.*

Even with another druid in the team I was told not to switch to rev at one point and rev is consistently top tier ever since HoT came out. I only started up on rev and ranger when HoT came out too since the classes offered scope for switching in and out of healing and offense roles against comps that may be ele unfriendly or counter their comp better than ele would. Ventari however is impractical due to its slow casting and awkward positioning (and too expensive casting skills) so rev turned into a pure offensive role with some good active defense management to stall things somewhat (juggling staff 3, sword 4, riposting shadows, UA, staff 5, and standard dodges in between to allow some energy regen)

One thing you’re not going to see this season is any “Rangers op, nerf Rangers” threads but there are already several threads complaining about engis and eles, which engi and ele mains flock to to try and defend their OPness

I think ele should get nerfed, I’m not the only ele running around when I’m ele and even then it’s cleric’s ele that gets complained about. Despite being Mender’s I still managed to get top damage dealt on my team.

This is what it feels like
To run big fat AoE condi bombs against subpar players

Eval.2371:

I think the sole reason you do well against rangers is because you play and understand the class a lot. You know what the mistakes and animations look like so you can capitalize on them. It frankly has nothing to do with how weak or strong the class is, you simply understand what to do against them.

I don’t have HoT so the animations of any of the new classes/builds are relatively unfamiliar to me.

Now obviously I won those fights because I outplayed them, the point is it is much easier to outplay a ranger than other classes. Look how fast they melt. The first fight was a druid pushing home, if that was a condi warrior or bunker ele 100% they would have owned me. As it was they could do nothing, I didn’t have to watch for animations because the fight was over that fast.

In other fights in the video I make many mistakes, but the rangers just don’t have the burst to make the most of it, nor do they have low cd condi cleanse. If I make one miss against a warrior, engi, reaper etc I am basically toast (but those classes’ meta builds are also quite tanky); playing against ranger is relatively far more forgiving.

Agemnon.4608:

Archon.6480:

CrimsonNeonite.1048:

Nerfs hurt druids a bit, pets and utilities especially, by no means is it weak though.

The Ancient Seeds nerf was unfair. Nothing else to say about that.

Notice how no one complained about the skill. It was just about one of the only ways of counterplaying massive condi spam. If a necro boon corrupts then the entire reason for your booning up was defeated so you may as well help the party cleanse all that.

They made Search and Rescue completely useless too. Maybe the range was too much, but now it’s just a waste of utility now, you might aswell use Smokescale F2 and blast finish it.