Guild Wars 2

There are a few simple reasons why Ranger isn’t getting buffs right now.

At it’s current state, Ranger is just extremely easy to play, and there are a few reasons supporting this argument. I will use Longbow Zerker Ranger as an example from a team fight perspective.

1.) Pet mechanics. Pet doesn’t even have any “mechanics” going for it. It is just computer controlled and takes no skill, you don’t even need to Macro manage Ranger as if it was another unit kinda like in Starcraft. Pet getting focused/dying? Just press F4 and reposition. Pet knock someone down? Just spam Sword 1 or Longbow 1.

2.) Ranger damage is extremely reliable. Look at longbow auto-attack, it BAITS DODGES SO EASY and it hard punishes easy because of it’s ratio. Now take a look at point #1 and back to point 2. How does the pet mechanic and how a ranger attacks work? You dodge the ranger, you will eat a knock down from the dog. You dodge the dog you will eat ranger damage which isn’t even bad. Yes people, it is THAT easy to play a ranger. Landing Ranger damage is just so easy, it takes absolutely no skill.

TL;DR Because Ranger has an easy time landing damage, they help the team kill EASIER by baiting dodges through their easy means of giving damage.

3.) If you’re getting focused, that is perfectly fine. You have Signet of Renewal, evades, stealth that is easy to time, pet taunt/fear/immob, Signet of Stone, Protect Me, and “Strength of the Pack” for uncounterable stability. All of these tools help Ranger disengage so that they can repeat trying to kill you over and over and over. It isn’t hard to do these things in practice. It doesn’t help that half of those tools can be cast while the Ranger is casting evades.

4.) They have access to certain things such as Quickness Res and Quickness Stomps which can change the game and snowball certain objectives. They can do this extremely frequently too and maybe use Quickness for bursting people down. I don’t understand why people haven’t caught up to this one yet.

Don’t even get me started on Condi Ranger. That spec is just as easy as Mesmer at it’s current state. That’s even worse than Zerker Ranger if it gets buffed considering it’s tankier and has better point pressure. Just evade and spam attacks, traps, condis that’s all Condi Ranger does be it trap or survival, it takes no skill. They CANNOT buff ranger due to how noob-friendly Ranger is in design.

TL;DR They CANNOT buff ranger at it’s current state or it will be like Mesmer. They have to REWORK ranger into something that takes REAL SKILL. There is a reason why people complained about Spirit Ranger and it’s because of how reliable a Ranger can open a player up to burst while not easily opened up himself defense wise.

What you are claiming my friend, is not very clever. You say that ranger is very easy to play? Against whom may I ask? It is easy to press buttons like a total moron, not caring about your environment, not knowing which skill to interrupt, when to swap pets, when to use your utility skills. But doing them in right order to defeat your foe, is not easy.

Early signet of stone? Gg wp. You have been brutally murdered by thief 5 seconds later. Wrong f2 skill? Oh well sorry but you are dead again. Bad rangers are easy to play. Playing a good ranger is the “HARDEST” thing in this game due to the fact that ranger is the worst class nowadays.

So what you are claiming is not wise, it is easy to play " a ranger". Not a good one. People have cought up with quickness ages ago. But know why? Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering. Stomping? Well it helps there but maybe you should ask warriors about quickness.

For myself, when I see a ranger in the game I feel relieved. There are scenerios that a zerker ranger is not able to kill his opponent due to the profession mechanics. And rangers damage is not the highest nowadays. Before the patch, ranger would deal insane damage compared to other classes. But now all the professions can hit you with a truck easily. And believe me, if they want to put pressure on ranger, they easily can. Without a question. In low tiers your claims are true, in medium, they are not. In high tier, well I have never been to high tier pvp but friends and videos do not include any high tier pvp rangers.

What you say about condi rangers is true. Easy and boring for me. But it is a choice.

Pets… well friend those kitten things are slower and more stupid than a dead racoons kitten so no need to discuss that. They should be either reworked or completely removed. Most of the pet mechanics are bugged anyway.

But in the end, I think you are right. Rangers do not need any kind of BUFFS. What rangers need is a REWORK. A rework with all the class mechanics. I love playing ranger, especially with a bow. In dnd I played ranger, in lotr I loved Ithilien Rangers… So as you see it is an issue of love.

Go play ranger for 50 games in ranked. No hotjoin. No wvw.

I’m positive some actual pvp time on the class you feel so strongly about will reshape your opinion.

Wow, this is like peak ranger rage, and I didn’t know it could get much worse. Is there a ranger going around kicking puppies or something? Because, that honestly does not sound like something a ranger would do…

At least you blow your credibility early on. Pet AI is one of the worst things about being a ranger, and it’s our class mechanic. You fight it almost as much as you fight the constant onslaught of thieves, stunlock mesmers, and 100 blade warriors that make it their sole purpose in life to break you over their knee as fast as they can.

Ranger hate is bandwagon hate. People only hate rangers because it’s some sort of fashion to do so. One person complains about a ranger using Longbow 4 against an enemy they were in the middle of melee about – and the whole crowd followed them with pitchforks.

The same argument the OP has said about rangers can probably be said about most classes, as I’ve heard people saying Necromancers and Mesmers and Guardians are the easiest to play too in various map chat conversations, though there doesn’t seem to be an abhorrent hate following those classes like there is against the ranger.

I wonder what the opponent can to do the auto attacking longbow ranger

nacario.9417:

I wonder what the opponent can to do the auto attacking longbow ranger

Judging by what I read on the forums the only thing you can do vs an auto attacking ranger is stand perfectly still in an open area…. maybe turn your back to them so they get a higher crit chance.

I disagree with the op in many points. But i may be wrong too.
Still there is no doubt that ranger is uneffective.
Thats a fact.
No top spvp team have rangers in their composition. And its not cause its easy or difficult to play.

After playing ranger a bit again, I think pets need a buff, short bow needs some love, and bonfire needs to be more of a bonfire than a small camp fire considering its CD.

Easier rhan.. Warriors..? Minionmancers? Mesmers..?

Mesmers are a prime example… I had 2 hrs of play time on a mesmer and i’m beating people with 1200+ hrs played. Isn’t that the easy/skill factor you’re talking about?

No, you’re completely wrong OP.

Try to be constructive people. Make Ranger REAL high skill cap by making pets controllable and rewarding, AND nerfing the evades.

There is a way to make this class not aids if it gets buffed. It would be great if people would start giving out ideas as to make Ranger fun and challenging while not frustrating to go against.

Like as is right now? Look at sword auto-attack (Yes, Sword/horn and Longbow works well together) or long bow auto-attack combined with the wolf/dog’s auto-attack. It adds up pretty kitten well, it’s ridiculous specially if you use the Quickness trait on top of that. It’s really strong. This isn’t the only reason why I think Ranger isn’t getting buffed though.

Ranger isn’t getting buffs because the devs are too busy working on HoT to balance the game or even fix major skill/trait bugs.

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

Ranger is out of buffs. Class mechanisic was poorly made so not even all these buffs could not made it ok. I am a ranger fan in every rp game, book or computer game but in gw2 rangera are just plain bad. We need a rework, more beautiful mechanic should be added, pets should be optional and there should be a little more valuablr support I guess for pve (I do not like pve with my ranger due to my strict love with longbows).

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

Nier.8741:

There are a few simple reasons why Ranger isn’t getting buffs right now.

At it’s current state, Ranger is just extremely easy to play, and there are a few reasons supporting this argument. I will use Longbow Zerker Ranger as an example from a team fight perspective.

1.) Pet mechanics. Pet doesn’t even have any “mechanics” going for it. It is just computer controlled and takes no skill, you don’t even need to Macro manage Ranger as if it was another unit kinda like in Starcraft. Pet getting focused/dying? Just press F4 and reposition. Pet knock someone down? Just spam Sword 1 or Longbow 1.

2.) Ranger damage is extremely reliable. Look at longbow auto-attack, it BAITS DODGES SO EASY and it hard punishes easy because of it’s ratio. Now take a look at point #1 and back to point 2. How does the pet mechanic and how a ranger attacks work? You dodge the ranger, you will eat a knock down from the dog. You dodge the dog you will eat ranger damage which isn’t even bad. Yes people, it is THAT easy to play a ranger. Landing Ranger damage is just so easy, it takes absolutely no skill.

TL;DR Because Ranger has an easy time landing damage, they help the team kill EASIER by baiting dodges through their easy means of giving damage.

3.) If you’re getting focused, that is perfectly fine. You have Signet of Renewal, evades, stealth that is easy to time, pet taunt/fear/immob, Signet of Stone, Protect Me, and “Strength of the Pack” for uncounterable stability. All of these tools help Ranger disengage so that they can repeat trying to kill you over and over and over. It isn’t hard to do these things in practice. It doesn’t help that half of those tools can be cast while the Ranger is casting evades.

4.) They have access to certain things such as Quickness Res and Quickness Stomps which can change the game and snowball certain objectives. They can do this extremely frequently too and maybe use Quickness for bursting people down. I don’t understand why people haven’t caught up to this one yet.

Don’t even get me started on Condi Ranger. That spec is just as easy as Mesmer at it’s current state. That’s even worse than Zerker Ranger if it gets buffed considering it’s tankier and has better point pressure. Just evade and spam attacks, traps, condis that’s all Condi Ranger does be it trap or survival, it takes no skill. They CANNOT buff ranger due to how noob-friendly Ranger is in design.

TL;DR They CANNOT buff ranger at it’s current state or it will be like Mesmer. They have to REWORK ranger into something that takes REAL SKILL. There is a reason why people complained about Spirit Ranger and it’s because of how reliable a Ranger can open a player up to burst while not easily opened up himself defense wise.

pretty much shows that you either don’t play ranger, or play it badly.

1) There are tons of mechanics involved with pets, especially with the new taunt-mechanic.
- Positioning your Pet with reapplying target with F1 and calling it back with F3 is crucial in teamfights.
- Offensive/Defensive switching: Sometimes, you need to switch pets to keep them alive, on the other hand, this can reduce how effectively you use the pets abilities.
- Several Micro-tricks like quickness insta-F2, where you hit F2 after a quickness swap at a very hard to hit timing, where the pet instantly shoots out with it’s F2 (works best with the birds).
- Keeping CD’s in mind and knowing animations, so you can effectively use the pet and combo up with it at certain occasions.

2) You know there are other builds than pewpew right? probably not though…. But pewpew is currently heavily underpowered compared to other ranged marauder using DD’s like Mesmer and Engi. And even pewpew ranger is hard to play if you want to use all the skills right and play it on a high level, just because on a higher level, ppl know how to kite, LoS, there are ppl that will jump on you and force you to play defensive etc.

3) Yepp, pewpew-Ranger has good defensive CD’s. A Trapper for example has bad ones. Nonetheless, pewpew-Ranger hasn’t much better defensive CD’s than the glassy builds that are actually played on a higher level, like thief, mesmer (not all builds though), engi etc.
Having very strong defensive CD’s is just about the only thing a pewpew-Ranger has going for it against the other glassy DD’s though, in almost all other aspects, it’s worse than the ones that are actually played competetively.

4) First of all, Quickness fits in almost no builds that are somewhat useable. Secondly, quickness means nothing if you have no stability, which is very hard to come by for the ranger as well. Pewpew-rangers are often too squishy and would pretty much have to use several CD’s to use a quickness-rez.
Even with quickness-rez, the support/utility is much lower than that of the other DD-glasscannons.

srsly, how many ranger games do you have? I guess under 10.

alain.1659:

Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering.

Ah, yes. Can’t forget those OP Necro reflects and blocks.

nacario.9417:

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

I play this game since 2013. During that time I’ve read pretty much all class balance patch notes.

Yes, ranger is one class has been getting constant buffs, patch after patch. Compare the today’s ranger with the 2.5 years ago ranger. Now look at classes like thief, ele, guard, that are always getting nerfs….

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering.

Ah, yes. Can’t forget those OP Necro reflects and blocks.

I am sorry, I can not hear you over the second life bar. Let me move a little… Oh crap, life bar again.

Seriously stop attacking. It is not about necros vs rangers or buffing rangers. It is about debugging them and giving a more skillful rework. I am perfectly aware that necro,ranger and engineer are not in a very good place those three are my favourite professions sadly.

The reason the Ranger is not getting buffed/reworked is because bugs/broken>balance, can’t balance what is broken.

Real hard to take this post serious, comeback w/the Champion Hunter title and you will be singing a different tune.

Just a start before nerf and buff
1. Remove sword lockdown
2. Fix LB cd reset bug
3. Fix pet f2 (even assigned elsewhere) responsiveness
4. Increase base speed and auto attack of pets
5. Fix utilities that sacrifice a Ranger’s profession mechanic-pets.
6. Increase radius of offhand weapons
7. Remove trigger time for traps
8. Make spirits mobile again
9. Reduce cast times/telegraph of Ranger weapon skills
10. Compare signets/shouts to other professions and balance
11. Make whirling defense mobile
12. Give pets their 150 stat baseline
13. Allow a secondary pet mechanic
14. Fix swoop lockdown midway
Fix the dozens of bugs https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Ranger-Bugs-Updated/first

Let me give some examples how you could buff ranger, while not making it OP and more interesting and skill-intensive to play:

- Wilting Strike should apply weakness for pets that don’t do dmg to opponents, like he brown bear or the fern hound. It could simply be applied in an AoE, like the taunt and blind.
- Give players more control over the pet, like the ability to control the 2 other abilities that aren’t auto-attacks.
- Buff pet-stats: The pet-stats (just like the guild-lord on foefire and the mobs on niflhel) are not on par with the offense and the defense of the current player controlled characters. The only thing they “buffed” was giving the pets half the stats as baseline you got from going full beastmastery before the specializations-patch; this is nowhere near enough. If you combine this with higher control over your pet, controlling your pet properly would be more impactful and require more skill and set the class more apart from other classes.

alain.1659:

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering.

Ah, yes. Can’t forget those OP Necro reflects and blocks.

I am sorry, I can not hear you over the second life bar. Let me move a little… Oh crap, life bar again.

Seriously stop attacking. It is not about necros vs rangers or buffing rangers. It is about debugging them and giving a more skillful rework. I am perfectly aware that necro,ranger and engineer are not in a very good place those three are my favourite professions sadly.

You are doing far more attacking than I am. I’m just pointing out that Necros don’t actually have reflects, blocks, or projectile destruction. Heck, this isn’t even a complaint.

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering.

Ah, yes. Can’t forget those OP Necro reflects and blocks.

I am sorry, I can not hear you over the second life bar. Let me move a little… Oh crap, life bar again.

Seriously stop attacking. It is not about necros vs rangers or buffing rangers. It is about debugging them and giving a more skillful rework. I am perfectly aware that necro,ranger and engineer are not in a very good place those three are my favourite professions sadly.

You are doing far more attacking than I am. I’m just pointing out that Necros don’t actually have reflects, blocks, or projectile destruction. Heck, this isn’t even a complaint.

well yes, not every class has it, but many classes have it in AoE form…. It’s actually a valid concern: If a team is running a pewpew, some classes can just switch one trait (like mesmer from the blind to reflect) and they are immune to it. It’s not even a big risk, since even if it’s not a pewpew-ranger, reflect is still pretty kitten good against any other ranger build.

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Numbers of buffs and nerfs are completely irrelevant. All what count, are the consequences of these changes. Did the buffs gave ranger a spot in the pvp meta? No! Destroyed the nerfs all (at “high lvl pvp”) competitive builds? Yes!

Honestly ranger got many buff (taunt for example carries an entire line and it’s really strong), the power version is really good and che condi version is really solid. But it’s outplayed now in every role, totally from Mesmer, like roamer, in a tournament environment and thief has always more stealth and more mobility. Elementalist is the unreachable point holder in the actutal state, too strong.

I agree on general mechanics, i always think to create a better ranger gameplay the key is always the pet and having a better control on every pet skills would mean a huge impact on skill floor.

But for now, main problem are other professions (especially Ele and Mesmer) not ranger itself.

The power creep in this game is really too high right now, it’s better to lower op classes instead of buffing everything else.

PowerBottom.5796:

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering.

Ah, yes. Can’t forget those OP Necro reflects and blocks.

I am sorry, I can not hear you over the second life bar. Let me move a little… Oh crap, life bar again.

Seriously stop attacking. It is not about necros vs rangers or buffing rangers. It is about debugging them and giving a more skillful rework. I am perfectly aware that necro,ranger and engineer are not in a very good place those three are my favourite professions sadly.

You are doing far more attacking than I am. I’m just pointing out that Necros don’t actually have reflects, blocks, or projectile destruction. Heck, this isn’t even a complaint.

well yes, not every class has it, but many classes have it in AoE form…. It’s actually a valid concern: If a team is running a pewpew, some classes can just switch one trait (like mesmer from the blind to reflect) and they are immune to it. It’s not even a big risk, since even if it’s not a pewpew-ranger, reflect is still pretty kitten good against any other ranger build.

Oh I conpletely agree with you. Reflects nullify half the class and the fact that Mesmers are so abundant makes it even worse. I wish the best for Rangers, as long as the best doesn’s include the basic longbow spam the OP talks about.

so its hard to tell, but it looks like to main warrior, and rading over your post, it cant believe you have ever really tried to even play a ranger.

1.) you say rangers have reliable damage. Its just not true. Heres why: Our Pet.

-30% (roughly) of our damage comes from our pets. If you were a good player, or if you played a ranger, you would know how easy it is to kite their auto attacks and dodge there highly telegraphed F2 and main attacks. Not to mention, ranger pets die to cleave and Aoe so easily, we loose access to our class mechanic. Without a pet, the ranger is by far the weakest class in the game, and we are the only class that can loose our class mechanic due to damage.

If you read about the significant nerf to Beastly Warden (pet taunt) you would know just how much weaker it is now. I suggest you read up on that so u can understand how to counter it.

2. ) Then you say our auto attack baits dodges. How is that the fault of the ranger? it seems like the guy who is spamming dodges against the auto attack is the idiot in this situation. Good players know to dodge wolf knockdown, Point black shot, Hunters shot, and get in the rangers face. If you are so concerned about autos, have you ever considered using LoS?

3.) as a warrior (is that’s what you are, maybe you arent) you should not be complaining about rangers having tools that disengage, grant stability, grant invulnerability, etc. warriors have all that same stuff, but with heavy armor, and can still maintain those things with marauder equipped. What is unfair about having these things? theif has stealth, ele has its healing and immunities, Mesmer can teleport and stealth everywhere, guardians block everything, etc. We cant have damage mitigation tools because we have a ranged weapon?

3. Our quickness is one utility skill, Quickening Zephyr, on a 48 second cool down when traited. How is that “do it frequently?” Its not even a great skill in a competitive sense and only some rangers take it just to burst people. It offerslittle else outside of that. You make it seem like we just do it naturally.

And condi ranger….wow, its one of the worst condi specs in the game. Protip: dodge Entangle. That’s it. If you played Ranger condi prior to the patch you would know how much weaker it is now. We lost off-hand training and the way our traits are setup, we cannot really afford to take condi traits . Additionally, We cant stack burns, torment, or confusion. We can bleed decently, and poison like a mofo, but who cares?

and about ranger being noob friendly. When was the last time a noob ranger took you down? See lots of noob ranger teams winning matches in hotjoin? Unranked? Ranked? If they are, wow, I feel bad for u man.

Yeah, sorry man but this post kittenes me off, its just so friggen uninformed. You know nothing Jon Snow.

You say you want to see them get a rework, but your post is just a a nother not-so-clever b***ch post, and you couldnt give 2 kittens about ranger. Good day

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

meow one twenty.4376:

alain.1659:

Every kitten profession in the game have some kind of reflection and projectile buggering.

Ah, yes. Can’t forget those OP Necro reflects and blocks.

I am sorry, I can not hear you over the second life bar. Let me move a little… Oh crap, life bar again.

Seriously stop attacking. It is not about necros vs rangers or buffing rangers. It is about debugging them and giving a more skillful rework. I am perfectly aware that necro,ranger and engineer are not in a very good place those three are my favourite professions sadly.

You are doing far more attacking than I am. I’m just pointing out that Necros don’t actually have reflects, blocks, or projectile destruction. Heck, this isn’t even a complaint.

kitten , I did it again. Sorry about that, sometimes my joke-style becomes a little tushyhole-ish. That is the problem with phone-foruming, can not write properly.

Rangers need to be reworked. Too many bugs to buff. It is like a building with a flawed foundation. No matter how much you add, it will collapse.

xDudisx.5914:

nacario.9417:

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

I play this game since 2013. During that time I’ve read pretty much all class balance patch notes.

Yes, ranger is one class has been getting constant buffs, patch after patch. Compare the today’s ranger with the 2.5 years ago ranger. Now look at classes like thief, ele, guard, that are always getting nerfs….

I compared Thief, Ele and Guard from 2012 and 2013 to today.

They’re pretty much the same.

xDudisx.5914:

nacario.9417:

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

I play this game since 2013. During that time I’ve read pretty much all class balance patch notes.

Yes, ranger is one class has been getting constant buffs, patch after patch. Compare the today’s ranger with the 2.5 years ago ranger. Now look at classes like thief, ele, guard, that are always getting nerfs….

lolwut?

Okay…. Ranger 2-3 years ago, Trap builds, BM builds, spirit builds, had a place on every team, just like thief, ele, guard.

After the respective claim of a “constant buff, constant nerf” cycle, ranger, since the cele meta started, has been considered bottom tier and a liability to have on any team, while the “constantly nerfed classes” have been even more desired/required for a team to be competitive, with metagames even being shaped around their existence in certain instances.

So….. the ranger got buffed down to the bottom, not optimal, not viable tier, while Guards, thieves, and eles got nerfed up to the highest tiers. Makes sense.

I really appreciate the shortbow buffs we got that decreased the attack speed and range, or the more recent buffs to spirits, traps (healing spring…. sigh), off hand weapons, condi removal, etc.

Rym.1469:

xDudisx.5914:

nacario.9417:

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

I play this game since 2013. During that time I’ve read pretty much all class balance patch notes.

Yes, ranger is one class has been getting constant buffs, patch after patch. Compare the today’s ranger with the 2.5 years ago ranger. Now look at classes like thief, ele, guard, that are always getting nerfs….

I compared Thief, Ele and Guard from 2012 and 2013 to today.

They’re pretty much the same.

Thief got huge dmg nerfs on a lot of skills. You can’t crit on steal anymore. Watch those videos of people 2shoting players in 1 second before backstab nerf.

Ranger: buff after buff.

xDudisx.5914:

Rym.1469:

xDudisx.5914:

nacario.9417:

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

I play this game since 2013. During that time I’ve read pretty much all class balance patch notes.

Yes, ranger is one class has been getting constant buffs, patch after patch. Compare the today’s ranger with the 2.5 years ago ranger. Now look at classes like thief, ele, guard, that are always getting nerfs….

I compared Thief, Ele and Guard from 2012 and 2013 to today.

They’re pretty much the same.

Thief got huge dmg nerfs on a lot of skills. You can’t crit on steal anymore. Watch those videos of people 2shoting players in 1 second before backstab nerf.

Ranger: buff after buff.

Ranger lost something like 20-30% damage from traits/modifiers, not that it matters for either class in PvP. Thieves still have a stronger burst and the mobility, boon steal, and disengage that rangers lack.

Dmg dmg dmg , all about dmg, everybody thinks so one-dimensionally in terms of PvP … Nobody ever thinks about team utility – this is why ranger isn’t in top tier teams… No uniqueness can be brung to a team with ranger right now. Spirits were the only team support and BM was a selfish node holding build heavily reliant on bird pets.

Lol. Players consider everything, especially the good ones. They just pick what is most effective and that happens to be not the Ranger.

xDudisx.5914:

Rym.1469:

xDudisx.5914:

nacario.9417:

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

I play this game since 2013. During that time I’ve read pretty much all class balance patch notes.

Yes, ranger is one class has been getting constant buffs, patch after patch. Compare the today’s ranger with the 2.5 years ago ranger. Now look at classes like thief, ele, guard, that are always getting nerfs….

I compared Thief, Ele and Guard from 2012 and 2013 to today.

They’re pretty much the same.

Thief got huge dmg nerfs on a lot of skills. You can’t crit on steal anymore. Watch those videos of people 2shoting players in 1 second before backstab nerf.

Ranger: buff after buff.

Yeah buff:
- Decrease sb range, attack speed to make lb more viable, that’s you call a buff ?
- Destroy pet after 2 weeks buff, also killing the BM bunker build.
- Who gonna use shout pre-patch ? They’re mostly broken.
- Entangle hardly hit, ppl dodge it so easy.
- Ye signet cd is a buff
- Who gonna use warhorn ? In PvE maybe lol. #4 meh, #5 still too long cd
- 3s of might in a condi wp for what ? stacking might for pet maybe ?
- The only 2 traits i thing got buff is Suvival of the finest and Read the wind. All other are meh.
- Dont forget they nerfed spirit so noone gonna use spirit again, in any situation.

So NO, i cant see the buff after buff you mean.

Do they need to buff ranger more? Strength of the pack say it all.

I don’t even know where to start on how wrong you are.

Nier.8741:

There are a few simple reasons why Ranger isn’t getting buffs right now.

At it’s current state, Ranger is just extremely easy to play, and there are a few reasons supporting this argument. I will use Longbow Zerker Ranger as an example from a team fight perspective.

I just skimmed the remaining post after reading the above part. Play as a S/T & A/D in high pvp ranked and still tell me it is too easy. While my main is still guardian, my alt is Ranger. And I can say with 100% absolute confidence you are dead wrong.

You pick and choose utilities/skills and what they do without taking account their cooldowns, or how long they last.

Please take a screenshot of the % of time you’ve played as a ranger in PVP and post it, because your entire topic comes off like bs.

xDudisx.5914:

nacario.9417:

xDudisx.5914:

If you observe the patch notes from the last 2 years, you will see ranger is one of the class which got the most buffs.

Just to list a few:

-longbow dmg buff
-GS dmg buff
-reduce dc on shouts
-entangle reduced cd to 60s
-reduce the cd on signets
-warhorn cd reduction
-axe might on autoatck
-countless trait buffs
-etc…

So you went through all the countless patch notes the last two years in detail to come up with that conclusion

I play this game since 2013. During that time I’ve read pretty much all class balance patch notes.

Yes, ranger is one class has been getting constant buffs, patch after patch. Compare the today’s ranger with the 2.5 years ago ranger. Now look at classes like thief, ele, guard, that are always getting nerfs….

They also got a lot of nerfs, for example pet leash distance was reduced, shortbow was severely nerfed, the grandmaster trait that transfers conditions to pets was nerfed, a first tier trait (quickness on pet swap) was moved to grand master, pet damage was nerfed, and much more.

The best buffs are not on your list though- imo the buff to Longbow (not damage) utility with the stealth shot was a game changer, as was the signet buff, which allowed rangers to use that immunity CD without traiting for it. Those two changes basically made power rangers viable in pvp.

However, I feel rangers were comparatively stronger at launch than they are now- especially against certain classes (necro and ele in particular), but possibly are now a little stronger against thieves (which have had some pretty severe nerfs over the years).

Spirits need to be Field alterning effects not just a Latch on condi or boon.

need to bring back gw1 spirit machanics then a team can pick which supporting spirit they want to advance their play styles.

right now these spirits only Adds little to a party dynamics its only extra damage nothing the spirits do is Utility that is useful to a party .

nature spirit got hammered its only one revive now and it dies pre-patch was 2-3 revival uses and 1stack of stability for 1-2secs does not scale enough even with lingering magic.

we lost utility , to gain party Regen+swiftness which i think should of not happened , now our support is directly tied to traits that contend with our damage traits/condi traits at this point there is too much again competeing with each other .

natures vengence needs to be base line for utility purposes or gw1 spirits like Fertile season and or Favourable winds which increases all projectile speeds for the team , it’ll give the opposing team a reason to try and close in on the spirit as this gives Ranged attacks higher Dps when combined with quickness (chronomancer/guardain dragon hunter im looking at you join the fun).

what should of been base line Utility is still stuck in traits, for the pay off .

spirits easly die fast enough to warrent better Core Abilities.
spirits need increased radius 1200yards passive and natures vengence needs to equal the same.

Just played ranger a bit more- this class has been gutted- why? Were they that dominant before the patch? Spirits don’t even move anymore- complete joke (not to mention SON nerfs); rampage as one’s duration has been cut??? It wasn’t even that strong to begin with compared to other classes ults. Pets are weaker than ever, wow no wonder most people are ranking ranger as the weakest class recently.

I really like playing some longbow ranger inbetween.
The effectivness depends a lot on map and enemies, but since you can freely swap you just have to wait for the right conditions. And if they are given you won’t be calling the ranger useless.
If you are playing ranger only it’s for sure that you will be useless in most of the games.

The OP clearly doesn’t know anything about how the ranger has been altered and how it’s now one of the least useful classes in the game compared to the others.

Pets aren’t that useful when you take every single situation into consideration. They won’t necessarily do much damage, and for experienced rangers they’ll serve best by drawing conditions. Relying on them as a source of damage isn’t smart at all, since managing your pet isn’t a viable option in PvP. Their main purpose is to be meatshields and condition victims, and with some pets their pet skill may be of some use.

Rangers do NOT have reliable damage in ANY situation. This can easily be demonstrated in PvP where for example their Rapid Fire skill is extremely easy to dodge.
At the same time, conditions are no longer a reliable way to deal damage for rangers due to the fact that they’re easily outclassed by for example necromancers and engineers when it comes to this matter. Bleeding is, and has always been, easy to deal with, and the winning classes will now bombard you with conditions. The ranger never had much of an edge to start with, and now their condition builds aren’t really viable in use.

Yes, you have a few surviability skills as a ranger, but they’re weaker than one might think . Signet of Stone doesn’t prevent condition damage, so that skill is useless against condition-heavy classes where direct damage isn’t the main source. Their condition removals aren’t much to brag about either, and they won’t work for longer fights where contitions are quickly reinflicted.
And they lack good disengages, that’s a huge problem. If you look away from Lightning Reflexes, a ranger will most of the time have to stand there and fight to death unlike many of the other classes with proper escapes. If you get focused, you’re done for as a ranger.

Saiyan.1704:

Easier rhan.. Warriors..? Minionmancers? Mesmers..?

Mesmers are a prime example… I had 2 hrs of play time on a mesmer and i’m beating people with 1200+ hrs played. Isn’t that the easy/skill factor you’re talking about?

No, you’re completely wrong OP.

This.

I’ll agree with the op that ranger, like a few other things in the game, require an entire overhaul lest they forever be stuck having a terrible match up vs quite literally everything in the game.

Lets make it short. The OP doesnt know anything about rangers and the PvP Meta in tournaments. Otherwise he would have mentioned that there are no rangers in most of the sucessfull teams. Probably he is only playing in hotjoin or in low tier rank matches, where ppl. cannot dodge a simple rapidfire.

And when i read the summary of xdudisx i can only laugh.

1. Might on axe a buff. Show me a beastmaster, who can make the might reliable for the pet. The might, the rangers get, is to low and axedmg is really bad. A bird with 25 stacks might is possible and the aa is pretty nice, but a good opponent can avoid it easily by simply moving around. What did i get from a pet, that can hit like a truck, but never can hit an experienced opponent.

2. Dc reduce on shouts? It was not good enough to bring some viable shoutbuilds into pvp. Or do you know shoutbuild in tournaments. Oh wait, did i mentioned, that only one or two ppl. playing successfull tournament pvp with ranger as their mainclass.

3. dc reduce on warhorn? Even with this change most of the pvp-rangers would never use warhorn. Warhorn is made for direct damage and ppl would alway prefer gs before warhorn.

4. countless traitbuffs? Show me a class, who did not get "countless"buffs in the recent patches. In the end, many other classes got buffed even more. The only strong new trait, that comes to my mind, is beastly warden.

5. signet buff? Signet of Stone would loose everytime, if you would compare it with similiar skills like the stances on warrior. Signet of renewal kills your pet instantly. Signet of the wild with his stability is nothing to the access of stability from Guardians and warriors. Or mistform and Elixier s from ele and engi. Or distortion from mesmer.

6. longbowbuff? Come on, you cannot dodge rapidfire, really? Range is nice, but the only map, that is usfull for that is foefire and maybe temple.

The only things, that can be called buffs, are entangle and gs dmg buff.

the class have enough damage when built correctly and you don’t neglect the pet or skip pet traits just for personal traits as most pet traits now also effect the ranger so not taking pet traits you’re hurting your own damage by not managing the pet effectively or choosing the correct pet for the job.

The old Power lb/Gs is dead you need to incorporate pets into the build rather than taking every trait that effects Ranger only.

the only thing Ranger is lacking right now is tweeks to damage (because of the Feature patch which is not a Balance patch) and the lack of Utility support outside of Traits.

the core of our Support Utility is not that great but it requires Traits to make it Useful which seem to be the theme for Anets balance for ranger, they overhalled Traps and the heals now they need to look at Shouts and honestly with Strenght of the pack being a shout and its short duration should effect allies as well , though the Might portion should only effect those with PETS which makes it cool for MM’s and Pet summon runes.

if your a newcommer to ranger fourms do note strenght of the pack each time the pet attacks it grants you might and each time you attack it grants the pet might , this will be very useful in team fights and zergs.

applying Swiftness and Stability for 10secs on pulse which is again somthing the ranger support Utility needs , if they did this I’d gladly be Happy with a increased cooldown again.

Zenos Osgorma.2936:

the class have enough damage when built correctly and you don’t neglect the pet or skip pet traits just for personal traits as most pet traits now also effect the ranger so not taking pet traits you’re hurting your own damage by not managing the pet effectively or choosing the correct pet for the job.

The old Power lb/Gs is dead you need to incorporate pets into the build rather than taking every trait that effects Ranger only.

What you’re describing is something that would only work in PvE. In PvP it’s easy to disable a pet, and if you’re making use of it by for example making it draw your conditions it will more often than not be dead. Pet traits are indeed somewhat useful for the ranger, too, but you’ll kind of get “half” of the effect if you’re ignoring your pet, which is what you’ll most likely do for PvP.

The point is that you can’t rely on your pet for damage or support. You can’t properly control it, and therefore it’s really not a useful element for PvP where engaging the proper target is important. That’s why focusing on the ranger only has been, and will always be, the way to play the rainger to the best of their abilities in PvP. There are simply better things to focus on rather than managing your pet, and if you’ve actually tried it you would have known.
Not to mention that pets at times can be rather unresponsive either due to complicated pathing to the target, obstacles etc.

They’ll need to “sharpen” some of the ranger’s roles in order to make it function properly again, either giving them a much needed damage buff across the board or new and easier ways to inflict conditions in order to make the shortbow, axe, dagger and torch even remotely usable again.

It doesn’t matter whether you max out condition damage or power, the ranger fails to deal any significant damage regardless of offensive choices.

the sad part is, this man nailed it on the head and people still don’t see it…

If ranger dealt anything near as much damage as these fools seem to think it needs to you’d watch the game fall into a state of auto attack spam hell… It’s not such a big deal in pvp because there is SOME terrain to use, but half the maps are horrible for having ranged damage on them.

having played ranger, both power and condi, I didn’t lack damage at all, I do think the skill cieling in the class needs to come from an almost total rework of how my pet worked. Condi ranger was laughable… to think those traps can’t do damage is a total joke and you’re an idiot to say that. Sure it’s not tournament viable and if it was I would of died from the cancer… I’ve repeatedly watched people get ONE SHOT by the traps left on a point i’m not even on as I go to move to a different point.

Rangers need mechanical love, if you just buff their numbers to what ever “viability” you think this broken kitten class needs the game will be hell for the 6 months it would take arena net to realize the mistake…

Either that or make long bow actually require SOME literally ANY amount of finesse to use and I’d buy that it could use some power creep.

penelopehannibal.8947:

Ranger hate is bandwagon hate. People only hate rangers because it’s some sort of fashion to do so. One person complains about a ranger using Longbow 4 against an enemy they were in the middle of melee about – and the whole crowd followed them with pitchforks.

The same argument the OP has said about rangers can probably be said about most classes, as I’ve heard people saying Necromancers and Mesmers and Guardians are the easiest to play too in various map chat conversations, though there doesn’t seem to be an abhorrent hate following those classes like there is against the ranger.

No,that is what You personally think why people dislike rangers.I dislike them for their 1500- 1700 range pew pewe dmg comparable to landing a full 100b but without the need to even land an opener first to make a connect,its just stand and Pew Pew Pew Pew .It’;s quite kittening ridiculous if you ask me,Any fight they will join,you either have to bail or focus the ranger straight away.It’s too easy to land a powerfull burst with a ranger from 15 – 1700 range.

Lock a ranger into place while using rapid fire,no free movement so he has to think about when to actually use it instead of blindly pewpewing,and any movement after will cancel it immediately.

Caedmon.6798:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Ranger hate is bandwagon hate. People only hate rangers because it’s some sort of fashion to do so. One person complains about a ranger using Longbow 4 against an enemy they were in the middle of melee about – and the whole crowd followed them with pitchforks.

The same argument the OP has said about rangers can probably be said about most classes, as I’ve heard people saying Necromancers and Mesmers and Guardians are the easiest to play too in various map chat conversations, though there doesn’t seem to be an abhorrent hate following those classes like there is against the ranger.

No,that is what You personally think why people dislike rangers.I dislike them for their 1500- 1700 range pew pewe dmg comparable to landing a full 100b but without the need to even land an opener first to make a connect,its just stand and Pew Pew Pew Pew .It’;s quite kittening ridiculous if you ask me,Any fight they will join,you either have to bail or focus the ranger straight away.It’s too easy to land a powerfull burst with a ranger from 15 – 1700 range.

Lock a ranger into place while using rapid fire,no free movement so he has to think about when to actually use it instead of blindly pewpewing,and any movement after will cancel it immediately.

That may be one of the worst suggestions I’ve seen on a ranger. They already are locked in place practically.

If you are unable to dodge a ranger pew pewing from that range you deserve to lose every time period. There is plenty of utilities whether it be reflection, retaliation or obstacles to cause obstruction.

There is a reason why high ranks don’t use rangers, and it is most certainly not because they are OP. They are broken by anet.