Guild Wars 2

I am just curious to find out why players hate rangers, given that most players who hate them, admit they do not play or ever intend to play one. Which makes it even more interesting as to why they actually hate them.

Every other class does things better. Ranger’s pet is close to useless during zergs. Ranger doesnt deal good AoE dmg(or actually damage overall in zergs.). Ranger doesnt bring good enough support. Ranger cant tank (yes u got ur signet but its not enough.).
Only thing that can be useful is your water heal / binding roots. But then again other more useful classes provide these already.

List probably could continue pages but heres the reason why i dont like rangers. I used to main ranger for over 1000 hours so i know what i talk about. And i assume you talk about zerging and not small scale roaming.

I personally love Rangers, I wanted so bad for one to be my main but sadly could never find a build or play style I could get into and get comfortable with.

I want to love my Ranger. I wanted to play a Ranger ever since GW1 (when I didn’t make one because they were too many). And I want to use a bow. If I wanted to melee, I’d go War, Guard, or Thief.

But they just suck. So I guess you could say I hate the fact that they suck.

Covis.6037:

Every other class does things better.

Actually, that is wrong. No profession comes close to as much Immobilize as rangers, even if the other profession specs for it. And only thief can apply as much poison, as often, as easily. Only the Warrior can match the passive regeneration. Only a guardian can actually bunker as well as a ranger.

Rangers can apply 250% more fear then necromancers are able to.

Prysin.8542:

Covis.6037:

Every other class does things better.

Actually, that is wrong. No profession comes close to as much Immobilize as rangers, even if the other profession specs for it. And only thief can apply as much poison, as often, as easily. Only the Warrior can match the passive regeneration. Only a guardian can actually bunker as well as a ranger.

Rangers can apply 250% more fear then necromancers are able to.

Yes and all those reasons (even though they are incorrect, and some exaggerated) are why Rangers are so wanted/needed in WvW focused guild/groups…..

lol

I hate the Rangers archetype in most MMO just because the design of the class makes them by far the easiest to play.

Their pet, combined with ranged DPS means they are a very safe class to play and rarely in danger. On the other hand their concept doesn’t really allow for a huge variety of spells that would somehow make them interesting. They aren’t Warlocks. Instead their abilities are always very vanilla and simplistic.

So in many cases you end up with a class that is populated by bad players because it’s so easy to play and doesn’t have special or interesting skills that would somehow aid the group.

Now most of this applies to GW2 as well.

Rangers, next to the Palandin archetype, have always been the least appealing classes to me.

Prysin.8542:

Covis.6037:

Every other class does things better.

Actually, that is wrong. No profession comes close to as much Immobilize as rangers, even if the other profession specs for it. And only thief can apply as much poison, as often, as easily. Only the Warrior can match the passive regeneration. Only a guardian can actually bunker as well as a ranger.

Rangers can apply 250% more fear then necromancers are able to.

lol warriors and thieves easily beat rangers in immobilize. also you proved the dudes point with almost everything you said.

I dreamed of playing a human ranger before headstart (in sequence of my main character in GW1). My first char was indeed a human ranger. Then I tried out the warrior. Never have I been as shocked as that day, seeing the warrior easily hitting 2-3 times as much and simply strolling through waves of mobs as if they were butter and he a knife.

That said. I always wanted a ranger. I don’t hate rangers. I hate what Anet did to rangers.

If you make them tanky enough to survive zerg fights, they don’t do enough damage to be useful. If they do enough damage, they’re too glassy and end up dying.

Their ranged skills are FAR too susceptible to getting reflected and killing the ranger.

Pets are 100% useless in medium+ scale combat. Even the tanky ones die instantly.

I think the idea was to make the pet a decent portion of their damage. In the process they made the rangers themselves nearly useless.

My main is a Ranger. It’s great for roaming and decent in small group fights. Great for spvp. However in zergs the Ranger is useless, which is why I’ve leveled a necro just to run with the guild.

The fact is, Rangers aren’t good in wvw. They’re a fine profession, but they lack in wvw-related utility. (portals, swiftness circles, aoe damage, group stealth/might etc. Not to mention their blast finisher’s on a 35 second [or 28 traited] cooldown.)

Oh, and pets are useless in zergs because they don’t dodge and aren’t strategic. As far as I’m concerned, Rangers should be allowed to swap pets on no cooldown, they’re not exactly powerful and their abilities still carry cooldowns.

… well, that and 2013 was ‘Year of the Ranger nerf.’

~ Kovu

I did play a ranger. I tried to make a ranger work in wvw for a long time. By work I mean actually being good and not just “good for a ranger.” Then I played a warrior for 5 minutes, lol’d at myself, and salvaged all my rangers gear.

People who try to defend rangers are in denial. People who say rangers are hard to play confuse difficulty with poor and broken mechanics. Literally all you have to do against a ranger is move. Their pet will not hit you and they instantly lose a large portion of their damage. If they are using ranged weapons? Lul at them and smash their face in because their damage will be pathetic. If they are melee? Well they can actually do some damage if they are using sword but they will be squishy as kitten.

Basically rangers have flawed class mechanics and I dislike people who defend them because despite what you think, they are bad. Why when I play a MM necro can my minions make some transitions on the z-axis while my ranger’s pet NEVER EVER does. Oh but you can just pet swap to get it by you, they say. Well since it will likely die in the next 20 seconds welcome to a minute of no pet at all.

tl;dr people don’t like rangers because they are bad, if you defend rangers you are probably bad

edit: I was pretty harsh there, sorry I’m sick, but rangers need some serious work

Vaxx.3178:

Prysin.8542:

Covis.6037:

Every other class does things better.

Actually, that is wrong. No profession comes close to as much Immobilize as rangers, even if the other profession specs for it. And only thief can apply as much poison, as often, as easily. Only the Warrior can match the passive regeneration. Only a guardian can actually bunker as well as a ranger.

Rangers can apply 250% more fear then necromancers are able to.

Yes and all those reasons (even though they are incorrect, and some exaggerated) are why Rangers are so wanted/needed in WvW focused guild/groups…..

lol

Unless you’ve played ranger you can’t say these are exagerated. Immob, we have muddy terrian,entangle and pets. We can get perma poison with two weapon skills, can get perma regen from shouts and passive regen from signets, that yes only a warrior can beat. And I don’t you’ve ever fought a bunker ranger before.

Big zergs ranger’s don’t shine as well, but small scall roaming, dueling,spvp you don’t laugh at a ranger. I do recall ranger’s running the show in spvp for atleast 3 months with spirits, and we’re still good small scale.

I have never failed to kill a ranger or even two rangers on my theif. Bunkers can’t damage me, and ones who can damage drop in 2 hits. I laugh at their useless pets.

Going to summarize every one of these threads in the past year and half:

Everyone: Rangers aren’t as good as other classes in wvw. Pets are useless, rangers don’t do enough damage or provide enough group utility. What utility they do provide is easily given by other classes.

Rangers: Nuh-uh! Rangers are awesome!

warriorjrd.8695:

Vaxx.3178:

Prysin.8542:

Covis.6037:

Every other class does things better.

Actually, that is wrong. No profession comes close to as much Immobilize as rangers, even if the other profession specs for it. And only thief can apply as much poison, as often, as easily. Only the Warrior can match the passive regeneration. Only a guardian can actually bunker as well as a ranger.

Rangers can apply 250% more fear then necromancers are able to.

Yes and all those reasons (even though they are incorrect, and some exaggerated) are why Rangers are so wanted/needed in WvW focused guild/groups…..

lol

Unless you’ve played ranger you can’t say these are exagerated. Immob, we have muddy terrian,entangle and pets. We can get perma poison with two weapon skills, can get perma regen from shouts and passive regen from signets, that yes only a warrior can beat. And I don’t you’ve ever fought a bunker ranger before.

Big zergs ranger’s don’t shine as well, but small scall roaming, dueling,spvp you don’t laugh at a ranger. I do recall ranger’s running the show in spvp for atleast 3 months with spirits, and we’re still good small scale.

Good thing I play a Ranger then….so I can safely and knowledgeable say that the info posted is wrong and exaggerated.

SPvP and duals, sure ok, Ranger is not bad, but the person I quoted said Ranger do things better than other classes, which is garbage.

Want to prove me wrong? Show me one single (good) WvW guild trying to recruit a Ranger for guild groups. That is enough evidence to prove that other classes do the job better.

Blix.8021:

Going to summarize every one of these threads in the past year and half:

Everyone: Rangers aren’t as good as other classes in wvw. Pets are useless, rangers don’t do enough damage or provide enough group utility. What utility they do provide is easily given by other classes.

Rangers: Nuh-uh! Rangers are awesome!

This is the truth. Sadly.

Easy, 1500 Range, 5k damage Long Range Shots vs Glass Ele = 2 – 3 Arrows downed. Them pesky Rangers. Lol

8 second fire field, 10 second water field both on reasonable cd’s. 2 second immobilize per 16 seconds(if specced for it) easy swap to fear group buffs etc. AoE vigor, good source of regen. Honestly I don’t think a lot of the “rangers” know what rangers can do. I was talking to another player the other day, an experienced WvWer that had no idea rangers had as much access as they do to these things.

Problem generally stems from PvE players trying to cross their PvE style/build into WvW.

Dovgan.8605:

8 second fire field, 10 second water field both on reasonable cd’s. 2 second immobilize per 16 seconds(if specced for it) easy swap to fear group buffs etc. AoE vigor, good source of regen. Honestly I don’t think a lot of the “rangers” know what rangers can do. I was talking to another player the other day, an experienced WvWer that had no idea rangers had as much access as they do to these things.

Problem generally stems from PvE players trying to cross their PvE style/build into WvW.

8 second fire field. – And? Ele and engineer both do fire fields better, just for the fact they do more AoE damage, and can escape better.

10 second water field. – Point blank water field you mean. So you want the Ranger to roll with the heavy melee train, right? Sure build them tanky and watch them hit like a wet noodle, or build them dps style and watch them melt with weak coni clear, looong cooldown stability, and med armor. Again Ele can do it better at range, and more than one, and provide damage that trumps Rangers.

Regen. - Engi does regen better for a group, so does Guard, and is much better all around for a group.

AoE Vigor – Warrior warhorn 5 skill says hello.

Nothing you point out makes the Ranger class better, sorry. You can be in denial and try hard to come up with “reasons” for a Ranger to be picked over another class, aside from single roaming, and you will always come up short. Where are the good WvW guilds that have this class in their setups? Show me please.

Face it, Anet dropped the ball with the class, and seems to not have a clue how to get it on track.

Vaxx.3178:

Dovgan.8605:

8 second fire field, 10 second water field both on reasonable cd’s. 2 second immobilize per 16 seconds(if specced for it) easy swap to fear group buffs etc. AoE vigor, good source of regen. Honestly I don’t think a lot of the “rangers” know what rangers can do. I was talking to another player the other day, an experienced WvWer that had no idea rangers had as much access as they do to these things.

Problem generally stems from PvE players trying to cross their PvE style/build into WvW.

8 second fire field. – And? Ele and engineer both do fire fields better, just for the fact they do more AoE damage, and can escape better.

10 second water field. – Point blank water field you mean. So you want the Ranger to roll with the heavy melee train, right? Sure build them tanky and watch them hit like a wet noodle, or build them dps style and watch them melt with weak coni clear, looong cooldown stability, and med armor. Again Ele can do it better at range, and more than one, and provide damage that trumps Rangers.

Regen. - Engi does regen better for a group, so does Guard, and is much better all around for a group.

AoE Vigor – Warrior warhorn 5 skill says hello.

Nothing you point out makes the Ranger class better, sorry. You can be in denial and try hard to come up with “reasons” for a Ranger to be picked over another class, aside from single roaming, and you will always come up short. Where are the good WvW guilds that have this class in their setups? Show me please.

Face it, Anet dropped the ball with the class, and seems to not have a clue how to get it on track.

So you are saying all you need are 3 separate classes to do the same thing 1 class can do? Got it..

Dovgan.8605:

So you are saying all you need are 3 separate classes to do the same thing 1 class can do? Got it..

If one class (Ranger) can do something that 3 classes can do, why are there not more WvW guilds using them over Ele, War, Guard, Necro, etc. etc. ???

You can make witty comments, or actually enlighten us naysayers by showing something beyond “nu-uh” comments. Or do you not have any?

Vaxx.3178:

Dovgan.8605:

So you are saying all you need are 3 separate classes to do the same thing 1 class can do? Got it..

If one class (Ranger) can do something that 3 classes can do, why are there not more WvW guilds using them over Ele, War, Guard, Necro, etc. etc. ???

You can make witty comments, or actually enlighten us naysayers by showing something beyond “nu-uh” comments. Or do you not have any?

its simple really the current meta stands as :hammer train followed by necro condi bombs and guards followed by Ele meteor nukers

Vaxx.3178:

Dovgan.8605:

So you are saying all you need are 3 separate classes to do the same thing 1 class can do? Got it..

If one class (Ranger) can do something that 3 classes can do, why are there not more WvW guilds using them over Ele, War, Guard, Necro, etc. etc. ???

You can make witty comments, or actually enlighten us naysayers by showing something beyond “nu-uh” comments. Or do you not have any?

The answer is actually pretty simple. Out of the box the ranger class is one of the easiest to get going, strap on a bear and “pew-pew” from a distance, and easy meta. As you go into WvW the meta changes quite a bit. With the change in overall playstyle, the learning curve increases exponentially. So why do players tend to choose other classes over ranger, simple answer is that they are easier to play, not necessarily better, just easier.
As far as “nu-uh” comments, the only one that made any was you. I was merely pointing out rangers have access to a lot of viable skills, and when played well, can compete just fine. If you personally have a reason to dislike the class and feel the need to spew negative propaganda about it, that is your prerogative.

Dovgan.8605:

Vaxx.3178:

Dovgan.8605:

8 second fire field, 10 second water field both on reasonable cd’s. 2 second immobilize per 16 seconds(if specced for it) easy swap to fear group buffs etc. AoE vigor, good source of regen. Honestly I don’t think a lot of the “rangers” know what rangers can do. I was talking to another player the other day, an experienced WvWer that had no idea rangers had as much access as they do to these things.

Problem generally stems from PvE players trying to cross their PvE style/build into WvW.

8 second fire field. – And? Ele and engineer both do fire fields better, just for the fact they do more AoE damage, and can escape better.

10 second water field. – Point blank water field you mean. So you want the Ranger to roll with the heavy melee train, right? Sure build them tanky and watch them hit like a wet noodle, or build them dps style and watch them melt with weak coni clear, looong cooldown stability, and med armor. Again Ele can do it better at range, and more than one, and provide damage that trumps Rangers.

Regen. - Engi does regen better for a group, so does Guard, and is much better all around for a group.

AoE Vigor – Warrior warhorn 5 skill says hello.

Nothing you point out makes the Ranger class better, sorry. You can be in denial and try hard to come up with “reasons” for a Ranger to be picked over another class, aside from single roaming, and you will always come up short. Where are the good WvW guilds that have this class in their setups? Show me please.

Face it, Anet dropped the ball with the class, and seems to not have a clue how to get it on track.

So you are saying all you need are 3 separate classes to do the same thing 1 class can do? Got it..

That sounds clever….. if you completely ignore all the other stuff those 3 classes can do.

I can technically fire a gun, and I can also speak some French.

If you were invading France (with 2 people, should be easy), would you choose to take 2 of me, or would you take a trained soldier and a professional translator?

But I can do both!! Why you take 2 people, one who can’t speak french and the other who can’t fire a gun, when you could just take me?? WHY YOU NO WANT ME??

I main a ranger, wvw only, and i really love it but also hate it how anet could forget about this class, and as some other people already said, anything a ranger does, another class can do better.

Ragnar.4257:

Dovgan.8605:

Vaxx.3178:

Dovgan.8605:

8 second fire field, 10 second water field both on reasonable cd’s. 2 second immobilize per 16 seconds(if specced for it) easy swap to fear group buffs etc. AoE vigor, good source of regen. Honestly I don’t think a lot of the “rangers” know what rangers can do. I was talking to another player the other day, an experienced WvWer that had no idea rangers had as much access as they do to these things.

Problem generally stems from PvE players trying to cross their PvE style/build into WvW.

8 second fire field. – And? Ele and engineer both do fire fields better, just for the fact they do more AoE damage, and can escape better.

10 second water field. – Point blank water field you mean. So you want the Ranger to roll with the heavy melee train, right? Sure build them tanky and watch them hit like a wet noodle, or build them dps style and watch them melt with weak coni clear, looong cooldown stability, and med armor. Again Ele can do it better at range, and more than one, and provide damage that trumps Rangers.

Regen. - Engi does regen better for a group, so does Guard, and is much better all around for a group.

AoE Vigor – Warrior warhorn 5 skill says hello.

Nothing you point out makes the Ranger class better, sorry. You can be in denial and try hard to come up with “reasons” for a Ranger to be picked over another class, aside from single roaming, and you will always come up short. Where are the good WvW guilds that have this class in their setups? Show me please.

Face it, Anet dropped the ball with the class, and seems to not have a clue how to get it on track.

So you are saying all you need are 3 separate classes to do the same thing 1 class can do? Got it..

That sounds clever….. if you completely ignore all the other stuff those 3 classes can do.

I can technically fire a gun, and I can also speak some French.

If you were invading France (with 2 people, should be easy), would you choose to take 2 of me, or would you take a trained soldier and a professional translator?

But I can do both!! Why you take 2 people, one who can’t speak french and the other who can’t fire a gun, when you could just take me?? WHY YOU NO WANT ME??

Honestly, I would take 2 of you. It’s France for God’s sake. You don’t even have to be good with a gun.

Didn’t anet admit that they cannot fix ranger pets because the pet skills are tied to mob animation? Therefore, if the enemy moves, the f2 skill misses? In addition, isn’t ranger dps reduced -40% because of their pet? I think that pretty much says it all.

all rangers should quite the wvw or at least stop running with zergs because they are liability and are useless, and it’s not just my opinion… It’s 98% of gw2 wvw community opinion.
(of course hopefully assuming that rangers make only 2%)

MFWIC.6091:

all rangers should quite the wvw or at least stop running with zergs because they are liability and are useless, and it’s not just my opinion… It’s 98% of gw2 wvw community opinion.
(of course hopefully assuming that rangers make only 2%)

Or you could lobby anet to help the poor rangers, lol.

It’s pretty simple really, they’re a pet class and WvW is a game mode where pets are pretty ineffective for the most part. Add to that they have a large amount of trait’s and utilities centred around benefiting their pets and no other allies and what you have is a selfish class in a team game…and you wonder why nobody wants them?

Because it is inferior for zerging, although I’m just going to say there’s much more in wvw to do than to follow a zerg and press 1.

I have like 70 hours on my ranger to find out what the QQ was about and it’s not THAT bad really. After hearing all the QQ about how bad they’re on in PvE when they’re really not (“I tried a bearbow and it was terrible, reroll”) and the amount of bads that still can’t use the sword properly even allegedly having played the class as a main and the general tendency of forum posts to hyperbolize grievances into atrocities , I’m just not inclined to take people’s anecdotes seriously. Sure, sure I main guardian but a blind monkey can play a tanky wvw guardian and that’s a problem with the mode itself. The nature of the game greatly favors melee due to the AOE cap and being in range for boons. Ranged weapons are also frequently underpowered compared to their melee counterparts; of which becomes blatantly clear in PvE…

What is true though is a few things:

- Ranged Aoe damage is balls. What’s the use of 1500 range when it’s all single target unless you take leeching, whoops I meant piercing arrows and then you have to sacrifice either spotter or kitten , 1500 range? In addition, barrage is pretty bad. Yea, I’m gonna just root myself here and leave myself totally vulnerable to classes that can close the distance in a single swoop.

- Stability (and thus ping ponged). We have the elite skill, but I think it’s pretty dumb that your source of stability has such a long cast time that it leads to you getting CC’s anyways. There’s also Signet of the Beastmaster + Wild but that requires another trait in marksmanship and ugh and that’s a long cooldown. My necromancer in WvW has access to stability every 10 seconds and that’s considered one of the worst classes handling CC.

- The only way to have a pet in a situation involving more than 10 people is to use a ranged bug pet and spam f3 when you see red circles. The response of most pet skills is a terrible joke. Rangers and Necros have the same problem— they are revolved around a mechanic that increases survivability and damage, thus it gives an excuse to make them terrible in all other aspects when it comes to survivability. Rangers have pets, necros have Death Shroud, but Death Shroud is actually useful + necros have real aoe damage.

But in reality, even in large fights wolves are still nice for the fear before it kicks the bucket and by f3 spam I may do crap dps but I can usually swap pets in time every 20 seconds— it’s usually just enough. The spider is actually great for the immobilized, but more for small scale. There’s really no zerg pet though besides maybe that silly bear for condi removal.

— Lack of on demand condition removal, which makes immobilized completely destroy ranger. Signet of Renewal and Empathetic Bond are nice at removing conditions but only Renewal is on demand and is reliant on having a pet… and then we have healing spring which arguably is where all a ranger’s worth revolves around, almost. Oh and there’s also that bear, but yea.

And the waterfield/vigor/fury/swiftness/ combo is great support for situations where you have to stack anyways and since this is blob wars 2 we’re talking about this happens a lot. And since I usually play guardian/necro being able to actually escape from fights seems pretty awesome, honestly.

In any cases there are a number of issues that makes it clear that this class isn’t “working as intended” and that the conceptualization is flawed— which is a bigger issue than whether or not the class is the best way for you to pick up loot bags. And honestly, zerging is about having more numbers anyways…

Sanduskel.1850:

MFWIC.6091:

all rangers should quite the wvw or at least stop running with zergs because they are liability and are useless, and it’s not just my opinion… It’s 98% of gw2 wvw community opinion.
(of course hopefully assuming that rangers make only 2%)

Or you could lobby anet to help the poor rangers, lol.

help them… I think you mean re-do them :p

rangers are pretty darn good you just gotta learn the class’s strenghts and forget about normal pvp or pve

choose your pets wisely as well

Most people roll Guard or Warrior anyway, I see no problem with Ranger “not bringing enough utility” to a zerg when 50% of that zerg are Warriors or Guards.
I also believe people just aren’t using their Rangers properly. I recently began using one and as an uplevel in WvW, I defeated two Guards no help provided… LB/GS, daze, knockback, cripple, stealth + pet blind and “Protect Me.” They’re not amazingly useful in large groups but because so few people roll them what does it hurt to have a few in the group? And if an uplevel can win a 2v1, I can’t see them being entirely underpowered, maybe just misunderstood.

the only class i hate is engis, i don’t mind rangers so much

Whenever there’s a call to not attack the door, there’s always that 1 kitten ranger that will keep attacking the door with his bow…

Other than that if you’re going range with ranger, might as well go warrior instead.

Vaxx.3178:

warriorjrd.8695:

Vaxx.3178:

Prysin.8542:

Covis.6037:

Every other class does things better.

Actually, that is wrong. No profession comes close to as much Immobilize as rangers, even if the other profession specs for it. And only thief can apply as much poison, as often, as easily. Only the Warrior can match the passive regeneration. Only a guardian can actually bunker as well as a ranger.

Rangers can apply 250% more fear then necromancers are able to.

Yes and all those reasons (even though they are incorrect, and some exaggerated) are why Rangers are so wanted/needed in WvW focused guild/groups…..

lol

Unless you’ve played ranger you can’t say these are exagerated. Immob, we have muddy terrian,entangle and pets. We can get perma poison with two weapon skills, can get perma regen from shouts and passive regen from signets, that yes only a warrior can beat. And I don’t you’ve ever fought a bunker ranger before.

Big zergs ranger’s don’t shine as well, but small scall roaming, dueling,spvp you don’t laugh at a ranger. I do recall ranger’s running the show in spvp for atleast 3 months with spirits, and we’re still good small scale.

Good thing I play a Ranger then….so I can safely and knowledgeable say that the info posted is wrong and exaggerated.

SPvP and duals, sure ok, Ranger is not bad, but the person I quoted said Ranger do things better than other classes, which is garbage.

Want to prove me wrong? Show me one single (good) WvW guild trying to recruit a Ranger for guild groups. That is enough evidence to prove that other classes do the job better.

http://www.gw2wvw.net/topic/inner-sanctum-coin-recruiting-eu

If a ranger can play well, they can be a benefit to a team. People need to get rid of this stupid warrior/guardian/necro only BS for wvw and start thinking outside the box.

Meh, I have 1.5k hours on my ranger, I do nothing other than WvW.. I concede that we have little use in zergs, we really don’t do more than a splash here and a.. actually it’s just a splash here, nothing there

We do have a great use in smallscale though, I roam with a thief and an ele 70% of the time and the rest I’m solo, I do perfectly well in both scenarios as a condition bomber with axe/dagger and sword/warhorn + traps.. Summoning firefields/waterfields in the middle of battle and blasting them, rooting enemies, bursting down a person, and being considerably tanky. It all does add up to being actually kind of useful.

In my opinion we’re not completely ruined yet, luckily.

I will admit though that 95% of rangers I meet in wvw I never have to use a heal or swap out weapons.. I’ve killed a few with my pet + traps alone >.> ranger is basically the garbage bin for bad players.

MFWIC.6091:

all rangers should quite the wvw or at least stop running with zergs because they are liability and are useless, and it’s not just my opinion… It’s 98% of gw2 wvw community opinion.
(of course hopefully assuming that rangers make only 2%)

Yes i’m sure that one ranger is a real liability in the 60 man zerg. It’s the ranger’s fault you guys wipe, stupid pets.

Ranger is a class suffering from an identity crisis. Originally there was no Ranger class. There was a beastmaster and an archer. Then ANet couldn’t find enough stuff to round out two separate classes, so they merged them together into what we see as the Ranger today. Great idea in concept, but terrible in practice. So many of the rangers abilities require heavy training to get meaningful use from, and the fact that they actually are, at their core, supposed to be an archer class and manage to be so ineffective at this raned combat role speaks volumes to how poorly the class itself is put together.

Long fire and water fields are not any more useful than short ones because any group that stands in place for 10 seconds healing is going to get crushed by the group they are fighting. Water fields available from the backline for 2-3 seconds are just as useful and available more often… Which is a better key to staying alive. Also, those 2-3 other classes doing the job of the ranger are all filling those requirements as sidebars to their own meaningful contributions to the battlefield, not as their main role.

Also, WvW medium + scale encounters demand AoE damage for most effective performance, and that is something the ranger just isn’t good at. As a member of an outlying assassination group to support the main force by quick killing the downed/low/fleeing along with their thief brethren they can be effective and contribute immob at range to the main force, but that’s really their defining role in this play type, and honestly a thief will do the job faster.

Condi cleansing and stability is a major sore spot for the class as a whole, and yet those are the two most vital defensive tools for medium + battle situations. They rely too heavily on others to keep them standing.

Tack onto all those problems the fact that they sacrifice so much of their damage AND utility to a pet that only hits single targets, has no concept of group fighting, can’t dodge or avoid AoE, misses moving targets and cannot stop what it is doing to obey the commands of its master and you have a hobbled class fighting for relevance in this game mode.

Can it be fun to play? Sure, especially to solo and small group,roamers. But is it effective in larger scale conflicts? Sadly, no.
Apologies for spelling or grammar errors, this was tapped out on my phone.

Rangers
Solo: Great.
Group: Can be useful if played correctly.
Zerg/mass combat: Near useless. Roll something else.

That’s pretty much what I’m reading, and as a Ranger myself I kind of have to agree.

~ Kovu

I find their longbow knockback really, really irritating. Apart from that, they are just annoying.

Honestly, reading through most of the replies, i get the feeling that most of you, have made a ranger, got it up to level 80, and didn’t keep playing. Most likely for various reasons, but honestly, i think the denominator here is that people just didn’t bother to explore the profession, and just decided on their own that since zerker/PVT =/= faceroll in WvW, it is not worth it.

And most of you, probably played a ranger, long before the most recent buffs (Shout grants swiftness + regen, spirits unbound moved down a tier, longbow damage increased)

i will admitt that in PvE, ignoring dungeons and FotM, it is a faceroll profession without comparison. The pet(s) just aggro the enemy while you sit back at 1500 range firing arrows without any concerns what so ever.

I hate Rangers because they’re so poorly designed and it feels like the last class ANet made after they were done with everything else and were impatient about game release.

I think a lot of the hate comes from the insane number of bad rangers there are in WvW.

The number of rangers I have killed who just have a LB equipped and appear to have no idea where the swap weapon or utility buttons are in really quite sad.

Bad rangers are honestly the worst thing in the game… good rangers are good everywhere except organised zergs, where I do feel we lack somewhat, and this is sadly what classes are judged on in WvW.

I don’t hate rangers. They are great in PvE, roaming..and good tanky rangers are fun to fight with 1v1. However, it’s the class design which sideline them from organized groups. As someone have mentioned, there are so many bad rangers out there, it’s one of the reasons for the hate. It’s easy to play, you can go afk at camps, sentries while capping it so casual players think why not ! I remember, in a 60 men Baruch Bay blob, at least 20 were rangers and of course, rallybots at first. Anet needs to put some more love in it.

Cufufalating.8479:

I think a lot of the hate comes from the insane number of bad rangers there are in WvW.

The number of rangers I have killed who just have a LB equipped and appear to have no idea where the swap weapon or utility buttons are in really quite sad.

Bad rangers are honestly the worst thing in the game… good rangers are good everywhere except organised zergs, where I do feel we lack somewhat, and this is sadly what classes are judged on in WvW.

I’d sell my left kidney if Guardian was better at roaming and worse at Zerging.

The Unjust System Of Hate toward the defenseless ranger

The pets! It is that simple, they are all very ugly and don’t really offer anything that great. I wish that Rangers were more like Hunters from World Of Warcraft, in that you could obtain rare and special pets so people would know it was a challenge to get.

For example. One of the patches for Cata released a set of 5 spiders all with unique cool looking skins. However each one was a VERY different challenge to obtain. They all required specific tactics to takedown and tame. It wasnt just oh press the tame button and be done like normal pets.

Example: Deth’tilac which was a kick kitten purple/ark skin. To obtain this one, you had to kite it around the whole area and even into other areas and stay at range as it could 1 hit kill you, You would use your traps to slow it down and give you time to revive your pets that WOULD die.

You would have to keep damaging it until it’s health reached below 20% and only then would you be able to start taming it but you will still need to lay down traps to slow it, remove your current pet and then start taming.

When i played WoW i spent more time hunting rare pets and challenging ones than i did pretty much anything else, sure i raided and such as well but i would spend WEEKS trying to get that special pet.

When i left i had ALL the Fireland Spiders, ALL the Spirit Beasts (some of which also required special tactics) among others.

I personally would love to see this sort of change, the current system is rather bland every pet looks the same nothing cool looking or anything to say “wow that is a cool skin, must have been tough to get”

In WoW you would also get Hunters that would let people in the area know if a rare mob popped up just in case someone needed it as well, it was a very good thing i think and something that GW2 is very much lacking.