Guild Wars 2

I’m speaking of mesmers and rangers. All their ranged attacks (GS, shortbow) always! hit if you don’t dodge. Rangers simply spam me to death with shortbow autoattack.

If I use a ranged weapon (staff, scepter) I can’t hit them.
If I use D/D they simply dodge and kite the kitten out of me. (not all but enough to feel uncomfortable)

Any tipps/solutions? Ranged weapons are actually pretty strong if you don’t play elemenalist and have guaranteed hits.

Bow rangers (mostly longbow) and Rifle Warriors are a general low skillcap issue due to very classic mmo straight foreward Target And Hit gameplay. Its frustrating for both the enemy and the player because they can achieve the best possible damage facerolling their keyboard. To be very honest I almost wish Anet had gone the real active gameplay way (like TERA) and not somewhere in the middle but Elem, Ingies and most melees (maybe less on thieves) are interesting enough to play.

If you’re getting kited as a D/D Ele that really is a L2P issue. You have 3 gap closers on short cooldowns, not to mention immobolizes, stuns, a knockdown, and a launch. You should be eating shortbow rangers for breakfast.

Actually, with the recent patch’s improvements to pet AI and arrow velocity, Rangers have gotten significantly more difficult to beat. They have a ton of ways to evade key attacks and to create gaps.

That said, the best piece of advice I can offer against them is this: go into your options and uncheck melee assist, which is on by default. It makes it so that you can’t run through other players. As a melee character this can be very useful because you need to be facing your enemy to hit them. As an Elementalist, you can exploit this fact.

Turn off melee assist, and while you’re fighting a Ranger, get right up on top of him. Repeatedly run through him while you fight him. This forces him to constantly be turning to try and face you, and makes it difficult to get shots off.

That alone will make a huge difference. In addition to that, use Water Dagger 4 on cooldown; the chill effect is especially disruptive to them and buys you a lot of time.

Also, watch for them to use their elite, Rampage as One. If they’re glowing pinkish red and sufddenly have a bunch of buffs on them, just run away and use line of sight to keep away from them for 20 seconds until it wears off.

Mesmers are a completely different story, and it’s kind of weird to lump them in with Rangers, because they require a completely different strategy to beat. Most Mesmers right now are using shatter builds. A well played one is incredibly difficult to beat.

As much as possible you want to identify the actual Mesmer ( look for the one walking backwards or dodge rolling) and get a target up on him (ctrl+t). Focus your attacks on him, while doing your best to use AoE to take out his illusions as well.

The main thing, though, is that shatter burst damage is insanely high. You must avoid it at all costs or you will die. If the Mesmer has 3 illusions up and they all seem to be moving towards you at once, run away as quickly as possible. If they’re right on top of you, dodge then run. If you’re immobilized (which a good Mesmer will do before trying to shatter on you) then blow one of your defensive cooldowns like Mistform to get away before it lands.

Unfortunately, the best advice against Mesmers is to always be moving and never let them get close, but as D/D that’s incredibly difficult to do while still maintaining any kind of pressure on them.

Long story short, identify the Mesmer, try to pressure him while avoiding his illusions at all costs. With the recent buff to Shattered Strength, Mesmers are incredibly difficult to beat in a 1v1 situation, so good luck.