Guild Wars 2

Although the damage is fine, it doesn’t seem like the Ranger brings anything special to the table. I kind of feel like I’ve wasted 180 hours playing a class that no one needs.

Who else feels the same?

Edit: This has nothing to do with PvE.

Well, what kind of special would you expect? It’s a fantasy MMO with “all” the typical stuff…

What does every profession besides guardian truly bring anything special to everyone?

I think most people are specing with damage trees like marksmanship and going for damage traits; ranger is lackluster if you do this. I think it can be better to spec for more specific traits than just direct damage. Even then, ranger might take more skill to be competitive in sPvP, but they really are top-notch in WvWvW.

Rangers are position reliant to really be able to get off large amounts of damage. I run condition damage oriented gear, my bleed stacks deal about 72 damage per tick and with traits (chance for bleed on crit), a shortbow, and a superior sigil of earth, I find it easy to get up to 12-15 stacks on most targets. Each stack of bleeding ticks separately each second, so 72damage * 12 stacks = about 840 damage per second, not counting the damage from the basic attacks which hit for 250-270 non-crits (I currently don’t have a level 80 bow so my damage might be lower than what it could be) and upwards of 500-600 crits each second is a considerable amount of damage. That isn’t even taking into account damage from poison or burning.

I think they bring a good amount to the table but if the spirit line was improved we could be golden.

Right now we bring a decent area heal with our spring and spirit heals.
Our pets can provide a clutch heal, buff or cc with its F2.
Our pets can revive downed players in clutch situations.

All without sacrificing dps which is nothing to complain about.

Walk a mile in the other professions’ shoes. It’ll sate your thirst to try something different and make you appreciate Rangers more.

The whole spirits thing needs to be fixed and all the grandmaster tier traits needs a cleanup. Then rangers should be on par with most other classes except guardian.

No such thing as being "needed’ in this game. Some classes make it easier to get something done, but by no means are they absolutely required to get it done.