Guild Wars 2

I really wanted to roll a ranger as an alt, I’ve already created the name for a Sylvari ranger and even made a little backstory, playing through the Order of Whispers.

As much as I wanted to make a ranger, I’ve been hesitating to make one as my first alt, since all I hear is bad news about it in my wvw guild:

“The dps and weapon damage being sub-par, condition builds being useless in pvp, spirits useless, pets useless, no cc breakers, no support options, etc. "The way I hear people talk about the profession, they talk about it as if its broken and kittened to the extent of being unplayable altogether.

Are all of these claims accurate, or are people just jumping on the bandwagon to roll “easier” professions that don’t require as much thought into building an effective style of play?

for PVE, youre fine, as long as u dont mind your pet dying in explorable dungeons and world bosses.

in pvp, rangers are rolled by every other prof. the condition build is far from useless, but other profs apply conditions way better.

Like Nerv said.

PvE rangers are pretty good cause the pet can tank.

In PvP/WvW Rangers are almost useless.

I wouldn’t recommend ranger to anyone. Other classes do much more damage and the combat is not very interesting. In WvW you can’t compete with anyone really, and in PvE your role is rather limited and other classes do more damage and have more sustain.

Your pet will tank for you for a while, but it has gotten to the point where for me, most things ignore my pet after a few attacks and just come screw me over anyways.

Don’t listen to whiners- while it’s true that ranger profession is lacking at the moment compared to other professions, it’s nowhere as bad as those histerical “sb users” make you believe. If you enjoy playing your ranger, by all means, stick with it. There will be new patches and new content and sooner or later this profession receives its share of dev love too.

All these ranger guys who talk about rerolling to thief- I can’t wait to see them cry after their new profession of choice gets nerfed. Will they flock back to ranger or simply jump up to other profession, only to switch again after next patch?

Ranger is fine. Thieves can be a tough fight, but most classes are incredibly easy and boring. As for condition spec – triple trap is the best condition damage in the game.

Now that the Shortbow has been nerfed, Rangers can no longer truly complain about having limited weapon options. Furthermore, each weapon as a Ranger has a truly different feel to it in combat.

If you’re having fun, don’t complain
Which, in fact, is why there are mostly complain threads on the forums. Vocal minority drowing out the majority.

like told before

PvP: rangers mostly suck, well they don’t really suck but they are worse then other profs.
PvE: kind of boring to play but not useless at all
Farming: that’s where I love my ranger, thanks to your pet it’s pretty easy to farm nodes and such things, orr has never been easier for me than with my ranger.

Any role that rangers are able to fill in PvP is better filled by another class.

There isn’t really anything they can do that makes them worth using instead of another class when they other classes can do the same thing but better.

Most of this is due to pets being too unreliable, in PvP if you’re in a fight and they hit your target once it’s probably because the person you’re fighting is AFK or stupid and would have been dead already if you were playing a different class.

I was running a BM heavy build since launch but recently took all the points out of BM and put them somewhere else and put my pet on passive mode.This actually made my ranger more effective in PvP, the 2 seconds of quickness every 20 seconds is the only useful thing the pet contributes to the ranger and putting it on passive helps avoid the 60 second cooldown from dying.

Having the ranger pet not attack anything is making my ranger perform better.
Go figure.

Well if you think rangers are bad try an elementalist, sure great for aoe damage in world PvP but get owned by EVERY class 1v1 in world PvP.

For instance just last night in 1v1 world Pvp I was chased by a Ranger with his bear, I tried to turn around and attack him at one stage but realised there is no way I could win, so continued to try to flee; with lack of adequate speed buffs I ended up dying.

This concluded to me, elementalists are badly broken seeing they are uable to kill 1v1 (world PvP) specific.

By the way, I am full toughness, heal and power spec with full exotics…..

SO go figure; just saying your class appears fine to me….

This is basically why im giving up playing gw2

Hope all works out anyways, and you guys are satisified with your Rangers class.

Arch

Archmage.3517:

Well if you think rangers are bad try an elementalist, sure great for aoe damage in world PvP but get owned by EVERY class 1v1 in world PvP.

For instance just last night in 1v1 world Pvp I was chased by a Ranger with his bear, I tried to turn around and attack him at one stage but realised there is no way I could win, so continued to try to flee; with lack of adequate speed buffs I ended up dying.

This concluded to me, elementalists are badly broken seeing they are uable to kill 1v1 (world PvP) specific.

By the way, I am full toughness, heal and power spec with full exotics…..

SO go figure; just saying your class appears fine to me….

This is basically why im giving up playing gw2

Hope all works out anyways, and you guys are satisified with your Rangers class.

Arch

If you want to be a good player you have to play a class to its strengths.

The strength of the elementalist is all about positioning, elementalists are one of the best classes in WvW if positioned right. And one of the worst classes if positioned wrong like getting stuck in a 1v1.

To be effective as an ele you need to position yourself so you don’t get in 1v1 fights. Use walls and other players to keep yourself safe while you hit enemies with 5k+ with meteor shower and chain lightning.

The problem with rangers is that they don’t have any real strengths to play to.

Cerise.9045:

Having the ranger pet not attack anything is making my ranger perform better.
Go figure.

I found this to be true as well. Only using the pet for F2 boons/control and keeping it on passive at all other times. You mentioned one reason, that it is alive longer this way, so you can benefit from quickness more consitently. I’ve found, personally for me, the second reason is that they act as more of a partial meat shield when thy are next to you, lets you duck behind them more often to avoid ranged hits.

Kinda like bringing your own pillar to hump for LOS wherever you go.

Yeah, exactly what this guy said, except.. you know, not.

Rangers play in all aspects of the game, they just don’t do it “well”. I challenge you to tell me one thing the ranger does best… just one. I’m sure you can answer; the only problem is that your answer is going to be wrong.

The only people who think rangers have a niche are the people who haven’t played other professions. They simply don’t know enough about what everyone else can do, and don’t understand why the ranger versions pale in comparison.

You know what though, I may actually be wrong, myself. I’m pretty sure Rangers are best at something after all, being mediocre.

Honestly though, anyone who says Rangers aren’t broken simply don’t pay attention to what is happening in the game. Look at the Ranger bug sticky for details. It isn’t that someone is a bad player that their character is effected by bugs and glitches and their skills don’t work… that is an inappropriate and misguided statement. It just means they are actually paying attention, not blissfully ignorant and oblivious.

Selix.5670:

Ranger is fine. Thieves can be a tough fight, but most classes are incredibly easy and boring. As for condition spec – triple trap is the best condition damage in the game.

Thieves and warriors are actually the easy fights at least with my build. It’s the bunkers and tanky condition specs that will crush you. Rangers don’t have reliable condition removal due to pets melting in longer fights, and they don’t have good sustain in general, also due to terribad pets.

@Ravnodaus, as a matter of fact i play a necro, a mesmer, and an eng and i can tell you what ranger does better then all other profs… They don’t get stuck into one stupid niche and that’s all they can do. Where my necro, mesmer, and eng i have to build to be purely a crit build, or purely con, or purely point defense in order to be viable or useful my ranger can be a jack of all trades and completely dominate because of it, 3k attack with like 2.7k armor and then ~1k healing is something that if you tried to pull off on another prof you’d end up flailing around like an idiot and being useless.

Maybe you guys are just trying to build some stupid Niche build which just flat out DOES NOT WORK for rangers. Well, it works, just not as well as the jack of all trades builds, IE you can go glass canon ranger which is really strong, but still, you’re just kittening yourself cause theives make better glass canons.

@Durzalla
-I agree, Ranger can’t effectively played on a Crit build: other classes do it better.
-I agree, Necros&co can have much stronger con. builds
(-I agree, Elementalists are much better supporter. Somebody else mentioned this)

-However, I don’t agree with Rangers being the best jack-of-all-trades-class.
Just compare:

Well, actually my Warrior can have 3,3k Armor; 21kLife; 740 condition damage,
while healing for 2k/shout (AoE).
He can apply 5,8k bleeding damage with 2 spells. Each.
His Rifle has 797 condition damage at those very stats.

=> Rangers can’t compete with that

Taking all those things into account the results are bad:
There is no role you’ld take Ranger over another class in competitive play.
Neither flat damage, nor con.damage, nor support, nor a jack-of-all-trades-mix.
Basically granting Rangers the worst spot in sPvP, WvW and Dungeons.
—————————————————————————————————

After reading several topics I really get the feeling that you, Durzlla, feel personally attacked if one calls the Ranger a bad profession.
We’re on the same side.
It’s just you’re saying the glass is half full when in reality there is only a spittle-rest.

The numbers are plain (bad/)broken.
*If a Warrior can add more than 2&1/2 times of a Ranger’s Shortbow with 400 less condition damage, there is something plain wrong.
Sadly it’s not the Warrior who is broken, since Mesmer, Necs and Thieves all can do the same.

Ok, let me get this strait. You are saying that rangers cannot do anything particularly well enough to go to a niche role and thus they are jack-of-all-trade. You may not know this, but that is exactly what I was saying.

The only difference being, that they’re not particularly best at being a jack of all trades either. They’re just best at being mediocre. (Which is what I specifically said in my post)

So besides basically agreeing with me that rangers don’t do anything better than anyone else…what are you telling us in your post? That you can pick up odd stats and still be effective??

Fist off, “attack” isn’t even a real stat. Yes, it shows up on your hero pane, but it doesn’t actually do anything mechanically. It is a fake stat… so telling me what your attack is is useless. Power? Now that is a real stat. Attack doesn’t do anything. Secondly, there are quite a number of builds in several proffesions that can use Power/Toughness/Healing to very good use. So, yeah.. you’re just wrong there. And only useless idiot flair around like… useless idiots. Doesn’t matter what spec/build/proff/game… if they’re flailing around uselessly… they just are. Sort of irrelevant, though, isn’t it?

And finally… stop being hostile and wrong. Take your pick, it is totally cool if you act like you know everything, you know, if you do. But acting condescending while being ignorant is just funny, imo. But it is also a little sad. Like watching someone trip and fall, you chuckle at first… but then a little guilt stirs and you wish it had just not happened.

long post inc. tl;dr: pets are better than commonly accepted.

i agree with durz. in my experience, hybrid play has been vastly more satisfying & successful in all areas of play. i play power / toughness / healing.

i have played 23 ranks of spvp as BM. pets are not weak, but they are sorely misunderstood. the recent addition of cast times on all tooltips has clarified a lot concerning pet abilities.

the biggest issue i hear constantly about pets is that they have to stop to attack. i believe the proper way to look at your pet is that they punish your opponent whenever they are not moving in a single direction. pets will still connect if the opponent is juking back & forth. which means if you are fighting on a control point, your opponent is going to have a much harder time avoiding attacks if they want to contest it. that is not accounting for cripple, stun, immobilize, kd, etc, that also score damage for the pet.

pets can hit very hard. my cats get far more killing blows than i do, & it is because i spent the time to learn how to set up their attacks appropriately. my jaguar can routinely put out 10k damage during stealth & the lynx pounce will often hit for 4k + bleeds on its own. not to mention my build keeps fury up on pet nearly 100% of the time, giving them an 85% crit rate. i realize this isn’t insta-gib dps, but this is also independent of anything i am doing myself.

i believe if they put through a change to make pets attack while moving, nearly all pet abilities would require damage nerfs, because BM specs would just wreck people. it would be way too easy to sic a pet on someone that throws up 1-2k auto attacks & just dodge around. ( the new phantasm mesmer, i suppose, except pets attack about 5 times for every 1 phantasm attack in addition to the other 3 abilities )

pet specs need to consider themselves as part of a group, inside a group. you have to work with your pet to make both of you successful.

always keep your pet near your side. that way you can sic your pet on ppl who focus you very quickly. this is really key, imo. if someone is attacking you, they cannot dodge your pet if you are fighting right beside him, & you can reposition yourself constantly through evades & dodges to give your pet better attack angles. pets will also be in proper range for buff support / condi wiping ( please don’t forget that SoRenewal is Group Support!! if your teammate is being assisted on or cc chained, have pet in range & Renewal will cleanse them. if a necro uses epidemic, Renewal will counter it. )

bind your “Pet Return” & “Pet Attack” keys to something comfortable, you will need to use them constantly ( these commands are instantly responsive ).

time your cripples with pet abilities to guarantee they land. ( eg. shortbow 4 + lynx pounce will keep opponent within the 600 range of pounce for the 2s cast time & will put up 6 stacks of bleed )

when first starting to learn how to work with your pet, i would suggest using Birds. their autoattack has a 300 range instead of 130, so they give some leniency when you’re working on timing. they also have the same precision as cats with higher vitality, so they work great with +30% crit dmg trait.

to me, the pet is what makes ranger different from every other class. so when looking for that thing which defines us & sets us apart in our own niche, it is the pet. if you don’t like the pet or have no patience for it, best choose another profession, imo.

“pets can hit very hard. my cats get far more killing blows than i do, & it is because i spent the time to learn how to set up their attacks appropriately. my jaguar can routinely put out 10k damage during stealth & the lynx pounce will often hit for 4k + bleeds on its own. not to mention my build keeps fury up on pet nearly 100% of the time, giving them an 85% crit rate. i realize this isn’t insta-gib dps, but this is also independent of anything i am doing myself.” -faeral

Trust me I know pets “can” hit hard, when they hit. I’ve made Pet-centric builds that beat your numbers handily. Want a pet to crit 100% of the time? There’s a build for that. Want a pet that keeps up ~17-25 stacks of might at all times? There’s a build for that. There are builds that can turn you little buddy into a true dps monster.

Small issue though. In PvP, they don’t hit often. If they did it’d be fantastic… they could mess folk up but real good. But they don’t, so they don’t. You can avoid a lot of the pets attacks even when crippled by just keep on moving.

Is your BM build going to absolutely murder that keyboard turning newbie you’re fighting in random sPvP? Oh dear lord yes it sure is. Is it going to be even remotely effective against someone who is mildly competent? Not even kinda.

So, I think our list of things that Ranger do best has grown though.
Best at being mediocre.
Best at killing keyboard turners with one keypress. (Pet attack)

Lets keep it comming, what else is ranger best at? >.>

OK here are my issues with rangers in pvp(i focus on www)

Pets
1) As people have mentions there’s issues with damage output on moving targets
2) Cast time F2 skill either don’t go off then flat out fail sometimes and go on a short cool down, if its an AOE ability most of the time the target/you have moved out of range/direction of it. IMO all F2 pet skill should be at least instant.
3) They just flat out die to easy, the amount of AOE damage in www makes them close to useless
4) Bug? one of the moas has a protection buff that the tooltip says is 10s but it only lasts for 3s

Skills/Traits
1) Spirits are close to useless, low hitpoints and extremely low range on their auras
2) Over all weapon sets and skills aren’t very good compared to pretty much every other class, i suspect because we have pets anet limited the weapons we have but as I’ve stated pets just don’t work well. I was kinda disappointed when i saw warrors long bow and how good it is compared to our bows in many ways, they can put out massive AOE pressure while we get barrage which is on a massive CD, on top of that the have rifle which is way better single target damage & bleeds on autoattack without worrying about flanking. Anet should consider adding a 3rd bow for rangers and rework the other 2
3) Traps should be ranged by default and should be trait to 900 range
4) Both Natural magic and Beastmastery trait trees and useless due to issue with pets/spirits
5) Shortbow damage got nerfed which is okish but the fact it hard to stack bleeds on targets unless they are running away. Instead of flanking the bleeds should be based on range like: 0-500 range 100% add bleed 500-100 66% 1000+ 33%
6) Long bow is low DPS, rapid fire is great damage output but in pvp players and easily dodge roll out of it. Barrage CD is extremely long.

One possible solution for rangers could be we can switch off pets and get some F Key abilities.

Basically what it comes down to, is that anything the Ranger can do, the other professions can do better.

The shortbow nerf was totally uncalled for and was the final nail in the coffin for me. I’ve not bothered with GW2 since then.

A few fixes are definitely needed, mostly damage output for the bows and flight time for the arrows.

Crossfire should be unblockable from the side/rear and always cause bleeding, regardless of the angle.
Poison arrow should be a single arrow, that pierces and leaves a poison field behind whenever it hits something.

Longbow in general needs a speed upgrade for its attack and should inflict a condition, maybe weakness, on every 3rd shot.
Barrage also needs a cooldown reduction.

Sword auto-attack needs to not root the ranger, as this makes it pretty useless, regardless of the inbuilt evades on the skills.

Greatsword has some reasonable attacks, but has only a single leap finisher iirc and poor damage overall.

The ranger also needs an overall damage buff, to every single skill to bring them into line with the other profs.

Ranger spirits need reworking entirely, as do a whole bunch of the other ranger skills, traps are “okay” but mostly that’s only because the other ranger skills are so bad.

The other major problem rangers face, is a lack of fields and blast/leap finishers that they can use on a regular basis. This is the major reason they’re not as wanted for dungeons as other profs. The only decent field they bring is a water field from healing spring, which sadly, Elementalist are better off bringing, because their other skills are more useful.

Before people start on “Rangers can do dungeons”, of course they can, it’s just that a Ranger is less efficient than every other prof when doing so. I feel like dead weight when I do them, since my dps isn’t as good as the other profs, but I also don’t bring anything unique to the dungeon that makes up for that.

also the extra range from trait unlocks keeps me able to put the hurt on people when they cant even touch me.

Aren’t rangers the best snipers in WvW?

1500 range, full glass cannon builds picking off enemy team’s squishies from safe distance?

I want a ranged DPS class and can’t figure one in this game, my elementalist performs way better with dagger/dagger tanky/dot build than with staff. Engineer plays best on mid range, riffle warrior could do it I guess, just… kinda bleh? I mean, I play a warrior to mellee people and crit for 10k with a hundred blades :P

While I don’t think rangers are “fine” since several weapons are lacking and some of the utilities could be buffed/changed, this is actually pretty accurate.

The Kay.6539:

Aren’t rangers the best snipers in WvW?

1500 range, full glass cannon builds picking off enemy team’s squishies from safe distance?

I want a ranged DPS class and can’t figure one in this game, my elementalist performs way better with dagger/dagger tanky/dot build than with staff. Engineer plays best on mid range, riffle warrior could do it I guess, just… kinda bleh? I mean, I play a warrior to mellee people and crit for 10k with a hundred blades :P

You can crit for a lot more than 10k with 100 blades!

I have no issues with PvP as a Ranger. Through several different builds and with just about every weapon I’ve managed to find some level of success.

I play a Ranger, Mesmer, Elementalist, and Thief. By far, the ranger is my favorite.

In PvP, I win, and score highest or second highest most of the time. In PvE, I’ve completed all the content there is to complete save crafting a legendary, and I refuse to craft a legendary until there’s a bow without flowers, unicorns, butterflies, or rainbows.

If anyone thinks rangers are bad, they’re just not good at it, and should probably find a profession/build more suited to their playstyle.

So I got my Ranger to level 80 a few days ago. I bought an exotic shortbow and accessories, all berserkers. I’m setup up for power, precision, and crit damage. In Pve it’s pretty easy to play. Dungeons require a few moments of twitchy sword evades and kiting but everything seems fine. WvW is a blast to me. Way more fun than my 80 Guardian by far. I’ve hit lowbies for 1.6k per auto attack and around 1-1.2k to 80 glass cannons. 80 defensive guys take about 500-800 per crit from me. I stay in the back and shoot. I often times do pretty well in 1v1 too.

But the mists…I have been playing a Ranger in the mists for awhile now. I’ve always done fairly well in both hot join and tournies. It wasn’t till I got geared up in PvE/WvW that I noticed how weak Rangers were in the mists, at least the build I was running anyway.

My normal character has 52% crit chance with around 84% crit damage.
My mist Ranger has 52% crit chance with only 53% crit damage.
That’s a pretty big difference and it is really noticeable.

I’m not sure how this affects the other Ranger builds, but mine was so much weaker. Honestly next time my guild wants to do a tourney, i’m going to tell them to find someone else.

I decided to level a Ranger despite the nerf simply because I love the class. I geared him out and I understand the class is a little subpar atm but i’m really hoping they fix some of the things that are wrong. Because on a clear competitive level, they are far behind the other classes.

You cannot deny that fact that rangers are weak in comparison to other professions against EQUALLY SKILLED OPPONENTS. The problem is, you supports play WvWvW in a gorup of 10 and crush a group of 6 and say “Ranger longbow OP LOL!”, when in fact the enemy had no endurance left to dodge your swift shot or move out of your barrage. Go in sPvP and try your same build on a few different servers (to get a goo d mix of players) and then tell me how you feel. You will notice thieves eating you alive, mesmers confusing you to death, guardians lighting you ablaze, warriors 100 kadafi your rectum, etc. These are exaggerations, obviously. 100 blades combo is so predictable and easy to dodge that I would honestly never expect anyone to die from it, but that isn’t the point. Our weapons combined with pets simply fail to bring anything useful to the table against our unique opponents. We have almost no aoe attacks, burst damage (QZ+anything only works if you can immobilize your opponent long enough for them to not be able to evade) or hard cc (Muddy terrain, spike trap, and entangle (I’ve never seen a good player sit in entangle more than 2 seconds)). The only remotely useful thing that could possibly make up for our faults are pets. If traited jungle spider brings about 6 seconds of immobilize to the fight, in theory. Since these are ranged attacks, they can be reflected or evaded quite easily. Rarely does my spider land the immobilize when I need it to, which leads me to another point, we have to rely on our pets for the majority of our hard cc, which ultimately falls upon the ai to decide our fates. Half of the time I hit F2 and the pet refuses to use it but instead attacks the enemy, meaning that 2.5 second fear is completely useless until the ai decides it wants to use it. While I do agree that most of our weapons need a buff in some ways (longbow need more close range damage and conditions, gs needs slightly more damage, axe&sb*sword are fine, dagger’s 4 needs a rework) our biggest problem is that the pets fail to function properly against players.

TLDR: By forcing rangers to rely on pets for practically any chance against other professions, we are ultimately reliant on the ai built in, and therefore inherently at a disadvantage. Pets need to be sped up (not saying attack while moving, but maybe 20% faster move speed than the player automatically and some resistance to aoe and certain forms of cc.

They’re not behind the other classes. I’ve got 18k health, about 3k armor, and a 50% critical chance. Buffed, in combat, that crit chance goes up to 70%. I’ve got 5-15 stacks of might, fury, swiftness, and stability for whole fights. I’ve got the ability to keep an enemy stunned for 9 seconds, and 8 seconds of quickness. If an enemy can break stuns, I’ve got five more stuns to use. I’ve got the longest range of any class. I’ve got an evade on every third auto-attack, and protection through almost all melee fights. I’ve got the ability to snare, bleed, and burn an entire point.

One on one, I can handle anyone, it just isn’t possible for anyone to fight against all those stuns. Two on one, I can hold my own pretty well, and win against randoms always. Three or more on me, and I can distract them long enough that my party can do plenty of work while I keep enemies busy.

So maybe you’re just not used to the class, or just need something that suits your playstyle better.

My GS mesmer crushes any lb ranger I come across at 1200. At 1500 you miss half your shots against a moving target. Where are all you gosu rangers in tpvp and spvp? All the rangers I see are usually getting stomped on. I tend to ignore all rangers if they’re not on point as their damage tickles. If ranger is on point I just step on him, be it on my mes or guard. Rangers are always the first to get focused down as they have no escapes and immobilize breakers. If you haven’t experienced this then u haven’t encountered half-competent teams.

I personally love the ranger class and using the longbow, although there are some major issues I have with them.

Personally, I don’t like the PvP in this game anyways… but there are some major things I find annoying on my ranger PvE wise.

1. Pets.
They don’t hit anything that moves in PvE and don’t attract like any aggro against veterans/champions (I always end up using my pet as for swiftness on swap and for the occasional F2 that I have to spam to get to work…)

F2 doesn’t work when I want it to (either because it just refuses to work, or because the pet is always running after some random enemy I never wanted it to attack; yes I signal it to attack my target); I usually have to spam it to get it to finally fire off (and usually by that time it doesn’t even really matter.

Pets running back and forth with enemies (neither hitting, because both are moving).

Even with good micro management, pets just die way too fast against world bosses and in dungeons. They do perfectly fine in terms of survival against most champions and shouldn’t die at all with even a decent player against a mob of normals , but against especially in dungeons… they are kind of useless…

“Agility Training” doesn’t seem to work for me; my pet runs just as fast as I do with hunters shot and AT on while running straight at an enemy (and no I do not have any speed buffs on). Don’t know if this one is just me or what, but they seem just… slow.

“Sacrificing” your pet… this one is just personal, but wth is up with sacrificing your pets for condition removal and stuff? I mean come on, do we need to bring some animal rights group in here or something (I mean, couldn’t that “Shared Anguish” trait go from essentially abusing/sacrificing your pet to a “Your bond with you pet allows your pet to keep you focused during incoming Disables”; same 90sec cool down or something?) I mean aren’t we supposed to have a shared bond with our pet? I mean sacrifices seem so… Necro.

2. Random “Obstructed, Out of Range, or Invulnerable” messages when I use my longbow when there is clearly nothing in the way, I am clearly within range, and the invulnerability doesn’t make sense (the enemy could be attacking me at melee range for that matter). Now I know that you can get the Invulnerability message while attacking an enemy from a spot where it can’t move to you (which I personally think is dumb in most cases; although there are a few exceptions to my opinion on that…), but I don’t mean those situations.

3. Sword (1) skill locks you into place… seems kind of uh… I don’t know… dumb for such a weapon (I think it needs to start with a leap to use it as an opener/gap-closer of sorts, the second strike would slash and have your character step off to the side of the target like a “Do” strike in Kendo, and then finish with a crippling strike to the targets heel or something…) not to mention just counter intuitive… Footwork is a big part of sword play in real life (well, in pretty much any type of combat).

4. Missing moving targets way to frequently with longbows… longbow arrows travel way too slowly and are just way too easy for players to dodge (although its better in PvE because enemies don’t dodge nor move around too much lol). If they want to keep it like this for aesthetic purposes then they should up the damage or have a charge “snipe” attack that ups the damage and accuracy or… something… I guess.

While rangers are by no means bad with all of this, they aren’t really par either; more like a double bogey lol.

I have been playing my Ranger in PvE allot (mostly) dungeons. When it comes to these places I feel i’m still somewhat supportive thanks to the Healing Spring and the Warhorn aoe buff. On the side I currently play with a Greatsword even though I notice a clear difference between my dps when I was specced into full power with defensive stats. However what I did notice was that when I switched to a tanky build (0/0/30/25/15) I didn’t see my DPS go down that much either rather I felt more powerful thought it was a bit weird actually made me wonder how effective Power actually is on a Ranger cause it feels like it’s not as effective towards us as it is supposed to be.

PvP mainly focusing on WvW I think the Ranger lacks my pet seems to allow them to use chain attacks that bounce around. The pet feels more like a bane here then a helpful addition. I concluded from this that I would play my ranger mostly in PvE and slowly level up a new character to enjoy WvW to the fullest.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

In PvP, I win, and score highest or second highest most of the time.

If anyone thinks rangers are bad, they’re just not good at it, and should probably find a profession/build more suited to their playstyle.

Would you care to elaborate some details on how you’re accomplishing these amazing feats that hardly anyone else is able to recreate? Let’s see some builds: gear, traits, pets. Better, a video of you dominating.

When you say “PvP” do you mean owning under-geared people in WvW, or tPVP against organized groups, or sPVP randoms?

Anyone can say that ranger is good. Here, watch: “I play a ranger and I own people left and right. You guys are all just bad.”

See that? Does it make it true? No. The problems with the ranger class are well documented, and don’t need any more proving. You and people like you are claiming something completely opposite from the documented issues. The burden of proof lies with you, not with the people referencing the factual information.

Back up your statement with something. Anything. Because if everyone is saying rangers are bad except a very few people, then those very few people need to release their secret ninja training techniques to the rest of us so we can go back to playing the class to it’s fullest. Otherwise you’re just going to get dismissed as one more person who thinks that slapping down low level people in WvW while wearing full exotics makes their class good.

Nels the Cornwhisperer.8025:

They’re not behind the other classes. I’ve got 18k health, about 3k armor, and a 50% critical chance. Buffed, in combat, that crit chance goes up to 70%. I’ve got 5-15 stacks of might, fury, swiftness, and stability for whole fights. I’ve got the ability to keep an enemy stunned for 9 seconds, and 8 seconds of quickness. If an enemy can break stuns, I’ve got five more stuns to use. I’ve got the longest range of any class. I’ve got an evade on every third auto-attack, and protection through almost all melee fights. I’ve got the ability to snare, bleed, and burn an entire point.

One on one, I can handle anyone, it just isn’t possible for anyone to fight against all those stuns. Two on one, I can hold my own pretty well, and win against randoms always. Three or more on me, and I can distract them long enough that my party can do plenty of work while I keep enemies busy.

So maybe you’re just not used to the class, or just need something that suits your playstyle better.

I win just about every 1v1 I encounter, I am not trying to brag/boast, but it is true. The issue I have with Ranger, is that I do it so much easier on every other class I play.

You need to separate yourself, and your level of skill, from the discussion. An amazing player can make a crappy class do ok. But they can do so much more with one that works well.

You really cannot deny that a good portion of the Ranger’s functionality isn’t working well, that it is cumbersome and clunky at best. Arrows missing because my target isn’t standing motionless? Hrm. Pets missing because my target isn’t standing motionless? Pets/spirits getting roflstomped by just being near combat… hrm.

From whence, I might ask, too… does your stability come from? Because that is another major source of contention, as many of our stability options aren’t working right/are buggy. As is the quickness and shortbow… not working right.

Have you seen what happens when someone is quickly strafing left/right/left? Arrows miss. I know this rather well, because not only does it happen to me sometimes when I fight someone good, but I do it all the time on all my other characters too. And it shuts a rangers “ranged” offense down completely, and then you can /lol at them.

As far as stats go, the ones you listed aren’t impressive for any reason. That’s like saying, “OMG guys, I equipped a rabid amulet, rangers are fine, lul”. No one cares you have stats… we all have stats…

And speaking of breaking stuns, how well do you do that one?

I don’t agree with everyone that says ranger is the worst class for PvP or that they are useless Most people who say that just play it wrong, or don’t know how to take advantage of Ranger strengths.

Hell, i love my ranger for WvW, i go solo sometimes and kill nearly every class with ease, the only classes that give trouble are mesmers and thieves, and i can tell you this…thieves are surely IMPOSSIBLE to kill with a ranger unless they are just bad, their damage is too high and on top of it they pretty much kill you in stealth if they want…by the time they come out of stealth they already dropped at least 60-80% of your HP pool.

Other than that, i’m pretty happy with my ranger, speccially in WvW, using full berseker gear and longbow you can make some decent damage and sometimes i can turn around 2v1 and 3v1 fights (obviously not thieves involved in these fights).

For sPvP i can’t really tell because i don’t play it that often, i don’t like sPvP.

Rangers do need some tweaking, mainly to get rid of all the useless skills/traits we have while at the same time we have very few possible/working builds, but it’s an interesting class to play and if you like it you will adapt to it.

if you dont play tpvp, then you cannot comment on prof balance, period. any scrub (no offense) can look good hiding behind a mob in WvW. playing other profs for over 50 hours in spvp will help you realize how weak the ranger is in every respect.

nerva.7940:

if you dont play tpvp, then you cannot comment on prof balance, period. any scrub (no offense) can look good hiding behind a mob in WvW. playing other profs for over 50 hours in spvp will help you realize how weak the ranger is in every respect.

Just because i don’t like sPvP doesn’t mean i haven’t played it, and i can still take down almost every class in 1v1 except thieves, just because with other classes it’s easier to take down players doesn’t mean ranger is the worst, as far as i know easier doesn’t mean better.

No offense, but sPvP is not the perfect balance testing place, it rarely involves 1v1 where as in WvW you will find a lot of 1v1 situations…geez, i hate people that probably only plays sPvP and think they know everything about PvP.
sPvP it’s just a lame battleground where you mostly see a couple proffessions/builds being played the most because that benefits more the team, that’s not really PvP, it’s about team composition and builds, X build beats Y build at holding/capturing points.

WvW has everything sPvP has, better and on a bigger scale, period. If you really like PvP then you would know that holding a capture point until a team member comes to help you can’t really be called PvP.
When the goal of sPvP becomes ONLY to kill the enemy team then we will talk about it being more of a balance PvP test.

OP, I absolutely love my ranger. I’m terrible at PvP so I can’t really speak for the quality of Ranger PvP or WvW. But for solo, and group I’ve had a ball with mine. In dungeons the pet can be a little tedious because you don’t have a lot of control over what they decide to do sometimes. (I’ve called my pet off many times only to have it ignore the command and go on a rampage and aggro everything in sight.) That said, with a little patience and a whole lot of paying attention in a dungeon, its great fun. Just have to make sure you only ‘let’ it attack what you want it to attack.

Also, I’ve learned that when your ‘call off’ button doesn’t seem to do the trick, pet swap does. If your pet aggros a bunch of monsters, as long as you haven’t fired yet, you can pet swap and ‘call off’ the new pet. The monsters usually retreat.

I am a ranger Lvl80 for a while now and I never had a problem in WvW. I am able to do 1v1 and 1v2.

Maybe some people are playing builds that don’t fits their play style?
Undergear?
Static during a fight?
Unlucky and fought against very good players?

I don’t think other classes do twice the dps of the ranger in PvE, some classes do have some burst like thieves or warriors but they are also exposed to take a lot of damage, so in result rangers are hitting the mobs 95% of the time while some of these classes with good burst spend more time running or avoiding hits than doing damage.

In PvE rangers damage is fine, hell…i’d even say on single targets they are superior to many classes. Rangers are worse for burst damage, but they win in the long run when killing bosses/elite mobs. In dungeons i can see that when we are killing trash mobs and i decide to solo one, by the time the other 4 players finish an elite which i’m also hitting i already got the second one to at least 70% with only me hitting that mob. (can hit two mobs at the same time easily thanks to the piercing arrows if you know a bit about positioning and which target to take).

Sleepy.2647:

I don’t think other classes do twice the dps of the ranger in PvE, some classes do have some burst like thieves or warriors but they are also exposed to take a lot of damage, so in result rangers are hitting the mobs 95% of the time while some of these classes with good burst spend more time running or avoiding hits than doing damage.

In PvE rangers damage is fine, hell…i’d even say on single targets they are superior to many classes. Rangers are worse for burst damage, but they win in the long run when killing bosses/elite mobs. In dungeons i can see that when we are killing trash mobs and i decide to solo one, by the time the other 4 players finish an elite which i’m also hitting i already got the second one to at least 70% with only me hitting that mob. (can hit two mobs at the same time easily thanks to the piercing arrows if you know a bit about positioning and which target to take).

Hah… You’re so naive. You are aware that all classes have ranged attack? When they say that the ranger less damage, take into account this factor too. If you do not believe me – just create a new class, go to the mists and test ranged on a golem. BTW in dungeons ranger has extremely poor survival factor in comparison with many other classes. This reduces their hypothetical damage again.

And… It’s funny to comment on your example … okay. Just as long as you stand in place and fry one mob, the other players kite and avoid first pulled, might say they’r “withdrawn fire from your”. Plus there is a difference in the mobs HP. And… well. Shorter than this: you just imagined it.

If you think rangers do two times less damage than other classes in dungeons i think the one who has a lot of imagination is you.

Yes, melee classes also have ranged attacks, how many of them hit 700-1500 per shortbow autoattack (2 per second), gain quickness every 15-20 seconds and have a pet that also does 1-3k damage if you can keep it alive (which is not as hard as people say, just in certain encounters they die almost instantly). Not to mention skills like QZ that pretty much allow you to switch to longbow and use vulnerability and then rapid fire + QZ and Barrage, you get to shoot Rapid Fire and almost a whole Barrage in those 4 seconds…with berseker gear that’s like 7-13k Rapid Fire and i don’t even know how much from Barrage.

My imagination is so good that i did these tests always in twilight arbor right before the first boss, i get behind one of the worms and hit the one the rest are hitting, i do the same most of the times in all pulls but on that one i can clearly see my damage output and i send the pet to the one the rest of the team is attacking so that’s actually less damage. Also on magg path with the two guards right before the bomb i did the same testing…same result and that one actually hits back.

If you saw a ranger dying a lot in dungeons or you die a lot in dungeons then you/they are doing something wrong.

If you ever see a ranger doing poor damage in dungeons it’s because they are using Axe, GS or who knows what else as main weapon, and they use bad traits.

I will not argue. You obviously were not at all dungeons and did not play all classes. And to explain cobmat mechanics and bring figures is too long and… it’s already in other topic somewhere . Just look for.

MeGaZlo.9516:

I will not argue. You obviously were not at all dungeons and did not play all classes. And to explain cobmat mechanics and bring figures is too long and… it’s already in other topic somewhere . Just look for.

I did not play all classes, but did you? Do you have all classes at 80 and did dungeons with all of them to say ranger is the worst damage dealer in PvE dealing 2 times less damage than some classes? If not, all it seems is that you probably have a ranger, played it quite bad and rerolled to another character that makes big numbers and thinks hitting for 5k is twice the DPS rangers have, DPS is not big numbers.

I play a level 80 Sylvari ranger. I absolutely enjoy the great diversity that the profession has to offer, which is truly where the strengths of the ranger shine. The scattered range of abilities really allow for the ranger to be a jack of all trades and adapt to any situation on the go. As ranger it is vital to always think ahead and be prepared or simply improvise and throw your opponent off their guard. Simply put it’s not about pew pew pew your target.

I took the time to explore all the strengths and weaknesses that this profession has to offer by experiencing lots of PvE/WvW/sPvP playtime. While I found plenty of weak points (ex. pet delay and glitches, uselessness of spirits, uselessness of certain traits) it was through exploiting these weaknesses in the profession that I found how to use the ranger to the best of my ability (ex. careful timing of pet attacks to match my own, including use of F2 skill, learning that traps are a lifesaver when fighting 1v1 and in certain group events, choosing elite skills carefully depending on the situation).

I found the ranger at home in most if not all PvE environments, its adaptability is amazing! In dungeons, the ranger can be good and bad, I personally think a ranger must constantly rearrange its stragegy, weapon set and skills to be effective. I actually found myself in a really tough situation last night, but after a bit of planning I ended up being the ‘boss killer’ while the other characters supported me, all due to knowing how to exploit the weakness of the situation, in this case it was range and guess what? range is what ranger specializes in ;-) .

Moving onto PvP/WvW… at first, like many other rangers, I managed to fail horribly against lots of players. It wasn’t until I understood the ranger class better, not until understood my enemy better, that I was able to add my own flavor to the point where I was able to defeat other professions with more ease. I cannot say I ever had an easy time doing it, rangers require cunning and to be a good ranger you need to understand how your enemy works to exploit its weaknesses. Note how vital understanding this is, it applies to all professions absolutely, but in my experience ranger is able to use this particular detail the best.

Now, I do have to say negative points about the profession: rangers never have an easy time fighting other professions. Because they are built to be Jack of all trades, they shine in the diversity of the attacks they can perform. Their combos are reliant to more than one weapon set, which is simply not geared to put someone down in the initial heat of battle like the other professions can do and surely will do. Ranger pets aren’t geared to make the opponent think twice before facing the ranger, they can be an effective distraction, but not really against seasoned players. Despite being amazing at exploiting other profession’s weaknesses, they cannot really exploit them to the full extent due to, what I consider to be, lack of powerful combo finishers OR skills OR builds that can focus all that damage into domination when those critical moments arise where you can destroy your opponent, but cannot.

However, a ranger who understands its weaknesses and strengths can face an enemy and surely win. Personally I have managed to defeat enemies in 1vs1 with relative ease, take on 2 players and come out victorious (which by the way can be amazingly difficult as a ranger) only because I knew how to take advantage of the fight. Try fighting against your profession and you know that it takes skill to be victorious, but only through fighting ranger vs ranger is where you will learn that exploiting is never to be underestimated. A ranger’s life depends on this, thinking on your feet, cunning and understanding how to operate properly in a team.

Let all the above alone, I do have to say that as a ranger I have lots of respect for other classes. I have been brought down by all of them, sometimes with way too much ease; but I cannot say that they all easily dominate the ranger. The only classes I find myself truly struggling against are a seasoned mesmer, and any thief who is good enough to kill me before I can touch them… I think we are all victim to those so no complaints there. So does the ranger profession need some help? It doesn’t take a genius to say YES PLEASE to that, but it certainly takes a fool to underestimate a well seasoned ranger, just ask the hordes of other players I have killed ;-)

Most people who say that just play it wrong, or don’t know how to take advantage of Ranger strengths….
…Hell, i love my ranger for WvW, i go solo sometimes and kill nearly every class with ease,…

…For sPvP i can’t really tell because i don’t play it that often, i don’t like sPvP.

That’s great. One more person who thinks killing under-geared people in WvW makes their class good. No offense, but EVERY class can do what you described in WvW. WvW is not a terribly good example of class balance. Even Anet says WvW is intentionally unbalanced. PLEASE stop using WvW as proof that ranger is fine as a class.

No offense, but sPvP is not the perfect balance testing place, it rarely involves 1v1 where as in WvW you will find a lot of 1v1 situations…geez, i hate people that probably only plays sPvP and think they know everything about PvP.
sPvP it’s just a lame battleground where you mostly see a couple proffessions/builds being played the most because that benefits more the team, that’s not really PvP, it’s about team composition and builds, X build beats Y build at holding/capturing points.

The reason sPVP and tPVP are quoted and used so much for class balance examples is because everyone is forced into an equal situation. Everyone has max skills, max traits, and the same gear.

So yes, it actually IS the perfect ‘balance testing place’. Separate your dislike for sPVP from your logic. You claim that capturing and holding points isn’t PVP, but what exactly are you doing in WvW? Oh….zerging against a door and then capturing and holding a point. How is this different from sPVP besides the scale of the fight?

Once again I feel I need to point out that while WvW is also PvP, it is far from balanced. How often can you guarantee your 1v1 matchup in WvW is against someone who it using the exact same level of gear as you? You can’t. That is why sPVP is a better example of class balance.

I’ve done 1v5 on my thief in WvW because they weren’t level 80(you can tell by the arrow up next to their name). Does that mean I can do the same thing when everything is set to equal in sPVP? No, of course not. There is no class or build that can take 5 people in sPVP. Do you know why? Because everything except class and personal skill is forced into equality.

WvW is fun. I love it! But it is about the worst example you could use to support a claim that a class is balanced.

However, a ranger who understands its weaknesses and strengths can face an enemy and surely win. Personally I have managed to defeat enemies in 1vs1 with relative ease, take on 2 players and come out victorious (which by the way can be amazingly difficult as a ranger) only because I knew how to take advantage of the fight.

Another fine example of an amazing player making the most of an underpowered class. Imagine, Awge, what you could do to people on a thief, or a mesmer? You would absolutely dominate.
——-
Once again, PLEASE: if you are claiming that ranger is fine or good in sPVP/tPVP then back up your statement with build, gear, and a short description of your playstyle and tactics. Include DETAILS and not just “I can win with ease.” That doesn’t tell us anything at all, and you come off as just making things up.

I have no problems beating almost every class in 1v1 on sPvP, however ranger builds don’t fit well into the capturing/holding because it offers less than other classes which is VERY DIFFERENT from the class being bad or not being able to kill anything, it just doesn’t fit that well into the sPvP premades because it’s not a class made to stay INSIDE a circle.

Everyone is not equal on sPvP, because it’s a capture/hold battleground, your goal is not to kill someone but to hold/capture a point and that’s where the ranger fails because it’s not that good at doing that but it’s perfectly fine at killing, needs a bit tweaking and rework but it’s hard from unplayable.

And i can tell in WvW if the one i just killed was outgeared or not, it’s not really hard to see your enemy armor/damage.
Also, sPvP is not a perfect example of balance, not even in tourneys, a lot of people joins with bad builds/stats…it’s like killing an undergeared player in WvW.

I don’t know why people keeps talking about sPvP as if it was the perfect balance battleground, it’s just a place where X builds/classes are better than others and it will always be like that, if the point of sPvP was to kill the enemy things would be completely different. WvW is not just zerg, you can solo roam and find plenty of geared 80’s doing the same, which is the closest thing to world PvP you will get in GW2.

And thief does a lot of stuff simply because it’s overpowered as hell vs many classes, you can’t give plenty of escape and tons of burst damage to a class, that’s simply wrong.

Whoever thinks sPvP is about PvP…i’m sorry for you.

Sleepy- spvp is the only place you can hope to acertain class balance. It is ridiculous to even bring up WvW in any discussion of class balance.

Also your point about rangers not having the tools to “capturing/holding” points but being good at killing is just silly- sure ranger is not a good bunker, but taking points involves either killing or quickly getting to an undefended point, one which you claim ranger is good at and the other you can get with the right build.

WvW is great and all, but boasting about how you own undergeared players in that gankfest is hardly a measure of your skill or class strength.

God, some people are so ignorant. I play the class just fine, but I also see how much it lacks compared to other classes. Jack of all trades? Other classes do it better. Ranged class? Hell no, ranger was never meant to be “the ranged class” and if I really have to I can pull up many quotes by Anet on this matter. They can be ranged, but they weren’t meant to be the only class that can specialize as such.

My problems lay with mostly glitches and bugs (that will probably never be fixed). I personally love the class and through my skillful use of dodging, tend to survive a lot longer than other players; even in dungeons (since some players say they lack survivability in dungeons; no its the pets that do, not necessarily the player…).

However, just because I can play a class well does not mean that it is not lacking or doesn’t have a plethora of problems.