Guild Wars 2

So I got this game like 8 months ago and just never played it.

I was on it religiously for like a month then I just stopped.

I was always that person who like the long range classes, sitting back and pelting people from a distance and possibly killing them before they could even get close to me.

And if they even got somewhat close they i just kite them into the ground.

But my problem with this game is it seemed like every build for Ranger that was even a little viable was some condi or close range melee build.

I meen i dont mind using a great sword or something if it meens life or death but the fact that the game pretty much says play this type of ranger or die to 75% of all other builds is pretty frustrating. And then the fact that you are so godkitten reliant on the fricken pets its ridiculous.

So my question is…are rangers still this dumb or have they finally fixed the huge lack of build diversity this class has? Also how are the pets right now? are they still kittenedly dumb and unreliable?

Sorry I have to rush to work but check this out!:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/30-0-10-30-0-You-Got-My-Attention/page/2#post3927246

Magmorel.7806:

So my question is…are rangers still this dumb or have they finally fixed the huge lack of build diversity this class has? Also how are the pets right now? are they still kittenedly dumb and unreliable?

Longbows have traits that dramatically improve their punching power and flight speed. Give it a try.

Pets have just received a response pass. Their F2 skills should activate much more quickly than before.

Well we got some more viable builds. You gan go 30/0/10/30/0 power ranger with lb/gs, condi bunker spirit with 0/10/30/30/0 with sb, sword+dagger, the classic bm build (these are the ones i use so far). Also pet’s are more responsive, especialy the f2 skill. So overall you can say we got some improvements

LB has been buffed considerably, but honestly if what you want to do is “pelting people from a distance and possibly killing them before they could even get close to me” then this isnt the game for you.

As others often point out, this game doesnt allow for kiting in the tradition sense that other games does, and frankly you’re never going to be able to stay entirely out of range VS a competant opponent. Thats just not how this game is designed to work.

Pets have been fixed to an extent. They still suffer underlying issues such as being useless in zergs and most bosses, but they are more responsive now.

Build diversity wise, I think rangers are actually in a pretty good shape. We still lack a truely comptetative full DPS build (IMO), but there are dozens of BM, spirit, trap, shout, various other more bunkery builds you can play, and not all of them are condition based.

there is no “profession” that can be considered dumb. If you feel like the profession is “dumb” you may just be unable to master the mindset and skillset of said profession.

Having played a “bearbow” since beta, I haven’t experienced any major changes to the play since the recent patch. Of course I’ve been playing it for that long because I like how it plays, so I don’t know if dumb is the word I would use.

That said, based on your desired playstyle and apparent interests I don’t think Ranger was ever the right class for you. Every class can range, and they all are very different. If you actually care enough to come back to the game you might want to play the field and see what speaks to you. Play the class for what it is, not for what you think it ought to be.

@OP: the thing about rangers shooting enemies from far away and killing them before they reach you is that, despite what it looks like, you’re dealing with people who are quite likely to be skill enough not to be killed from a distance. Indeed you should be able to land quite a lot of pain from a distance before they make it to you, but the fact is that you wont have a choice but to deal with them once they reach you, and they will.

Now back to topic, ranger has thankfully improved largely due to the community better understanding the profession; it has always been the most difficult one to master. You can easily grab a build that will serve as a ‘solid ranged approach’ build, but do keep in mind that this ranged approach can only do so much, once melee combat initiates you need to use ranger’s evade-and-destroy mechanic in order to rotate back into melee damage.

If you really want to know how to use your ranger in a ranged way, it takes a lot of skill but it’s doable. I can definitely show you my techniques but it’s all up to you and your skill to do what you can to come on top of every situation. There is quite a lot of risk involved in playing a ranger, but the reward of doing it right make the game and game play quite enjoyable for me.

Last patch was good for us. We’ve moved from being condition removal poor to rich, dps has increased with duo sigils on bows (yes that includes everybody but it really is a good improvement to bows regardless), nerfs to other classes buffs us in relation. Lots of new builds opened up with the latest patch too, and yes you can be even more specialized with a bow to the point of melting people (glass builds) at range, just watch if a thief or warrior gets on you.

awge.3852:

ranger has thankfully improved largely due to the community better understanding the profession;

Since when?
There is 6-7 of us trying to better the profession and make people see the good points, then there is a few hundred trying to undermine what we try to build by being trolls, kneejerks, kittens and other forms of kittens.

Then there is the warrior fanboys that think unless its name starts with warrior and ends with warrior, then it sux from the get go and will never be good.

Then there is a huge pile of “dreamers” that have no intention in playing the class properly, but instead just whines about ONE TINY ASPECT of a description made probably a year prior to launch not being correct 2-3 years later.

There is no community. It is just a collective soup of negativity and trolls.

Prysin.8542:

awge.3852:

ranger has thankfully improved largely due to the community better understanding the profession;

Since when?
There is 6-7 of us trying to better the profession and make people see the good points, then there is a few hundred trying to undermine what we try to build by being trolls, kneejerks, kittens and other forms of kittens.

Then there is the warrior fanboys that think unless its name starts with warrior and ends with warrior, then it sux from the get go and will never be good.

Then there is a huge pile of “dreamers” that have no intention in playing the class properly, but instead just whines about ONE TINY ASPECT of a description made probably a year prior to launch not being correct 2-3 years later.

There is no community. It is just a collective soup of negativity and trolls.

I agree that there is still a large amount of people who just love to go out thee and troll, however you can’t just point out negativity and say that people don’t make a valid point. Especially if you’re struggling with an aspect of the ranger, negativity can be constructive but only when people criticize in a constructive manner, which is what I try to do when I find posts like this one. Despite all that negative influence and warrior trolls and ‘dreamers’, you can definitely find constructive feedback on many aspects of ranger play and that’s no hypothesis. The only way I was able to improve my ranger play was through reading both negative and positive posts, kicking trolls out of my eye sight and honing onto what I could. Reading new builds, trying them out, etc. Besides you cannot deny that the ranger community itself has improved from what it was 6 months after launch, where all you found was ranger hate, lack of understanding, even the so called pros where dumbfounded by the profession going downhill in so many ways. Time has passed and yes you can ask in the ranger forums for help and people will help… now expect trolls and dreamers and warrior lovers to come along and trash on the OP, heck yes.

So to you who likes the tldr: Avoid trolls, avoid negative feedback, avoid things that take away from the OP and are not constructive, focus on what helps you. There is a lot of ranger community support but it’s not always received in every post and its certainly not consistent at all.

Prysin.8542:

awge.3852:

ranger has thankfully improved largely due to the community better understanding the profession;

Since when?
There is 6-7 of us trying to better the profession and make people see the good points, then there is a few hundred trying to undermine what we try to build by being trolls, kneejerks, kittens and other forms of kittens.

Then there is the warrior fanboys that think unless its name starts with warrior and ends with warrior, then it sux from the get go and will never be good.

Then there is a huge pile of “dreamers” that have no intention in playing the class properly, but instead just whines about ONE TINY ASPECT of a description made probably a year prior to launch not being correct 2-3 years later.

There is no community. It is just a collective soup of negativity and trolls.

TROLL! :P

Prysin.8542:

awge.3852:

ranger has thankfully improved largely due to the community better understanding the profession;

Since when?
There is 6-7 of us trying to better the profession and make people see the good points, then there is a few hundred trying to undermine what we try to build by being trolls, kneejerks, kittens and other forms of kittens.

Then there is the warrior fanboys that think unless its name starts with warrior and ends with warrior, then it sux from the get go and will never be good.

Then there is a huge pile of “dreamers” that have no intention in playing the class properly, but instead just whines about ONE TINY ASPECT of a description made probably a year prior to launch not being correct 2-3 years later.

There is no community. It is just a collective soup of negativity and trolls.

Thats not a nice thing to say about other people. Just coz they don’t agree with you doesn’t make them trolls. Telling others L2P, etc is whats creating the negativity in the ranger forums.

That aside, there are a lot of build options now since:
-we’re no longer locked down to empathic bond for condition cleaning
-2-handed weapons have 2 sigil slots (meaning SB is back since its fast rate of fire can help proc 2 sigils)
- F2 is now responsive and viable
- New runes

I think the new GM traits aren’t worth looking at except Survival of the Fittest. That trait alone opens up many MANY paths for rangers. Overall, our traitlines are still awkward as ever, but we should be able to get by just like we always have.

the truth isn’t necessarily sugar coated and nice. It is what it is.

If you suck at something, and blatantly fail to admit so. I will tell you to L2P. Because you need to L2P. I will not pat you on the back and wish you good luck the next time you get into the same situation.
Being spoiled and told not to worry but reroll warrior is also not helping.
Saying anything rangers can do, others do better is equally moronic, and ignorant. The trolls who do so, have limited knowledge of rangers in the first place.

Prysin.8542:

the truth isn’t necessarily sugar coated and nice. It is what it is.

If you suck at something, and blatantly fail to admit so. I will tell you to L2P. Because you need to L2P. I will not pat you on the back and wish you good luck the next time you get into the same situation.
Being spoiled and told not to worry but reroll warrior is also not helping.
Saying anything rangers can do, others do better is equally moronic, and ignorant. The trolls who do so, have limited knowledge of rangers in the first place.

I don’t think anyones said to “reroll warrior” ever since the April patch, nor anything along those lines.

You can explain your reasonings without slapping on the labels. Calling others “trolls” because they have a different point of view is distasteful and condescending.

kiwituatara.6053:

Prysin.8542:

the truth isn’t necessarily sugar coated and nice. It is what it is.

If you suck at something, and blatantly fail to admit so. I will tell you to L2P. Because you need to L2P. I will not pat you on the back and wish you good luck the next time you get into the same situation.
Being spoiled and told not to worry but reroll warrior is also not helping.
Saying anything rangers can do, others do better is equally moronic, and ignorant. The trolls who do so, have limited knowledge of rangers in the first place.

I don’t think anyones said to “reroll warrior” ever since the April patch, nor anything along those lines.

You can explain your reasonings without slapping on the labels. Calling others “trolls” because they have a different point of view is distasteful and condescending.

Not to mention that rolling warrior solves nothing, in fact playing as a warrior is very different than playing ranger and there are many people who do it wrong as well. Besides defeating a warrior as a ranger requires no small miracle, just practice. In the end its up to you to like a profession or to dislike it, but that is wrong is pushing the point of argument. Why not focus on the OP instead of pushing an argument that takes away from the main point?

Simple fact is the class is designed to do better in smaller groups. The larger the group the less valuable the class is overall. While it may sound moronic, the simple truth is that many classes can out perform the Ranger when it comes to providing group utility and value.

If the OP’s goal is to do more than roam and sPvp and he’s expecting to do more than auto attack at a distance, he’ll probably be disappointed.

Like I told you in game, a lot of people made Rangers to use a bow and fight from range. While we’ve certainly seen improvements, I’m still not seeing Rangers in a much better place on a group level than they were before the patch. The typical 6/0/2/6/0 build that everyone’s running now is certainly much more engaging and fun. But it’s still just a Ranger in WvW.

Things are much better after the patch though. LB/GS is fun to play because all the survival skills add some real depth to the class, pets are finally working somewhat, and the new sigil/rune combinations have really covered some holes the class has (I’m loving Int on GS and seeing swoop+hilt+maul all crit. I wish I could go back to 6/6/2/0/0 to see some MoC crit action, but 6/0/2/6/0 is much more fun to actually play).

Atherakhia.4086:

Simple fact is the class is designed to do better in smaller groups. The larger the group the less valuable the class is overall. While it may sound moronic, the simple truth is that many classes can out perform the Ranger when it comes to providing group utility and value.

If the OP’s goal is to do more than roam and sPvp and he’s expecting to do more than auto attack at a distance, he’ll probably be disappointed.

Like I told you in game, a lot of people made Rangers to use a bow and fight from range. While we’ve certainly seen improvements, I’m still not seeing Rangers in a much better place on a group level than they were before the patch. The typical 6/0/2/6/0 build that everyone’s running now is certainly much more engaging and fun. But it’s still just a Ranger in WvW.

Things are much better after the patch though. LB/GS is fun to play because all the survival skills add some real depth to the class, pets are finally working somewhat, and the new sigil/rune combinations have really covered some holes the class has (I’m loving Int on GS and seeing swoop+hilt+maul all crit. I wish I could go back to 6/6/2/0/0 to see some MoC crit action, but 6/0/2/6/0 is much more fun to actually play).

depends on what group support you refer to.

Warrior – abysmal group support. Sure shouts heal very nicely, sure warhorn cleanses condies, sure banners are nice. All except, ranger can do much of the same, or even better.
Warrior CC as group support? Apart from hammer, their CC is outright BAD. Earthshaker is good, i would almost argue that it can be amazing. However, rangers have a million times more CC then any warrior build. It is a fact, no point in arguing.

Necromancer – Spectral wall, well of corruption, a few AOE condi cleanses. Not much more unless building for some niche functions here and there.

Mesmer – portal, veil, mass invis, null field, feedback, timewarp. Mesmers are truly amazing, however you only ever need 1 or 2 at most regardless of zerg size, unless you plan to launch a 40 man golem rush.

Guardians – the kings of group support. There is noone able to compete with them here except perhaps the staff ele

Elementalist – Staff + conjure weapons. an amazing combination that has a lot going for it, without the elementalist getting shafted in the process.

Engineer – masters of versatility. They can bring most of what you need. But the player skill needed to play this class far outweigh its general “usefulness”. Having to demand a player to be a top notch in every form is just too much.

Thief – Venoms are strong, venoms are amazing – almost noone plays it and those who do, as for few and far between that this build rarely get to shine in larger scale combat. Apart from venoms thieves has ONE good group support skill – Shadow Refuge. Outside that, they are pretty bad supporters.

Now tell me ather. Have i proven in the past, several times, that rangers can do most, if not all this that the others can do with ONE BUILD?
As it happens, i have been using such a build for a long time.

So what is the “support ranger” missing?
We lack the ability to grant stability to others.
We lack the ability to grant aegis to others.
We lack the ability to grant retaliation to others.
We lack the ability to provide AOE stun, however we do counter this by an exceptional ability to apply AOE immobilize. An ability, not even closely matched by ANY other profession in this game, EVER.

What does ranger lack, on a selfish level?
Active condition cleanse? – fixed by the change to purity sigil, runes, traits and skills
Burst healing? – partially fixed by the introduction of a reliable heal on pet F2
Escapes? – Sword/X + greatsword will provide plenty as is.
AOE? – We lack on demand AOE that is not trait dependent, yes!
Defense against bursts? – While not completely helpless, we do need slight improvements in this area. As is, depending on build and player experience, rangers can quickly be overwhelmed by massive bursts.

What is support?
Support is the act of helping others through selfless skill usage, for the benefit of others, at the least possible cost to yourself.
DPS is not a support format. Burst is not a support format. These two things are simply the product of a well balanced builds and is PURELY for personal gain, though collectively DPS and Burst can outweigh the lack of proper support thanks to a bad scaling on the support side vs damage side.

Now, the other professions can also do more then just this but so can the ranger. So prove me wrong. Please do.

Prysin.8542:

awge.3852:

ranger has thankfully improved largely due to the community better understanding the profession;

Since when?
There is 6-7 of us trying to better the profession and make people see the good points, then there is a few hundred trying to undermine what we try to build by being trolls, kneejerks, kittens and other forms of kittens.

Then there is the warrior fanboys that think unless its name starts with warrior and ends with warrior, then it sux from the get go and will never be good.

Then there is a huge pile of “dreamers” that have no intention in playing the class properly, but instead just whines about ONE TINY ASPECT of a description made probably a year prior to launch not being correct 2-3 years later.

There is no community. It is just a collective soup of negativity and trolls.

White knights don’t slay trolls, they merely feed off them.

They’re just two sides of the same coin to me as they’re both just as toxic for any proper discussion.

Prove you wrong? I can do it in 2 words… ‘WvW Meta’ (is that 2 words? /shrug).

No one is talking about strictly support. We’re talking general class utility. You tried your hardest to slight Warriors, but the entire WvW meta revolves around them. And you want to pretend the Ranger has anything nearing what shout heals or banners are capable of? In WvW? Where pets, minions, and spirits remain sidelined due to the insane amounts of random AE being thrown around? Do I really need to go class by class outlining how every single one is more sought after by WvW commanders than the Ranger class?

I love that F2 finally works. I’m actually quite pleased with the 6/0/2/6/0 build because it makes LB/GS actually feel enjoyable and interactive to play for a change. But nothing was done to make this class more valuable to groups. WvW was a very clear problem for this class before the patch. It continues to be.

Atherakhia.4086:

Prove you wrong? I can do it in 2 words… ‘WvW Meta’ (is that 2 words? /shrug).

No one is talking about strictly support. We’re talking general class utility. You tried your hardest to slight Warriors, but the entire WvW meta revolves around heavy armour classes.

fixed that for you!

Sorry to say but if the warrior or the guardian was wearing medium armour nobody would take them anywhere near a zerg fight. The current wvw meta is the heavy hammertrain and to counter this you need AoE (necros, eles and engineers).

Not heavy = not meta
Not AoE = not meta

It is that simple!

EDIT: If ANET would remove every weapon from the game apart of the Hammer and the Staff 75% of the wvw zerg-only players wouldn’t even notice this

Atherakhia.4086:

Prove you wrong? I can do it in 2 words… ‘WvW Meta’ (is that 2 words? /shrug).

No one is talking about strictly support. We’re talking general class utility.

The moment you believe that the meta played on a t4 NA server is the truth is the day you were wrong. In NA there is but ONE meta. Its the hammerblob meta, and nothing else matters there. If you fail to beat the other servers blob, its because yours were too small. This mentality used to be normal in eu too, but not so much anymore.

However if you ask ANY random player what they think a ranger can do. 70% say “waterfield + entangle/root thingy”, 20% will list one or two more things, like traps and muddy terrain. The remaining 10% are probably long time rangers or just know the class really well. They know what we can do, and what we cant. Ironically the remaining 10% is usually only found in heart of the mists. Wonder why that is.
Now when I ask any commander iv’e ever known. Out of 40+ people asked only 6 of them had a remote idea of wgat a ranger could do or how to build a non GC ranger.
Out of all the guild leaders/officers ive spoken to, only 12 out of 70 people knew how to build a ranger to such a degree that the rangers could be used in guild raids or in gvg. Reason they did not use ranger were because they did not have any members skilled enough to play ranger to their standards.

People who have the position and power to promote rangers doss not do so because they dont want to. Because if they came around and strongly promoted a profession that is not obviously op at a noob skill level, they would be made a laughing stock in their servers community. Or worse, lose their influence and reputation. The meta is not an answer, it is what the masses claim to be the truth regardless of the facts at hand.

So back to the conspiracy angle…

Prysin.8542:

However if you ask ANY random player what they think a ranger can do. 70% say “waterfield + entangle/root thingy”, 20% will list one or two more things, like traps and muddy terrain. The remaining 10% are probably long time rangers or just know the class really well. They know what we can do, and what we cant. Ironically the remaining 10% is usually only found in heart of the mists. Wonder why that is.
Now when I ask any commander iv’e ever known. Out of 40+ people asked only 6 of them had a remote idea of wgat a ranger could do or how to build a non GC ranger.
Out of all the guild leaders/officers ive spoken to, only 12 out of 70 people knew how to build a ranger to such a degree that the rangers could be used in guild raids or in gvg. Reason they did not use ranger were because they did not have any members skilled enough to play ranger to their standards.

So what you’re saying here is that a greater percent of Commanders, 15-17%, understand how a Ranger works than that of the general populous at 10%? That seems alright to me.

people see what they want to see. Rangers, Hunters, Archers or any other form of bow wielding and pet-using class i have ever played in any MMO for the past 14 years is always the first class to get “hated”. No matter how brokenly OP anything else is, that archetype rubs people the wrong way almost by default.
Has been like that since forever, cannot tell you why, and i could not care less where the hate came from. All i know is that it is here to stay.

Conspiracy, maybe, but it is too large of a coincidence that i actually believe it is a coincidence and not just some, if perhaps even the same people, spreading that hate from game to game as they move on with time.

Tell me, ather, you know what the ranger can do (or it seems you do). So tell me, how can you defend the ever so moronic “anything rangers does, someone else can do better”. While knowing that A; it is a lie in many cases. B; it is baseless accusations that has been proven wrong, with legit math and videos. C; it is the same people sprouting the same lies over and over while proven wrong and you still believe them to be right.

I know what Rangers can do, but I also buy into the ‘another class can do it better’ argument. There are things the Ranger can do very well, but they’re limited to dueling and small scale roaming. In WvW they have to specialize so much to do what other classes do that they really don’t do it much better (but still better in some cases) but have lost so much along the way that they’re no where near as versatile as the other class is.

Take healing spring for example. An amazing heal. Problem is it’s melee range and a Ranger running with the guardians and warriors in the hammer train isn’t that effective unless you go completely for survivability. But in doing so you lose all damage and don’t provide much of anything else.

Compare this to an Ele, who has a water field that’s much shorter in duration but is much larger and is actualy ranged. At the same time that Ele does great damage, has great support, has great utility, and is still survivable as all get up.

This was a discussion I had with Durzlla in another thread a week or so ago. The primary failing of the Ranger class is they don’t have a group weapon like the staff of eles/guardians/necros, hammer for Warriors, grenades, etc. They kind of fall into the same issue Mesmers have.

Everything the Ranger has seems to have been built around dueling and sPvP. We then have GS and Longbow that are more like support weapons than main weapons. Then we have the overwhelming majority of our support tied to pets and minions which don’t work in WvW. Lastly, we still need a sizable trait investment to make a lot of our utility useful and it’s usually such a large investment it’s build defining and you have to go all or nothing.

Class still has a ways to go imo.

Thing is ather, you are comparing what X number of profession Y does compared to 1 ranger. again.

The whole “lose all damage” is absolutely BS. Any half decent player with an ounce of build knowledge could tell you how easy it is to preserve DPS while maximizing defense through some tweaking. (oh wait, that thing you told me about last week… means you do not fall into this category)
Other classes also need heavy investment to make certain abilities work. Warrior shouts are among one, and even when the warriors trait for that, a guardian does the same better without traits. While we again have to trait pets for that same AOE direct heal. Eles have it on waterstaff, engis on medkit/turrets.
Every class has some pros or some cons. But the matter of fact is, the ranger can bring MOST of its pro’s, at the same time as it can get rid of MOST of it’s cons. And sure, profession X can do the same, perhaps with a lower CD, or a longer duration. But it cannot do the same, while doing function X, Y, Z too at equal footing with the ranger. Except engineers. which is a legit “all-rounder” in almost all forms, drawback with the engineer is the skillcap to be a reliable force to be reconed with instead of a one-shot wonder.
If you take what 1 ranger provides compared to 1 other GWEN profession (which is the whole point we kinda are discussing here) – the ranger can bring what each and every one of them can minus a few distinct unique functions. Many of these functions are even done better.

One top argument about warriors – their banner res. 5 people ressed every 240 seconds. It is also a blast finisher. Undeniably very good.
Ranger counter – traited elite spirit. It can fire off its elite 3 times. 2 active + on death. That is equal to 9 revives, 15 conditions cleansed and if it lives for its entire duration, 320hp/second * 5 affected allies * 60 seconds = 96 000 HP granted to allies in and AOE – passively. Cooldown is 180 seconds.
Spirits are not very good in WvW, but the elite is an exception due to its insane HP pool, toughness and self-regen. It also cleanses conditions, can be moved and used multiple times. And even if killed/when vanishing, it can still benefit the zerg.

Warrior shouts – demands heavy trait investments, almost equal to ranger. Ranger does however need 2 more points if they want cooldown reduction.

Guardian boon stacking – ranger cannot stand up to this, except for fury, regeneration, vigor and swiftness stacking. Any other boon, the guardian can apply better.

Elementalist waterfield – lowest CD 16. But any ele knows that cleansing wave is better then CD reduction and will take that instead. So that means 20 seconds, WHILE IN WATER. However it takes 10-13 seconds to swap back into water, potentially, depending on swap frequency, you may end up with a cooldown of 30-33 seconds.

Elementalist swiftness – horrible when not using static. Using static for swiftness is horrible, it should be used for combat.

Necromancer – apart from boon stripping and protection. the necromancer is nothing but AOE DPS and a damage spunge. Use a bear and you have the same damage spunge as a necro would be, all left then is the AOE damage. Fear is strong, but just like stun it is countered by stability uptime and massive AOE cleansing.
Ranger can apply immobilize and cripple better then any necro. For superior chill, ranger can win on AOE effect, but not single target spam. While immob, cripple and chill is affected by AOE cleansing, unlike fear, it is not affected by stability.

A few corrections about your post;
Warrior hammer is not a group weapon. It is a pbAOE CC weapon. Reason it is used over GS is simple – it tags faster, better and can hard CC.
Guardian, ele and necro staff is proper group weapons. They offer party buffs, and control options far surpassing the warrior hammer by any means.

Mesmer is not comparable to rangers. Mesmers are made to confuse and divert. But due to design, they are “forced” to stay at closer ranges to be most effective with this type of play. Therefore they have a higher healthpool then eles, because their biggest weakness is to spread out over a larger area.
The ranger is not a duelist, it is more of a survivalist. You can build a ranger to withstand almost anything thrown at it, depending on situation, and the ranger can still perform. This ability to adapt to almost anything is why it cannot be the best at everything at the same time. If it could, it would be brokenly OP.

to be continued in next post….

serow.6524:

Longbows have traits that dramatically improve their punching power and flight speed. Give it a try.

Err, you mean RTW? That trait is useless in PvE. There is no “punching power” improvement. RTW on its own is highly situational. As soon as your enemy comes to close, it’s useless again.
@ OP:
If you want to be effective in PvE, step away from the LB. That’s the unfortunate fact. And don’t use SB either. Or axes. Or dagger. All those weapons are highly situational and useless for the most time in PvE. Warhorn can be good.
Run sword/WH + GS for maximum damage, LB if you’re lazy. But most parties will kick you if you try to use the LB in dungeons.
We’re pretty solid in PvP encounters, but not with the LB.

HHR LostProphet.4801:

serow.6524:

Longbows have traits that dramatically improve their punching power and flight speed. Give it a try.

Err, you mean RTW? That trait is useless in PvE. There is no “punching power” improvement. RTW on its own is highly situational. As soon as your enemy comes to close, it’s useless again.
@ OP:
If you want to be effective in PvE, step away from the LB. That’s the unfortunate fact. And don’t use SB either. Or axes. Or dagger. All those weapons are highly situational and useless for the most time in PvE. Warhorn can be good.
Run sword/WH + GS for maximum damage, LB if you’re lazy. But most parties will kick you if you try to use the LB in dungeons.
We’re pretty solid in PvP encounters, but not with the LB.

Axe offhand is not bad in PvE. Nice vuln stack. A reflect (those are handy, lets your guard save his) and a strong burst/pull

I have no idea what that thing I told you last week means. I told you I don’t theory craft gearing options because I built an application to do it for me. Why would I play with the editor to figure out what armor options are best when I can simply enter how much toughness I want and which weapon I plan to mainhand and it spits out gearing options that maximize DPS for me? I could do it manually just fine. But there’s no reason for me to…

As for builds themselves? I can theorcraft Ranger builds just fine, thanks.

And I’m also not following your X of Y class to 1 Ranger. An Ele with staff can do all of what I mentioned with any cookie cutter build with the bare minimum of //*/4/4 which every Ele has at a minimum.

WvW is all about trade offs. What does class X lose to provide Y? What does class X gain by going Z? These areas, when talking about WvW, don’t favor the Ranger class. Your appreciation of the class is admirable, but it’s bordering on delusional as well. Every time someone asks a ‘what class does highest burst’ or ‘what class has best heal’ you always respond with Ranger being a contender. Come on…

In the US, on any of the servers I’ve played on, I have never—not once—heard a commander ask for a Ranger. Ever. Are things that dramatically different in the EU?

In terms of WvW, I believe that as long as you play your ranger well and manage to show that yes you are contributing to your guild/party/commander then you won’t have to wish you could wield a hammer or that boons and heals poured out from your sweat.

In my experience rangers are very well suited for roaming in the open field ahead of the commander zerg. Nothing attracts more attention than a lone ranger, you can lure a pack of enemies to you and make sure you tag them (longbow 5) so that they cannot port, have your zerg (10 or so seconds behind you) come in for the kill. You can spot enemy zergs and break their flow of combat (and their aegis!) by a simple muddy terrain, wolf fear, entangle, spot the commander and use longbow 4 on their face, preferably in the direction that your thief friendlies daggers are pointed to.

That’s just scratching the surface, however if you focus on not providing things a guardian or a warrior or a thief or a mesmer or an engineer or a necromancer already does… then you are definitely not thinking outside the box here. Let the players who enjoy those professions be the ones who have to mindlessly follow a commander and do their every whim. As a ranger feel happy that you’re free of the burden of being ordered around and do something outside the box if you want to contribute.

Atherakhia.4086:

Every time someone asks a ‘what class does highest burst’ or ‘what class has best heal’ you always respond with Ranger being a contender. Come on…

In the US, on any of the servers I’ve played on, I have never—not once—heard a commander ask for a Ranger. Ever. Are things that dramatically different in the EU?

Ranger does not have burst heal like ele, shout warrior and guardian, but has strong group passive buffing (regeneration, spirit aura, water spirit) and since this patch, we also got a burst heal from pet F2.
Sure, Ele will now be the master of AOE healing thanks to Aquatic Benevolence. But this is one of the reason i love the ele. While not as engaging as the ranger, you certain feel helpful (and immensely squishy no matter the toughness and vitality you got).

Burst – we got no burst to talk of, pre patch. But with a 100% chance to land 3 crits, Path of Scars into Maul is a combo burst that not even you can deny the potential of. And that is the core thing about bursts, its a potential DPS. If you hit, it hurts, if your attack is mitigated, its wasted.

Yes, it is THAT much different in EU. Rangers have a role here, albeit limited mostly to immobilize, stomping and waterfields. More often then not, commanders here in EU will call for rangers to stay with the melee train and use their waterfields while stacking, because its so large, and lasts so long that even if you do not stack tightly, everyone can blast it with ease.
The downside of eles waterfields (i have a ele so, i kinda know a bit about this) is that you have to sacrifice your DPS to heal others. You must switch to water, which has poor DPS on staff atleast, this means that for the next 10-13 seconds, you cannot swap back into fire which yields the best DPS. Rangers can just press a button while on the fly. You call your field “Water on commander” in TS, drop it, and carry on swinging that GS or firing that longbow or whatever you do. You do not need to sacrifice anything at all. That is the beauty of it.

EU commanders, atleast on Desolation and Far Shiverpeaks acknowledges that rangers have things they just excel at. Muddy Terrain, Entangle, Healing Spring and Barrage is actually appreciated.
Rangers are wanted alongside eles to clear walls, especially south hills, which is only accessible with traited staff and longbow. Grenades (Kit F# function) can also hit. but that one has lower DPS then barrage and meteor shower once you fire it far away.

Not saying rangers are the most wanted class in EU. But it is totally unlike NA, where rangers are treated like something that was spawned from hell by the devil himself.

prysin while i agree that ranger is in a great shape after patch in spvp and maybe pve (?), not enough has been done to make the profession viable in organized wvw (gvg/gvz).

maybe, MAAAAAYBE GC rangers can now compete with GS mesmers and thieves in focus groups to burst targets down. but when it comes to wiping competent groups that are 50-100% the size of your guild, rangers just dont have enough sustain and aoe dps. this is a fact and should be addressed by the devs. thing is im so burned out on WvW that i just dont give a kitten about rangers in that setting. not any more.

it is true that ranger hate in WvW in very out of hand in NA. when i kill people in wvw and spvp, it seems i get hated even MORE. it’s sad and funny.

oh and while eles have to sacrifice their dps for a few seconds to put out water fields, rangers completely give up their survivability! if you put your water on the commander, you dont have a heal for 30 seconds. bad.

i do think you can design a viable support melee ranger for gvg/gvz that can spit out immobilizes and a bit of damage. i demonstrated that in my sentinel guide. however, would i give up a warrior, guard or necro slot for this ranger? no, because these 3 profs when specced right can immob and put out much more aoe damage compared to the ranger. not to mention aoe hard cc!!

Prysin.8542:

HHR LostProphet.4801:

serow.6524:

Longbows have traits that dramatically improve their punching power and flight speed. Give it a try.

Err, you mean RTW? That trait is useless in PvE. There is no “punching power” improvement. RTW on its own is highly situational. As soon as your enemy comes to close, it’s useless again.
@ OP:
If you want to be effective in PvE, step away from the LB. That’s the unfortunate fact. And don’t use SB either. Or axes. Or dagger. All those weapons are highly situational and useless for the most time in PvE. Warhorn can be good.
Run sword/WH + GS for maximum damage, LB if you’re lazy. But most parties will kick you if you try to use the LB in dungeons.
We’re pretty solid in PvP encounters, but not with the LB.

Axe offhand is not bad in PvE. Nice vuln stack. A reflect (those are handy, lets your guard save his) and a strong burst/pull

The reflect untraited is way too small in my mind. Especially if you play with 4 PUGs who stay everywhere but not behind you. In general, mobs in PvE hit way to slow to benefit from the reflect.

Prysin.8542:

Ranger does not have burst heal like ele, shout warrior and guardian, but has strong group passive buffing (regeneration, spirit aura, water spirit) and since this patch, we also got a burst heal from pet F2.

If you’re talking about WvW, you’re completely off track. You can use spirits in organized WvW, if you stay back. Thus your spirits wont help anyone. Or you run into the enemy zerg, so your mates would benefit from your spirits, but they die to the first two AoEs hitting them. That’s not what i call “great support capability”.

Prysin, your desire to make rangers sound good is admirable.
I main one, brought all the other professions to 80, though they are not all geared.
I build for damages and survivability on my ranger. Half my stuff is pink.
Most of my alts - which are unstuffed - just dressed in found gear, hit harder than my ranger, and have more survivability options, while offering to the zerg what it wants.

What is important in a zerg - especially outnumbered - is damage / survivability / boons / CC.
A dead player deals no damage, no boons is less damage, no CC is less damage.
So it is natural that commanders would prefer to have a heavy than a ranger, when speaking damage/survivability.

What we bring is hard to see - because people don’t know what to look for. When I make a cell for my commader, he does not know the ranger dit it. Most of the time, when I give a water field - he does not know I did it. When I send my bear ahead to pop the zones, he does not know I did it. When 15 people get 150 precision, they don’t notice I did it. When I crit 3k and inflicts vulnerability, they do not know I help them hit harder.

I do see all that I offer to the zerg, but I do not have the delusion to believe that rangers really have their place in zergs or GvG. Simply because If we get the mitigation tools to survive, we either lack damage or group support. If we build for damage, we either lack group support or damage mitigation. and so on. A war naturally has good damage and survivability, and building for more does not take off it’s group utility. A guard naturally has lots of group utility and survivability tools, which allows it to build for damage. A necro has lots of natural survivability, can build for more, all while doing great damage (as power necro) and great control of the ennemy (greater control options untraited than our traited ones). The ele? a _well played_ ele does not sit in fire... at base, they might not have much, but just with 20 points investment, they give might, swiftness, regen and protection to all their group every 10 seconds. They offer more vulne than we do, more damage mitigation for our group (blind/weakness/ice), and more low CD useful fields.

So, one on one class, comparison with ranger, from my gameplay experience, all classes having a balanced build that deals damage and ensures the player can last the fight, from a WvW zerg point of view :
War
- damage +
- sustain +
- control +/- (different)
- group utility
Gard
- damage +/- (depending on spec)
- sustain +
- Control +/- (depending on spec)
- group utility +
Necro
-damage +
- sustain +
- Control +
- Group utility +/-
Ele
- Damage +
- sustain +/-
- control +
- group utility +/-

Ranger’s problem in term of group play is the pet... Don’t get me wrong, I love the pet, but it does not mean I’m blind to the problems... Our base damage is lower because of the pet... many of our CC durations are lower because of the pet... many of our traits affect the pet only...
All that because of a pet that might add to what we do... while it spends most of WvW bus fights dead.
Ranger is great in small group play. I’s a great class to play in small groups. But get in a zerg or GvG, and the mere fact that the pet dies in seconds makes the class sub-par. Lock any class out of their mechanic or class defining abilities for 50 seconds every minutes, and any class would be sub-par. Would it be a War with no adrenalyn benefits, an Ele that can’t change attunements, a necro that can’t enter DS, a thief without either init or stealth...

When the Ranger became goood in group play?
Unless you are talking about SPvP only.

Yeah in sPvP, the rangers are ok (immobile tanky things with their spirits)

but not so in Dungeons
Are Dungeons not considered Small Group play?

Try a Ranger in Zerk Groups and see how fast they kick you.

geogyf.5087:

Try a Ranger in Zerk Groups and see how fast they kick you.

They didn’t kick you because you were a ranger, they kicked you because you weren’t using the dungeon running build. That’s like me getting mad at a “casual relaxed only” group for wanting to kill all the mobs.

geogyf.5087:

When the Ranger became goood in group play?
Unless you are talking about SPvP only.

Yeah in sPvP, the rangers are ok (immobile tanky things with their spirits)

but not so in Dungeons
Are Dungeons not considered Small Group play?

Try a Ranger in Zerk Groups and see how fast they kick you.

Lol, many of the speedrunning groups include a ranger in the party (poper build, gear, trinkets) for the buffs it brings. Spotter (extra crit chance is always nice), traited frost spirits (70% chance on hit to get a extra 7% damage), fury, might from pets/warhorn, long lasting water field, and extra reflect on a relatively low cd (25s if traited – can’t remember exactly) or the warhorn for the extra blast finisher, a fire field on a 15 s cd (fire trap), party wide res/condi removal (spirit of nature, you can proc it 2 times before it dies, and a 3rd time when it dies with trait – migh be wrong here can’t remember exactly the cooldowns) witch is better than warr elite banner.

So rangers bring plenty to a party in a dungeon but if you are a bearbow, camping max range and pew pew you won’t benefit your party. And the reason plety of rangers get kicked is because the bearbow metality (this has been discused in plenty of threads up until now).

So to end my wall of text, if played right a ranger can bring plenty to his party, if played wrong it’s a liability that will be spotted from a mile away.

To follow up on the above, I think each and every one of us rangers want to be pew pew from max range, it’s just ideal and it feels right. But in a dungeon, or in pvp or in wvw you can’t just depend on that strategy. Want an example? Given that this is a game based on fantasy, all you bear bow rangers go watch any Lord of the Rings movies and check out what happens to the archers who like to pew pew and don’t know how to jump into the fray like a ninja, giving their allies excellent backup in hand to hand combat + ranged support.

In the same LotR example, Legolas took out hundreds of Orcs before engaging the Elephant in close range. While in close range he still pew pew’d with a bow.

On top of this he provided his group amazing support and utility by being an expert tracker and seeing the crow spies before they were spotted.

In either scenario, the Ranger in GW2 isn’t living up to expectations

Prysin.8542:

people see what they want to see. Rangers, Hunters, Archers or any other form of bow wielding and pet-using class i have ever played in any MMO for the past 14 years is always the first class to get “hated”. No matter how brokenly OP anything else is, that archetype rubs people the wrong way almost by default.
Has been like that since forever, cannot tell you why, and i could not care less where the hate came from. All i know is that it is here to stay.

Conspiracy, maybe, but it is too large of a coincidence that i actually believe it is a coincidence and not just some, if perhaps even the same people, spreading that hate from game to game as they move on with time.

Tell me, ather, you know what the ranger can do (or it seems you do). So tell me, how can you defend the ever so moronic “anything rangers does, someone else can do better”. While knowing that A; it is a lie in many cases. B; it is baseless accusations that has been proven wrong, with legit math and videos. C; it is the same people sprouting the same lies over and over while proven wrong and you still believe them to be right.

I can explain the first point.

Hunters as you’ve described them, in early WoW had terribly broken mechanics. Many may not remember, but Pets were filled with bugs, mechanics were clunky.
The most confusing thing about the Hunters were that they had a Mana bar as a resource, so they essentialy had 3 main stats to focus on, 4 if you count Strenght for BMs, while other classes had 2 primaries. It caused a bunch of problems, as people who were constantly runnig out of mana (early-WoW was like cast five skills and you were nearly without resource, which did not regenerate any fast) so they tried to power up that mana flow somehow, often taking some caster gear with mana regen or intellect, ending up looking as a Gypsy with a mix of cloth robe, mail helm and medium gloves. Add to it that Hunters were never easy in PvP before MoP came out and relied on “big cooldowns” or skillshots to do good damage, pets were carrying bad players through entire game, tanking (see bearbows) and you have the recipe for Hunter’s hate.

No wonder, most of players knew that Hunter wasn’t a class for kittenes and required kiting, timing and experience. As the game progressed, pets got fixed and became a working, valuable class mechanic and Hunters got focus as a resource, much more dynamic pool.

I played Hunter in PvP for 8 years untill the MoP came out and ruined the class. I got two Gladiator’s titles and was fairly experienced Hunter. All I can say that it was (at least in PvP of any sort) a class which was easy to pick up, but after that the skill ceiling was almost endless as you had to totally master all aspects and kiting to reach the levels when you could do almost anything.

And Prysin, as for Chill – Necromancers have better access to AoE chill. I recommend you to try Chilling Darkness and Epidemic.

Prysin.8542:

The meta is not an answer, it is what the masses claim to be the truth regardless of the facts at hand.

Do we live in a dictatorship? Last time i checked, we had a democracy. Democracy means, simply put, power to the masses. So if the masses decide that the ranger is too weak, they may be not that far off track as you may think.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Prysin.8542:

The meta is not an answer, it is what the masses claim to be the truth regardless of the facts at hand.

Do we live in a dictatorship? Last time i checked, we had a democracy. Democracy means, simply put, power to the masses. So if the masses decide that the ranger is too weak, they may be not that far off track as you may think.

The masses meaning who exactly? Tons of rangers complain that they are struggling with the profession, granted because it’s freaking hard to climb the ranger ladder. I can see why a lot of other professions see that as a weakness in general, when classifying professions. But is this weakness directly related to the ranger as a profession, or more so due to the inability of players behind the ranger to play the profession correctly? Could it be that, due to the inherent mechanics in other professions, players behind those professions have it even slightly easier in reaching the standard of success in their gameplay? I like to believe that this is true, not by a large margin, but by a margin that stands out enough specifically for people who can’t deal with the mechanics of the ranger and maintain that ‘standard’ everyone is looking for.

Let’s also forget that historically, we’ve been on the lower end of ‘developer love’.

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Prysin.8542:

The meta is not an answer, it is what the masses claim to be the truth regardless of the facts at hand.

Do we live in a dictatorship? Last time i checked, we had a democracy. Democracy means, simply put, power to the masses. So if the masses decide that the ranger is too weak, they may be not that far off track as you may think.

The “masses” also thought the world was flat. I eschew anything to do with the masses. Innovation and thinking outside the box are the way to go.

Forzani.2584:

The “masses” also thought the world was flat.

That’s a myth.

Wiki article because I don’t feel like finding a real source or remembering all the historical details. : 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

Fluffball.8307:

Forzani.2584:

The “masses” also thought the world was flat.

That’s a myth.

Wiki article because I don’t feel like finding a real source or remembering all the historical details. : 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

lol

Maybe look up the word ‘anal’ in your magical wiki.

#missthepoint

Fluffball.8307:

Forzani.2584:

The “masses” also thought the world was flat.

That’s a myth.

Wiki article because I don’t feel like finding a real source or remembering all the historical details. : 3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_Earth

Then again some people also believe holocaust was a myth too, even to this day.

Forzani.2584:

Maybe look up the word ‘anal’ in your magical wiki.

#missthepoint

I don’t care about the point, I’m not even really reading the thread. I just found it ironic that you’re talking about eschewing what the masses believe and then use a common myth that the masses believe.

I get incredibly annoyed when people say Ben Franklin discovered electricity. They had kitten BATTERIES before Franklin did any experiments.

Or even worse when they think he invented electricity. Jay Leno did one of those joke walk arounds once 20 years ago or so where he asked someone what Ben Franklin invented and then laughed when the person didn’t know “Franklin invented electricity.”

xXxOrcaxXx.9328:

Prysin.8542:

The meta is not an answer, it is what the masses claim to be the truth regardless of the facts at hand.

Do we live in a dictatorship? Last time i checked, we had a democracy. Democracy means, simply put, power to the masses. So if the masses decide that the ranger is too weak, they may be not that far off track as you may think.

If you’re in the USA you live in a Constitutional Republic, not a pure democracy.
Big difference.