Guild Wars 2

The title says it all. I play WvWvW mostly with a server-wide mumble and usually at some point of the day someone busts out with a Ranger slam. Ranger is the go-to joke when making fun of bad professions. We are the poster child for weak DPS and ineffective support.

Last night someone asked which alt they log on and the answer was “bring anything but your Ranger”. This led to almost 15 minutes of joking and gems like:

“Words you will never hear; We need more Rangers online”
“Rangers are walking honor badges”
“ArenaNet should auto party Rangers together so they can get a short-bus to drive them around” (my personal favorite)

You see it in all sort of posts too. In sPvP threads, video threads, profession build discussions, people always throw in the aside of “except rangers”. As in “I have been beat at some point by every profession except a ranger” or “I can bring any profession to the fight an usually win, except a ranger”

Reality of Rangers aside (not looking to start an argument on actual effectiveness) I am hoping that this patch at least will alter the community wide perception that we are so flawed that we hurt the team by not bringing a different profession to the fight.

I don’t know if any other Rangers feel the same way but being the butt of everyone’s jokes wears on you after awhile

Im gonna say kudos and leave it at that….After this.

Whatever Anet does I will not jump for joy – To many Disconnects between ranger players and Anet staff.

Results is all that im looking for.

Oh and the “Rangers are walking honor badges” I hear it all the time.

I like the walking honor badges one. I’m a ranger at heart but this profession pisses me off in this game. It’s class defining mechanic is the pet which is absolutely atrocious. AI aside, there’s no love for the pet. All we have is a name that doesn’t even work.

My favorite I saw in LA was “GLFM Fractals lvl 10 pref a ranger….. said no one ever”

Ethics.4519:

I like the walking honor badges one. I’m a ranger at heart but this profession pisses me off in this game. It’s class defining mechanic is the pet which is absolutely atrocious. AI aside, there’s no love for the pet. All we have is a name that doesn’t even work.

My favorite I saw in LA was “GLFM Fractals lvl 10 pref a ranger….. said no one ever”

Haha…sounds about right, especially the…“erm, don’t you have another class?”..attempting to get into a dungeon XD

I normally don’t let these jokes get to me as my built rarely dies and I usually shock everyone. That said I mostly do WvW and the LB #5 AoE is really helpful againts siege so I said in Map chat “If you’re a ranger you should be aoing their ballista”. A thief then replied, “If you’re a ranger you should reroll a thief” and everyone started laughing in map chat….I was indeed kitten off since I still was the only ranger killing the siege on my own which I managed to do while everyone was adding to the ranger jokes.

The thief who said that insult was a bad thief anyways lol, saw him get owned many times but meh.

I agree, we are an under powered. But not by so much. The ranger jokes are just there from tradition I expect them to stay for a while unless some op build comes out. I am looking forward to the patch, the pet fix seems most promising, but don’t get your hopes up. I doubt it will be a change-all patch. I enjoy my ranger now I feel like I have gotten better at it and know the class, we aren’t on the level of thieves but we aren’t on the bottom either. Engineer definitely needs some love as well, and Necro too. The mindset has become that we are at the bottom of the ladder, but I think its not terribly bad and we are not alone. Honestly though, I love the jokes lol. If people want to hate, show them your stuff.

Jazenn.7526:

I agree, we are an under powered. But not by so much. The ranger jokes are just there from tradition I expect them to stay for a while unless some op build comes out. I am looking forward to the patch, the pet fix seems most promising, but don’t get your hopes up. I doubt it will be a change-all patch. I enjoy my ranger now I feel like I have gotten better at it and know the class, we aren’t on the level of thieves but we aren’t on the bottom either. Engineer definitely needs some love as well, and Necro too. The mindset has become that we are at the bottom of the ladder, but I think its not terribly bad and we are not alone. Honestly though, I love the jokes lol. If people want to hate, show them your stuff.

Whoever Engineers have as their PR person is doing a wonderful job. Bottom of the barrel? That is pretty funny. I’d gladly swap my Ranger over to an Engineer, Grenades and Bombs are so OP it is ridiculous and yet they are still going to get sigils and weapon stats added to those kits.

So I am a ranger, fully exod out and I am gonna say I love my class and build. Can things be improved for us as a whole, yes big time but I am playing my ranger in a way I don’t see anyone else play.
I am a Soldier/Cleric geared Tankiest of the tank ranger. 2.2k power. 2k toughness 1.5k vit. 500 healing 3k power 3k armor 20k hp etc. Greatsword and axe/wh

I love it.

I dont do the most dmg, however with my high power and my pets and smart play I find that I can do A TON of dmg in the time it takes for your glass cannon to take me down.

I dodge = Protection
Natural toughness = reduced dmg
I get hit = Regen
Conditions? =Gone no problem usually.
100 blades you say? = I go invuln..have fun with that.

I don’t need to do 8k + each swing, cause trust me you aint doing 8k to me.
Get me to 25% hp, 33% tougher

In PVP I do well one on one. Am I a god among mortals? Nope somepeople are just good some classes can hit and run and play the attrition game better but I never feel outclassed.

In PVE I surprise many folks, just yesterday my guild wanted to do Honor of the Waves path 3. I never had done it, I was told it was very unfriendly to melee, the gargantuan boss and the werewolf svanir dude would destroy melee.

I told them to give me a chance, i went in and the gargantuan guy? PFFFT 2k hits? Slow slow swings? I stayed melee the whole time not a worry never dropped below 15k.

Svanir wolf guy, took a bit more bob and weave but that is what combat is all about, it aint WoW stand and swing for 30 minutes. I never went lower then 5k and was able to recover.

My guildies were stunned. I was proud I could do it.

I am not saying EVERYONE become ranger tanks, it is not for most people. I have a blast doing it but I think people should think outside the box.

Every fight is not a DPS race of how many thousands of damage we are not doing vs other classes.

Anyway I hope we do get viable buffs across the board but I never feel like a pity case and while everyone is dying 5 or 6 times a boss, I am still swinging away.

What Trait path you have, Zaqir?

I only play WvWvW and sometimes do some dungeon runs. I went on toughness too, not healing though. I made a kinda balanced set up so i have 2k+ toughness, 3k armor but also 3k+ power, 40%+ crit rate….a kind of hybrid build. I prefer using longbow as it helps a lot in WvWvW and axe/warhorn. I feel the same with you, although I do feel that rangers need some kind of boost to reach the other classes.
TBH, I never regret changing my set up from full power to toughness/survivnig more style, as I stay alive longer in pvp now and I’m not a glass cannon. I buff my allies as much as I can with my warhorn, using my healing spring that helps them remove conditions so I do feel that I am doing something and I don’t feel so useless.

i’m going with 20k hp, 3k armor about 2.8k attack power (800 or so condition). if i’m not culled i can solo camps, be a pain in the kitten for solo-moving reinforcements and roam pretty well. at most i’m angry at thieves and their extra stealth times, but i can usually hold my own forcing him to run away or win out on the ground.

if you consider taking hyena’s, wolves, or any dog really… you get a whole bunch of CC, traps help, etc. and if you’re built tanky enough people will aim for the ranger first meaning they’re not hitting your DPS who is wrecking show. i consider myself a skirmisher, and i constantly switch from bow the great sword, both for defense and offensive purposes.

i once dueled a d/d elementalist basically everywhere in the EB jumping puzzle. we literally couldn’t kill each other and s/he got tired after 15 minutes of fighting it out.

The “reroll a thief” mentality amuses me. I have an 80 thief I just finished 100% map completion on last night and in my time as a thief I noticed a few things:

1) If I’m underwater, I wish I was on my ranger.
2) In any sustained fight, I wish I was on my ranger.
3) In any fight with large groups of enemies, I wish I was on my ranger.
4) When trying to kite, I wish I was on my ranger.
5) When trying to solo a melee champion (ranged just aren’t practical to solo most of the time), I wish I was on my ranger.
6) Running around the world killing enemies, I wish I was on my ranger because I could just pull everything and kill it all at once without fear of dying or having to drag on the fight forever while I wait on initiative to come back or killing things one at a time.
7) When trying to solo a supply camp in WvW, I wish I was on my ranger.

Truth be told unless I was trying to destroy a single target of medium strength (veteran or players generally), or just rushing map completion without fighting, my ranger does it better. I admit it might be in part gear differences and/or my particular thief build but I don’t believe so.

Edit: Didn’t/Don’t generally do dungeons or sPvP so might be different there.

Saviolakos.6473:

What Trait path you have, Zaqir?

I only play WvWvW and sometimes do some dungeon runs. I went on toughness too, not healing though. I made a kinda balanced set up so i have 2k+ toughness, 3k armor but also 3k+ power, 40%+ crit rate….a kind of hybrid build. I prefer using longbow as it helps a lot in WvWvW and axe/warhorn. I feel the same with you, although I do feel that rangers need some kind of boost to reach the other classes.
TBH, I never regret changing my set up from full power to toughness/survivnig more style, as I stay alive longer in pvp now and I’m not a glass cannon. I buff my allies as much as I can with my warhorn, using my healing spring that helps them remove conditions so I do feel that I am doing something and I don’t feel so useless.

Most of my stuff has soldier stuff on it but my accessories etc

I go 30 in power
30 in toughness
10 in vit

On a side note and a question for you guys, what do you think is better Vit or Healing.

I am of 2 minds, Vit gives you the hps to live longer but higher healing with regen and healing and whatnot can perhaps counter a smaller hp with more hp healed in the long run.

I am trying to juggle the numbers but i am finding it hard to figure out the true levels of healing as it applies to regen and healing from healing spring.

ie if losing 2k hp is worth having maybe 50 more regen a tick etc…

Did things change from the first day of the game’s release? I tried structured player versus player in the first week of release on my Ranger and I killed everything that moved. It might have been everyone was still trying to figure out how to play, but I’m not sure.

I used the default set up also, did very well with the longbow even. I even was also the last standing in the dungeon I tried at level 30. I’ve not had a chance to try others or try player versus player again. But I hope jokes like that won’t happen after the patch.

I don’t understand why some say Rangers are a free kill, everyone else was a free kill for me in the first week.