Too many people who just don’t know say the damage is bad, it’s decent, check out Brazil’s build guide and 4 min cof1 run with only rangers, sword horn is ace atm… long bow every slates… and they are again wrong, LB has a purpose, long range, if you trait for it, berserker gear and stand max range to get the best damage from it you can hit for 3-4k per auto attack, and up to 16k Rapid fire. Don’t misunderstand, LB is not good in dungeons where you should stick with your group, but exploration, and esp world boss events it’s amazing. People also forget pets contribute a huge portion of rangers damage.
Short answer, Yes, if you do your research and play them right.
I wish people would stop giving false or incomplete information. Your auto attack does not do 3-4k damage, it can CRIT for 800 – 4k damage. There is a difference, you don’t always crit and not all crits are high because I’ve gotten some really small crits that makes me want to cry! Also, Rapid fire normally gives you the same amount of damage as you would get using skill #1 auto fire if you where using skill #1 at max range. This is why you only use rapid fire when your up close. Problem is as a range player, you should NOT be up close, you should be at range. Problem we have is we only have one skill that gives us breathing room, that will push the attacker away from us, this one skill is on a very LONG cd and is easily blockable and I’ve had it bounced back at me. Meanwhile, your target will normally have at least 2 gap closers. So, no matter what you do, you can’t keep your range from the target because there are WAY to many gap closers in this game. Hell, warrior’s have like 4 gap closers which is why they are considered to have the best mobility in the game. And for those that say this is not counting pet damage, please remember, pet’s can NOT hit moving targets. In WvW pets are dead in the first two second of any zerg fight because of area effect damages. Pets, especially birds, do not fly up keep walls or down keep walls to attack your target, so many, many, many, many, (to many) times, you have 0 pet damage when the pet is suppose to provide 30% of your damage in a fight.
If you ask “can ranger’s do decent ranged damage?” the truth is, in our current state, If you want to sacrifice survivability for higher damage, then yes, Ranger’s can do ‘decent’ ranged damage. We are not the best at the ranged damage but we are decent. In our current state, if you want some survivability, then the answer is No, Ranger’s do NOT do decent ranged damage. If Anet was to remove pets and give ranger’s back their 30% damage then the answer would most likely be Yes, ranger’s do decent and most likely exceed in ranged damage. However, that is a wet dream that would never bear fruit I’m afraid.
