Guild Wars 2

Dunno about anyone else, but what are the actual drawbacks to ranger? (I mained mine and it was my first 80 and only character I played for months). We have massive damage burst in pvp, the longest range in the game, easy rallies from pets, our own personal aggro magnet, high boon uptimes from horn/various pet active skills, one of the best elite skills in the game (rampage as one)… it just feels like there’s no challenge or downside to ranger that I can think of.

Anyone else think this way?

Each build has it draw backs and each build has its strengths. All depends on how each person plays

wait I can think of ONE downside.

throwing yourself off cliffs with sword 2.

Done that too many times >.>

I love all those things about ranger, yes, but. All professions have “no drawbacks”, but none of them can have everything at once. Pick any random ranger build rather than ranger as a profession and I’m sure you can see immediate drawbacks.

Go even further and look at armor/amulet types regardless of profession, and you can see immediate drawbacks. The obvious one is berserker.

There are downsides.
We are not the cPvP meta, and most of our design is not reliable (pets, spirits).

Also, we have no burst in cPvP, either. We can only apply the burst in WvW, where as you say – we win only because we have the highest range in the game. Not because our damage is highest (because it is not).
Also, Rangers are more vulnerable than anyone else when trying to perform their burst. Because being immobile and channeling for 2,5 seconds, and having to channel another 1,25 is a risky business.

Also, Rangers have no burst. They have powerful tunnel vision DPS pattern. Not the burst. (If you need 4 seconds for your burst – throughout which the DPS is scattered continually – it’s no burst at all). Practically useless for cPvP, taking into account that you are literally a one-shot target in this version.

Rangers are great skirmishers. But they do not excel at Damage, neither utility. Elementalists are the ones who can do all of that.

rapthorne.7345:

Dunno about anyone else, but what are the actual drawbacks to ranger? (I mained mine and it was my first 80 and only character I played for months). We have massive damage burst in pvp, the longest range in the game, easy rallies from pets, our own personal aggro magnet, high boon uptimes from horn/various pet active skills, one of the best elite skills in the game (rampage as one)… it just feels like there’s no challenge or downside to ranger that I can think of.

Anyone else think this way?

• Rangers are targeted first by most classes, especially thieves in conquest/small scales skirms.
• We have to play twice as skillfully and make half the mistakes other classes can make to be somewhat as effective as other classes.
• When our pet dies, we lose 30% of our damage
• Escapes are limited to certain weapon sets.
• Our pets F2 ability’s sometimes do not trigger
• Rangers have very little AOE options compared to other classes.
• When it comes to dungeon runs, Rangers are kicked the most from party’s.

Want more?

Major draw back , 120secs on Rampage as one , without Boon duration you have a 100sec down time and only 6secs from signet of the wild(60cooldown).

this forces us to trait in ether signet mastery to gain it more often and or trait for NM.

result is long down times in Stability and the amount of evades counter that (depending on the weapon sets you use)

to get a better stability you ether have to trait for some nature magic but the increase in time is so little (like 3-4secs at max 6 in NM) and 2 at 2-in NM.

compaired to other classes escape / migration skills , blinks ect all we rangers have on Access without traits or chainging to a soimoth pet is Evades that we can rely on.

They are very much a jack-of-all master of none class. Sure they have a lot of strengths but every other class can do at least one of those things much better. I actually like them for this, it’s very easy to produce a build that performs modestly in almost any situation. This is great for lazy players like me who hate to cart around multiple sets of gear and change traits all the time.

I also hate that rap the class gets in high end PvE content like dungeons. Played properly a Ranger is a great addition to groups, you just need to learn not to constantly sit at range plinking with the bow and realise how solid defensively the greatsword is and how much damage the sword puts out. You can take a water field (healing spring), group precision buff (spotter), group AoE damage buff (frost spirit) which compliments group-wide might stacking from warriors and, to top it off, your pet can continue to draw aggro and deal damage while you actively pick up downed team mates.

Not sure what the point of this post was, Rangers are pretty cool, not the ultimate death machine (Warrior), healbot (Elementalist), boon spammer (Guardian) or super tank (Necromancer) but they have a place and are very flexible, let’s not mention the engineer though.

“I mained mine and it was my first 80 and only character I played for months)”

This implies two things. A short playtime, and that you switched to playing something else. That is, you already know what you are asking for.

Drawbacks to ranger:

1) Very passive, boring and repetitive game play (111111111111111111)
2) Terrible Traits (passive)
3) Terrible Utilities (passive)
4) Most weapons skills are pointless ( spam spam, evades)

unfortunatly , thats the trade off the rangers have to make for having a pet which they have little control over, but will be a PASSIVE carry most fights: (somehow… interrupting important skills, stealth tracking, ressing, condi clearing, snares, etc)

and there is no solution, because thats the t

rapthorne.7345:

Dunno about anyone else, but what are the actual drawbacks to ranger? (I mained mine and it was my first 80 and only character I played for months). We have massive damage burst in pvp, the longest range in the game, easy rallies from pets, our own personal aggro magnet, high boon uptimes from horn/various pet active skills, one of the best elite skills in the game (rampage as one)… it just feels like there’s no challenge or downside to ranger that I can think of.

Anyone else think this way?

Not, all is OK. Have no idea about what game-mode you are talking, but in the every mode we have our own + and -, also as any another class

SilverWF.4789:

Not, all is OK. Have no idea about what game-mode you are talking, but in the every mode we have our own + and -, also as any another class

There’s something that almost no other class has to endure.
…
Bearbow community. Which is like 80% of the rangers in this game. And I’m not even exaggerating. 4 out of 5 Rangers are like that. No other class in this game is so hated as rangers are. I’ve never seen any class besides Ranger to be kicked for playing the class (without checking for build).

google.3709:

Drawbacks to ranger:

1) Very passive, boring and repetitive game play (111111111111111111)
2) Terrible Traits (passive)
3) Terrible Utilities (passive)
4) Most weapons skills are pointless ( spam spam, evades)

Play a melee condi BM bunker ranger, you certainly won’t be spamming 1 very often. The traits used to be worse and the utilities are great, especially now that signet actives affect the ranger natively.

The only main downside to ranger is the lack of decent condition removal.
The one we have as a heal doesn’t heal as well as Trolls Unguent. The condi removal on survival skill use is in a trait line that not too many rangers go into and would have to give up other, more needed, traits and a timed passive traited condi removal that requires your pet to be close (there’s a signet that does a similar thing).

Also, pets aren’t always useful yet, they need a buff and a little AI work to get them to dodge aoe circles.

psizone.8437:

…

The only main downside to ranger is the lack of decent condition removal.
The one we have as a heal doesn’t heal as well as Trolls Unguent. The condi removal on survival skill use is in a trait line that not too many rangers go into and would have to give up other, more needed, traits and a timed passive traited condi removal that requires your pet to be close (there’s a signet that does a similar thing).

…

You mean…
~6 conditions cleansed in AoE per 10 seconds on a 30 sec CD (skill)
~3 conditions swapped to your pet every 10 seconds (Trait)
~1 condition cleansed every 10 seconds – allowing you to get rid of ALL condis on use (60 sec, CD) (Signet)
~2 conditions cleansed on each survival ability used, which can ramp up up to 8 active condi cleanse and 2 additional from Keen Edge trait in Marksmanship tree – ending up in 10 condi cleanse on demand (Trait)
~2 condi cleanse from Bear if you really needed

… That’s not enough? I was pretty much condi immune on my former build. What exactly about Ranger condi cleanse is not fine?

Tragic Positive.9356:

psizone.8437:

…

The only main downside to ranger is the lack of decent condition removal.
The one we have as a heal doesn’t heal as well as Trolls Unguent. The condi removal on survival skill use is in a trait line that not too many rangers go into and would have to give up other, more needed, traits and a timed passive traited condi removal that requires your pet to be close (there’s a signet that does a similar thing).

…

You mean…
~6 conditions cleansed in AoE per 10 seconds on a 30 sec CD (skill)
~3 conditions swapped to your pet every 10 seconds (Trait)
~1 condition cleansed every 10 seconds – allowing you to get rid of ALL condis on use (60 sec, CD) (Signet)
~2 conditions cleansed on each survival ability used, which can ramp up up to 8 active condi cleanse and 2 additional from Keen Edge trait in Marksmanship tree – ending up in 10 condi cleanse on demand (Trait)
~2 condi cleanse from Bear if you really needed

… That’s not enough? I was pretty much condi immune on my former build. What exactly about Ranger condi cleanse is not fine?

Dont forget Entangle with Lyssa Runes. Converts conditions to boons, 5 of em, in a 48 sec cd.

rapthorne.7345:

Dunno about anyone else, but what are the actual drawbacks to ranger? (I mained mine and it was my first 80 and only character I played for months). We have massive damage burst in pvp, the longest range in the game, easy rallies from pets, our own personal aggro magnet, high boon uptimes from horn/various pet active skills, one of the best elite skills in the game (rampage as one)… it just feels like there’s no challenge or downside to ranger that I can think of.

Anyone else think this way?

I agree. The longbow is a huge offender with a short cooldown long range knockback. No class has such on demand knockback with so little cost. Then it has a stealth, burst, and large AoE. Why would rangers use anything else?

DaShi.1368:

I agree. The longbow is a huge offender with a short cooldown long range knockback. No class has such on demand knockback with so little cost. Then it has a stealth, burst, and large AoE. Why would rangers use anything else?

LB users run into a bit of a wall against condi rangers. I wouldn’t call them a hard counter, like necros should lose 100% of fights against LB rangers, but condi rangers are a horrible matchup for LB rangers.

I guess that doesn’t answer your question about not using a LB, but there are always downsides.

You also don’t have to go pure glass with LB, but then the LB starts to lose a bit of the appeal. It doesn’t hit all that hard and has a slow attack speed. If you’re going to go tanky power, I’d rather go full melee. Pure glass LB is a mess in close quarters. I won’t engage warrior roamers unless I have enough line of sight to level the playing field by the time we get in to melee range.

/ramble

Actually, Longbow hits so kittenly because of Sigil of Fire and Sigil of Air.
… If you look closely, it deals around 35% of the Rapid Fire burst.

And it provides some nice and valuable utility. But it’s not like it deals that much damage as people say. Also, if the enemy happens to have Retaliation … Not to mention on AoE basis … Then goodbye anyone who stick with the Longbow for more than a knock-back.

Rangers don’t have as many “Oh ****!” buttons as other classes (except maybe Necromancers).

This automatically makes them slightly worse than other classes and requires more skill to play effectively.

Chrispy.5641:

Rangers don’t have as many “Oh ****!” buttons as other classes (except maybe Necromancers).

This automatically makes them slightly worse than other classes and requires more skill to play effectively.

i dunno about this. Are we talking about the ranger class? Lightning reflexes and stone signet are in almost every pvp build are are very strong. Then you have the hide on lb 3. Then the kb on 4. Most folks take the aoe cripple as their third with low cd entangle cripple elite.

Now, assuming your lb/gs, you have aoe cripple (one of the 2) + swoop to get far away. You also should have the prot on dodge. If your s/x, you have the double leap that works even better to get away. Not to mention the swoop+HS to heal yourself up to full if you jump through it right to get it twice. And the block on GS, and stone sig.

I’d say the ranger has the most ‘o crap’ skills after thief.

mulzi.8273:

Chrispy.5641:

Rangers don’t have as many “Oh ****!” buttons as other classes (except maybe Necromancers).

This automatically makes them slightly worse than other classes and requires more skill to play effectively.

i dunno about this. Are we talking about the ranger class? Lightning reflexes and stone signet are in almost every pvp build are are very strong. Then you have the hide on lb 3. Then the kb on 4. Most folks take the aoe cripple as their third with low cd entangle cripple elite.

Now, assuming your lb/gs, you have aoe cripple (one of the 2) + swoop to get far away. You also should have the prot on dodge. If your s/x, you have the double leap that works even better to get away. Not to mention the swoop+HS to heal yourself up to full if you jump through it right to get it twice. And the block on GS, and stone sig.

I’d say the ranger has the most ‘o crap’ skills after thief.

An “Oh S****!” button is one that can get you out of virtually any bad situation when you’re already neck deep in that bad situation.

We have Signet of Stone, and Lightning Reflexes for that (Sometimes Signet of Renewal). Everything else you mentioned isn’t after the fact reactive like these skills. They must be used ahead of time in order to mitigate anything, and therefore cannot be considered “Oh Crap!” buttons.

Where do you hear the next: “pls somebody change to ranger”
I think nowhere