Guild Wars 2

Anyone else notice when you create a Ranger, you don’t get any special armor or special anything? You get a pet. Not even an unique pet. It’s just a normal pet you can get anywhere in the world.

Hear me out.
ALL of the other classes get to choose a UNIQUE armor skin for their character. What was the reasoning behind giving Rangers typical average pets as their “special selection”? It should be given to us by default, since it’s our class mechanic.

Personally, I would have like to have seen an option like a Quiver back piece (like how the Engineer’s get a Kit back piece). Just my two cents.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Starting_equipment

It’s an early, initial customization option. Choosing the first pet is a more valuable initial customization as it affects your effectiveness a lot more than the other custom gear does. The trade-off is you don’t get any unique armour (unique insofar as 1/3 of the profession population has it), and if you’re particularly sweet on a thief or engineer unique item you can always cross-transmute something across.

Almost everything you can get on the other classes can be gotten (either the same or very similar; in other words same armor model, slightly different skin) somewhere else eventually, either as a drop or from faction vendors or whatnot.

Some of the Ranger starting pet options let you get a pet at character creation you won’t otherwise be able to get until the mid to late 50’s. That’s an actually functional benefit the other classes don’t get. Plus, as the pet class, we have something like 40 different animals we can travel around with (and swap out at any time) if we want to look cool. No other class can do that.

What I don’t understand is creating a whine thread because you can’t put on some undisclosed vanity item at character creation that every single other Ranger in the game would also be putting on when they make their Ranger. Way to be a unique snowflake with that one.

Funny story, I once saw a warrior running around with the guardian’s signature shoulder pads. Threw me off for a second. I have also seen rangers with thief hoods.

The starter items are far from unique, since you can acquire as many as you’d like, provided you have a free character slot, and don’t mind jumping through a few hoops.

While I can see your point as to Rangers not getting a unique item choice, what Munrock pointed out is also true. The item you choose for most professions does nothing (or almost nothing) from a gameplay perspective, its just a possibly nice looking item. The pet choice is actually something that matters as far as gameplay. So from that perspective other classes could complain that Ranger gets something no one else does.

Its a tradeoff. And a pretty decent one IMO, but your millage may vary depending on how much you value looks.

Quivers should be added as normal back pieces period, not just for Rangers (and sure as heck not Ascended-only).

I actually wear a thieves hood on my ranger, and honestly, I couldn’t care less. The customization options are just really small initial eye-candy, look at how fast they usually get replaced by the classes who get them.

Rangers do have a lot of pressing issues, this is not one of them.