Guild Wars 2

Chicho Gosho.6507:

Jazenn.7526:

1. It does that? I never noticed… I can’t answer that.
2. Has been addressed the best it can already in the thread.
3. Once again, I haven’t noticed this. Can you not use f1 or f3 during the time? I never noticed this. Usually when you sick a pet loose though, you are setting it from your control to go crazy. If it does do this I can understand it, but I never try to interrupt the skill anyway.
4. I think they are sub-par. They either need a lower ICD or more survivability in my opinon. Not completely unusable though, you will find spirit rangers every now and then.
5. What nice traits in MM are needed for a BM build? The pet condition duration one might pass, but even that matches in MM because of the condition duration stat. BM line is focused on the pet, and all of the skills show that. They aren’t bad really, when added up they can be very nice bonus’s ex. perma vigor or extra regen.
6. They must believe traps to be a skirmishing type utility. The WM line contains boost to the Survival utilities, which honestly match well with the toughness in the line. Not enough room for two sets of utilities maybe? It does help synergy though in a different way, when trap rangers want the condition damage for traps, they are also getting some toughness and survivability they would otherwise need. Maybe though traps can be optimized with the extra cond. damage, they don’t require it and were therefore put into a different line. What if a ranger wanted to run traps but didn’t want to spec that line? Then there would be a whole nother complaint. Can’t answer this perfectly, as I am not Anet.

2. Basically use a range pet if the boss has aoe or pray that when you dodge he’ll stay out of the red circle?
3. If you order your pet to do anything after using Sick’em the buff dissappears.
5. Incr movement speed, incr damage on crits, health on crits, might to the pet on crit.

2. Or use f3, switch, spec, etc.
3. My explanation for this helped me understand this a little better. Sick Em. Letting the pet loose, similar to how a pet-owner might say sick em to his rottweiler against a burglar. When you yell a command out, the rampage stops, and the pet looks to listen.
5. All of those are in the skirmishing line. In my opinon, skirmishing and BM synergize well if you are looking for pet damage. There can only be so many traits in one line, just be glad that they gave you options to help your pet outside of having to put points into BM.

Jalad Lantana.3027:

This thread was started and sustained all based on total BS and simple gainsaying.

Show a high level fractal video or it’s all just hogwash.

Your “Is – Is Not – Is – Is Not” style of argument is pretty boring and childish.

Fractals are GW2’s litmus test for successful PVE builds.

Show us a ranger pulling their weight in a 10 or greater fractal or go home.

You just made several “is” statements lol. And I hate fractals personally, boring and repetitive. I actually have the impression that build diversity decreases as you go up in levels, so that it is not a measure of successful build. Not to mention that it is one small fraction of the game. Ranger weakness in fractals has already been acknowledged as a problem. So this actually doesn’t make it a good test, unless by PvE you mean dungeons, which has also already been acknowledged.

Dahkeus.8243:

Well, here’s a guardian in the same group setup. Sadly, the profession that is heavily support focused can outdps us as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ac2NGGjjPsU

Even with full berserker gear, a ranger won’t deal this kind of damage largely because the game is designed to favor melee…

While browsing the warrior forums, I was shocked to find they consider their class broken and underpowered too. I came to realize why all these class forums are so negative about their respective classes.

Have you ever wondered why it always seems like the other lines are moving faster when you’re at the supermarket? It’s because they are. If there are 8 lines at the supermarket, then you have only 1 in 8 chance of being in the fastest line. 7 out of 8 times, another line will be faster. And on average 3-4 lines will be faster than they one you’re in.

The game has 8 classes. If everything were perfectly balanced, 7 out of 8 times there will be a class who does something better than ranger. On average there will be 3-4 classes who do something better than ranger. And only 1 in 8 times will there be something the ranger is best at.

Now, maybe one of those somethings the ranger sucks at comprise 80% of the game. Or maybe the something the ranger is best at makes up only 1% of the game. But simply showing that 1, 2, or even 3 classes can do something better than ranger isn’t really proving that ranger is underpowered. If you can only point to 1 or 2 classes doing something better than ranger, then ranger is actually doing pretty darn good. And if you can point to 3 classes doing something better, then ranger is about average.

Even if you can point to something where 6 or 7 classes do better than ranger, you have to ask yourself how much of the game does that encompass? Remember, if everything were perfectly balanced, the ranger would be worst at 1/8th of the things you do in the game. In the bottom two at 1/4 of the things.

Warriors are in a bad place in PvP, so yea, it makes sense that some players are unhappy with warriors. Not everyone cares about being top dps in PvE.

This isn’t just some “grass is greener on the other side” thing.

@ Jazen: If you don’t understand what makes a guardian with a dps build better than a ranger meleeing with a glass cannon build, using the squishiest pet available, then I suggest you try rolling a guardian and trying it out.

Dahkeus.8243:

Warriors are in a bad place in PvP, so yea, it makes sense that some players are unhappy with warriors. Not everyone cares about being top dps in PvE.

This isn’t just some “grass is greener on the other side” thing.

@ Jazen: If you don’t understand what makes a guardian with a dps build better than a ranger meleeing with a glass cannon build, using the squishiest pet available, then I suggest you try rolling a guardian and trying it out.

I have a guardian alt and play with it occasionally in the mists, so I probably will at somepoint. Also, to clarify, if you mean dps and glass cannon as two different things, I think we may have a misunderstanding. If you are refferring to them as two different things, then I am asserting that when they are speccing for the same thing, whether gc, dps, or bunker, the ranger can have more dps, whatever.

Before the thread went extremely overboard with emotion (not to say it shouldn’t have, it was the exact reactions that were to be expected based on some of the ignorant things people say) there were a few good points made.
First of all, outside of high level/high end PvE content, nobody is arguing the ranger isn’t balanced. People who argue game balance from a purely PvE experience should, in the definition of the that doesn’t equate to an insult, be considered casual gamers that are speaking from a casual perspective where classes aren’t pitted up directly against each other to see which can outperform the other to secure a victory (with the given factor of player skill in that base description of PvP).
WvW is more competitive than PvE, but much more gear based, so a balance argument can be… “misinformed” coming purely from that perspective as well simply because of the unattainable distributions as well as stat numbers.
Once that basic idea is out of the way, the next thing is:

The point of the OP. Now, I personally understand what you are trying to accomplish with the thread. There are quite a few emotion fueled exaggerations being flung around, and the goal was to try to share what experience you had to see if it could solve problems the community was having. However, and this is even more geared at Jazenn than you; it should be noted that even if you both can give positive and advice and opinions, it shouldn’t turn into using your positive experiences to express other peoples criticisms of the mechanics of the class.

I’m back! Not sure where to start.

To avoid all the quoting.

@ Dante. You said LB/GS is a crap paids build. We’ve been over this, pure glass cannon builds do not work. However, removing 300 Power and put into WS makes it a much more viable build. I use it in Paids. I’m rank 42 I had almost 200 QP, I’ve never seen you in paids so it understandable you think it sucks.

@ Someone….
You said that melee glass cannon ranger was unviable. I found sword/warhorn and GS to have better pure survivability than LB when you use MM and Skirmishing even though MM would be a waste with dual sword. This is because of the poor synergy and the amount of survival skills inherent to the weapons and the ability to run faster than any other prof.

@ 4 warriors and a mes in a dungeon.

This isn’t a ranger issue. Ranger’s are not designed to out damage warriors, they are designed to outplay warriors. No other profession could fill that spot and do the same dmg as the war. So I don’t see the point.

Also, I bet 2 rangers/eles with timewarp could kill faster than those 4 warriors.

I was hoping this thread would be more about builds than who is better than who.

contd….

Some general points that people are making that remain true:
-the implementation of pets is poor when viewing the game as a whole. rangers are the only class in the entire game that can be crippled by their own class mechanic. It doesn’t make it any better than pets, in certain situations, are useless no matter what the player does because of the instant death issues. Regardless of how much damage the pet does or does not do, the ranger is the only class that can be crippled by its class mechanic. It’s a design flaw, and unfortunately its something that most ranger advocates will just snicker at, then using that ignorance and arrogance they have been practicing say “well that’s a L2P issue. The class isn’t for you.” In fact, it is an issue with balanced design, and if the architecture is meant to hold in place, there needs to be much better traiting options implemented for pets to make up for the hindrance they can potentially cause.

-Dante mentioned it earlier, and it is a shame it got lost in the depths of an argument, but: rangers sacrifice more survival going glass cannon than almost every other class in the game. This stems from poor utility choices. Other classes, untraited, have damage mitigation on their burst skills, stealth, teleports, and vulnerabilities, as well as decent escape options. Rangers have to trait just to get a true invulnerability, and Protect Me deliberately forces you to sacrifice your class mechanic, which would line up with some other classes in the game if the pet didn’t hold such a large percentage of the rangers overall damage output. Most of the evades rangers have access to are on utility or condition based weapons, and the evades themselves don’t have much damage output potential, especially when compared to Blurred Frenzy and Pistol Whip, so traiting full glass cannon doesn’t net the same potential that it does on almost, if not every other class in the game.

-Spirits are pretty much useless, and the people that claim success with them must not play other classes to understand the potential that spirits could have but don’t. If the benefits, when activated, provided the benefit to every ally in a certain effective radius, the tune would be changed. But affecting 1 person every 10s with mostly useless effects (unless they could stack more than once every 10s) is pretty underwhelming.

contd…

-Traits. I’m not going to argue that things need to be moved around, and this definitely isn’t a ranger specific issue but; how did so many useless or meaningless traits make it out of beta? Every class to some degree has slots they want to use but then find are filled with useless or underwhelming options. The game needs a serious trait reorganization for everybody.

-Longbow in general needs a speed boost, or something. Not just for ranger, but warriors too. I keep seeing people argue for the longbow with things like “my rapid fire does x damage to an opponent in just 10 seconds, I don’t know what you guys are saying, its strong.” The fact is, with the same stat distribution, the shortbow does basically the same amount of damage per hit as rapid fire, but can accomplish it in potentially less time and at a more sustained rate. Longbow and Greatsword damage were both nerfed coming out of beta, but it was a bit too harsh and now the weapons suffer because of it. Specifically, the longbow more than the greatsword because the greatsword at least has some utility uses, but the longbow, if it is going to keep the current damage it does, needs a better pacing, because when you factor in somebody who can kite and dodge, the speed that the longbow attacks is pitiful and it really starts to lose any competitive potential that it could have had.

-Utilities. This isn’t ranger specific either but there are lots of useless/outclassed utility skills in the game that seriously need to be reworked. It amazes me that with rangers in particular, the dev team decided to scrap all of the innovative and unique skill ideas for ranger synergy with pets. The signets for rangers in particular have a terrible cooldown rate for what the active provides. In many cases, other signets on other classes that have similar, or even better effects, have half the cooldown rate that ranger signets do. That isn’t even an issue of game balance, that goes all the way back to an issue of algebra and arithmetic. A good example is warrior Endure Pain for 90s with not traits necessary versus rangers Signet of Stone with 120s and a necessary 30 trait point to apply it to the player. Now, I’m not mathematician, but I don’t think that the equation balances out there at the end.

At the end of the day though, none of these things are major changes that are needed. They really are just polishing up the game. Every class in the game has something they can say needs to be changed, but the ranger community is the only one I get frustrated with because of all the people who so readily put on their blinders and shut down anybodies criticism who doesn’t agree with their own because they enjoy their class. At the end of the day, everybody just wants to have the best experience they feel they could be having, so really, every single one of us has the same intention. People just need to learn to be more tolerant of each others opinions and criticisms.

It is obvious why the devs stay away from the ranger forum. It’s because not a single constructive topic can be started and continued constructively without another portion of the community attacking and dismissing it. We can’t even present ideas in a constructive formal, let alone have a constructive discussion and open criticism with agreements and disagreements about the positives and negatives of the state of the class.

The pet is a huge L2P issue. Anet will never remove pet from ranger. So do what you must.

What Dante said is… sort of true. Not traiting into power while traiting into skirmishing and whatever else (with zerker) decreases your power by 300 but gives you a lot more survivability. Protect me can be traited for 48 seconds recharge, LR 36, and Sig of renewal to 48 also. Those are all GREAT skills. If you are worried about your pet dying then use a tankier pet. Spiders, felines, and birds won’t survive protect me. However, most of the other pets will. Again, I use boar and wolf for CC and they do not do a significant amount of my dmg (using LB/GS) instead they keep the target from doing dmg. LB is not about standing there firing. Its about using vulnerability and the point blank shot to not allow your enemy to do dmg. I am rank 42 and I did a lot of paids (200QPish). I have rolled some of the best players. I have more single target dmg than an ele and better roaming capability (with the RTL nerf).

Spirits aren’t great. They can be used in PvE off to the side to give their boons while not dying. In PvP they can do pretty well since there isn’t as much constand AoE dmg.

In the end I guess you are right jcbroe. This wasn’t the initial intention of this post. Too bad I probably can’t help out with others camping the forums declaring a witchhunt on the ranger.

Eurantien.4632:

The pet is a huge L2P issue. Anet will never remove pet from ranger. So do what you must.

…

I don’t feel I ever advocated the removal of the pet, or that I myself lacked understanding of how to manage it. It is a balanced mechanic within itself as well. However, on the topic of profession balance, name another class in the game in which you can potentially completely disable their class mechanic for an entire minute which in turn serves to greatly reduce a rangers DPS.

If anything, all I mean to suggest is that the pet should be given more options and be more interactive. More utilities should provide synergy between pet and player performance (similar to Rampage as Ones effect). Traits should do more for the pets, of effect more of the pet mechanic itself. Simple things that could be implemented too, like “at x amount of player HP, your pet is healed to full.” To take that a step towards being overpowered, a Protect Me effect could be added, but the suggested effect already readies your pet for healing through a cycle of lick wounds if you are downed by making sure it can take a few hits while healing.
Some sort of high trait cost trait that reduces the cooldown of petswap if the pet dies would be a justifiable mechanic as well.

The ranger doesn’t need huge changes like removing pets like people seem to think. All it needs is some love to open up some more build versatility.

As a summary, this is the type of thing I would love to see: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Strike_as_One

In the end I guess you are right jcbroe. This wasn’t the initial intention of this post. Too bad I probably can’t help out with others camping the forums declaring a witchhunt on the ranger.

It isn’t just the ranger forums right now at least. The sPvP community in general is pretty up in arms about this update and the lack of content.

jcbroe.4329:

It is obvious why the devs stay away from the ranger forum. It’s because not a single constructive topic can be started and continued constructively without another portion of the community attacking and dismissing it. We can’t even present ideas in a constructive formal, let alone have a constructive discussion and open criticism with agreements and disagreements about the positives and negatives of the state of the class.

There have been constructive threads here for months. You’re seeing a lot of frustration now because those threads have been ignored.

I’ve been very active on these forums since launch. The last time a dev made a post here, it was to promise something that didn’t get delivered, so it’s come to the point where many of us are realizing that calm, logical arguments aren’t going to be listened to. Sadly, we can either be the squeaky wheel, or we can be ignored.

Dahkeus.8243:

jcbroe.4329:

It is obvious why the devs stay away from the ranger forum. It’s because not a single constructive topic can be started and continued constructively without another portion of the community attacking and dismissing it. We can’t even present ideas in a constructive formal, let alone have a constructive discussion and open criticism with agreements and disagreements about the positives and negatives of the state of the class.

There have been constructive threads here for months. You’re seeing a lot of frustration now because those threads have been ignored.

I’ve been very active on these forums since launch. The last time a dev made a post here, it was to promise something that didn’t get delivered, so it’s come to the point where many of us are realizing that calm, logical arguments aren’t going to be listened to. Sadly, we can either be the squeaky wheel, or we can be ignored.

I’ve been monitoring the forums since they launched, but initially had issues with logging in so I stuck mainly to guru until I could figure it out and had something worth saying. So yes, I am aware of that poor communication that happened with Jon Peters.
However, it doesn’t help matters when you see so much of the community arguing with each other about topics that have been argued to death since launch either. The stickied bug list at the top is probably the most compiled and constructive list of things to work on for the class that has been made so far.
The issue I was trying to address is that every single discussion the thread ends up derailing over some emotional-fueled opinion bloated argument that at the end of the day is an argument that has been had before.
The fact is is that if we could, as a community, pool our collective resources and playstyles and produce a well designed and thought out pros and cons, what works and what doesn’t, with specific example instances (instead of people going, I use it, it works for me, so its good and nobody knows what they are talking about but me), and work to factor opinions out of the equation, it would probably serve all our intentions and purposes better.
Of course, this is an unlikely scenario…

jcbroe.4329:

Dahkeus.8243:

jcbroe.4329:

It is obvious why the devs stay away from the ranger forum. It’s because not a single constructive topic can be started and continued constructively without another portion of the community attacking and dismissing it. We can’t even present ideas in a constructive formal, let alone have a constructive discussion and open criticism with agreements and disagreements about the positives and negatives of the state of the class.

There have been constructive threads here for months. You’re seeing a lot of frustration now because those threads have been ignored.

I’ve been very active on these forums since launch. The last time a dev made a post here, it was to promise something that didn’t get delivered, so it’s come to the point where many of us are realizing that calm, logical arguments aren’t going to be listened to. Sadly, we can either be the squeaky wheel, or we can be ignored.

I’ve been monitoring the forums since they launched, but initially had issues with logging in so I stuck mainly to guru until I could figure it out and had something worth saying. So yes, I am aware of that poor communication that happened with Jon Peters.
However, it doesn’t help matters when you see so much of the community arguing with each other about topics that have been argued to death since launch either. The stickied bug list at the top is probably the most compiled and constructive list of things to work on for the class that has been made so far.
The issue I was trying to address is that every single discussion the thread ends up derailing over some emotional-fueled opinion bloated argument that at the end of the day is an argument that has been had before.
The fact is is that if we could, as a community, pool our collective resources and playstyles and produce a well designed and thought out pros and cons, what works and what doesn’t, with specific example instances (instead of people going, I use it, it works for me, so its good and nobody knows what they are talking about but me), and work to factor opinions out of the equation, it would probably serve all our intentions and purposes better.
Of course, this is an unlikely scenario…

Yea, the official forums weren’t up for a while at the start.

And yea, I would love to agree with you. I always prefer logos to pathos, but sadly, it’s not working here.

Look, I would love to see a civil, rational debate to be opened with a dev, but until they’re here to listen, all we can do is shout “HEY, COME HERE AND TALK TO US! THIS MATTERS!”

Yea, the official forums weren’t up for a while at the start.

And yea, I would love to agree with you. I always prefer logos to pathos, but sadly, it’s not working here.

Look, I would love to see a civil, rational debate to be opened with a dev, but until they’re here to listen, all we can do is shout “HEY, COME HERE AND TALK TO US! THIS MATTERS!”

I am actually just cynical to anything working particularly well after watching the Guru pvp state of the game where they even sat down with top tier pvp players to discuss the game and mechanics and balance, and then take away from that discussion the implementations put out in the last build.

In my own way I guess my idea is kind of insulting, because I feel that if things aren’t concise, formatted “pretty,” and information heavy, then they seem to pass right over the devs level of comprehension.

jcbroe; There has been much more feedback from developers on the Thief forums, asking them how to make the Thief better, with very little on the Ranger forums. How long should we wait before we get tired of it? I’ve been playing my Mesmer, and Thief a lot lately, and quite frankly it is nonesense. I play the Ranger very well, but my GOD is it kitten easy to play the other classes in comparison.

Keep in mind, I only WvW. My friends, and guild have to literally beg me for hours before I do PvE, and sPvP is so boring, it isn’t funny. Though WvW is getting just as boring too.

jkctmc.8754:

jcbroe; There has been much more feedback from developers on the Thief forums, asking them how to make the Thief better, with very little on the Ranger forums. How long should we wait before we get tired of it? I’ve been playing my Mesmer, and Thief a lot lately, and quite frankly it is nonesense. I play the Ranger very well, but my GOD is it kitten easy to play the other classes in comparison.

Keep in mind, I only WvW. My friends, and guild have to literally beg me for hours before I do PvE, and sPvP is so boring, it isn’t funny. Though WvW is getting just as boring too.

They asked that months ago, and how many suggestions from that thread actually came into existence?
I’m not advocating patience either. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion and such, and if people don’t want to play, they shouldn’t play.
I played guild wars 1 for almost a decade, exclusively as a ranger spending most of my time doing all forms of pvp.
I have been disappointed with the game since launch because of versatility issues. It isn’t because of what we CAN do. It’s what we CAN’T do but have the potential to do with our classes.

Point is, I could be negative as well and go on and on and on about inherent design flaws and scrapping unique skills and playstyle capabilities present in guild wars 1 to basically downgrading combat into whoever can roll their face on the keyboard better winning.
But what good does that really do? All I can do is play the game as it is presented to me while trying to get better and find enjoyment with it, while formulating my own ideas as to how things could be better and post them from time to time in the hopes that a dev actually clicks on my thread and takes an idea from my suggestion.

If I’m not having fun or enjoying guild wars 2, I play something else. My prior experience with the ANet dev team tells me that if I want to see something significant, I need to give the game 4-6 month breaks at a time if I want to avoid disappointment.

I don’t get emotional over this stuff, I try to politely state my opinion. I probably come off as cold sometimes, just because I have talked about these things a lot. I can agree that my positive experiences can’t speak against other people’s criticisms, but that goes both ways. If someone can criticize based on their experience, than I can criticize as well. If someone gives me an opinion based on their logic, I feel inclined to do the same. I just try to be a voice of optimism in this forum, because I don’t think the ranger is as horrible as a lot make it out to be. I recognize limitations of the ranger and even outright flaws, but those are far from what defines the class. For every thread trying to promote the class, there are 10 that are posts about quitting, raging, re-rolling, angry shouts, detailed lists of flaws, and outcries towards devs. Its like ranger is the Israelites crying out to God to take them to the promised land(aka patch day), only to be disappointed every month. Its not that serious or horrible lol. Acting like it is creates a culture suggesting ranger sucks and that is why newcomers, other classes, and people in game reject the ranger or make jokes about how bad they are. But even so, I see rangers playing fine every time I log into the game, outperforming other professions when they do. That is evidence enough for me that it ain’t that bad. I will continue to disagree with people on the little details but that’s okay, I often learn things in the process. This is the first MMO I paid for and really took a part of in forums and all that, I was surprised at how much complaint there is across the board(not only ranger). I mean usually when people pay $60 for a game I see them play and enjoy what they like. The game may have shortcomings, but what are you gonna do? At least this game can be patched and fixed over time. I guess GW2 is different though.

@Jazenn; No I’m in the same boat, I can overstate my opinion at times and be overly argumentative about my own feelings on things.

I just don’t feel that anybody comes and posts on the ranger forums with the intention to do anything other than make the class better. If anything, I get more frustrated with the amount of “fluff” arguments that get posted where people are basically just screaming things are bad, with not sort of data or figures and at times even lack anecdotal substance to their claim.
That is where I feel the voice of the ranger community gets lost. While some of us try to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the class with possible improvements we each foresee, there are those among the community that would immediately start an argument with the attempt to shut it down because they either think ranger can only ever be garbage or only ever be the most perfect class on gods green earth that requires no work whatsoever.

The biggest problem the ranger community has is the community itself. It’s good to see vocal leaders like Eurantien and Jazenn and Dante though, who can have a debate through shared experience, and even though there are some frustrations and disagreements, there is still support for arguments being used in each case and the overall goal is still to improve the class to its maximum potential.

As for myself, I’m probably more of an analytical theorycrafter than anything else. My biggest enjoyment is creating and testing builds and weapon combinations and seeing how strong things are in comparison to one another.
More than anything right now I just wish the game didn’t feel so stagnant to play. There is only so much trap ranger/BM ranger (I have tried glass but it doesn’t suit how I like to play) I can play before I want new toys.

So I tried spirits in fractals 10 today. Was super easy to place them outside of combat zone to avoid AoE but close enough to get the buffs. The prot was really nice. Also, the pet swap out of combat is back to 1 second so I stacked fury and regen for my team.

Great thread,

I’ve looked at all the clases, and played Ranger, Mesmer, Guardian and Ele to 80. Played a lot of PvP (my preferred style) and some instances.

I can say the main reason I play a ranger is not because of stat-min-maxing… it’s because it’s the most fun! The formula for ranger…

Speed + Range damage = Fun

The key to this class is not in the stats, its in the flow of the play…

Managing the pet while maintaining range to reduce your incoming damage. Monitoring your buddies to predict when to take a few hits to place HS, or sweep in for a revive. Kiting off groups of mobs or enemy players as a method of permanent CC. Selecting the right weapons/pet/utilities/elite for the job at hand.

The class is easy and fun for a new player to play; its point and shoot! But… hard to master.

This is why Ranger has always been a "classic’ mmo class. That’s why ranger is always a challenging selection for a pick up team. Good ranger = good pick, probability of good ranger….

Mastery relies on manual pet control, full understanding of every weapon, pet and utility skill, and ability not just to manage the ranger, but to provide the right thing to your team at the right time.

To me, GW2 ranger is a highly survivable support class, that creates time and space for more fragile builds/classes to take bigger risks. A class that can pop reliable, steady focus damage on a target while adding to, rather than subtracting from the teams precious healing budget.

It’s the effect on the teams healing budget that is often overlooked.

It’s a the eternal curse of the healing class.. everyone remembers how they awesomely downed that boss.. and handily forget the 5 or 6 times healing spring magically popped on them when they were about to hit 0 health. Or the amount of times the ranger reached out when they were throwing rocks while lying on their back! For every heal the ranger recieves, he/she will return 3-10.

Here are a few other reasons I’d rather be a ranger than any of the others…

No other class has so many evade options. 6 back to back evades is not tough for a ranger to pull off. On top of this, ranger can spec for 33% reduction while evading, and gain regen for free. Very useful in both PvP and PvE situations.

Ranger is 1 of 4 classes with 25% speed boost, and warhorn provides swiftness, you will always be at the front of the pack in WvW. The first to arrive, the first to damage, the first to leave if it all goes south.

Any melee mob that can be crippled is fodder for this class, despite the rangers so called “lowered” damage. This is why the damage is lower IMHO, delivering the damage of a warrior at long range? How is that going to be balanced?

In instances, SS provides your entire team with 33% damage reduction, and healing spring is the best group heal in the game. Pets should be on passive and controlled manually via F1, F2, F3., and you can change your pet, providing at least 30 options for situational buffs/skills. You are the first to put damage into the target, and often the last to go down.

By switching in traps/LR + speed you become the best kiting class, due to good survivablity/evades, and AoE cripples. Axe also gives you a short cooldown, 66% cripple on 3 targets. Any boss where kiting is useful or required.. what class are you going to bring along?

In PvP, I find no other class can really compete in 1v1 ranged situations, the end result of any fight is either, ranger retreats using speed and evade, or ranger gets the jump and kills target. Only thief has a chance to kill the ranger due to stealth, but this is true of most classes (and can be countered with survivable builds). Other melee based classes usually cannot stay in close long enough to kill the ranger, forcing them to fight at range, where ranger is strong. Nearly always it takes a 2v1 to actually bring down a ranger.

Ranger is the best companion class for PvP 2v2 situations, SB/Sword ranger can bring poison, cripple + QZ damage burst to bear instantly on the focus target , while lots of evades make the ranger a poor choice of focus target. Pet still serves damage while the ranger evades, and 30 % of your damage is being served from pet.

After plenty of hours of playtime, i’m still learning about how to play this class well, which I think is what the OP is trying to drive at here in this thread. Hopefully I can provide some inspiration/ideas to those still learning to play this class.

After leveling many characters in many games, usually because I thought “the grass was greener”, my learning has been… Play the class you enjoy playing, and forget about the numbers. In big title MMO’s like GW2, the designers did their homework.. every class is viable when played with skill. If you enjoy the class, you can climb the curve and get to the skill level required.

Eurantien.4632:

Also note, that I’ve done more PvP than PvE so although I have done a lot of high level dungeons I do not know ALL the possible PvE build that a ranger could run. Although I bet power/precision/toughness would be pretty devastating.

I PvE and WvW only with shortbow and longbow.
Attack: 2939 (trying to bump it up to 3000~)
Critical Rate: 52% (72% with Moa Fury)
Critical Damage: 45%
Toughness: 3066
Health : 15,682
Condition Damage: 360
Condition Duration: 20%
Heal: 60
The rest: 0

I have condition removal, stun break, burst, buff, mediocre condition damage~ feeling pretty good about my build right now 8D
Still feeling a little bit squishy due to low vitality (suggestions please? using “Heal as One” + “Protect Me” + Wolf’s “Fear” already for survival).

I have more “obstruction” problems in WvW with bows (on near flat grasses) – thats a problem. Even with the projectile velocity buff patch, I still find that people are able to strafe around without “dodging” to avoid damage (maybe it’s because they bumped all the movement speed signets to 25%?). Anet should increase the projectile velocity again~ Some of pets F2 abilities are hard to activate (Moas are okay, Wolf’s “Fear” takes forever to activate and is easily interrupted, especially in PVE).

TLDR: These are the problems I have with ranger: projectile speed, obstructions, pet F2 activation speed.

I have one Eurantien.
Remember back in the betas when we could rezz our pets?
Remember last time you saw a dead mesmer and accidently started rezzing its clone?

Care to explain why one is rezzable but not the other and you’ll ease my rage.
And no pet micromanagement will save the pet from a 2-in-a-row death-beam from mr. Jade Mouth, so F4 a second time within 20 seconds is not an option

The (obstructed) other (obstructed) problem (obstructed) I (obstructed) have (obstructed) is (obstructed) obstructed (obstructed) but (obstructed) I (obstructed) guess (obstructed) I (obstructed) just (obstructed) switch (obstructed) to (obstructed) melee?

Why does my own developer hate me?

Responding to some guy back there trying to pretend that rangers can actually bring something to the dungeon table but quoting is borked for some reason.

You can bring group buffs from pets/spirits, regen and condi removal as well as best water field in the game. Easy fire and ice combo fields, sustained ranged damage. Pets can draw aggro as well. Our damage can still be significant, even though it is not the warrior’s. For example, the method my guildmates use to run Arah and beat lupicus is by having usually 2 or 3 rangers maintain damage the whole fight, doing the entire first stage alone. When fighting the final boss of path 3 the rangers kite the npc’s while everyone else focuses on capping. My guild leader never wants to run arah without rangers.[/quote]

1. Spirits die whenever someone farts. Their support is weak. Their ability windups are long and too situational. Their little ‘support’ is only a percentage of the time, whereas banners from warriors are unkillable, can be dropped wherever you want them, provide constant support and can be picked up to provide other buffs like swiftness. Spirits cannot do any of that. The water field I’ll give you as it is exceptionally good. Ranged damage and combo fields, no. Not at all. Rangers have very sub-par ranged damage due to bad weapon design, especially on the longbow department. The only thing that doesn’t need either more cowbell or a re-working entirely would be the shortbow.

2. Don’t talk about pets as though they’re useful. They’re not. They’re situational, stupid, clunky, too frail to survive even the weakest AoE and too badly programmed to avoid it. Their obscenely long wind-ups for their abilities won’t even start until five or six seconds after you’ve repeatedly clicked or pressed F2, and even then these abilities are fairly useless. 99% of a dungeon or WvWvW they are dead and not contributing, and due to horrible class design they take a significant portion of your DPS with them.

3. Your guild leader is an idiot that doesn’t know how to play. Three rangers is a horrible choice for DPS and utility.

Just joining the thread, seeing someone who actually knows the ranger in most aspects. Ain’t that nice. I don’t wish for a debunk, I’m main ranger myself (since beta) and very happy with the ranger. But I always stick to one build that I really like. If you wouldn’t mind I would love to hear if there are any alternatives you can recommend.

I 100% want a glass cannon build like the one I run, but you might have an alternative. I’d be very interested in hearing what it could be.

My build – Everything is Berserker:

Shortbow(Sigil of Air) | Sword+Warhorn(Sigil of Air, Sigil of Force)

Traits: 30/30/0/5/5
+10% dmg on full endurance
+70 precision to me and allies
Piercing attacks
Chance to cause bleeding on crit
+30% critdamage to pets
-20% cooldown on shortbow skills

Healing skill: Healing Spring(PvE), Heal as One (PvP)
Utility: Quickening Zephyr, Protect Me, Search and Rescue(Dungeons), Signet of the Hunt(Everything else)
Elite: Rampage as One(PvE) or Entangle(PvE, PvP)

Is there ANY way you can produce a build dishing out more damage than this as a ranger? Not considering survivability? It must not include spirits, and I do not want Sharpening Stone as utility skill. I want a ranged and a meelee weapon.

would love to hear ideas This is the build I found to be best for actually everything.

Here is my take on needs for the Ranger class from a WvW perspective:

-Longbow 1 needs to be quicker
-Longbow should have a 1500 range without having to spend a trait
-Shortbow 2 needs all the darts to travel in the same line so you can hit stealthers and have control
-Axe 1 needs a dps increase
-Pet bar needs more commands, i need to be to able to trigger, with an appropriate cooldown, things like:
dodge
protection
reflect
damage shield
-The best pet traits are not in the BM line, you have to almost max two trait lines to get a decent pet
-BM traits should effect all pets, not just a couple types
-Using Guard to attack siege or attack players from a keep should work for pets that can fly

@jcbroe

The issue though is with people like even Jazenn, who have said in a round about way that if you feel there is something wrong with the Ranger, you just suck playing the Ranger. That is why things get blown out of proportions. This very thread pretty much says the same thing, just quietly so.

The issue isn’t playing the Ranger well, it is that you can do it so much easier, and better with the other classes.

I even laid out a thread with some ideas to choose from.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Changes-the-Ranger-needs-for-WVW/first

And in this thread I lay out changes I’d like to see in WvW period.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Requesting-WvW-status-update/page/2#post1485377

Treeline.3865:

Just joining the thread, seeing someone who actually knows the ranger in most aspects. Ain’t that nice. I don’t wish for a debunk, I’m main ranger myself (since beta) and very happy with the ranger. But I always stick to one build that I really like. If you wouldn’t mind I would love to hear if there are any alternatives you can recommend.

I 100% want a glass cannon build like the one I run, but you might have an alternative. I’d be very interested in hearing what it could be.

My build – Everything is Berserker:

Shortbow(Sigil of Air) | Sword+Warhorn(Sigil of Air, Sigil of Force)

Traits: 30/30/0/5/5
+10% dmg on full endurance
+70 precision to me and allies
Piercing attacks
Chance to cause bleeding on crit
+30% critdamage to pets
-20% cooldown on shortbow skills

Healing skill: Healing Spring(PvE), Heal as One (PvP)
Utility: Quickening Zephyr, Protect Me, Search and Rescue(Dungeons), Signet of the Hunt(Everything else)
Elite: Rampage as One(PvE) or Entangle(PvE, PvP)

Is there ANY way you can produce a build dishing out more damage than this as a ranger? Not considering survivability? It must not include spirits, and I do not want Sharpening Stone as utility skill. I want a ranged and a meelee weapon.

would love to hear ideas This is the build I found to be best for actually everything.

I don’t think “Spotter” gives you +70 precision, only your allies benefit from it. I’d swap it out for “Signet of the Beastmaster” so that you’d gain the benefit from activated signets as well.

Try “Signet of the Wild”, see if you like it better than “Signet of the Hunt”. Even though it has a ridiculously long cooldown (120sec), once activated, it provides 12 seconds of 25%+ attack and stability. Whereas activating “Signet of the Hunt” only boosts the next single attack by 50%.

Search and Rescue… Hate it, even in dungeons. 85 seconds cooldown for a single slow res is not viable. You have only 5 BM, your pets will aggro mobs, it might die before it can res the player.

Red Moa for bonus 20% crit rate and wolf for fear (used to interrupt opponent heals, or survivability) are also a great combo for berserker builds. Keep them around you since they won’t be able to damage/survive with only 5BM. This will also allow more 2sec “Quickening Zepher” from pet swaps if they don’t die. So you won’t need “Pet Prowess” (+30% pet crit damage), you could instead go for “Primal reflex” (for more dodge).

Morgus.1680:

Here is my take on needs for the Ranger class from a WvW perspective:

[clipped]
-Pet bar needs more commands, i need to be to able to trigger, with an appropriate cooldown, things like:
dodge
protection
reflect
damage shield

These would never happen at least for a year or more. Anet can not even fix dam little bugs like tooltips not registering dmg properly. No way we would get such a radical addition that might take a programmer a few weeks to do.

kiwituatara.6053:

Treeline.3865:

Just joining the thread, seeing someone who actually knows the ranger in most aspects. Ain’t that nice. I don’t wish for a debunk, I’m main ranger myself (since beta) and very happy with the ranger. But I always stick to one build that I really like. If you wouldn’t mind I would love to hear if there are any alternatives you can recommend.

I 100% want a glass cannon build like the one I run, but you might have an alternative. I’d be very interested in hearing what it could be.

My build – Everything is Berserker:

Shortbow(Sigil of Air) | Sword+Warhorn(Sigil of Air, Sigil of Force)

Traits: 30/30/0/5/5
+10% dmg on full endurance
+70 precision to me and allies
Piercing attacks
Chance to cause bleeding on crit
+30% critdamage to pets
-20% cooldown on shortbow skills

Healing skill: Healing Spring(PvE), Heal as One (PvP)
Utility: Quickening Zephyr, Protect Me, Search and Rescue(Dungeons), Signet of the Hunt(Everything else)
Elite: Rampage as One(PvE) or Entangle(PvE, PvP)

Is there ANY way you can produce a build dishing out more damage than this as a ranger? Not considering survivability? It must not include spirits, and I do not want Sharpening Stone as utility skill. I want a ranged and a meelee weapon.

would love to hear ideas This is the build I found to be best for actually everything.

I don’t think “Spotter” gives you +70 precision, only your allies benefit from it. I’d swap it out for “Signet of the Beastmaster” so that you’d gain the benefit from activated signets as well.

Try “Signet of the Wild”, see if you like it better than “Signet of the Hunt”. Even though it has a ridiculously long cooldown (120sec), once activated, it provides 12 seconds of 25%+ attack and stability. Whereas activating “Signet of the Hunt” only boosts the next single attack by 50%.

Search and Rescue… Hate it, even in dungeons. 85 seconds cooldown for a single slow res is not viable. You have only 5 BM, your pets will aggro mobs, it might die before it can res the player.

Red Moa for bonus 20% crit rate and wolf for fear (used to interrupt opponent heals, or survivability) are also a great combo for berserker builds. Keep them around you since they won’t be able to damage/survive with only 5BM. This will also allow more 2sec “Quickening Zepher” from pet swaps if they don’t die. So you won’t need “Pet Prowess” (+30% pet crit damage), you could instead go for “Primal reflex” (for more dodge).

Spotter does affect you, at least last time I checked. It just only works for everyone in combat. no idea why it works like that as it basically does not effect your first hit, and what is big deal if it was out of combat.

@ kiwituatara. That looks impressive. I feel like my build has the same dmg potential atm but half the toughness.

@ Fiffelina. I don’t think I’ve ever done that to a mesmer lol. Honestly. There are enough problems with rezzing/stomping getting in the way of what players want to do it seems right that the mesmers clone can be a distraction for both good and bad. Also on that note, if the pet could be rezzed it would just get in the way.

If you stow pet on the Jade Maw it won’t die. Might try that?

@ Frosty. So I ran spirits yesterday in fractals 10+ yesterday and it was super easy to just place my spirits off to the side where they could still buff everyone and take 0 damage.

I also find pets to be very useful (especially red moa, regen wolf, and black bear). I can stack fury and regen for the team outside of combat for minutes. The bear’s aoe weakness also allows me to tank for a long time while using zerker gear.

@ Treeline. I will PM you my build later. Also, spotter does give you + 3% crit chance in combat. But kiwi is right about the other stuff.

@Jkctma. (think i spelled that wrong). You are right. The ranger does not excel at anything. This is the Jack of all trade classes. What I have found to be best is to go full zerker and Use things like stone spirit (Off to the side so it doesn’t die DUH) and buff my team while I’m still contributing DPS. However, no one has as much 1 target CC as the ranger (besides tornado or rampage).

Axe offhand just got a huge buff and whirling defense is awesome.

jkctmc.8754:

@jcbroe

The issue though is with people like even Jazenn, who have said in a round about way that if you feel there is something wrong with the Ranger, you just suck playing the Ranger. That is why things get blown out of proportions. This very thread pretty much says the same thing, just quietly so.

The issue isn’t playing the Ranger well, it is that you can do it so much easier, and better with the other classes.

I even laid out a thread with some ideas to choose from.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Changes-the-Ranger-needs-for-WVW/first

And in this thread I lay out changes I’d like to see in WvW period.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Requesting-WvW-status-update/page/2#post1485377

I would honestly have to agree with the sentiment that a large majority of the community sucks at playing the ranger.
From posts I have read by the people I mentioned in my previous post, it seems that they have accepted that there are changes that the class needs. Factually, there is not a single class in the game that the doesn’t need balance and mechanic changes.

The majority of the issues with the ranger come from, as a generalized summary, lack of effective build versatility. I have already previously stated in full detail the issues I personally have in this very thread, people are more than welcome to disagree with me. I can only state the impressions I get from my own experiences with the class, as well as the other classes that I do play. Saying that, I can honestly say that the breakdown post (that is like 3 posts long) highlights in extremity the only things I feel are wrong with the class from a mostly pvp perspective.

There is only one person I have found on the forums that I find over-exaggerates the rangers capabilities to use their opinion and biases to insult and derail other peoples constructive criticism. Out of respect (and forum rules) I will not name that person, although it wouldn’t be overly difficult for an active forum member in the ranger section to figure out who that person is.

kiwituatara.6053:

I don’t think “Spotter” gives you +70 precision, only your allies benefit from it. I’d swap it out for “Signet of the Beastmaster” so that you’d gain the benefit from activated signets as well.

Try “Signet of the Wild”, see if you like it better than “Signet of the Hunt”. Even though it has a ridiculously long cooldown (120sec), once activated, it provides 12 seconds of 25%+ attack and stability. Whereas activating “Signet of the Hunt” only boosts the next single attack by 50%.

Search and Rescue… Hate it, even in dungeons. 85 seconds cooldown for a single slow res is not viable. You have only 5 BM, your pets will aggro mobs, it might die before it can res the player.

Red Moa for bonus 20% crit rate and wolf for fear (used to interrupt opponent heals, or survivability) are also a great combo for berserker builds. Keep them around you since they won’t be able to damage/survive with only 5BM. This will also allow more 2sec “Quickening Zepher” from pet swaps if they don’t die. So you won’t need “Pet Prowess” (+30% pet crit damage), you could instead go for “Primal reflex” (for more dodge).

Point taken on spotter. Ill stick with Signet of the Hunt, simply because.. Well.. 25% movespeed. But in dungeons, It’s Search and Rescue, and I really find that it IS worth, but that’s just preference i guess. I’ll stick to it anyways, and maybe use the signet on good runs where people dont go down. I use bears at the moment for PvE, they usually survive. And I can use F3 Otherwise I wouldn’t have the 2 sec quickness. Gonna try Primal Reflexes as well, it does happen i have to dodge a lot. Thanks for all your input!

jcbroe.4329:

jkctmc.8754:

@jcbroe

The issue though is with people like even Jazenn, who have said in a round about way that if you feel there is something wrong with the Ranger, you just suck playing the Ranger. That is why things get blown out of proportions. This very thread pretty much says the same thing, just quietly so.

The issue isn’t playing the Ranger well, it is that you can do it so much easier, and better with the other classes.

I even laid out a thread with some ideas to choose from.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Changes-the-Ranger-needs-for-WVW/first

And in this thread I lay out changes I’d like to see in WvW period.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Requesting-WvW-status-update/page/2#post1485377

I would honestly have to agree with the sentiment that a large majority of the community sucks at playing the ranger.
From posts I have read by the people I mentioned in my previous post, it seems that they have accepted that there are changes that the class needs. Factually, there is not a single class in the game that the doesn’t need balance and mechanic changes.

The majority of the issues with the ranger come from, as a generalized summary, lack of effective build versatility. I have already previously stated in full detail the issues I personally have in this very thread, people are more than welcome to disagree with me. I can only state the impressions I get from my own experiences with the class, as well as the other classes that I do play. Saying that, I can honestly say that the breakdown post (that is like 3 posts long) highlights in extremity the only things I feel are wrong with the class from a mostly pvp perspective.

There is only one person I have found on the forums that I find over-exaggerates the rangers capabilities to use their opinion and biases to insult and derail other peoples constructive criticism. Out of respect (and forum rules) I will not name that person, although it wouldn’t be overly difficult for an active forum member in the ranger section to figure out who that person is.

There is no doubt there are novice players playing the Ranger, that need to get better. There is no doubt in my mind this exists, but this is not an issue solely owned by the Ranger profession. The difference is, a novice player on other classes, most noticeable, the Thief, and/or the Mesmer have a much easier time on those classes until they learn them.

This also solidifies, and shines a very bright light on another issue with the Ranger. Once you get to the best you possibly can on the class, you can do so much better on other classes (D/D, P/D, S/D) Thieves, (Confusion AE, Invulnerability) Mesmers, and so on.

You mention jack of all trades as if it is a strength of the Ranger, yet there isn’t anything you can’t do equally, or better on other classes, and some classes have some of the best weapon choices in the game, that provide both damage, and CC, like the Warrior hammer, or extreme mobility far beyond what you can gain with the Ranger.

I think people need to quit trolling the Ranger forums, and recognize the class needs some help, just like the Engineer. I just got done fighting an 80 Engineer I know who is fully geared, with a new 52 Necro to a draw, eventually running away because he got help by a Ranger, and I got away from both of them. It was the first time playing the Necro because it was my wifes toon. I don’t see why people are opposed to buffing classes like the Ranger, and Engineer when it is glaringly obvious they are lacking in some, if not many areas.

@Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981

The only suggestion I want to give you is to try to be more polite in response, rudeness won’t get you anywhere.

Biggest problem with pets -> game is made with dodging in mind and pets can not dodge. No matter how you try to defend pets in their current state they’ll still be a nuisance rather than a fun mechanic.

jkctmc.8754:

@jcbroe

The issue though is with people like even Jazenn, who have said in a round about way that if you feel there is something wrong with the Ranger, you just suck playing the Ranger. That is why things get blown out of proportions. This very thread pretty much says the same thing, just quietly so.

The issue isn’t playing the Ranger well, it is that you can do it so much easier, and better with the other classes.

I even laid out a thread with some ideas to choose from.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Changes-the-Ranger-needs-for-WVW/first

And in this thread I lay out changes I’d like to see in WvW period.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/pvp/wuvwuv/Requesting-WvW-status-update/page/2#post1485377

I have probably gotten to a point where I was tired of “things getting blown out of proportion” and alluded to that, but I don’t try to convey that, especially not in this thread. All I try to do is provide suggestions or counterargument to some statements about the ranger, not about the person playing it. I already know from the past that I disagree with some of your thoughts on the ranger, including ease and effectiveness, but I don’t doubt your ability to play it.

I appreciate suggestion type threads like yours, but I don’t see how they are much different from this one.

It has been said a lot here and the problem really is that pets are designed to be a huge part of the rangers damage while (of course) not having the options to apply/avoid damage that a human player has (attack while walking/dodge/jump across obstacles).

The more you need those abilities (like doing actually difficult dungeons that require dodging) the pet will propably die and thus you lose those 40%-70% of your damage that was given to it by design concept.

Solutions:
A) Stow pet for a stat buff that pushes DPS (cond. dmg/power) – the most practical solution.
People are very split about this but it actually would be a logical choice. Atleast if implemented in a way that pet + ranger is still the most efficient way to play but playing without pet only costs like 10% efficiency than like 70% if it dies right now.

B) Work on pet AI/handling – the ideal solution.
If they would actually manage to optimize animations, leap ranges, general direction, casting times of f2 skills this would change A LOT. Consider that this would have to be done for every single pet type (and every future pet) which I consider impossible to do with the current ressources Arenanet directs to class balance.

C) Create workaround systems – innovative solutions.
I can see them work on pet switching cooldowns, death timer or allow for in combat stowing/autostow/switch to other pet when the pet would die. They could also just buff the ranger and decrease pet influence/stats overall or work utility skills that allow pets to survive better un dungeon. Another option would be decreasing aggro priority.

@jkctmc;

I’m not opposed to ranger buffs in the slightest. But I don’t think that it is a completely broken class and has no viability like a lot of people in the ranger community seem to think.
Rangers, when built correctly, have the potential to be one of the top duelists in the game in pvp. Xsorus even makes multiple videos showing the ability to duel on the class and how effective the class can be.

I think the rangers biggest issue is the general issue that the pvp community is currently discussing with eles. That is: rangers have options that are clearly better than anything else they can run, which completely pigeonholes the class and destroys a lot of the potential build versatility the class has.

Once the class is balanced within itself, then it should be performance tested in a metagame with all the other classes polished and balanced within themselves, and then another balance patch should even out the playing field after getting those test results.

The biggest changes/most gamechanging changes that need to be made are trait adjustments and utility improvements, and that isn’t even a ranger specific issue. The only other things that really need improving are the longbow (warrior longbow as well, it is too slow paced in such a fast paced game environment for the damage it outputs) and maybe making the ranger greatsword damage equal to the Spear damage.

Any pet related issues I have could be fixed with a trait reworking that provided traits the benefitted pets more, as well as utilities that have better pet synergy.

And admittedly whenever I read peoples ideas that are suggesting anything more extreme than the type of things I mentioned, I immediately dismiss it as somebody advocating for the class to be overpowered as opposed to being a balanced part of the future metagame.

People seem to forget that there should be certain things unique to certain classes (I’m making this comment in response to the people who thing ranger greatsword should be doing warrior greatsword damage). If everybody had the potential to do the same thing as everybody else aside from a unique class mechanic, then guild wars 2 might as well just have 1 class where you can choose and reroll class mechanics.

There’s nothing the community can do right now anyways except for let out their anger and hold ANet to a higher class balance expectation for the March patch. The population of game could see a potentially large decline if the March update doesn’t deliver.
So regardless of what my opinion on the class is, if anybody still has the patience left, instead of listening to me, they should just play the waiting game and quit upon further dissatisfaction.

@Eurantien.4632
I don’t think I’ve ever done that to a mesmer lol. Honestly.
-You would if they are just next to each other, stressful fight at i.e. lava boss fractal.

There are enough problems with rezzing/stomping getting in the way of what players want to do it seems right that the mesmers clone can be a distraction for both good and bad. Also on that note, if the pet could be rezzed it would just get in the way.
-Guess if it only showed up for the owner of the pet it would be too much?

If you stow pet on the Jade Maw it won’t die. Might try that?
And that would be just fine and dandy if you never ever ever ever took a single point of damage in that fight OR had a proper stow-pet-mechanic.

No I don’t buy your logic. If I can’t rezz my pet in a personal story because people in the beta where everyone was learning the game complained about all the dead pets in WvsW something is wrong, just plain wrong.

jcbroe.4329:

@jkctmc;
Rangers, when built correctly, have the potential to be one of the top duelists in the game in pvp. Xsorus even makes multiple videos showing the ability to duel on the class and how effective the class can be.

I’m actually glad you brought that up. Look at what Xsorus can do on his Thief.

He can’t do anything close to that on a Ranger, no one can. It’s not that the Ranger isn’t viable, it is what we can do with other classes is so far above what you can do with the Ranger that really frustrates us.

I mean hell brother, I was playing my wifes 52 Necro today, a class that is supposed to have a lot of issues, got it to 57, running solo in WvW a lot, and killed every single Ranger I came across solo. I mean come on man, I’m able to pull off some pretty stupid things with the other classes I play (see my sig), and when I play my Ranger I can’t help but feel wanting. Unless for some reason when I play the other classes, I all of a sudden become a God, but am a fumbling fool when I play the Ranger.

@jkctmc;

But… we aren’t disagreeing? Lol. I mean that, you and I really have no disagreement on this. I’m just a little prone to go on tangents is all.

I will try to keep the summary of what I think needs to happen as briefly as I know how this time:
I think that the classes being balanced against each other right now shouldn’t even be a discussion until all the classes are balanced within themselves. When I say that, I mean that on any given class, there should be no build or weapon set that feels like it completely outperforms other options.
The options you can run each class should counterbalance against any other setup you can run on that class to provide an even amount of strengths and balances (pros/cons, etc) to any option. At this stage of my balancing theory, damage options are the only thing that can be truly balanced within themselves, as well as making utility options competitive with each other (seriously, I would be surprised if the amount of utility skills used by all the professions adds up to even 40%). This should also include trait clean up and reworks, while polishing descriptions as needed.

Then once that has occurred (because it needs to occur) for every class, the now balanced classes get performance tested up against each other to see if any class clearly outshines the others after every class has competitive build diversity that can take advantage of every tool offered to it.
Once data is gathered from that, classes can be officially balanced against each other and it would leave the possibility of clear frontrunner classes few and far between. The only issues we should see then would be unaccounted for variables, or the dev team not understanding the first thing about balancing a metagame (after playing so much guild wars 1, I already have my opinion on that, but best not to be cynical until after ANet reaches their deadline with my tolerance).

I will respect that my given plan would take a lot of time and programming to execute (I am a compuSci major after all). However, the argument could also be made that the dev team simply isn’t trying, and it could be implied that it is because the staff is too few and too spread out to put a major focus on anything, and that it is coupled with ANets incessant need to put out new content before polishing the old content.

Also, I feel the intention of the topic has been sidetracked (though not entirely derailed as I still feel I am debunking the ranger rage in a general sense) long enough, so this debate should probably die soon lol.

@jcbroe

I can get behind that. There are so many traits that are useless, or subpar to others, it isn’t funny. Not to mention weapons, or weapon sets that just don’t make sense, or are useless. See my proposed change for Warriors, and banners.

That’s pretty much what I want for the Ranger to be honest, and I believe that alone would fix a lot of the issues with the Ranger.