Guild Wars 2

So after the major kittenstorm that was last update, I felt like starting a discussion about the good things about our rangers.
I’ll start:
My main is a ranger, and I have a thief alt as well as a budding mesmer.
Two things that I really miss while playing my alts are:
Zephyr’s Speed and Natural Vigor.
Zephyr’s Speed for the little burst potential and more importantly, speed ressing downed teammates.
Natural Vigor for the endurance. I honestly think playing rangers have spoiled me when it comes to dodging.

I think we should have even more buffs when we dodge depending on what pet we are using. Dodging with bears removes condition, panther grants stealth, and pigs grant stability. Of course this would be a trait that would replace some one of the many garbage traits we have like Sharpening Stone at 75% hp or w/e.

That said, I do like the panther.

Yes I agree OP, rangers are all about vigor and dodgingm its one of the things that makes them feel responsive, and like you I find it hard when playing other classes because of the lack of on demand dodges.

Other things good about ranger- seems pretty good at 1vs1, but that could be because I’ve played ranger a lot. I’m pretty good at guardian 1vs1 as well so it might not be the class. I like the kiting and control playstyle I guess.

only trouble i have are perma-stealth thieves because they can burst and then go invis right away to not take much damage. i’ve killed more glass cannon thieves downed then on foot, so i really don’t mind. running duel dogs (wolf – fern hound. contemplating hyena). a wolf howl breaks their first invis, and then switch to another dog to knock him back down. save your 2 for a just in case and spam him till the bleeds kill em. once he’s on the ground pray to Anet that your 3 works and watch as he slowly dies.

Fighting a mesmer though (When i’m built around single-target damage) is a pain…. i still really have no counter except find the real one, and kill the duelist and berserker asap. and try not to die. i find it’s easier to fight them in a large open space of Wv3 then a more cramped area of sPvP, mainly because it’s easier to ambush them once you know all the great ambush points.

Use CTRL+T it will but a target above their head if you can get them before they start spamming clones.

I love the evasions of Sword (and Dagger) and Short Bow. They’re the reasons I rolled a Ranger over a Thief.

I’m not saying “Sword is fine” – I think its 1 ability is bugged to hell – but I love the feel of the weapon. While Short Bow isn’t fantastic, its a great weapon when I kite.

I love the general idea of my Ranger. I love having spirits for party buffs, a strong pet that deals damage and can tank for me, 2 bows for ranged awesomeness, the ability to dodge/evade like a jackrabbit. Sadly, most of these things are not well implemented.

I like the downed state for Rangers. While I wouldn’t say that it’s as powerful as Mesmer or Thief downed state, we have good tools to survive when we go down and because of our pets, we have more control over what’s going on than other classes. Anyone who has rallied because they thunderclapped, swapped to a wolf, used the f2 to fear, then had the wolf pounce an enemy knows how awesome this can be.

Not only that, but being able to tag or finish off a dying enemy with your pet when they are out of range of your downed attacks to rally is pretty sweet as well.

Because of this, I always feel so helpless in comparison when in the downed state of an alt.

I’ve been playing a necro a bit and MY GOD do I hate how unathletic he is, he can dodge like twice a minute compared to my ranger who dodges and evades EVERYTHING and then when I get downed and my minions are ff fighting the highest health enemy on the field as I lie there bleeding to death smashing the F1 key while the 50% health guy is targeted hoping it’ll do something (it never does)..

Oh yeah, and I never realized how amazing spirits were (even with their ICD) until I didn’t have them anymore...

Gotta echo our fantastic agility. I love being the lowest max HP guy in the group and “tanking” boss monsters better than anyone because they can never hit me.

Plus, traps. Oh my god the aoe CC is amazing. Can’t get over the amazing control frost/ spike traps give along with a wolf and entangle. Nothing moves if I don’t want it to.