Guild Wars 2

I will began with the obvious, i’m a type of player that likes to play one character, likes exploring and ranged combat, and that’s why i got stuck with this class this far. I’ve got world exploration, tones of karma, all mystic, lots of kills in WvW, all dungeons completed at least once and after all this i came here to share with you my conclusion:

STOP PLAYING RANGER

I feel cheated, mad, and i want my time invested back. All the rangers should be given the choice to pick another profession and get refunds in terms of karma and equipment and apologies for trying to play this broken profession, and i’m not even joking.

Yes, i’ve started a warrior yesterday, and i cannot believe how useful his skills are. All is nicely thought after and it feels like a complete and extremely fun to play class, and i mean RANGED class. Not to mention close combat, where comparing the two would be kitten

I am emotional about this, and the purpose of this post is to help people in similar position: re-roll and try another profession, stop waiting for small changes, this class needs MAJOR rebalance to be comparable with other and i don’t think that will come sometime soon. There are very good profession for WvW and some for PvE also, but if you want to play the best ranged one in the game, go for warrior.

Hope i will rescue a few players from the ranger’s plains of sorrow and regret with this post, have fun, and next time may we meet on another profession part of the forum.

PS: This ongoing division between good tire and meh tire professions, the lag fest event(s) and the recent must do dungeon grind of ascended equipment makes for a horrible followup to the launching of the best mmo in the recent years. Don’t get me wrong, even with it’s flaws it’s miles ahead anything else on the market at the moment, but it fells like it’s not going in the right direction.

Respectfully yours,
Michael

Hope you have fun with the new class, that’s what the game is all about anyway… having fun.

Just don’t let the “can I have your stuff” replies in your post let ya down

So are you playing your warrior as a ranged class.

I thought about that as it may be the only way to actually get a “ranger” that does some damage.

Just don’t know if I can face leveling again, it’s boring.

In gw1 I had a maxed out toon for every class. I’m all about getting my money’s worth. I love rangers too, and the ranger will always be my first class and my ‘main’. Sure atm it isnt as good as other classes, but that will get fixed in time. Doesn’t mean I enjoy playing ranger any less. And if I ever feel the need to dish out some bigger numbers then I just switch to one of my other toons.

So don’t tell me to stop playing a ranger. Get over it, be patient and enjoy one of the many other classes available in the meantime. It really isn’t a big deal..

Solid Gold.9310:

So are you playing your warrior as a ranged class.

I thought about that as it may be the only way to actually get a “ranger” that does some damage.

Just don’t know if I can face leveling again, it’s boring.

If you level cooking to 400 you can skip the entire first area. I’ve leveled a Mesmer up to 51 a warrior to 42 and a Thief to 80.

Currently my level 80 ranger hangs around in Lion’s Arch in city clothes, cause that’s all he has left. (And 400 Huntsman)

Enjoy playing another class, My first character was a warrior, then I found I enjoyed ranger more. I’ll enjoy playing my ranger that consistently wins 1v1 fights because my build is rare enough that noone knows how to fight me.

Fewer people playing ranger is fewer people experimenting with builds, and fewer people developing a counter to such unexpectedly effective setups.

idk if any one told you but, rabbits always die in one hit so that is not a 1v1 fight.

I’m playing a Warrior longbow/rifle ranger build at the moment and it’s everything I ever wanted out of the ranger. Fun in PVE/WvW/sPVP. FOR GREAT JUSTICE/longbow AOE/Rifle picks off what is left. Very efficient and fun and the best part, no broken pet to deal with !

I just wish that someone told me this was possible 80 levels ago.

Ranger will eventually be fun, once they fix it..in the mean time, I’m enjoying the heck out of my pew pew ranged warrior build

I still don’t get whats wrong with the ranger.
Seems fine for hot-join Pvp and early leveling.
I mean I can solo r30-35 ppl easly as a ranger.

Only thing I have to say

made my warrior, problem solved!

Kwak.4810:

I still don’t get whats wrong with the ranger.
Seems fine for hot-join Pvp and early leveling.
I mean I can solo r30-35 ppl easly as a ranger.

Yes.
But some people don’t want to play the 2~ viable specs out there atm.
Even then allot of people aren’t good at dodge rolling, rangers need well timed dodging. That and the class is progressively worse as fights get larger… it makes pugging threw SPvP tend to be a bit of a challenge compared to other classes.

Greiger.7092:

Enjoy playing another class, My first character was a warrior, then I found I enjoyed ranger more. I’ll enjoy playing my ranger that consistently wins 1v1 fights because my build is rare enough that noone knows how to fight me.

Fewer people playing ranger is fewer people experimenting with builds, and fewer people developing a counter to such unexpectedly effective setups.

“I have this super secret build that nobody has ever found, ever.”

Sure you do buddy.

Wow, nice, are you proud of that? I would almost think you are just trying to piss me off.

I said it’s rare, I do see other people around occasionally that seem to be using the build. I’m just saying people might find some surprisingly effective builds if they are just willing to spend less time complaining about how garbage rangers are and experiment a little. Right now it just seems folks look around for somebody else’s build and use that without putting any thought into how or why it works, and then just assume rangers are garbage because they don’t understand how to adjust it to their playstyle.

The build also is not super secret, I’ve posted the build before on these forums and it should still be out there for those who care enough to search.

Yea, I’ve been juggling this option around the last week. My ranger has been shelved for a while. I’m currently leveling a Guardian (completely different!) but might start a warrior just for a ranged class (weird). I’ve heard they get boring though. No pizazz…just straight damage numbers and lotsa hp. Which is strong, but is it fun/exciting?

Echo.2087:

“I have this super secret build that nobody has ever found, ever.”

Sure you do buddy.

Trap ranger (pretty easy to figure the spec out) or possibly some power one handed-sword offshoot that has good evading/self-healing and CC pets to whittle people down with dps bursts in between kiting.

That or there is always the ‘bird spike’. Pretty mediocre imo, but it works allright if you are good at it, the bird lands 5-10~k F2’s on people. Nasty spec since so few people thing rangers have anything worth dodging, nonetheless the pet.

Those are all that’s viable but trap rangers are FANTASTIC at 1v1s if you know how to play it well so what he’s saying is perfectly reasonable.

Greiger.7092:

people might find some surprisingly effective builds if they are just willing to spend less time complaining about how garbage rangers are and experiment a little

They are garbage.
Especially in TPvP.
I’m rank 39 and have played ranger for about 90% of it.

In SPvP you can get away with anything if you play well enough (even though rangers typically get much worse as fights get larger), and then deuling, dueling isn’t a feature yet so usually is very tough to find decent people to fight. Rangers are good at that, but that’s tragically what I would call ‘the best of it’.
Which brings us back to tournies…
Rangers have bad group synergy with others and every viable spec tends to get worse as fights get larger making them a lil bit short of worthwhile at their very best…

Edit:btw if its that spirit build you posted a month~ ago… then just don’t even go there… spirits are terrible, utterly terrible.. from what I’ve heard they have a 10~s internal CD in between procs which would make them next to useless when they aren’t dead.

Leopoldina Balanuta.2871:

Yes, i’ve started a warrior yesterday, and i cannot believe how useful his skills are. All is nicely thought after and it feels like a complete and extremely fun to play class, and i mean RANGED class.

Yeah I agree with this. Warrior skills are put together so much more thoughtfully. Every weapon skill fits in with the one next to it. Their weapon skills are designed to do damage first, secondary effects second. Weapons skills that only have a non-damage function are few and far between.

Contrast that with the ranger shortbow, where only worthwhile damage comes from auto attack. Or the 1h sword/dagger combo, the damage is laughable and people only take for dodging. (Goes without saying no warrior weapons have game breaking root bugs as well).

In the exact same boat as you but instead of warrior I rolled a mesmer. (Already 80 with cof gear) I love doing wvw and I just couldn’t beat the utility it has in so many different situations. Compared to the ranger it is miles ahead in almost every respect. I completely agree with you, if you are a ranger and you are still serious about playing the game just reroll another character. By the time you wait for the next patch on rangers and then realize it is garbage anyway just like the last one you could be having fun as a warrior, mesmer, etc for months. Good on you I support your decision!

been playing a war-ranger for a bit, have a good longbow/greatsword build.. its pretty fun, not sure why it would get boring. I have a similar longbow/greatsword configuration on my ranger, but its so much less fun to play, no heavy armor, and a pet i cant ditch… i dunno man, if they gave the warrior longbow skills to the ranger and let me dump the pet, id prolly keep it… but not as it is, warrior is the better ranger.

You spoke 100% accurately and I couldn’t tell it better.
But one sentence: “All the rangers should be given the choice to pick another profession and get refunds in terms of karma and equipment and apologies for trying to play this broken profession, and i’m not even joking.”
You just hit right in the middle what I was thinking about in the past weeks.
A hundred times I collected my thoughts what should I say to the support to give me the opportunity to reroll to another profession and they can take away my ranger. Delete it, kill it, do whatever they want with him.
I hate it and I only play it because I have spent so-much-time to collect gear for him.
I found myself playing less than an hour when I play and I play 4 or 5 times a week.

Can I get a refund for the game or am I out of time?

I totally agree. Already started Mesmer & Engineer…but I still thinking to create a warrior since ANet creator seems love warrior more. I never saw they nerf warrior and I still don’t understand what’s the name “Ranger” means ? warrior focus on close combat, agree, but why it’s ranged weapon is powerful then Ranger ?

I am too thinking about starting a warrior class character. Videos on youtube shows how to handle a warrior in a PvP or WvW game with a ranger using dodge and stuff like that. What if the warrior equips itself with a short bow…..bye-bye ranger.

Should rename rangers as woodcutters.

I was going to go with warrior as a psuedo Ranger, but no short bow only long bow, and the long bow is so SLOW.

Why wouldn’t a warrior be able to use a short bow if he manages to use a long bow.

I feel cheated and mad too, but I don’t have time to invest in another role. All I can do is to keep bearing this laughable class until they fulfill their promises, or until I finally quit.
Sadly.

Some people simply don’t have as much love on ranger as they claimed to.
After trying out all the different professions, I still like my ranger the best and regularly plays him.
Horrible pet AI? That didn’t stop me from playing MM necro in PvP.

Im glass cannon ranger build with kittenload of crit and crit dmg. Tho the first thing i am Glass but im missing the cannon out there . Dmg is complete $#% not to mention my pet is doing nothing to moving targets …. and as many have figured out alreadt in spvp and wvw i cant hit a target fron a distance … by simply moving left and right all my shots says Obstructed ( and hes not even evading just moving left and right ) the close range combat sux even more …. im full exo ( rings and all ) and even in pve i hit ( with the glass cannon build) for 600 dmg i mean srsly 600 dmg …. with skills ,with normal attack it doesnt matter the dmg is the same and thats 600 dmg when i have 10 stacks of vuln on the target …. im getting like rooted on my auto attack,its just complete %#*@ Either change something or this game will turn from Guild wars 2 to Assassin Wars 2 … considering there are always atleast 4-5 assassins in every group in the spvp … Ranger is a total waste of money/time atm ,and i guess he will be for a very long time ( dont mind the shortbow and stuff on the screen i was testing some condition builds ,but it still sux hard time … )

If only the warrior’s rifle was a bow it would be the perfect ranger.

I’m starting to notice a trend. I’ve seen similar threads in Necro forums, Ele forums, Engineer forums, and now Ranger.

I’m a Necro myself ankittenrying other classes until mine is fixed and so far I’ve rolled an Ele, Engineer, and Ranger… Looks like I’m picking wrong each time. Warrior, Guardian or gtfo?

I don’t get all the hate against ranger profession but then I’m me… Yes I have been reading forums and all the complaints (which most of topics here are of…). But even after all that complaining I read through I still enjoy playing my ranger immensely. Only thing I’m kind of fed up with ranger is this ranger forum that is just full of negative stuff. Remember guys that this is my personal opinion so don’t burn me too bad for it.

But to you OP if you found your peace at some other profession I wish luck and nice gaming hours to you!

I love my ranger 2 but its annoying when some low lvl guy at WvW or in the Spvp when some1 is moving left and right and still shooting at me from a distance ( he knows all my hits will end up Obstructed (and they do )) This has to be patched Asap as the pets unable ti hit moving targets and theyr terrible path choises ,the other issues im ok with but this is terrible …

Luckily my main is a Warrior, I was using him as a melee dominant guy (GS & Axe / Shield)

I rolled a ranger because I fancied some nice Ranged damage… Hahaha that was a bit of a laugh. I stopped playing him because quite frankly I got tired of all the bugs and the low damage. Now I rock my warrior with Axe / Shield and Rifle.

This happened to be yesterday. I’m defending my guild’s keep, ranger starts firing at me while I’m on the wall. I laugh, switch to rifle with full adrenaline, Kill shot, followed by my 3 (bad that I don’t remember it’s name, I just know it as the “Repeatedly shoot for nice damage”) He was down so fast while I had the majority of my health. I thought "Ranger? HA. Just out ranged your, “Ranger” " True story.

Xylith.4873:

Luckily my main is a Warrior, I was using him as a melee dominant guy (GS & Axe / Shield)

I rolled a ranger because I fancied some nice Ranged damage… Hahaha that was a bit of a laugh. I stopped playing him because quite frankly I got tired of all the bugs and the low damage. Now I rock my warrior with Axe / Shield and Rifle.

This happened to be yesterday. I’m defending my guild’s keep, ranger starts firing at me while I’m on the wall. I laugh, switch to rifle with full adrenaline, Kill shot, followed by my 3 (bad that I don’t remember it’s name, I just know it as the “Repeatedly shoot for nice damage”) He was down so fast while I had the majority of my health. I thought "Ranger? HA. Just out ranged your, “Ranger” " True story.

Yeah just played a warrior up to level 6, I was suprised at the amount of damage and attack speed.

Kinda makes my Ranger look very, very feeble.

I can’t ever see ArenaNet fixing this, we will never be anywhere near some of the other classes.

There’s so many things I hate about my Ranger, but I can’t face playing another class.

Guess I’ll be off if it doesn’t get fixed.

It actually gets worse as you get higher in levels. At level 20, using a Signet build with a rifle, a Warrior is straight-up godmode (my lv21 Warrior currently has ~114% crit chance (!)) – which drops off at around 60, but the slack gets picked up very easily with traits and gear.

I have a level 80 Warrior and Ranger, both in full exotics, and either of them can gun down a mob in Orr in about the same amount of time… the difference between them is, if I get bored with or tired of shooting something to death for eight to ten seconds, on my Warrior I can just swap to my greatsword, hit 2 buttons and obliterate him (and everyone near him) almost instantly.

The Ranger has no means of doing that; it doesn’t matter what weapons you use, or how you spec. You can get a kind of mediocre melee burst thing going if you really try, but it involved tying all your trait points into doing it, and dropping traps while trying to put down the burst… all of which puts your whole skill set into long cooldowns.

Also, to spec this way you need to mostly fill Nature Magic and Wilderness Survival… which utterly kittens your bow damage.

Of course, on my Warrior, I retain the ability to have excellent ranged Rifle damage and ridiculous AOE melee burst (on a 6 second cooldown no less) all in the same spec. And the longbow? Heck, that thing is incredible right out of the box. No traiting necessary.

I honestly think the people who are constantly calling “Ranger complainers” out as needless whiners have simply not tried any of the other classes. Also, I am by no means complaining here: I looove my Warrior. I really wanted to love my Ranger, as it was my first level 80 character, but sadly that’s just not in the cards right now.

That is ANet’s problem, folks, not mine. I can only play the game they give me.

(edited. I can’t spell good, apparently)

I switched to Guardian and immediately my time in game feels substantially better. To be fair, this was probably the class for me from the get-go (I was a big fan of my WoW Paladin and this class offers some of that to me) So I can’t beat up Ranger for my preference choice there, but the final nails in the coffin were watching what kind of DPS and survivability my brother’s warrior could whip out in PVE without even weapon-swapping. But I’ll happily return to my Ranger as an Alt when it’s fixed im Sure.

I have a lvl 80 full exotic ranger with about 60%crit strike and 2400 power and 1300 vit. Pretty glassy but my longbow damage is still not great. I don’t even use 3 as the vulnerability doesn’t do more dmg overalll compared to if I’d taken the time to just shoot one more regular arrow off. and skill #2 does worse damage then if I just spam my 1. I can do okay in sPvP only if I can hide myself in a good high vantage point and shoot at targets that don’t move a ton.
It’s awful, the day I found out that the dmg posted for the number 2 skill is a total dmg over time for the skills duration I lost a lot of ups for the ranger.

what would toatly make my day is if every single ranged weapon player switched to warrior and then maybe the devs would increase damage on melee rangers and make them viable before the bows since no one will be playing a ranged ranger anymore

That’s why i stopped to play my ranger on 40, thanks god i reroled, now having 80 thief, 80 mesmer, 80 war… never ranger again.

It was funny to see test of full glass cannon exotic ranger AOE with longbow and seeing numbers which are lesser than basic autoattacks of most classes:D There are so many issues with ranger that it is not even funny, problem is that it is built in the core of ranger and i do not have hope it will be changed, like… speed of bow projectiles… wtf Mesmer’s GS ftw or warrior’s riffle:D Those are 10x better rangers than ranger itself.

For example thief’s cluser arrow single shot can do more dmg than all focused pindown longbow aoe:P But RESPECT to those 80 rangers roaming around wvw

Yeah, ranger’s sure got a dose of suck – Every other class does our job better. (Im a ranger lover)

How’s anet gonna fix this?

Ranger Def need a Revamp.

lol soon as I tried Rifle warrior in the beta, it felt like Anet gave Warriors the wrong skills and gave Rangers something a 10 year old thought of….

tldr: go warrior/engineer, they do “range” much better. This class is a joke, and I don’t see it being fixed anytime soon.

I feel the same, I rolled a warrior and the damage is insane. Utility schmutility…warrior has plenty. I typically always play ranger type classes, and love pet classes, it is a shame. But my ranger will gather dust, no harm no foul I suppose, of course I did not have as much time and blood into my lvl 80 ranger as OP.

Warrior is stupidly overpowered in PvE compared to most classes. Other classes all have at least one rough spot; eg. guardian & ranged combat, thief & health, ranger & boring combat, etc..

I disagree that Ranger is broken, but I do completely agree that it’s not fun to play. It’s by far the best auto-attack bot in the game.

Psychrome.9281:

what would toatly make my day is if every single ranged weapon player switched to warrior and then maybe the devs would increase damage on melee rangers and make them viable before the bows since no one will be playing a ranged ranger anymore

Nah they would just see it as no one wants to play a ranger so we wont bother fixing anything and concentrate on Warriors seeing they are so popular

I do really enjoy the ranger, especially the pet. But I know better than to use it in WvW, and I don’t touch Conquest (bores me to tears, can’t wait for proper PvP modes to turn up – but that’s another story).

Now that I have a mesmer at level 80 working towards full exotic gear, I’m enjoying actually having solutions to the problems that other classes pose. I got more damage out of the ranger, though that’s probably because I’m not running a shattercat – too vulgar, no finesse – in favour of something with more durability and tricks up its sleeve.

I really think that Anet thought Rangers would be able to lock down their foes with traps and snares, and stack kitten-tons of condition damage on them and knock them down after stacking them with conditions, making them sort of a “gun-and-run” class as can be seen with shortbow. The problem is that Anet then decided to give EVERY class a ridiculously viable way of removing conditions. Heck, on my guardian I’ve been leveling condition removal is mind-numbingly easy. It’s borderline insulting.