Guild Wars 2

I was thinking of starting a Ranger. It’s the only class I haven’t tried yet, even though I played one for a long time in another game. I came to the forums first to get a feel for what ppl think of them. I saw the post about the update coming soon, but also see that there is alot of issues.

My question to the vet rangers is: Do you think I can start a Ranger, and still have some fun with it? The necros seem to think their class is so broken, no one should bother. I figured, if I start a Ranger now…by the time I get out of the newbie stages, lots of adjustments will be in place.

Just curious on your thoughts for a baby ranger.

That is reasonable thinking. I am sure they will eventually fix most of our support skills being useless. That said, the biggest ranger problem is our pet, and nothing short of complete overhaul will fix it.

Maybe. You can try it, I don’t think a lot of the core problems will be fixed with Ranger because of this update, but we’ll have more viable utilities at the very least. As someone said before, your pet is a nuisance in most areas of the game, except for leveling.

My biggest problem with my Ranger is the fact that our arrows / physical projectiles get “Obstructed” or “Out of Range” for no reason. Apparently it’s because of the terrain and they stated that it’s a step-by-step process to fix (which means it’ll be adjusted over time).

I don’t think anyone knows what exactly they’re fixing/changing with the new Ranger ‘buffs.’ I’m not holding my breath for anything amazing but it’s a start. So, ask yourself, do you have the patience to put up with it all?

Nurse.1085:

My biggest problem with my Ranger is the fact that our arrows / physical projectiles get “Obstructed” or “Out of Range” for no reason. Apparently it’s because of the terrain and they stated that it’s a step-by-step process to fix (which means it’ll be adjusted over time).

I don’t know
Shouldn’t a Ranger be able to auto-attack things with arrows at the Very Least? The more I read, it’s pretty discouraging.

My main is a Mesmer, and I’m beginning to think that Mes, Guard, War, and Thief are the only working classes in this game.

As the two others have stated, Rangers aren’t horrible, but we are very much below par right now. A lot of our weapons aren’t viable or take a very specific playstyle to be effective; but as it was said already our pet is one our biggest drawbacks. The AI is pretty bad, the F2 skills can be kitten near useless at times (firing off 2-3 seconds after the button is hit, if at all) and the pathing is a joke.

Our builds are very limited right now as well. We are limited pretty much to either a pretty specific condition based trap build or slight variations to a power build. A lot of people claim to run off the wall builds and do good, but won’t post it and the examples of things they can do seem as if they’re running twice the utility slots as everyone else—so they’re a little unreliable.

Personally, if you’re having fun with other classes I would say to give it a try but don’t invest a lot of time into it. You can make one, check out it’s skills and such and then wait for the update to invest time into it then. At the moment, you can get more out of a Warrior with Ranged weapons than you can a Ranger and pretty much any melee class option is going to yield better results.

Still, if you like a challenge or just really love Rangers—it’s an option.

ima be honest i just started a ranger and its going like really great like REALLY great its better than my mesmer guardian and warrior put into one thts just imo. I like barely ever take damage cuz my pet pretty much takes on all the monsters by hiself while i just dps them away and aswell my damage is pretty nice atm unlike my mesmer really not that much of a PVE class than it is as it excells in pvp anyway and ima be honest with u again every class forum has bad things to say about thier class period point blank they over exaggerate on alot of wat they say making the class seem BROKEN as one would say the class isnt broken its verry playable its just sum things need sum serious fixing im not goona lie about that but i would give ranger a try if u dont really have fun anymore on ur other characters. just remember all classes have thier bugs all have thier flaws and strengths its just all comes down to the PLAYER not really the class any class can be great in the hands of a great player ^^

MrMacAndCheese.3907:

I was thinking of starting a Ranger. It’s the only class I haven’t tried yet, even though I played one for a long time in another game. I came to the forums first to get a feel for what ppl think of them. I saw the post about the update coming soon, but also see that there is alot of issues.

My question to the vet rangers is: Do you think I can start a Ranger, and still have some fun with it? The necros seem to think their class is so broken, no one should bother. I figured, if I start a Ranger now…by the time I get out of the newbie stages, lots of adjustments will be in place.

Just curious on your thoughts for a baby ranger.

Despite all the doom and gloom from the Chicken Littles on the Ranger forums, the class is still very fun and effective in PvE (arguably one of the best PvE professions). So leveling up you’ll do just fine (even in dungeons).

There are a few issues with pets, but they’re far from unusable or useless as many would have you believe. Fast attacking pets (birds, for instance) and ranged pets do a lot better than other pets, but you can still use any pet successfully.

^^ like nldixon says ppl make it out to be such a broken or bad class and that goes for any class really but its not ranger is verry much fun and im lvling up like its nothing xD

If you want to play around with it in pve its fine, but if you want to do competitive or serious pvp then I’d stick with the working classes-in fact the working necro and ele builds are stronger than the working ranger builds in that environment.

You should see what they did to our short bow auto-attack; it was working fine then they fixed an animation glitch that no-one had ever seen, which ironically resulted in an animation glitch when using SB autoattack with quickness. It also severely dented rangers only viable burst. This change came at a time when everyone was saying that rangers are in a good spot because we certainly aren’t due for any nerfs.

Given that I would assess the changes made before leaping to the conclusion that rangers are getting buffed in any way.

Yasha.5963:

If you want to play around with it in pve its fine, but if you want to do competitive or serious pvp then I’d stick with the working classes-in fact the working necro and ele builds are stronger than the working ranger builds in that environment.

You should see what they did to our short bow auto-attack; it was working fine then they fixed an animation glitch that no-one had ever seen, which ironically resulted in an animation glitch when using SB autoattack with quickness. It also severely dented rangers only viable burst. This change came at a time when everyone was saying that rangers are in a good spot because we certainly aren’t due for any nerfs.

Given that I would assess the changes made before leaping to the conclusion that rangers are getting buffed in any way.

This is an example of what’s wrong with the Ranger community.

Before the adjustment to the SB animations everyone was saying that Rangers are in a good spot. With that one single adjustment everyone is now crying that Rangers are the worst profession in the game and that one animation suddenly broke everything else.

I can’t help but wonder how many of the people bellyaching on the forums actually have level 80 Rangers that they leveled up in PvE versus people who just played their Ranger since people started realizing that SB was killer in sPvP?

Also, for the record, the reason nobody every noticed the 0.04 second animation glitch is because the human eye is incapable of such a thing.

[Edit: Just to point out, my post wasn’t specifically directed at you, Yasha. It was just an example of the mentality on the Ranger forums and how people get so worked up about one issue.]

It is my opinion that, in order to fully enjoy pet-based classes, you have to start whatever game it is by playing a pet-based class.

Even if the game has flawless pet controls, they will be awkward to learn if you’re already used to controlling one character.

That being said, trying can’t hurt, and I love my Ranger, so I say go for it.

nldixon.8514:

This is an example of what’s wrong with the Ranger community.

Before the adjustment to the SB animations everyone was saying that Rangers are in a good spot. With that one single adjustment everyone is now crying that Rangers are the worst profession in the game and that one animation suddenly broke everything else.

I can’t help but wonder how many of the people bellyaching on the forums actually have level 80 Rangers that they leveled up in PvE versus people who just played their Ranger since people started realizing that SB was killer in sPvP?

Also, for the record, the reason nobody every noticed the 0.04 second animation glitch is because the human eye is incapable of such a thing.

I have lvl80 ranger, and I played sPvP to r14 until I got bored running SB + Axe/Horn-Torch build. Reality is that SB is our only viable source of damage. Not even burst damage, just plain DPS. Reality is that RoF nerf affected not just attack DPS, but also bleeds application, which constitutes significant portion of our damage. Reality is that people thought rangers were fine, because nobody even bothered with other weapon sets, because SB was (and still is) the only viable option.
Reality is that pets are perpetually dead in dungeons and WvW just from random AoEs flying around, and are next to useless in sPvP.
Now where did you get your ideas, I don’t know. I am guessing you are one of those sub 80s who just realized how super easy it is to level with pet and came here to tell us losers how pro you are.

Yes, because I clearly said how pro I was and that everybody else was bad.

I’ll take a screenshot of my 20 something rank, level 80 Ranger when I get home if that’ll make you happy. More than likely you’ll just come up with some other feeble insult to hurl at me.

Pets are only perpetually dead in dungeons and PvP if you don’t use the right pet and manage them properly. Is there room for pet improvement in PvE and PvP? Yes, absolutely. Are they useless? No, absolutely not.

The fact that you think the shortbow is the only “viable option” for Rangers shows me that you haven’t experimented with any of the other weapons and builds.

My doom and gloom isn’t from the SB nerf because I personally never used SB in PVE / dungeons. I hate Shortbow, honestly. I actually went Longbow with Axe/Warhorn offhand.

My personal Ranger DUNGEON complaints :
- Lack of viable weapon options and there’s a lack of synergy between weapon swapping.
- Spirits are worthless / die instantly / short buff range.
- Pets are unresponsive, they can’t attack while the NPC is moving, their F2 is unresponsive / long animation, they die almost instantly in most battles (unless you have a “tanky” pet). There’s also no way to stow pets. so in WVWVW, your pet will probably just stand next to you and die from random AOES on top of a keep.
- Our self damage is “nerfed” because it takes into consideration the damage from our Pets. The problem is, our pet AI is terrible in addition to their lack of survivability, even with constant recalls/returns/passive/controlling who they do/don’t attack.
- Physical Projectiles get obstructed for no reason, thus lowering our overall DPS (ie: Rapid Fire ticks 10 times, however only 8/10 of those ticks will hit. So instead of hitting for 10k, you’ll only hit for 8k).
- Very few viable builds. A lot of our traits and utilities circle around pets, which is why there are very few good Ranger builds.

However, yes, they’re fun to level with which is why I fell in love with mine. The problem is, leveling is only a small percentage of the game (for me). I prefer to do explorable dungeons / wvwvw and I think that’s when their problems/bugs really start to shine. It’s not about whether or not I’m a good player, it’s the fact that even though I am, bugs are holding me back from achieving my full potential as a Ranger. I’m limited.

I guess I’ve become bitter now that the honeymoon leveling phase is over.

Play the class, it’s fine. I’ve played over 400 hours on my Ranger and everytime i play other class it’s just “meh, i like ranger”.

Also don’t listen to anyone who says the class is bad in PvP, first…PvP is not just sPvP and there are rangers on paid tournaments rank 40+ so that means the class is actually decent enough to compete with other classes….it’s just that ranger is not a class where you smash your keyboard to win, it’s not like other classes that pretty much press two buttoms and kill something.

In regards to the OP:
It depends largely on what you’re expecting going in. Many players came in expecting an archer (range, ranger, geddid?) especially the old GW1 players, where they were the de-facto ranged combat class.
If you go in expecting a long ranged class, the ‘best’ at long ranged fighting, with a pet that’s eyecandy you can send off without a second thought, a glorified ‘fire and forget’ ability, then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. This incarnation of the ‘Ranger’ is more like it’s roots, and the weapons reflect it. They’re pretty good in melee and while they can do well in ranged combat a warrior will most likely beat them comfortably in a 1v1. On their own, the ranger is a poor-man’s warrior.

However a fight against a ranger is never a 1v1. It’s always a 2v1, because the ranger has his/her companion to even the odds.
For better or worse, the pet pretty much needs some points (about 10-15) in Beastmaster to be reliably useful. You can just double up on bears, the tanky pet, to compensate, but it only goes so far, and it becomes painfully obvious who’s been skimping on the Beastmaster trait in dungeons.
This is a big problem for many players.

I personally enjoy the pets, big time, because they give you some serious utility; the drakes can hit several foes in one go, so you can belt out some alarming damage when you’re by it’s side with a greatsword. The moa’s can buff allies, handy when you’re using traps for combo fields as well. The cats and birds (ie, raven, eagle, ect) are good at hurting single targets. The spiders can mass poison and snakittengets.
Guildwars 2’s made it so the ranger cannot (like it did in GW1) exist in a bubble without the animal companion. If you neglect it, at the very least your dps will take a big hit and you’ll have your pet limping back to you, a silent recrimination.
Is the pet system perfect? Nah. They can be dumber than a bag of rocks, but the joys of AI (unlike most PuGs) is that they’re predictably stupid, so planning and compensating for it can be done without a second thought in time.
They can’t dodge AoE very well, so if you’re fighting in melee with a melee pet, by the time you’ve dodged out and told them to follow you out, they’re often badly wounded or incapacitated.
Feeding into above, some boss abilities (Hello Lt. Kohler and your yank-everyone-in-and-kill-them ability) will assuredly snuff the pet, forcing you to swap if you can or suffer the longer recharge time.

What I’m basically trying to get over is the animal companions are not eye candy. If you want eye-candy, get a minipet.

I know I’ve made a big deal about the pet, but I really feel I have to. I facepalm whenever I see the “I want to stow the pet” threads. It’s like a mesmer going “I don’t want to have to use my phantasms and illusions” or an engineer refusing to use the kits and toolbelt. If you want to run around killing stuff on your own, you will not enjoy the class. If you want to have a companion that you work with and share things with, you’ll probably enjoy it.

Weapon wise; I find the longbow is pretty dodgy with it’s autoattack, but the others (yes, even the greatsword) are fun. The Long-sword’s auto-attack has an interesting quirk in a leaping attack that effectively snares you in one spot, but skills 2 and 3 are dodge/evasion based, so it’s not that much of an issue usually. Until you try and disengage to heal anyway…

Nurse.1085:

My personal Ranger DUNGEON complaints :
- Lack of viable weapon options and there’s a lack of synergy between weapon swapping.
- Spirits are worthless / die instantly / short buff range.
- Pets are unresponsive, they can’t attack while the NPC is moving, their F2 is unresponsive / long animation, they die almost instantly in most battles (unless you have a “tanky” pet). There’s also no way to stow pets. so in WVWVW, your pet will probably just stand next to you and die from random AOES on top of a keep.
- Our self damage is “nerfed” because it takes into consideration the damage from our Pets. The problem is, our pet AI is terrible in addition to their lack of survivability, even with constant recalls/returns/passive/controlling who they do/don’t attack.
- Physical Projectiles get obstructed for no reason, thus lowering our overall DPS (ie: Rapid Fire ticks 10 times, however only 8/10 of those ticks will hit. So instead of hitting for 10k, you’ll only hit for 8k).
- Very few viable builds. A lot of our traits and utilities circle around pets, which is why there are very few good Ranger builds.

However, yes, they’re fun to level with which is why I fell in love with mine. The problem is, leveling is only a small percentage of the game (for me). I prefer to do explorable dungeons / wvwvw and I think that’s when their problems/bugs really start to shine. It’s not about whether or not I’m a good player, it’s the fact that even though I am, bugs are holding me back from achieving my full potential as a Ranger. I’m limited.

I guess I’ve become bitter now that the honeymoon leveling phase is over.

I can’t agree more with your point about weapon synergy. It’s severely lacking between sets with the exception of running longbow/shortbow. Even the one-handers lack any real synergy. Our one-handed weapons are an odd mixture of mediocre and lackluster. Even combined the best options are still mediocre at best.

I agree with most of the rest your points too, but most of them are avoidable or circumnavigable.

Spirits are terrible. Agreed. They need a complete overhaul. There is only one really exceptional trait for spirits (Nature’s Vengeance) and that requires them to die, which is kind of counterproductive.

Pets need a lot of work. I don’t agree that they’re useless though. If you can stomach constant swapping (negating most of the benefits of a Beastmastery build) and micro-managing them, you can keep them alive for almost an entire dungeon run. Using pets with group buffs and then swapping to ranged DPS pets is a good way to get the most use out of your pets and keep them alive. In W3 I just keep a pet next to me for the buffs and swap them out. They really do take too much of a beating in W3 and they die nearly instantly in sieges.

Hopefully the “obstructed” issues gets resolved sooner rather than later. It’s a real PITA. And you’re absolutely right that there are very few viable builds. Bosses pretty much negate any of our control builds and pet builds are limited because of their frailty in dungeons. You can use a pet build with a ranged pet, but Master’s Bond becomes totally useless in dungeons since it’s nearly impossible to reach a max stack. That leaves us with straight damage builds, which isn’t really the forte of the profession.

Don’t get too bummed out! It’ll get better and then you can tell the new players about the “good ol’ days” when Rangers had to walk uphill both ways in the snow.

Where did this idea come from that shortbow was a FOTM build in PvP? People keep saying it was and accusing the people complaining about the shortbow change of only playing Ranger because of how powerful SB was in PvP.

While it was the best Ranger weapon is was still sub par compared to every other classes best weapons, even some of their worst weapons, the big 4 in particular would laugh at what Rangers called burst.

Ranger class is very versatile. It has decent survivability, a good arsenal of weapons, a variety of builds, a large selection of pets, numerous summons, and it’s a well-rounded class. Most important of all, it’s a lot of fun (for me at least). I’ve tried different classes before but so far, my favorite is still the ranger. Maybe it’s not the king of glass cannon dps or best tank in Tyria but it sure as hell can deal a good amount of damage and it can take a fair share of beating.

If you want to play the “best DPS class”, then you’ll hear all sorts of stories about how Mesmers and Thieves are so OP. In my experience, it’s all in the player.

Rangers are not bad per say. It is just that every other class does it better. The other really bad class, Elementalist are harder to handle yes. But in the hands of a really good pro, they can be quite good.

Rangers are great for leveling, easily the easiest class to level. Their PvE problem start from Orr, WvW and Dungeons. (I will not talk about PvP as I do not play it alot. Suffice to say, it is also bad there.)

In these places, your pet does not really hold agrro well. And if they do hold agrro, they die fast. Most of the time they just die from AOE. It is a definate must to put your pet on passive, but more often then not, even if you ask them to return to you to avoid AOE, just stall there for precious seconds and die.

Thus you go for range pets. But even then, they got issues. If the enemy move, their attack more often then not misses. They again have problems with AOE. They are now squishy and die from a few hits or a burst.

And the biggest problem of pets, is that they constantly miss if the enemy moves. A smart WvW player will not stand still, thus avoiding most of your pet damage. In Dungeons, most enemies move alot because you move alot to avoid damage. Thus pets again miss alot.

Then there is the miss, obstructed, invulnerable issue with ranger weapons. Rangers have it the worst, because our range weapons are not heat seeking and have long flight times. In WvW, any one that strives or move erratically (aka normal play) can avoid a third to half our arrows, even at super close range. Thus our dps drops like mad. In dungeons, any small changes in terrain, can suddenly throw up bugs that make our shots bug out (but is not so bad as npcs do not strive like real players more a super bug terrain, arrow shot trajectory issue), which is still very annoying.

Our utilities are good but not as good too. Our signets are all done better in other professions. Our spirits die from AOE in 1 hit or 2. Our burst skill is bugged after the nerf. Longbow has a range requirement that does not work, as anyone even npc enemies will always come towards you. Our axes does little dps, but can bounce around. Our sword roots use on the spot. Our Greatsword dps is just way beyond bad. SB is now just ok.

So everything combined. I would say, while rangers are not horrible, they are just worst off then the other classes. Currently I have a ranger and engineer. I realy love my ranger, am ok with the engineer. But in dungeons I near always play engineer, as the damage is better and the group tend to have a easier time. Also at the same time, while doing more dps, my eng also has much better utilities and support skills.

nldixon.8514:

Pets need a lot of work. I don’t agree that they’re useless though. If you can stomach constant swapping (negating most of the benefits of a Beastmastery build)

I really have to pick up on this. The first minor trait is quickness when you swap, and the second minor trait is a reduced swapping time. If you swap before your pet is defeated, then the cooldown is reduced. The game actively encourages you to cycle your pets. The only thing it could negate is the Beastmaster’s Bond, a single minor trait.

@Levetty

The idea came from anybody who played any PvP at all a few weeks ago when SB Rangers started popping up in droves and then suddenly disappeared when the adjustment to SB happened.

@Loki

Exactly. There is a serious design problem with the Beastmastery line though. It encourages swapping, but Master’s Bond, which is one of the best traits in the whole line, is totally negated by swapping. It essentially forces players into one or two builds for any serious dungeon running.

nldixon.8514:

@Levetty

The idea came from anybody who played any PvP at all a few weeks ago when SB Rangers started popping up in droves and then suddenly disappeared when the adjustment to SB happened.

Then people should have been enjoying the easy points that Rangers were giving them. Shame I didn’t notice an increase.

Nurse.1085:

My doom and gloom isn’t from the SB nerf because I personally never used SB in PVE / dungeons. I hate Shortbow, honestly. I actually went Longbow with Axe/Warhorn offhand.

My personal Ranger DUNGEON complaints :
- Lack of viable weapon options and there’s a lack of synergy between weapon swapping.
- Spirits are worthless / die instantly / short buff range.
- Pets are unresponsive, they can’t attack while the NPC is moving, their F2 is unresponsive / long animation, they die almost instantly in most battles (unless you have a “tanky” pet). There’s also no way to stow pets. so in WVWVW, your pet will probably just stand next to you and die from random AOES on top of a keep.
- Our self damage is “nerfed” because it takes into consideration the damage from our Pets. The problem is, our pet AI is terrible in addition to their lack of survivability, even with constant recalls/returns/passive/controlling who they do/don’t attack.
- Physical Projectiles get obstructed for no reason, thus lowering our overall DPS (ie: Rapid Fire ticks 10 times, however only 8/10 of those ticks will hit. So instead of hitting for 10k, you’ll only hit for 8k).
- Very few viable builds. A lot of our traits and utilities circle around pets, which is why there are very few good Ranger builds.

However, yes, they’re fun to level with which is why I fell in love with mine. The problem is, leveling is only a small percentage of the game (for me). I prefer to do explorable dungeons / wvwvw and I think that’s when their problems/bugs really start to shine. It’s not about whether or not I’m a good player, it’s the fact that even though I am, bugs are holding me back from achieving my full potential as a Ranger. I’m limited.

I guess I’ve become bitter now that the honeymoon leveling phase is over.

Pretty much nailed it for me as well. Only exception is I actually enjoy SB alongside LB for pretty much everything. The rest of the weapons are just “meh” and require too much on the players part to make them even remotely viable or fun.

Not really much more I can say that Nurse hasn’t already covered.

@nldixon: I already knew that ranger was one of the worst classes for pvp before the shortbow nerf, which is why I was shocked that rangers got the largest nerf in that patch, and even that it was announced as just an animation fix.

You see many complaints on forums about various matters, some of which are trivial. Considering where the ranger was before the nerf, and the fact that the animation using quickness and SB is now broken I think the one-billion post thread (that had half of posts deleted by moderators) complaining about the nerf was well justified.

The point related to the OP’s post that I am trying to convey though, is that do not assume now is a good time to become ranger because the result of any changes could well be to even further nerf ranger given what we saw with the SB “animation fix”. And also that if you are interested in serious pvp you should focus your energy elsewhere until you know what changes are made.

However, if you are just playing around casually in pve or even (I almost can’t bring myself to say it) casually in pvp then ranger provides a different experience to the other classes and has some fun points to it.

@Yasha
Casual PvE!!!! THE HORROR!!!! Seriously, you know you are getting too jaded when doing dungeons you start to get pissed off with other players when they do not performing at optimal levels.

There are 2 kind a gamers out there – casual and competitive.

Most of the crying about class being broken in pvp forums comes from competitive way of looking the game (how ever, sadly its usually from guys who see a video about 30 kill streak and then go comment “i can do that”).
Its about the stats/reliability of powers and that kind a stuff. That usually matters when player is actually competitive – when he plays perfect and makes no mistakes.

If your casual player, which you probably are, don’t worry about that stuff. Play a class that you like. If you say you have most experience with your ranger i will want you in my party as a ranger, not as a mesmer, because there is a huge chance you make more mistakes with class you have less experience with.

So sure, try out ranger. Yes, your pet have some issues, your traits have some issues. Every class has.
You are not the most popular class in “competitive game”. But just learn the ranger in and out and you can still beat those so called “high tier classes”, because 99,9 people you meet do not play perfect.
Just pick a class, learn it, and have fun. So sure, try out ranger.
Its not most popular class in current meta, but casual gamer should forget about meta and have some fun.

Talve, most of the QQ comes from low ranks or low level rangers who didn’t try to learn the class but instead think ranger should be the typical archer who two shots someone. These probably go PvP, get insta killed by a thief or warrior and then whine about ranger not being able to kill them in two shots ^^

The truth is ranger is harder to play than many classes, it’s not everything about killing by pressing two keys. You notice this when most of the QQers say ranger was good when they could use shortbow + QZ but after the nerf they say it’s unplayable…they nerfed the over-used “OP” combo and now they can’t figure out what to do because rangers really don’t share much their builds or playstyle.

@Sleepy
Well, ‘typical’ this or that do count cause alot of other classes get this for free, no nerf changes made, its actually increased, while Ranger get the nerf bat (with no reason) and Elite PvP players hails it and comes aggressive against the causual players. If your playstyle was LB + SB then it should work out extremly good since we are Rangers, bows are our class role.

Didnt spot a thief, 1-2-3 and your dead, didnt spot the Ranger 1-2-3 and your dead, this is how it should be and i see no wrong in it at all, but you do because your playstyle do kill ppl abit more than a causal player.

So to topic, roll a Ranger? its a big NO if you think its like having normal output DMG like Mesmer, Guardian, Thief and Warrior.

Well, whatever its shortcomings its a fun class to play still, I would try out every class if you had the time. The other class you mention, Necro, is more valuable in pvp at the moment, but its a totally different playstyle.

Who says all classes have to kill by pressing 2 keys? That’s kitten and it’s not rangers only who can’t do that. This is what’s wrong with ranger lowbies/newbies, they think they SHOULD insta kill and make big numbers killing people before they get to touch you.

What’s normal output damage? Burst damage is now called “normal output damage”…there is another thing called sustained damage.

Yeah and Rangers are near the bottom in sustained damage too, so what is your point.

Greetings,

Just sharing my experience here:
I love Rangers and its versatility is what makes it special. I don’t feel I should stick to SB all the time just because of DPS. Other weapons are useful in many situations and we should learn how to use them effectively. But I surely had problems trying to battle against other classes in PVP. It is really annoying how guardians and warriors can run over you really fast!

Cheers!

Levetty, where are the tests to prove that? So far i’ve seen nothing but whines from less experienced rangers.

I have 3 Rangers over level 487 and my PvP rank is over 9000. They don’t have broken traits, you just don’t know how to use the traits that don’t do what they say they do, or in fact don’t do anything. I am so awesome I made a build with invincible spirits, but I normally play with all of the other overpowered utilities as well. GS hits like a truck and the 1H sword lets me dodge out of big attacks when I see them coming while I’m auto attacking. Longbow attacks super fast and does loads of damage. The arrows travel so fast that other players can’t just strafe back and forth like an idiot to dodge all of your damage.

EDIT: I am the most awesome Ranger ever, god you noobs just don’t know how to play.

EDIT2: Oh yeah, the response time on pet F2 skills is great, I never see my pet stop, wait 2 seconds, and then leap at where the target used to be. They are also great for hitting players whilst moving.

Wow the post above me is more sarcastic than anything in here.

But to op: If you already have a mesmer, you seriously wont find any fun in Ranger. It’s broken, weak, overnerfed, useless in PvE/dungeons. It’s just plain horrible. You can’t even compare it to non-broken classes like Mesmer.

And i’m a long time level 80 Ranger with full exo gear. But i’m already leveling up another class because i really have no faith in the upcoming patch, as many others don’t too.

Niko Stark.8932:

Ranger class is very versatile. It has decent survivability, a good arsenal of weapons, a variety of builds, a large selection of pets, numerous summons, and it’s a well-rounded class. Most important of all, it’s a lot of fun (for me at least). I’ve tried different classes before but so far, my favorite is still the ranger. Maybe it’s not the king of glass cannon dps or best tank in Tyria but it sure as hell can deal a good amount of damage and it can take a fair share of beating.

If you want to play the “best DPS class”, then you’ll hear all sorts of stories about how Mesmers and Thieves are so OP. In my experience, it’s all in the player.

The above is the type of advice I wish people never posted on forums. In all these types of games there are clearly OP or FOTM classes, or classes that really excel in certain areas.

You should be absolutely clear when making a character choice that for pvp Ranger is one of the weakest professions. Still fun yes, I mean ultimately the game is fun, BUT its even more fun when you are owning. And that is much much easier to do on thief or mesmer in pvp.

I have fun on my ranger in spvp, but I am rank 30 and have played about 600 games just on ranger. However, even after all that time, in general, I’m still not as effective on ranger as I was in my first few games as thief in spvp. That is how big the divide is I’m afraid, and note that the divide was there before the SB nerf.

His post it’s not far from being accurate, you however only post to say how bad the ranger is.

Playing thief is the same, it’s an easy class and everyone can kill newbs with him, but only very good thieves make some people complain…does it make them OP? Maybe, or maybe not.

A few days ago I was watching a guardian stream rank 40+ playing paid tournaments and it really made my day, he was complaining about a ranger being so strong he got killed hard while he didn’t do kitten, it was funny to watch because that ranger was quite tanky and it’s damage output was still pretty decent.

Same goes to the “OP” thieves, i was watching another rank 40+ paid tournament stream where he was continuously pretty much getting 1 shotted by a warrior, everytime he saw the warrior he was like "oh god, not you again! How the hell can he kill me!!!! QQ!.

Conclusion, players are what makes the most difference, not classes. Sure ranger needs some love, but classes are somewhat “balanced”, there is not a build that beats everyone easily, period. It’s hard to say if a class is better or worse because as long as there is someone who does well with it then it means it’s not that bad.

nldixon.8514:

@Levetty
Exactly. There is a serious design problem with the Beastmastery line though. It encourages swapping, but Master’s Bond, which is one of the best traits in the whole line, is totally negated by swapping. It essentially forces players into one or two builds for any serious dungeon running.

Most of it is imo, because of dodgy traits (especially the mid tier ones. Cripple for animals that have chill/immobilise effects on two or three of them? Genius!) and Master’s Bond itself. Master’s Bond was (in case you didn’t play pre-release) a shoe-in added during the beta and both in part due to the other traits being crap, Master’s Bond is Very Silly with it’s strength.
I’ve been doing some heavy dungeon spelunking, and as a result stopped taking Master’s Bond because you have to rotate the pets pretty often; you can’t just ‘fire and forget’ them. I can honestly say the pets are still fine against most things, albiet this is from someone with 30 beastmastery. I can see Master’s Bond making a massive difference when you’ve got less beastmastery perhaps, but when you’ve got 30 points in beastmaster they’re still tough as nails and will happily maul most foes.

You will not have any fun with the ranger profession sadly. Even if our dps wouldn’t be so incredibly low, the weapons we have are exceedingly boring. Your only viable main weapon is the shortbow, and all you EVER do with it, is auto attack.

With my warrior, I use 3 weapon skills in easy fights, 5 skills in tougher fights, and 10 skills against veteran enemies and harder. On top of that I use all of my utility skills and my elite skill on a regular basis.

As a result I destroy solo pve content at a very rapid pace, while having tons of fun.

With my ranger, all I used was, in any fight no matter how hard or easy, 1 single skill: shortbow auto attack. Just strafe around the target and go pew pew pew with auto attack.. nothing else.

Not because the auto attack is so powerful, it’s quite weak especially after the last overnerf, but because there’s simply nothing else to do, no other skills have any point in using them. Against a veteran you might sometimes use shortbow #4 if your pet is dead, and that’s the pinacle of skill use as a ranger.

i am enjoying ranger even if they need some serious fix, I am playing full glass cannon mainly on WvW LB/SW it is a good class if u like the sniper play-style or u have the patience to think about positioning before to attack, or at least that’s the only think I can do right now since we don’t really shine in anything else

Shilian.5873:

i am enjoying ranger even if they need some serious fix, I am playing full glass cannon mainly on WvW LB/SW it is a good class if u like the sniper play-style or u have the patience to think about positioning before to attack, or at least that’s the only think I can do right now since we don’t really shine in anything else

This is pretty much the build I started with (for spvp) it is fun for a bit and you can get a few kills, but in spvp at least you die a lot and are pretty immobile. Punting warriors off the top of the roof in Battle of Kyhlo is always classic!

But realize that you can do the same damage (or more) to an entire group with a thief’s shortbow and still have massive survivability and mobility. You can also then bring some amazing melee skills to the table to boot if needed.

The upside of playing a ranger is that if you get good at it you can pat yourself on the back and say “I can excel at the most kittened pvp class in this game, imagine what I could do with a real class!”