Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, how are you? I’m from sea of sorrows right now, and I wanted to make a new class to enjoy WvW and Spvp from a different perspective. Currently I play a bunker engineer, and while he is fun and a solid mid range character, I miss kitting a lot and being able to blast from super far range. This situation has led me to the forums, so I can do research on a few classes and be able to pick one that I’ll enjoy the most. Who knows, I could end up with something radically different but for now I’m pretty sure what I want.

So to be concise, how is ranger doing atm? Can they fit a far ranged/kiting class pretty well? What is their possible playstyles, and a couple things you wished people told you about the class before you, yourselves, rolled one?

Thanks for your time.

I played a hunter in WoW and just quit, so I too am wondering this same question.

If you enjoy kiting I suggest the SB as it gives perks when you flank an enemy.

As far as blasting… ranger is not it, it is geared more for sustained damage. You will not see huge numbers as those huge numbers are split in half between the ranger and the pet. Together you do as much damage as other classes.

If you run with one, pay attention to your pet, most of the haters here also hate the pet. If you don’t want a pet class, please skip over ranger and play thief or warrior. They’ll give you the numbers you are looking for from range without the pet.

“a couple things you wished people told you about the class before you, yourselves, rolled one?”

I wish people had told me how Anet nerfed the absolute living bollocks out of the class when beta ended. It went from pretty strong to pretty weak in one fell swoop.

Still my favorite class, though.

To give you an idea, I was reading a thread about guys bored with the game talking about having 1000 extra unused Medals of Honor. I’ve wvwvw’d since almost the beginning, have something like 300 total, unlucky? Not running in groups? Not using seige enough? No clue, but atleast since the un nerf to Medals I’m seeing them more consistantly now. But, what this tells me is we can’t kill much, but we can do sustained damage as someone pointed out.

Update: Guy on the WvWvW forum complaining about having 8000 badges of honor and not knowing what to do with them. Yup, definately think about this class.

Rangers are a lot like BM hunters in WoW you do a ton of damage between you and your pet however, there’s like no burst, sure you can go 30 pts in marks and get sig of the beast master and use sig of the wild as a sort of Big Red, but other then that, sick’em, and QZ wedding have another options. However we reign supreme in constant damage, I don’t think any other prof can just sit there and constantly pump out good dmg.

However UNLIKE wow your pet needs a lot more management, there’s no Pets take X% less dmg from AoEs(sadly) so you need to make sure your pet isn’t running through bad things. Like I said above we play like a BM hunter, so our pet dies and BOOM instantly dealing less damage, A LOT less. If you were a marksman hunter who didn’t want a pet I’m telling you now, ranger is NOT for you, I’d suggest a rifle warrior, if you were a survivalist hunter wanting no pet (less common but still there) play a short bow thief.

Hope that helps!!

I strongly suggest you pass on this class. If you like the Hunter in WoW you will hate how dumbed down the class is here. This class is also broken at its very core so will likely never be fixed to an acceptable level just like how the Hunter launched in WoW and was worthless for 8 months (and the Warlock).

What I suggest you do is create a ranger shell, hit your PvP button, and run some sPvP as it will give you a level 80 character to play with in gear you will likely take 6 months to achieve on your own. You can see how the class plays, respec at will for free, and make up your own mind.

I also wouldn’t suggest a Warrior as even though your damage and playstyle is much stronger overall, their slow attack speed just feels very ‘wrong’ and the Ranger does have a better skill set to make ranged combat succeed, they just suck and aren’t nearly powerful enough to offset all the other class shortcomings. It just doesn’t have good traits, skills, pets don’t work well, no utility or burst for PvP or PvE, you get the idea.

GW2 is a pass when it comes to archer/ranger/hunter types.

A week ago I would suggest any other class for PvP…… But last night I watched a SB ~ S/D ranger take on a bunker ele.
Just let me say I’d never want to cross paths with that ranger…..

NOt fun. Rolled a necro for WVW, and working on a mesmer too. Gave up on ranger

The class has burst, so much so a pet can solo non bunker builds in seconds….Yes just the pet.

You can play Ranged as you described any way you like, just have different gear sets in your bag. The build is 30/30/5/0/5 and you can go glass cannon sniper on walls with full Zerger, or use Tou/Power/Vit and still end up with 31% crit chance and +3x% crit dmg!

I use control pets for this build, namely Dog+Jungle Spider thanks to Sol video for sharing that idea -which gives you 9 sec of non stop immobilize plus a 2 sec KD and endless cripple.

As for burst its maximized by pets -not saying you can’t burst without pet, just saying if you want MAX burst you need to use the pet. With well timed RoA+QZ+Sword or something on those lines.

The number of videos and guide is huge!

One of the best builds for close range and smaller scale combat would be BM+Healing Bunker. 0/0/30/10/30 with healing and regeneration gear. Damage is condition based and pet focused with CD based burst.

I really appreciate all the help and feedback I’ve received in this thread. After doing research on different classes and playing around with each, I do believe I will be sticking with ranger specifically.

Cempa, thank you for the information as well, do you perhaps have a link for these videos I could brush up on? So far I’ve only been looking at youtube videos and searching for information there or on google.

My favorite class on WoW was a Hunter, and I love the Ranger here. I find it even better in some ways- the pet management is so easy, and there’s some other flavor to it with some buffing and healing, so its not 100% a dps class. I’ve been happy, but I’m a casual playing to have fun person rather than someone who crunches numbers.

I was a Hunter in WoW, but I quit before Burning Crusades.

In GW2, a ranger is my 2nd lvl 80. I’m disappointed and frustrated by the class. Arenanet built the class as a petcentric class and from what they’ve said they don’t plan to abandon those goals. A strong independent character with a pet would be too powerful; The problem with that is half the game is dodging red circles and being aware of your surroundings.

Pets don’t do that, they have pathing issues which cause them to bring unwanted adds, they don’t avoid obvious AoEs and you can’t stow them if you just want to run past things, because if you’re damaged, they decide that you need them and they just slow you down and lock you in combat longer.

Half of this class is a suicidal meatshield that you have little control over. It might be a good class for those new to MMORPG type games since half the class is automated for you, but I regret the time I put into the class.

The game doesn’t have a sub. Just try it. This isn’t WoW. I played a Feral for 5 years. Too bad for me since GW2 doesn’t have a feral. I’ve rolled over the different classes a LOT. I’ve decided to stick with the ranger since it’s the nature oriented class and melee builds can be fun for it. Right now I’d just take it easy and wait for a ranger patch though.

If you are looking to WvWvW, I strongly suggest to pick diferent class. My main is a lvl 80 ranger and to be honest rangers suck at this moment. We dont have good condition remove skill , pets are a mess and dead most of the time in pvp, we dont have godlike burst damage skill like thief or warrior. longbow is a joke weapon , we are not much of a support class, spirits rolf. Traps are visible to enemy if they set it in options , we have one of the worst set of downed skills in the game etc etc. I still play my ranger in WvWvW just because i dont have a stomach to lvl up war,thief or guard

Adaneshade.2409:

A week ago I would suggest any other class for PvP…… But last night I watched a SB ~ S/D ranger take on a bunker ele.
Just let me say I’d never want to cross paths with that ranger…..

Either the bunker ele was lagging, or wasn’t playing very well.

If neither of those was the case….I really want to know that ranger’s spec.

On that note: I watched a bunker ele fend off a group of around 10 players for the better part of 15 minutes.

Cempa.5619:

The class has burst, so much so a pet can solo non bunker builds in seconds….Yes just the pet.

You can play Ranged as you described any way you like, just have different gear sets in your bag. The build is 30/30/5/0/5 and you can go glass cannon sniper on walls with full Zerger, or use Tou/Power/Vit and still end up with 31% crit chance and +3x% crit dmg!

I use control pets for this build, namely Dog+Jungle Spider thanks to Sol video for sharing that idea -which gives you 9 sec of non stop immobilize plus a 2 sec KD and endless cripple.

As for burst its maximized by pets -not saying you can’t burst without pet, just saying if you want MAX burst you need to use the pet. With well timed RoA+QZ+Sword or something on those lines.

The number of videos and guide is huge!

One of the best builds for close range and smaller scale combat would be BM+Healing Bunker. 0/0/30/10/30 with healing and regeneration gear. Damage is condition based and pet focused with CD based burst.

this is exactly what i do on my ranger. in wvw, i play a sniper burst beastmaster. in spvp, condition bunker. both builds wreck.

Quarktastic.1027:

Adaneshade.2409:

A week ago I would suggest any other class for PvP…… But last night I watched a SB ~ S/D ranger take on a bunker ele.
Just let me say I’d never want to cross paths with that ranger…..

Either the bunker ele was lagging, or wasn’t playing very well.

If neither of those was the case….I really want to know that ranger’s spec.

On that note: I watched a bunker ele fend off a group of around 10 players for the better part of 15 minutes.

I once fought a D/D bunker elementalist for over five minutes with neither of us ever getting below 90% health. It was rediculous. The only reason the fight ended was because he had enough of it and logged out. Either that or his client crashed.

Rangers are an average in PvP
They’re below average in WvW roaming, but good at defending walls and such
Probably one of the best class in open-world PvE 1-75ish
By far the WORST dungeon class PvE

Overall they’re OKAY nothing spectacular.