Guild Wars 2

So, I started out this game at release playing Ranger. I really like the class in PvE. Then I moved on the PvP to find the Ranger being a great disappointment. I quit this game in October, after getting bored and moving on to other games. Now that I am back to wanting to play this, I’m wondering if I should even pick up my Ranger. Has it really been fixed since October to Early November? Or is it still the same old way?

Thanks,
Nathan

P.S. I don’t see as many complaints as I used to see, looks to me like a good sign.

Nathan.5214:

So, I started out this game at release playing Ranger. I really like the class in PvE. Then I moved on the PvP to find the Ranger being a great disappointment. I quit this game in October, after getting bored and moving on to other games. Now that I am back to wanting to play this, I’m wondering if I should even pick up my Ranger. Has it really been fixed since October to Early November? Or is it still the same old way?

Thanks,
Nathan

P.S. I don’t see as many complaints as I used to see, looks to me like a good sign.

Well, the 3 main things that people complained about were fixed, which were pets having issues hitting moving targets, arrows being side stepped/constant obstructed, and opening strikes just not working most the time. All of those are fixed (for the most part), and a lot of the bad rangers seem to have gotten a grasp on how to play ranger, so that’s also another reason for less complaints.

All in all i feel like ranger is really well off, so much so that we are starting to get people yelling about how rangers are “OP” in the PvP forums every now and then.

Ranger is fix a little to better than normal.(or junk is someone eye say…)
I play this ranger from open and ranger not get love from Anet much as…*ahem*class.
(LOL just kidding.)

BTW ranger is tool of all trade we can do anything but not expert everything
or expert in something in focus but not get high end effect as another class.
Ranger must be fix a lot of bug and better effective skill to b more useful.

I still love and happy to play ranger and use to know and learn more how this class can make more effective in combat.

Personally, I love how the rangers are doing, specially in WvW (I’m not sure if you are talking about sPvP or tPvP tho).
To be honest, I have had harder times fighting rangers than thieves, lately. I believe the general ranger community has grown up a lot. I don’t see as many glass cannons spamming 1 with their shortbow as I used to, I see people trying new builds, and getting better.

So, in my opinion, the rangers in general have improved a lot, thanks to some fixes/buffs but also thanks to many people’s creativity.

I love my longbow/sword-dagger (kinda tanky) build, and I notice that while rangers are getting harder to kill, thieves are getting easier, wich is fun :B

So give it a try, we are not OP and I hope we’ll never be, but take a look at some new builds, you will be surprised of what we’ve been missing

Ehm…melee pets have been improved a bit, not really fixed, arrows still get obstructed (they only increased arrows speed)…at least ye op strikes work fine now.
Anyway rangers are fine in small scale fights. I mean lots of things still need to be fixed/improved but i’m sure (well…almost) they are working on that. After all we all love jon peters, you know that jon don’t you?

Well, Longbow pacing needs to be improved across the board (as in, it is a slow weapon and the damage does not compensate) to help ranged power builds out a bit.

Traits (not just rangers, but overall as well) could definitely use some polishing (Beastmasters Might gives 1 stack of might for 5s on signet activation, which is a terrible effect overall, especially with signets horrendous recharge).

Utility Skills for ranger could use some reworking and polishing. Signet Recharge, Spirit effectiveness, and shout function are the highlights.

Overall besides a few bug fixes, the class plays virtually the same as it did in October, but with a more polished feel to the flow of combat. Not that the polishing is done, but it is more polished than October. Every class has issues though, I just main ranger so I’m more aware of the issues of this class.

ranger is excellent. tpvp has at least 2 viable builds. lots of power builds are viable now after bow buffs.

Still wouldn’t recommend this class.

Dungeons- Still lacking a unique role. Pets still an issue.

PvP- Hard mode.

Fun class, but glad it isn’t my main. You have to work harder to make this class work than any other class, and even then the results are pretty mediocre.

They are much better but still need some improvements.

Pets still royally suck in zerg in wvw and in dungeons though with dungeons i mean fractals, since i dont play the other dungeons anymore. They die way to fast.
They dont have agony resistance in fractals and do not live long enough in wvw zerg. Unless you spec 300 beastmastery but then your glasscannon if you still want some power/crit traits.

I have not played my ranger in a few months and started playing some wvw again. I dont notice any difference to be honest. As a matter of fact prob rangers are worse off now then before. At least on my server there’s alot more mesmers now spamming feedback and warden and thief’s still mostly kitten me. There’s simply alot more mesmers and thiefs now. Kill rate wise it seems the same as before. You feel pretty strong till a thief comes along and ends that feeling.

Ive decided to go play my mesmer instead. I love the ranger for it’s pet but since the pet dies so often in fractals and wvw and pets are part of the ranger tools i feel my mesmer has alot more to offer.
Ofcourse spvp is a whole different matter. Im sure in spvp rangers do pretty fine.

I played aion (ranger) for like 3-4 years and reroll to guild wars 2 not so long time ago and as far as ranger was my class for such long time and i love this class in most MMO’s, it was obvious class to choose for me.
And i can tell you what i dont like in ranger so far.
Part. 1. I think its one of the most disapointment for me.
Ranger simply dont have beautiful skills in gw2, there are no skills that let you feel the power either, all we have is simple “arrow shooting”, even elementalists can summon frost bow and it have better looking skills then ranger ones. So you basically look at this “simple arrow shoting” all the time, no beautifull effects, nothing. Same problems goes to bow’s design, there are no bows on which i look and i’d say “I want this bow”, most bows are bad, swords look ok though.
Part 2. “PvP”
Didnt play WvWvW pvp that much, but i played arenas or whatever they are called here “sPvP”. In PvP ranger cant brust effectivly because he dont have power especially if we are talking about playing with bows, swords dmg i find ok, but warrior can make a paper from you so much easyer and faster, so i dont know why you even may want to bother to play melee ranger. Longbow firerate is nonsense compared to dmg output it gives. In “sPvP” maps designed with many obstacles in that way you offten find yourself fighting in mid / close ranger, all Longbow do in such situations, is makeing you laugh on how BAD it is. If u get downed by anyone and your teammates are braindead chances to survive are lower then any other class have. All you have to interapt finishing blow is one stun skill and as far as many classes have stability / or like thiefs will go in hide and finish you off, you can do nothing, look at other classes survivability in such situations.

My personal part.
I love ranger in Aion and it is called “Brusting wh**e there” low surviveability but great brusting dmg, looks like here gunner gets this role, atleast im judging by videos i saw (for me, i dont want to run with rifle, i want ****** bow). In gw2 i can get medium dmg + medium surviveability, or high surviveability + lol dmg.
And pet’s = dont love them atall in PvE they will lure all mobs arround to you (exaggerating but happened few times), in PvP they are simply bad and most of the time their inpact is near to nothing.

Its better than it was but many weapon skills, utilities and traits still need work. Some good quality of life improvements in the last patch, but doesn’t change the fact that damage is still a bit too low on most ranger weapons and build options are limited due to many bad utilities and lackluster traits.

They’ve gotten better in some key areas, melee pets hit more often, it’s not perfect but it’s a noticeable improvement. Arrows fly faster and will hit more often against moving targets, they still get obstructed often (which is game breaking in a PvP game when this happens to concussion shot or pin down – can you imagine an audience see a key moment of a PvP match lost because concussion shot had the obstruction bug?). Pet viability and usefulness is still a novelty idea outside of a couple of pets, this mechanic never worked as well as it needed to and they still haven’t done much to make pets matter enough to make up for all the hindrances they cause.

Many weapon skills are slow or low DPS, the sword still roots the ranger, traits do very little for many ranger builds (compare the synergy provided by traiting 20% cooldowns and signet builds the ridiculousness you can pull off with a D/D elementalist). Utilities are still very niche, some are viable, others are usable and then there are the rest which are obviously terrible and never touches outside of gimmick builds. Progress has been made in this area (Signet of the Hunt – but that’s not a ranger buff, it was a pass over most class movement speed that happened to help the ranger). Progress to buff/rework ranger traits and utilities is much slower than it should be, it will be a long time before you see build diversity and rewarding play styles coming out of this.

Rangers aren’t hurting as bad as they were, but they haven’t come that far since launch. Compare the state of balance some other classes enjoy and you will realise the ranger isn’t that well off.

Good d/d eles make a mockery of all pvp in the game especially wvw and most specs are kind of inferior. Once aoe gets toned down d/d will fall in line. Rangers are pretty cool and have a variety of viable builds. For example, with traits in skirmishing and bm, pets are a serious addition to long range dps. Condition builds are perfect and power builds are good with bow buffs.

Spirits need a rework and pets need more work.

we have had a few minor tweeks that improved us a little. i think in combat mobility is where we need some help. i started messing around on my thief some. shes like lvl 22 now. there are 3 abilities she has that i would run a bus full of nuns off the road to have them on my ranger

1.our lightning reflex to work like their roll for initiative :roll backwards recover from crippled, chilled and immobilize.

2. the heal withdraw : roll backwards while healing and evade attacks, removes immobilize, chilled and cripple 15 sec cool down

3. caltrops : bleed plus a 10 sec cripple, i would give up all my traps for this one.

We want the Ranger to have some of the evasion enjoyed by the Thief, as well as the mobility other classes employ. The class is able to deal physical or condition damage, and it can do this in melee or at range.

that was part of a quote from Mr Sharp. i think skills like these are what is need to achieve this, and help rangers to not be forced into a melle tank build to compete.

The class is still a waste of time in my opinion. The problems with the class are at it’s very core and will likely never be resolved or acknowledged.

The Pets are still an enormous liability in PvP and Dungeon based PvE. AE’s still do too much damage to them, they account for far too much of the ranger’s damage, and they still don’t scale properly based off gear which means you will only slightly improve because of the handicap whereas your pet will see next to no changes once 80,

The class still has no utility for PvE or PvP to get prime group placement. If you ask around, most will tell you they only want you for helping with crowd control, which even an elementalist can do, or for your healing well. That’s it.

The class still has no real burst damage which means its role in structured PvP is also quite limited because you aren’t a good roamer or a good train class. You have no good AE’s, you have very few real escapes, and the tools you have to keep people snared/rooted, while plentiful, are easily countered and invalidated by other classes.

The class still has FAR too many useless skills and traits. About 1/4th the skills for this class have no functional use whatsoever. A further 25% more have such limited use they are almost never used because you won’t find yourself in the scenario to use them with enough forethought to actually have them activated. Then you have others that are just so good (and by ‘so good’ for a ranger is really stretching the term) that you can’t go without using them in any situation. Things like QZ or SotH.

Then to top it all off, the trait trees make next to no real sense and are completley unorganized. There’s no way to spec the class in different playstyles. There are some traits that you almost need regardless of build because of how poorly designed the class is (EB for example) whic greatly limit how you can build the class in PvP.

So while any improvement to this class is met with much satisfaction and joy, the fact that all of the changes this class just got were quality of life changes that all classes got and nothing really specific to this class says that while the class as a whole did improve, it’s placement among the other classes hasn’t shifted and we are still fighting for last place with Engineers and Necromancers.

I find it amusing that one of our best and most popular skills (Lightning Reflexes) has a duplicate skill in the thief utilities which is, in many ways, superior. Lightning Reflexes has a shorter cooldown (important), a little bit of damage and 10 seconds of vigor, which can be really good (and unlike some other stun break skills, it’s disabled by knock downs). Roll for Initiative removes three conditions (including one which makes this skill useless) and restores the thief class resource which would be like cutting all cooldowns by 50%. I get that they are supposed to be different and the ranger one has it’s own unique taste, and it’s certainly far from useless (but this has as much to do with the crappy range of utilities as it has to do with this skill being any good), but it’s weird that the thief one is a lot better in many ways. If I’m looking for evasion, I want to get away, not do damage, the thief skill just does that better (although vigor is useful) and the resource gain from roll is just gravy.

It’s situations like that that remind me that even with all the issues that the pet has, seeing a utility that is one of our best and seeing it compare poorly to another class’s utility of the same nature, the ranger needs so much more work to be up to par with the other classes, it’s not just the pet that needs help. They have a lot of work to do.

Atherakhia.4086:

The class is still a waste of time in my opinion.

maybe ranger ain`t for you (and me) but it`s decent. Mediocre dps, and some… fun skills, some times.
But maybe others find it fun & effective.

Been a Hunter/Archer type in every MMO since Ultima Online. This archetype is for me because if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t be playing this game any longer. I’m holding out hope it will be changed. Now if this means I’ll continue to play a friend’s warrior instead of playing my ranger on this account so be it.

Shiren.9532:

I find it amusing that one of our best and most popular skills (Lightning Reflexes) has a duplicate skill in the thief utilities which is, in many ways, superior. Lightning Reflexes has a shorter cooldown (important), a little bit of damage and 10 seconds of vigor, which can be really good (and unlike some other stun break skills, it’s disabled by knock downs). Roll for Initiative removes three conditions (including one which makes this skill useless) and restores the thief class resource which would be like cutting all cooldowns by 50%. I get that they are supposed to be different and the ranger one has it’s own unique taste, and it’s certainly far from useless (but this has as much to do with the crappy range of utilities as it has to do with this skill being any good), but it’s weird that the thief one is a lot better in many ways. If I’m looking for evasion, I want to get away, not do damage, the thief skill just does that better (although vigor is useful) and the resource gain from roll is just gravy.

It’s situations like that that remind me that even with all the issues that the pet has, seeing a utility that is one of our best and seeing it compare poorly to another class’s utility of the same nature, the ranger needs so much more work to be up to par with the other classes, it’s not just the pet that needs help. They have a lot of work to do.

what i find even more amusing is that along with having a better version of LR, is that they have a heal that does they same thing (minus initiative gain) on a 15s cool down. and as far as i have seen most thieves don’t even use them because they have better options for their class.

so in short their trash skills are better than what we have.

(Off topic) Rolled SB/GS the other day, not bad…..not bad at all….

some pro’s and con’s but that comes with the choice.

Build still needs a few tweaks, sigils and rune alterations – might do some jewel swaps aswell.

Other than that rangers are doing a little better now.

I will note the useless amount of traits/some skills… and the pet stat scaling/skill activation issue, however…..thats for another day.

Anet has held off the Ranger horde for now…..barely I guess(maybe?), they have to worry about engineers more now.

And the screams for a nerf to thieves.

If you stick to a limited number of viable builds I think they are ok. There are still some bugs that need to be addressed even in the viable builds.

The main problem is the large number of useless skills and the relative worthlessness of pets and spirits that limits the number of possible viable builds.

If you plan to focus on PvE then a Ranger is an ok choice as long as you stick to one of the proven builds and avoid pet and spirit builds. If you are interested in PvP choose another class like a Thief or Mesmer. You might be good enough to be effective with a Ranger in PvP and WvW, but you are always going to be more effective given your skill level with one of those two.

Got to agree with Bluejay- it’s an Ok class in pve, where your pet is somewhat effective at tanking the mob/s.

In pvp, especially wvw, it just feels mhew. Does some damage, has no real burst damage, need to lose quite a bit of damage to get to a survivable toughness level and in a lot of situations your pet is worse than useless (ie dead and on a minute cooldown). Having said that, it is still the class I like playing most of all as it suits my playstyle and I’m not built for soloing.

Problem is there are several classes that do MORE damage than rangers with bows and that get better skills with them!!

Ranger has no real finisher, and if you are downed you’re probably dead. The pet heal thing takes so long to recharge you will be dead and buried long before it’s cooldown ends unless they just can’t be bothered to finish you off this month and want to watch you suffer for a minute or two.

It is a good class underwater, where the skills are actually quite decent (take a shark with you) and comparable to other classes.

At the moment it feels like half a class, not being able to be an effective BM nor an effective bow wielder but stuck somewhere in the midddle without the benefits of either.

Support skills are pretty much non-existent or gimped and many trait lines and skills don’t fit well together.

It’s still a fun class to play and when i want to go pew pew I’ll jump on it. But when I want to be useful in wvw I’ll jump on my mesmer and if i want to hunt thieves I’ll use my necro:-)

Victory.2879:

has no real burst damage

this made me lol so hard. it’s amusing how noobs think. while ranger’s burst isnt as faceroll as a BS thief or 100b warrior or shatter mesmer, it’s still there. you have access to 6 seconds of quickness. on demand. think about that. with investment in power, crit and BM, you can burst anything down from 50-60% health, easily. jaguar alone can unleash 6-8k burst on a crippled/dazed target. add LB #2 or SB #1 to that mix and it’s lights out.

you can achieve similar results with cat and bleed stacking. the ranger is the best bleed stacker in the game, hands down.

nerva.7940:

Victory.2879:

has no real burst damage

this made me lol so hard. it’s amusing how noobs think. while ranger’s burst isnt as faceroll as a BS thief or 100b warrior or shatter mesmer, it’s still there. you have access to 6 seconds of quickness. on demand. think about that. with investment in power, crit and BM, you can burst anything down from 50-60% health, easily. jaguar alone can unleash 6-8k burst on a crippled/dazed target. add LB #2 or SB #1 to that mix and it’s lights out.

you can achieve similar results with cat and bleed stacking. the ranger is the best bleed stacker in the game, hands down.

Curiously, what other class has burst dps options? In terms of classes that actually have burst damage style gameplay, that basically puts the ranger in dead last. So yes, while it might be a justifiable statement to say that other classes have a more faceroll (and also higher damage) burst, it doesn’t make rangers burst any less sub par.

All I was able to get out of that was “rangers have burst, they just don’t have the same burst that every other class with quickness or a spike damage skill has. Learn to play.”

Yes, rangers do have options that allow them to do fair amounts of damage. But it should also be noted that the opportunities in which rangers have to do that damage are highly situational and usually the requirement tends to be that you are either attacking a person who is afk or is such a low skill player they aren’t aware they have movement keys and a dodge button. In sPvP/tPvP anyways. WvW is a different ballpark because at least you can use your PvE gear and food and such, meaning you can gain much more damage in WvW than in arenas.

Atherakhia.4086:

The class is still a waste of time in my opinion. The problems with the class are at it’s very core and will likely never be resolved or acknowledged.

The Pets are still an enormous liability in PvP and Dungeon based PvE. AE’s still do too much damage to them, they account for far too much of the ranger’s damage, and they still don’t scale properly based off gear which means you will only slightly improve because of the handicap whereas your pet will see next to no changes once 80,

The class still has no utility for PvE or PvP to get prime group placement. If you ask around, most will tell you they only want you for helping with crowd control, which even an elementalist can do, or for your healing well. That’s it.

The class still has no real burst damage which means its role in structured PvP is also quite limited because you aren’t a good roamer or a good train class. You have no good AE’s, you have very few real escapes, and the tools you have to keep people snared/rooted, while plentiful, are easily countered and invalidated by other classes.

The class still has FAR too many useless skills and traits. About 1/4th the skills for this class have no functional use whatsoever. A further 25% more have such limited use they are almost never used because you won’t find yourself in the scenario to use them with enough forethought to actually have them activated. Then you have others that are just so good (and by ‘so good’ for a ranger is really stretching the term) that you can’t go without using them in any situation. Things like QZ or SotH.

Then to top it all off, the trait trees make next to no real sense and are completley unorganized. There’s no way to spec the class in different playstyles. There are some traits that you almost need regardless of build because of how poorly designed the class is (EB for example) whic greatly limit how you can build the class in PvP.

So while any improvement to this class is met with much satisfaction and joy, the fact that all of the changes this class just got were quality of life changes that all classes got and nothing really specific to this class says that while the class as a whole did improve, it’s placement among the other classes hasn’t shifted and we are still fighting for last place with Engineers and Necromancers.

I don’t think you are wrong in every statement but you go FAR too far in some of your statements.

1)Pets in dungeons are liabilities? What pets are you using, some of them are so fragile I don’t bother taking but I have had pets do me wonders and yes some might die but you swap em use the ability etc and try to get some dmg out of em. Yes I wish they were better but they aren’t a Liability.

2)Viable builds. I play a ranger tank, I have primarily power toughness vit and some healing, with protection almost always on and regen on and my other tricks i can handle almost any fight. (that doesn’t mean u stand and swing etc, it means dodges, blocks, kiting etc)

jcbroe.4329:

nerva.7940:

Victory.2879:

has no real burst damage

this made me lol so hard. it’s amusing how noobs think. while ranger’s burst isnt as faceroll as a BS thief or 100b warrior or shatter mesmer, it’s still there. you have access to 6 seconds of quickness. on demand. think about that. with investment in power, crit and BM, you can burst anything down from 50-60% health, easily. jaguar alone can unleash 6-8k burst on a crippled/dazed target. add LB #2 or SB #1 to that mix and it’s lights out.

you can achieve similar results with cat and bleed stacking. the ranger is the best bleed stacker in the game, hands down.

Curiously, what other class has burst dps options? In terms of classes that actually have burst damage style gameplay, that basically puts the ranger in dead last. So yes, while it might be a justifiable statement to say that other classes have a more faceroll (and also higher damage) burst, it doesn’t make rangers burst any less sub par.

All I was able to get out of that was “rangers have burst, they just don’t have the same burst that every other class with quickness or a spike damage skill has. Learn to play.”

Yes, rangers do have options that allow them to do fair amounts of damage. But it should also be noted that the opportunities in which rangers have to do that damage are highly situational and usually the requirement tends to be that you are either attacking a person who is afk or is such a low skill player they aren’t aware they have movement keys and a dodge button. In sPvP/tPvP anyways. WvW is a different ballpark because at least you can use your PvE gear and food and such, meaning you can gain much more damage in WvW than in arenas.

I swear to god you should take an IQ test before being allowed to post here….

How in gods name is using shortbow 1 (in combo with 4 so they’re cripple and jaguars F2) a limited opportunity? Where thieves and warriors and mesmers burst all comes from melee range OUR burst can come from up to 1,200yds away, we have THE LEAST restrictions on our burst than anyone else in the game.

Zaqir.8952:

I don’t think you are wrong in every statement but you go FAR too far in some of your statements.

1)Pets in dungeons are liabilities? What pets are you using, some of them are so fragile I don’t bother taking but I have had pets do me wonders and yes some might die but you swap em use the ability etc and try to get some dmg out of em. Yes I wish they were better but they aren’t a Liability.

2)Viable builds. I play a ranger tank, I have primarily power toughness vit and some healing, with protection almost always on and regen on and my other tricks i can handle almost any fight. (that doesn’t mean u stand and swing etc, it means dodges, blocks, kiting etc)

Let me just start off by saying I’m not inept. I can use birds to great success in dungeons because they only need to be active for a grand total of 20 seconds, 5 of which is often spent fluttering around doing nothing or traveling to a target to attack.

But generally speaking I’ll use a bear with the idea that it will hold trash in a location while other adds are pulled in. I’ll swap to the birds on bosses because I won’t be tanking and the AE damage can be avoided (at enormous loss to damage mind you) and they have the quickest withdraw time. Activate time is awful unfortunately.

But you have to ask yourself how this class is balanced. Is it balanced around the pet being up 100% of the time? Well considering even with a cat or crow up 100% of the time you’re still doing terrible damage I’m just going to presume yes. Are we then balanced around using DPS pets? Again, compared to other classes our damage is awful so once again, I presume yes.

Since we know that even 75% active time on a fight is pushing the limits of reality just given travel time, AE avoidance, and idle animation time the class is already at an enormous handicap when it comes to other classes. But then when you factor in the only thing this class is bringing to group PVE is healing well you’re left with no real purpose.

Specing into a bunker build just so you can soak damage is an awful idea as well because any other class can do that too while also providing better utility and damage. Ever seen a bunker elementalist? Even with scepter they’re doing better damage and have amazing heals.

I’m sorry, but this class is a failure from the ground up. Want to fix it?

Balance all pets to do the same damage.
Make it so the pets account for no more than 20% of the ranger’s total DPS (10% would be my preference).
Make it so DPS, including bleeds, is comparable to other classes (it’s burst that wins games and makes Warriors and Thieves overpowered, not their DPS).
Make it so pets take 95% less damage from PvE AE’s and 80% less damage from PvP AE’s.
Make it so pets properly scale with gear so the ranger isn’t automatically getting a 50% handicap on their gear.
Make it so pet abilities are instantly cast with no cast time/global cooldown so when I hit F2, it goes off.
Make it so when a pet is told to retreat they do it immediately regardless if pet is in the middle of an animation or attack.

Once that’s all done we have at least a proper foundation for this class and real work can begin like:
Fixing it so 25% of our skills aren’t 100% worthless.
Fixing another 25% of our skills so they aren’t 75% worthless.
Fixing our traits to provide true variety in build options.
Splitting pets into categories so they can get added functionality to the class
-DPS: Pet F2 abilites on Cats, Birds, Etc is changed to provide high, on demand burst.
-Utility: Pet F2 abilities on Dogs, etc provide strong debuffs to enemies and buffs to party members.
-Defense: Pet F2 abilities that root targets in place, make them run in fear, etc.

That’s a lot to expect of a class 6 months after release considering we get next to no honest feedback from the development team and are toyed with patch after patch.

I mention this in almost every thread like this. The one thing that seems to stand out the most to me that severely cripples the Ranger is the fact that pets and spirits go down in second(s) to AoE. In other words, you can have your best utility/buffs up, and they can all by wiped out in one AoE.

Spirits and pets should need to be focused fired at, not all 4 one shot with one button. They should have a buff that decreased AoE damage taken by a certain % to prevent them from being taken out in one or two AoEs.

It depends on what build you use. I’m currently going 20/30/20 and i’m happy with it.
I set up traps from a distance, they get 600 range and twice as big radius.

I use Axe + Axe and Axe + Horn.

There’s also another build you can trait so spirits gain more health, they follow you around etc. Really good if you are support with the elite spirit skill.

But as other have said, some of the skills are bad and pets still have some problems.

Zoid.2568:

It depends on what build you use. I’m currently going 20/30/20 and i’m happy with it.
I set up traps from a distance, they get 600 range and twice as big radius.

I use Axe + Axe and Axe + Horn.

There’s also another build you can trait so spirits gain more health, they follow you around etc. Really good if you are support with the elite spirit skill.

But as other have said, some of the skills are bad and pets still have some problems.

I am curious. How do you gear for a/a and a/h? The axe has very little condition damage, correct? My ranger is still only level 35, so I haven’t gotten really far in to the traits yet.

Troponin.4081:

Zoid.2568:

It depends on what build you use. I’m currently going 20/30/20 and i’m happy with it.
I set up traps from a distance, they get 600 range and twice as big radius.

I use Axe + Axe and Axe + Horn.

There’s also another build you can trait so spirits gain more health, they follow you around etc. Really good if you are support with the elite spirit skill.

But as other have said, some of the skills are bad and pets still have some problems.

I am curious. How do you gear for a/a and a/h? The axe has very little condition damage, correct? My ranger is still only level 35, so I haven’t gotten really far in to the traits yet.

Most classes are bad at low levels. Wait till you are atleast 60 and you will see a big difference, at 80 you will feel entirely different than what you did at 35. Traits do alot and also sigils + runes.

I use the second skill for bleeding ( the closer you are, more stacks), Flame Trap for burning, Spike Trap for bleeding and slow and Viper’s Nest for poison. Also you can get pets with conditions.

Zoid.2568:

Troponin.4081:

Zoid.2568:

It depends on what build you use. I’m currently going 20/30/20 and i’m happy with it.
I set up traps from a distance, they get 600 range and twice as big radius.

I use Axe + Axe and Axe + Horn.

There’s also another build you can trait so spirits gain more health, they follow you around etc. Really good if you are support with the elite spirit skill.

But as other have said, some of the skills are bad and pets still have some problems.

I am curious. How do you gear for a/a and a/h? The axe has very little condition damage, correct? My ranger is still only level 35, so I haven’t gotten really far in to the traits yet.

Most classes are bad at low levels. Wait till you are atleast 60 and you will see a big difference, at 80 you will feel entirely different than what you did at 35. Traits do alot and also sigils + runes.

I use the second skill for bleeding ( the closer you are, more stacks), Flame Trap for burning, Spike Trap for bleeding and slow and Viper’s Nest for poison. Also you can get pets with conditions.

That sounds pretty interesting. Do the traps become ground targeted? I am terrible with being speedy with ground targeting. :/

Troponin.4081:

Zoid.2568:

Troponin.4081:

Zoid.2568:

It depends on what build you use. I’m currently going 20/30/20 and i’m happy with it.
I set up traps from a distance, they get 600 range and twice as big radius.

I use Axe + Axe and Axe + Horn.

There’s also another build you can trait so spirits gain more health, they follow you around etc. Really good if you are support with the elite spirit skill.
Yep, ground targeted. You can press the button key twice and it will activate, it makes it easier to aim it on the ground.

But as other have said, some of the skills are bad and pets still have some problems.

I am curious. How do you gear for a/a and a/h? The axe has very little condition damage, correct? My ranger is still only level 35, so I haven’t gotten really far in to the traits yet.

Most classes are bad at low levels. Wait till you are atleast 60 and you will see a big difference, at 80 you will feel entirely different than what you did at 35. Traits do alot and also sigils + runes.

I use the second skill for bleeding ( the closer you are, more stacks), Flame Trap for burning, Spike Trap for bleeding and slow and Viper’s Nest for poison. Also you can get pets with conditions.

That sounds pretty interesting. Do the traps become ground targeted? I am terrible with being speedy with ground targeting. :/

Yes, ground targeted. You can press the button twice and it will activate where you aimed it on the ground.

Zaqir.8952:

Make it so DPS, including bleeds, is comparable to other classes (it’s burst that wins games and makes Warriors and Thieves overpowered, not their DPS).

I was bursting thieves and warriors all night last night in sPvP. Eventually they stopped trying to gank me and moved on to easier targets.

jcbroe.4329:

All I was able to get out of that was "rangers have burst,

they have a lot of burst. with a stealthed jag, berserker gear, LB and QZ you can do 15-20k damage in a few seconds. yes it’s harder to pull off, no it’s not 15k damage in 1 second, but it’s also a sniper build and u can do it from any distance. i’ll let u figure out the build.

Durzlla.6295:

jcbroe.4329:

nerva.7940:

Victory.2879:

has no real burst damage

this made me lol so hard. it’s amusing how noobs think. while ranger’s burst isnt as faceroll as a BS thief or 100b warrior or shatter mesmer, it’s still there. you have access to 6 seconds of quickness. on demand. think about that. with investment in power, crit and BM, you can burst anything down from 50-60% health, easily. jaguar alone can unleash 6-8k burst on a crippled/dazed target. add LB #2 or SB #1 to that mix and it’s lights out.

you can achieve similar results with cat and bleed stacking. the ranger is the best bleed stacker in the game, hands down.

Curiously, what other class has burst dps options? In terms of classes that actually have burst damage style gameplay, that basically puts the ranger in dead last. So yes, while it might be a justifiable statement to say that other classes have a more faceroll (and also higher damage) burst, it doesn’t make rangers burst any less sub par.

All I was able to get out of that was “rangers have burst, they just don’t have the same burst that every other class with quickness or a spike damage skill has. Learn to play.”

Yes, rangers do have options that allow them to do fair amounts of damage. But it should also be noted that the opportunities in which rangers have to do that damage are highly situational and usually the requirement tends to be that you are either attacking a person who is afk or is such a low skill player they aren’t aware they have movement keys and a dodge button. In sPvP/tPvP anyways. WvW is a different ballpark because at least you can use your PvE gear and food and such, meaning you can gain much more damage in WvW than in arenas.

I swear to god you should take an IQ test before being allowed to post here….

How in gods name is using shortbow 1 (in combo with 4 so they’re cripple and jaguars F2) a limited opportunity? Where thieves and warriors and mesmers burst all comes from melee range OUR burst can come from up to 1,200yds away, we have THE LEAST restrictions on our burst than anyone else in the game.

You apparently don’t have a dodge button. Rangers burst is some of the most avoidable burst in the game, unless you are able to combo it with some sort of immobilize or stun, which we have far more restricted options to than most of the other classes that have burst options in the game.
As far as your insult, get your head out of your kitten You aren’t the only person who plays the class, stop posting like you have some sort of expertise nobody else has. You’re just arrogant because you have success with a class and a playstyle that other people don’t, but that doesn’t mean your opinion is more valid than other peoples. Let the adults continue the constructive conversation now, while you devise a new angst filled, arrogant, ego bolstering thing to say.

nerva.7940:

jcbroe.4329:

All I was able to get out of that was "rangers have burst,

they have a lot of burst. with a stealthed jag, berserker gear, LB and QZ you can do 15-20k damage in a few seconds. yes it’s harder to pull off, no it’s not 15k damage in 1 second, but it’s also a sniper build and u can do it from any distance. i’ll let u figure out the build.

You’re right, and everybody in the ranger community should know the build right now. But you are confirming exactly what I was saying: “yes it’s harder to pull off, no it’s not 15k damage in 1 second…”
I’m not here to say whether or not burst in this game should be harder to accomplish across the board compared to some of the faceroll options that are popular right now, that is a different discussion. I was merely saying that in the current state of the metagame, while rangers do have access to burst, they are basically in last place when it comes to how much damage it does and how easy it is to accomplish.
There is two ways to accomplish balance in that category, make burst harder to accomplish across the board, or make rangers stronger to compensate. I’m in favor of seeing the class balanced regardless of what the devs go with, and getting back to the OP, I think it was fair to mention that rangers, for their burst options, can’t just hit 2 buttons and do 15k damage.