I’ve been a ranger in every online game I play. Something about staying behind lines and picking off enemies from a far is just so satisfying for me. I remember my experience in pve from 1-80 very fondly in GW2. I remember reading this board during that interim and not understanding all the QQ for rangers. It didn’t dawn on me until I started playing WvW and pvp how much poor build variety and underpowered weapons we had. I am a LB/GS build in wvw. I have eagle eye slotted and previously relied on quickness on pet swap, reduced QZ CD, and QZ slotted for my main damage output. I really used GS primarily as a complimentary weapon. Meaning using it for mainly blocks and swoop ability. I realized LB was underpowered while using it, even with QZ and pet swap. But JP promised us “significant ranger improvements” so many months ago and I was excited. I thought to myself " yes!, we’ll finally have more build variety and maybe even a LB buff or a revert to before SB animation nerf." Then came nerf after nerf. Our only improvements were faster velocity arrows, but this was not exlclusive to the ranger class. And better pet AI tracking but it’s still abysmal at best. And that was only for mele pets!
And now, yesterday was the final nail in the coffin. We were caught in the crosshairs of a warrior nerf. They nerfed quickness by FIFTY percent across the board! This completely destroyed my only viable build in wvw. Quickness is not even worth using now. I don’t even know what to put my extra 5 points from beastmastery in or what to swap out QZ for as most of our skills/traits or completely useless and/or bugged!
In closing, I will be back on update days but that is it. It’s really sad because the culling fix is really nice and I have been looking forward to that for a long time. Unfortunately it had to coincide with a massive ranger nerf
…oddly enough i’m having a lot of fun with pure melee ranger running duel dogs and survival builds…I didn’t care about being a legolas, but i wanted to be a drizzt do’urden or an Aragorn-type ranger, and with the current buffs i’m having a lot of fun with it.
i’ve been playing around with a pseudo-100blades style ranger relying on double dog knockdowns+hilt bash stun lock and qz+pet swap sword 1 spam on quickness, with basically perma rage (horn+weapon swap) so that my crit rate is generally 50% (base 35%). (burst includes birds, maul, sword 3 and sword 1 spam. you open with swoop hit hilt bash, let your first dog knock down then simultaneously switch to another dog and use maul, switch weapon+sick em+qz at the end of qz hit 2 to make a distance use hunters call and jump back in to finish)
i think people just have to move their heads around the idea that rangers are a bows only class and i for one welcome the move towards melee. that being said, i could really care less for competitiveness and i really just enjoy experimenting with builds and playing odd builds that most people aren’t used to fighting.
A ranger isn’t meant for Only Melee, we are Rangers; that’s why we carry bows; we shoot at Range
Forcing us to throw our bows away and telling us No Need to use them doesn’t make us Worth calling ourselves a Ranger
I am also Depressed as well.
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”
Directly from their homepage
Bows do substandard damage
Traps are okay
Nature spirits – well we know how they are
Pets – clunky, unresponsive, bad AI
I agree, the worst part is the longbow is just not viable without the previous quickness, the 50% quickness puts the longbow’s attacks where they should be regularly imo
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”
Directly from their homepage
Bows do substandard damage
Traps are okay
Nature spirits – well we know how they are
Pets – clunky, unresponsive, bad AI
1 out of 4 … not bad not bad
They’re going to look at that and go, “Traps are unbalanced! They’re OP compared to the Ranger’s other features/abilities! Down you go!”
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”
Directly from their homepage
Bows do substandard damage
Traps are okay
Nature spirits – well we know how they are
Pets – clunky, unresponsive, bad AI
1 out of 4 … not bad not bad
They’re going to look at that and go, “Traps are unbalanced! They’re OP compared to the Ranger’s other features/abilities! Down you go!”
“Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”
Directly from their homepage
That’s actually quite funny, wonder if they read that and think “Yeap that’s our Ranger”, terrible description, really sad.
Jumping puzzles, love them or hate them, I hate them. Thread killer.
Rangers rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature itself. Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows. With traps, nature spirits, and a stable of loyal pets at their command, rangers can adapt to any situation.”
Yes to call yourself a true ranger you should be able to adapt. We are capable of bringing down foes from a distance that doesn’t mean we must. As far as unparalleled archers we are the only class that are able to use both bows.
The first weapon rangers start with isnt a bow. You can complain about the Devs buffing what you consider weak weapons. To properly build something you overcome it’s weakness.
In order to properly understand the big picture,
everyone should fear becoming mentally clouded and obsessed with one small section of truth.
I think everybody should be good at what they are “supposed” to be good at. If I want to play a big tough melee fighter with a 2 hander and smash stuff, I would roll a warrior, If I wanted to sling some fire spells, I would run an ele, etc. Simply put, Rangers should have one wepon set that they use better than everyone else. The bows, as they have stated is our design. As it is, we are just a class that uses bows MORE than other classes, because they have better options. We do not, and are subpar with it. I rolled a ranger to play more of a ranged assassin… and I feel like I have made a mistake.
”