Guild Wars 2

Hello guys. I need some good advice and hopefully you can set my gw2 main problems to rest.

I have been levelling a thief a feel it’s lack something’s that suit my style of play. Also I finding very hard in big mobs.

I’m a pve and WvW player. I understand thief is pretty much top dog in WvW but I hear there bring in some anti stealth.

Anyway to my question. Is it a good time to start a ranger. I have not rolled one. Not really looked at the class. I have

80 guard
80 Engi

I am looking for a class that has mele and ranged weapons.
A class with options.
Conditions
Power

Something different from my two 80’s and the thief.

Anyone tell me what the rangers are like in the game modes I play.

Thanks.

No.

Sounds like you might enjoy ranger. Rangers do have melee and ranged options, I think all our weapons can be and are commonly used in multiple types of build.

Rangers are generally speaking stronger with condition builds (imo) but thats certainly doesnt discount the use of power builds, and the power builds tend to be more versitle (again, imo), and in both types there are multiple options.

Just as an example for condition you can play
Traps
Regen bunker (usually paired with BM)
Spirits

For power builds they setup is usually the same, some mix of knights/cavaliers, but the weapons you pick are really up to you. Lots of people like GS/LB, personally I like SB, S/A is great too, A/A is less common but can be played, etc. All weapon options are on the table if you play a power build really.

In WvW, I enjoy roaming on my ranger. A lot of ranger builds are very strong 1v1 or is small scale fighting, and the multiple regen builds out there make you fair durable when out on your own.

You will struggle to find a place in a zerg. That doesnt mean it cant be done nessesarily, but it doesnt come as easily as it does on a guardian and even then you tend to have to find/make your own roll to contribute into because noone else will ever have a job they specifically want you to do.

I cant comment too much on PvE because I dont do it much. I manage through the dungeons I do with my guild no problems, but whether or not I am actually being all that helpful I have no idea xD

All in all I’d say ranger is worth a try Very fun once you get into how it works.

It’s Always a good time to be a ranger

I’m a ranger fanboy I know..

pros :

- Every weapons is effective and has its use, hell even the battlefield is our weapon !
- It’s a balanced class.
- Lots of different play styles.
- Some times I feel like its a multi purpose class, I got bored to play necro because it was too static on his role, ranges has no particolar role.

Cons :

- Pet’s AI.
- Not the best class in zerg.

Why don’t you play with the engi ? don’t you like it ?

The Ranger has the durability that the Thief lacks, but still with the same evasive playstyle. So if you like the Thief, but think it lacks some survivability, the Ranger is the obvious choice. Just don’t fall into the trap of relying on your pet too much, if you level up in PvE. That will hurt your playstyle once you switch over to PvP.

Also, the Ranger is great in zergs, it simply depends on how you play it.

Ranger was my first character. I’ve begrudgingly considered it my main because its my only character with World Completion.

In the past two months, however, I’ve really enjoyed the changes, particularly to the power builds using Longbow and Greatsword. Its not quite there yet, lacking a lot of synergy with utilities like other professions, but its getting there. Slowly.

If I had to choose a “go to” class for what I mainly do (WvW), I’d have to pick my Mesmer. Not the best in terms of burst damage, but it has a lot more synergy with various traits, weapons and utilities than the Ranger presently does.

The pet is forced on you and it’s great for 1v1 situations, but nothing much beyond that. So not good in PvE farming or dungeons and not good in WvW zerg battles or anything else that kills the pet (AoE) or situations that prevent it from pathing to the target (WvW walls).

Sadly, a lot of traits and utility skills are focussed on the pet. Signet actives only apply to the pet, for example, unless you spend a Grandmaster trait on it. Shouts also only apply to the pet, unless you spend a Grandmaster trait on it to make them buff allies around you with regeneration and swiftness.

So, it’s a pet class mostly and that only really works well in sPvP, solo PvE and solo-roaming WvW.

The whole class is pretty single-target focussed as well with our only AoE being traps, Longbow Barrage and (to some degree) piercing arrows, so it doesn’t compare to some other classes.

We also lack good support abilities for groups and zergs with the pet taking many utility skills and traits for itself. The Ranger doesn’t really have any unique WvW ability other than the Healing Spring and Entangle.

We’re also weak in power builds because the pet is considered a reliable damage-source, which it’s not in non-solo situations. Berserker traited longbow in WvW zergs can be pretty effective and deal good damage, but it leaves you very squishy, which can aid the enemy by rallying off you.

So, if 1v1 situations are your thing, the class can really shine, but it’s pretty bad in group play because the pet becomes very unreliable and we lack unique support skills. I’ve done higher level fractals and ran with WvW zergs lots of times on my Ranger, but the pet is often a handicap rather than a stength.

You cannot ask people without, but you must ask yourself within. Are YOU ready** to be a Ranger? If so, pick up your bow and lets rock @$$!

I enjoy my ranger a lot and it’s the class I’ve played the most lately out of my 4 lv 80s. The other 3 are mesmer, ele and guardian. My ranger will also be the first to get an ascended weapon and it already has the most ascended jewelry out of the 4.
That’s because I don’t care much for dungeons, fractals or zerging in WvW. I mostly do open world in PvE, where class doesn’t even matter, or solo roaming in WvW.
If i do dungeons, it’ll probably be better if I bring my guardian.

Awesome time to be a ranger!

Well… I cant back that up with hard data; but I’m having fun

Just don’t expect to bring anything to group play that others can’t do better.

As long as you can come to terms with this reality, enjoy.

Meh, if you are willing to run 1h sword and get good with it, you can bring some serious dps to a dungeon group (easily on par with a warrior), add in spotter and frost spirit and enjoy. I will agree that ranger may not be the most zerg friendly profession but it is far from useless even there. It does have some issues with pets being one shot against certain mechanics but hopefully the oct 15th patch that adds increased pet health will help some with that. That is not to say that ranger does not have some problems, but all classes do and many times the players who will say x or y class are terrible, simply have not tried to take the time to learn the class or adapt to a play style they may not like for themselves. This is why you will always see some people say a class is terrible and someone else come along and say no it’s not because largely it’s a matter of preference. Can you contribute to a team? Absolutely, it just depends on if you are willing to use certain things in order to achieve that and learn how to properly use those certain things to their best effect.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Meh, if you are willing to run 1h sword and get good with it, you can bring some serious dps to a dungeon group (easily on par with a warrior), add in spotter and frost spirit and enjoy.

I disagree… warriors come with more base armor and hitpoints. Warriors can go full zerk and have as much survivability as a PVT ranger while dishing out a significantly higher DPS. Even zerk against zerk my Ranger cannot compete DPS wise with either my thief or warrior.

Straegen.2938:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Meh, if you are willing to run 1h sword and get good with it, you can bring some serious dps to a dungeon group (easily on par with a warrior), add in spotter and frost spirit and enjoy.

I disagree… warriors come with more base armor and hitpoints. Warriors can go full zerk and have as much survivability as a PVT ranger while dishing out a significantly higher DPS. Even zerk against zerk my Ranger cannot compete DPS wise with either my thief or warrior.

Tell me then if you would be so kind, how are you computing your dps values? I mean actual damage per second not damage per activation.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Straegen.2938:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Meh, if you are willing to run 1h sword and get good with it, you can bring some serious dps to a dungeon group (easily on par with a warrior), add in spotter and frost spirit and enjoy.

I disagree… warriors come with more base armor and hitpoints. Warriors can go full zerk and have as much survivability as a PVT ranger while dishing out a significantly higher DPS. Even zerk against zerk my Ranger cannot compete DPS wise with either my thief or warrior.

Tell me then if you would be so kind, how are you computing your dps values? I mean actual damage per second not damage per activation.

Easiest way, do a run with 4 rangers and then do a run with 4 warriors and see which is faster and smoother.

Like others have said, play a ranger if you like it but don’t expect to be wanted in groups and some people will go as far as ignore your requests for a group or kick you if you join and they see you are a ranger.

I have a ranger, he was my first toon and I played him a lot but after making my guard, I saw how underwhelming the ranger was. They are great for open world farming but for dungeon runs there are other classes that will do whatever a ranger can do better except maybe pull half a zone of mobs in as adds as their pet follows them.

Again, if you are looking for a dungeon running class, don’t pick the ranger. If you want to play one cause you like the class and can accept getting kicked or denied groups, then go for it. They are a fun class, just the whole pet mechanic completely screws the class.

And while rangers can bring ok stuff like spotter and frost spirit(assuming the ranger drops it in the right place so it doesn’t get killed in 2 secs), I personally would rather have a warrior. Like I said before, pets are just screwed and it dying on an aoe will kill like 40% of your dps instantly while warriors banners don’t get killed. Warriors just bring more to the table than a ranger can.

As for the more HP to pets, Anet do you fail to understand that unless you give pets like 20k HP, they will still get one shotted. Unless I am completely off here, pets have no armor or toughness and can not dodge so just slapping a couple thousand HPs on them still wont help them against a boss like Alpha which will basically 1 shot it. What they need to do is make a trait where you can go petless and just add the dps to you, kinda like how necros are, can either build around MM or go for a cond or power build.

With the higher content being released by ArenaNet, I wouldn’t advice you to be a Ranger.

The damage is lacklustre, the pet is worse than useless, the bows are “meh”.

ArenaNets take on the Ranger (How they see it in their dreams)………

“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.”

But most of that is simply fiction.

(And the more I read that the more I laughed).

It’s already proved, that ranger sword dps WITHOUT pet is very good compared to other classes. Just because it’s harder, doesn’t mean it’s less viable. Not like PvE is hard anyway lol

Is it good time to be ranger? Well, surely the best since headstart For me it was always good time, but for some it never will be, and sooner they accept it, the better.

If you want to actually do some serious dps with a power build and ranged weapons, then go Warrior. They’re not hampered by the constraints of a pet with its funky AI, movement speed, watching two health bars, funny de targeting issues, missing on movement and reliance upon all that to do the damage a Warrior does alone.

If you like playing kittenty stuff like pokemon online the ranger class won’t disappoint you.

it might be a good time to be a ranger when pets get buffed and revamped in october. right now, pets and a number of terrible utilities are holding us back.

I strongly suggest you play the Ranger in sPvP some before investing too much time in leveling it. You’ll probably find the gameplay very straight forward and unrewarding. If you enjoy it, then stick with the class. But don’t expect things to ever change for the better where this class is concerned. If we’ve waited a year for the core class mechanic to work, I wouldn’t get your hopes up on any real positive changes ever happening.

I’m just going to drop this question here instead of starting a whole new topic for it. It seems like some of the people in this thread might be able to give a decent opinion on it.

Should I even bother leveling a ranger? I wanted to level up a strong WvW class, something that I could roam with, do small group play with, and zerg with, but after spending some time on this forum I’m not quite sure Ranger is what I’m looking for. Would I just be better off making a Warrior and running longbow and/or rifle? Or would a thief be the better choice even?

Play what you like. Every single patch can turn everything upside down.

quantum.7586:

I’m just going to drop this question here instead of starting a whole new topic for it. It seems like some of the people in this thread might be able to give a decent opinion on it.

Should I even bother leveling a ranger? I wanted to level up a strong WvW class, something that I could roam with, do small group play with, and zerg with, but after spending some time on this forum I’m not quite sure Ranger is what I’m looking for. Would I just be better off making a Warrior and running longbow and/or rifle? Or would a thief be the better choice even?

There really isn’t a class that is both great in zergs and great at roaming. A hyper tanky Guardian/Warrior might be able to waltz around the map and be hard as hell to kill but you won’t win may fights you choose to partake in.

Same goes for the thief, they are the supreme roaming class and the go to if you like ganking people wandering around getting vistas, but they have about as much group utility as the ranger and often don’t have the survivability since stealth doesn’t help much in aoe clusterkittens.

Mesmers make good roamers, but they are limited to veil and portals for zerg usefulness for the most part.

The Ele is about the closest I can think of that does fair well in both roles, but I don’t know enough about the class to even know if the zerg ele has even the same trait/stat setup as the roaming ele.

Ranger’s aren’t worthless in zergs, we just don’t bring any one thing that another class also does and probably better. Also pets are difficult to use in zerg clashes. Some of the Aoe’s are decent but most pet skills take too long to activate to even go off before the pet is dead in may instances.

I find my soldier/rampager/rabid ranger to be very fun in both roles though so I guess it really depends on personal preference.

Keep in mind when I say zerg ect. I am talking from a 60 vs 70 man (sometimes 60v70v60 lagathon) T1 perspective so things may not work the same way on a lower tier server where things are of a smaller scale.

Alright, thanks Substance. I think I will stick with him. I just really like the look of the ranger on paper, which is what made me want to give them a try to begin with.

Terkov.4138:

Play what you like. Every single patch can turn everything upside down.

This is pretty much the best advice out there. Having played MMOs since Kunark-era EQ, I’ve spent SO much time getting my panties in a bunch over this nerf or that nerf, but I’ve found it’s just not worth worrying about.

Play what you want. Just understand that the Ranger is a VERY heavily pet-based class. If you just want the pet to be additional damage, there are ways to make that work, but a lot of your utilities are going to be based around them(shouts, for example) and if you don’t like traps or spirits then you’re looking at a class which will bore your pants off(which is what happened to me!).

nowhere to go but up for rangers. it’s the only profession that has received nothing but buffs since release. i have a necro and guard, but i keep going back to my ranger

quantum.7586:

I’m just going to drop this question here instead of starting a whole new topic for it. It seems like some of the people in this thread might be able to give a decent opinion on it.

Should I even bother leveling a ranger? I wanted to level up a strong WvW class, something that I could roam with, do small group play with, and zerg with, but after spending some time on this forum I’m not quite sure Ranger is what I’m looking for. Would I just be better off making a Warrior and running longbow and/or rifle? Or would a thief be the better choice even?

I would argue that Engineer can do both zerging and roaming fairly well, and there are builds for both.

Engineer feels like the middle ground between rangers and necros, you have more AoE than rangers but less than necros, and more mobility than necros but less than rangers. For roaming survival, you have perma swiftness and vigor with some fun escape tools like Rocket Boots and slick shoes, and for zergs you have crazy HGH might stacking abilities.

Engi isn’t for everybody though.

mistsim.2748:

nowhere to go but up for rangers. it’s the only profession that has received nothing but buffs since release. i have a necro and guard, but i keep going back to my ranger

Shortbow got nerfed. Various pet damage values got nerfed. Our quickness on pet swap trait was moved to grandmaster. Spirits don’t have inherent stability anymore. Man, you have a bad memory. Our water field duration is going to be nerfed to 10 seconds.. The power of the skill will remain the same (ticking every 2 seconds instead of every 3 seconds), but that’s still a loss in water field uptime.

best smallscale support
dont give a f*** about dmg in small groups

Ranger is fun because every weapon is viable. Not the best class in any area, but its not weak in any either. Our only downfall is or pet is simply stupid and doesnt work well. However, if the pet buff in oct is decent we are in a great place. We’re similar to Guardians honestly, with more mobility and about the same dps. not sure which is stronger with 1hs tbh but our offhands are also really good. I dont like the shortbow at all but the longbow is a beast damage wise, but the abilities on it are so so. all around great class

Sauzo.6821:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Straegen.2938:

ShadowPuppet.3746:

Meh, if you are willing to run 1h sword and get good with it, you can bring some serious dps to a dungeon group (easily on par with a warrior), add in spotter and frost spirit and enjoy.

I disagree… warriors come with more base armor and hitpoints. Warriors can go full zerk and have as much survivability as a PVT ranger while dishing out a significantly higher DPS. Even zerk against zerk my Ranger cannot compete DPS wise with either my thief or warrior.

Tell me then if you would be so kind, how are you computing your dps values? I mean actual damage per second not damage per activation.

Easiest way, do a run with 4 rangers and then do a run with 4 warriors and see which is faster and smoother.
~snipped~

That literally still does nothing to prove a dps calculation. The reason it would not work with 4 rangers as well as it would with 4 warriors is because of the difficulties in maintaining might and vuln with the rangers. I never made a claim that ranger brings anything to a party except comparable dps using a 1h sword and spotter and frost spirit. If a party can maintain might and vuln at 25 stacks with the other 4 classes brought, then it is worthwhile to bring the ranger along for spotter and frost. Is it a pug friendly class? No obviously not as much as a warrior is, but there are several guilds that realize the value of having what the ranger can bring to the party. This is why I said what I did in my original post that was only partially quoted and mostly what you are responding too. It is a matter of perception and understanding how classes can fit together with a bit of planning.

jknrich.1549:

Hello guys. I need some good advice and hopefully you can set my gw2 main problems to rest.

I have been levelling a thief a feel it’s lack something’s that suit my style of play. Also I finding very hard in big mobs.

I’m a pve and WvW player. I understand thief is pretty much top dog in WvW but I hear there bring in some anti stealth.

Anyway to my question. Is it a good time to start a ranger. I have not rolled one. Not really looked at the class. I have

80 guard
80 Engi

I am looking for a class that has mele and ranged weapons.
A class with options.
Conditions
Power

Something different from my two 80’s and the thief.

Anyone tell me what the rangers are like in the game modes I play.

Thanks.

Should be a sticky, with the sticky answer: No.

Rangers do mediocre damage, hampered by the fact that now every world boss just completely rips your petS to shreds in the first ten seconds of a fight.

Each time Rangers finally discover a way to be genuinely useful, the skills involved get nerfed.

Not sure why they bothered including the other classes, to be honest, since they’re going to focus 100% of their time on Thieves and Warriors.

in wvw I’ve consistently 1v2’d rangers as a brrzrrkrr warrior and laughed as I smashed them to bits. so if being a casual is your thing, ranger is your class. I even out dps your ranged options. one time i just sat there while he sat there just ranging each other watching the big red numbers eat his health. this was a while ago but I’M THE ONE WHO KICKED YOU FROM SPEEDRUNS! I’M THE ONE WHO KNOCKS!

Let me tell you a secret: IT IS ALWAYS A GOOD TIME TO BE A RANGER!

I’ll be quite honest and say I’m a very casual player. I still average about one /deaths per hour of /age. But it is glorious during the times when you know your silly old fingers are pressing the right buttons and it takes 3 to 5 players from the opposing server to bring you down. Or you’re underwater, with a plain old Carrion exotic harpoon gun and you kill 5 of theirs (mostly with piranhas—grin) and the only reason they finally get you is because of lag and 10:1 advantage else you’d be doing it rinse-and-repeat all day long.

Then there are times you just shout at the PC because your poor kitten (AKA pet) hasn’t even seen action and is already limping back to you. Or you just cannot burst that guardian down fast enough, or you’ve got so many conditions on you they may as well call you “ebola.”

You are either a ranger for life or you are not. We take the good with the bad and even if we die again and again it is knowing we wasted more of their energy than of our own.

I love/hate my ranger. Always!

As for the more HP to pets, Anet do you fail to understand that unless you give pets like 20k HP, they will still get one shotted. Unless I am completely off here, pets have no armor or toughness and can not dodge so just slapping a couple thousand HPs on them still wont help them against a boss like Alpha which will basically 1 shot it.

All of that up there is completely false and wrong. Canines, Felines, Birds, and Devourer pets currently have 14.8k health. All other pets (excluding Ursine, which has 29,982 health) have 22,425 base health.

Birds, Felines, Moas, Shark, Jellyfish and Spider pets possess the lowest base toughness rating of 1374, Devourer and Armor Fish have toughness rating of 2748. Canine, Drake, Ursine and Porcine have base toughness rating of 2061.

All of this information is available here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pet_attributes

As an addendum, please stop referencing Subject Alpha as a bane to pets, he is far from it. If the group engages him in melee and stacks, then pets, minions, elementals and any other summons will be effective and live their full duration during the encounter when positioned in melee.

Lol I haven’t lost a pet to alpha in months and I play coe all the time. I love using me some sword on some alpha.

@Lunchbox
Ok i’m sorry, I won’t reference Alpha anymore. How about we talk about how good ranger pets are in fractals then? I mean they do great on Maw when half the time the pet is targeted. Regardless of what others say, rangers are passable in dungeons but they are on the lowest rung of effectiveness imo. As I’ve stated before, I wouldn’t kick one from the group but I sure in hell wouldn’t cry if he left and even better yet, if the ranger just didn’t join. And this is coming from someone who has a ranger, played it for a long time and even made a legendary on it.

And regardless of pet HP or toughness, they still pretty much get 1 shotted by bosses and possess no way to dodge or stay behind the boss(unless the ranger manually pulls it and moves and then sicks it back in etc etc).

Don’t get mad at me cause I call it as it is. Blame Anet for a year of not fixing ranger pets and pet AI. Like I said, I love playing my ranger in open world but in dungeons I feel i contribute much more on my guard or even my necro than i do on my ranger.

@Shadowpuppet

Even if i conceded that rangers bring as much dps as a warrior and ONLY dps, it still doesn’t warrant giving them a spot since the utility they bring doesn’t surpass the utility other classes can bring as well as having the same dps. The thing about fitting in, sure a ranger might fit in IF they melee and stay with the group but since most of the ones I’ve grouped with are off in the back, if i play anchor guard for my group, that’s one less person i can use to heal myself off of and keep the boss planted so the rest of the group can go full out. And again i won’t even start with the ones who do that AND drop healing spring in the back on themselves and completely miss the other 4 people around the boss…..

I’ve met some very good rangers but 90% of them I’ve grouped with might as well be a bot since all they do is sit in the back about 50 miles from the group and pewpew…and still manage to somehow get downed…..

Bottom line is if you want to play a ranger, go for it. Get 80 and do dungeons and see how it goes from your own experience. If you pug, don’t be surprised if you get kicked. I know it still happens cause 2 days ago I was in a group where it was me as guard, another guard, warrior, Mesmer and a ranger and they booted the ranger to replace him with another warrior. Needless to say the run went smooth but I still see rangers getting kicked. But those thinking of rolling a ranger, go for it. It’s not like it costs anything and worst case, you will have an xtra char to farm Ori and Ancient wood with :P

Maw is another bad example for your argument.

Here’s why:

A) In low level fractals, swap to jaguar and “Guard” and put it on passive mode. You can now pretty much stealth your pet as long as you need to for Maw not to target it.

B) In high level fractals, that pet being targeted is going to save your kitten more than once. Believe me, level 40+ maw agony HURTS so bad you don’t even know. My pet being targeted has saved my party dozens of times on 40+.

I am not saying there aren’t issues with pets dying in pve…just, I don’t know, pick better examples to support your case.

Ranger or the pets are okish in Dungeons, not great, not horrible.

The support ain’t the best, but sometimes I’ve saved lifes doing AC with healing spring at the Spider Queen.

The problem with pets in dungeons or any “highly scaled” PvE content is that they require a lot of micromanagement, for example, your group is dpsing that champion, then your pet’s health start falling and your swap is in cooldown. You’re forced to pull back your pet until the cooldown is done, and swap pet. Of course, you’re saving your pet from death, but the moment you are pulling your pet away, you’re losing 30-40% dps from the Ranger until the pet goes back to attacking.

In that case, our profession mechanic rather than boosting our damage, is hindering us from dealing the same damage any other profession would, which is rather irrational, our profession mechanic SHOULD boost our damage or gameplay in general, not hindering it.

The main problem with the pet, is that unlike other professions, we’re forced to use it or fall behind other professions, and the pet isn’t really reliable. If a thief decides to not use his steal, his performance will be the same, same for the warrior’s adrenaline, amongst others. Both are handicapping themselves, but they’re not falling behind other professions.

Sauzo.6821:

@Shadowpuppet

Even if i conceded that rangers bring as much dps as a warrior and ONLY dps, it still doesn’t warrant giving them a spot since the utility they bring doesn’t surpass the utility other classes can bring as well as having the same dps. The thing about fitting in, sure a ranger might fit in IF they melee and stay with the group but since most of the ones I’ve grouped with are off in the back, if i play anchor guard for my group, that’s one less person i can use to heal myself off of and keep the boss planted so the rest of the group can go full out. And again i won’t even start with the ones who do that AND drop healing spring in the back on themselves and completely miss the other 4 people around the boss…..

I’ve met some very good rangers but 90% of them I’ve grouped with might as well be a bot since all they do is sit in the back about 50 miles from the group and pewpew…and still manage to somehow get downed…..

Bottom line is if you want to play a ranger, go for it. Get 80 and do dungeons and see how it goes from your own experience. If you pug, don’t be surprised if you get kicked. I know it still happens cause 2 days ago I was in a group where it was me as guard, another guard, warrior, Mesmer and a ranger and they booted the ranger to replace him with another warrior. Needless to say the run went smooth but I still see rangers getting kicked. But those thinking of rolling a ranger, go for it. It’s not like it costs anything and worst case, you will have an xtra char to farm Ori and Ancient wood with :P

They don’t bring a lot of group might that is for sure, they also won’t maintain a lot of vuln in melee, but they can add to fury and spotter and frost stack with warrior banners as an example. That is all I am getting at, they do comparable damage themselves when their pet is alive using a 1h sword. Spotter and frost spirit is something that no other class can bring (so it is clear I just mean that the warrior buffs that are similar don’t stack with another warrior buff but rangers buffs will stack with warrior buffs). Hopefully with the implied improvements to pets per J sharp, not only will the pets be more survivable but their f2 effects are getting a look see as well.

I do agree with you about a lot of rangers doing the exact thing they shouldn’t be doing, if you have a melee group you better run melee also or be darn close to melee. I see engineers do the same thing all the time and I literally want to pull my hair out. But as usual the problems lay more with the players themselves than what the class is actually capable of. Now that isn’t to say that the ranger class is free of actual problems, it’s just that many of the problems people associate with the class are actually related to players not adjusting properly for the scenarios they encounter.

Chopps.5047:

Lol I haven’t lost a pet to alpha in months and I play coe all the time. I love using me some sword on some alpha.

yea i run the might stacking sword build. i actually use cats and they rarely die to alpha. sword with 100% crit dmg is some of the highest dps u can get in dungeons. 3-4k dps i believe, if not higher.

mistsim.2748:

Chopps.5047:

Lol I haven’t lost a pet to alpha in months and I play coe all the time. I love using me some sword on some alpha.

yea i run the might stacking sword build. i actually use cats and they rarely die to alpha. sword with 100% crit dmg is some of the highest dps u can get in dungeons. 3-4k dps i believe, if not higher.

it is higher, without bloodlust and all buffs (banner, vulnerability..) i got 2,9-3,4k hits, my pet auto atk is about ~1 a sec and it hits for 2,5-5 k
if you take the lowest dmg numbers and one chain = 1 1/2 sec
3 × 2,9k (sword auto) + 2,5k (pet auto-hit) = 11,2k
and for the real dps it would be 7,5k dps, sounds good for me
and their is the fire sigil that i use you got some extra dmg every ~6 sec

for pve the ranger is full okay, so much groups like good ranger for speedruns i just tell them that i play melee ranger with frost-spirit and most groups take, 90% of the time they wrote some jokes than like sorry got i mind you play longbow bull-**** blabla and this is totaly fail in 95% of the pve content

@Lunchbox
Ok i’m sorry, I won’t reference Alpha anymore. How about we talk about how good ranger pets are in fractals then? I mean they do great on Maw when half the time the pet is targeted. Regardless of what others say, rangers are passable in dungeons but they are on the lowest rung of effectiveness imo. As I’ve stated before, I wouldn’t kick one from the group but I sure in hell wouldn’t cry if he left and even better yet, if the ranger just didn’t join. And this is coming from someone who has a ranger, played it for a long time and even made a legendary on it.
And regardless of pet HP or toughness, they still pretty much get 1 shotted by bosses and possess no way to dodge or stay behind the boss(unless the ranger manually pulls it and moves and then sicks it back in etc etc).
Don’t get mad at me cause I call it as it is. Blame Anet for a year of not fixing ranger pets and pet AI. Like I said, I love playing my ranger in open world but in dungeons I feel i contribute much more on my guard or even my necro than i do on my ranger.

I would also appreciate if you didn’t support your knowledge of a class upon which weapons you’ve given to it. However, I am not upset nor angry with you, the OP was asking about information pertaining to the Ranger in different formats, and your comments about pet health were incorrect. Therefor, to help build better Rangers, I posted the correct data.
As for pets getting one-hit ko’s by bosses, it happens. If you want to drop a utility slot, it’s better to just use guard and have the pet run farther in front of you when the AoE circles obstruct its path. I guess it all comes down to how well you know the content you’re facing, what skills you have that get around the hurdles, and how to use them effectively. Sad part about this extra health buff they plan on adding, Signet of the Wilds unintended bonus passive affect when the pet is dead will be weaker.

Sure, if you don’t mind playing with the handicap that is pets. I don’t need to explain how pets are inaffective as I have done it in too many posts. Feel free to search my posts. Anyone who has put 500+ hours into a Ranger knows the short comings of the pet… at some point I got tired of those short comings. Now on my guardian I can apply 100% of my damage all the time, not to mention the massive amount of boons. I can’t wait for the day when perma-stow is an option and I can come back to my much-loved ranger