Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone…

I’ve been on about a two week tour of classes (newish to the game) looking for the one I want to level.

I’m fairly certain it will be either ranger or engineer that I run with.

A couple posts here seem to suggest that ranger is less than ideal at top end. Can anyone elaborate on that?

I’d also appreciate any opinions on the choice between ranger and engineer.

Thanks!

Ranger is fine. A lot of the arguments I see on this forum are unjustified but oppositely a lot of them are. Ranger has good dps, can preform in pvp, plus the pet can work well, but dies easy in certain boss encounters. The pets have very limited AI so learning to manage them is pretty essential.

Never played engineer so can’t offer any advice.

As it is now, Rangers are the literal example of the saying “Jack of all trades, Master of none”. Anything they can do, another profession can likely bring into the game with far less effort.

Fortunately, that doesn’t mean Rangers are completely worthless. Their damage output is still decent, they have access to plenty of conditions for added pressure, and if you practice on timing your pet’s withdrawals, you’ll be no less effective than the rest of your group. The main issue right now is that it’s nigh impossible to be better than average.

And then there’s the pet AI issues. They cannot dodge. Their usable F2 skill has delays. To have pets work in dungeons and later content requires a lot of managing, as WonderfulICT already said.

Anyway. What’s made the community most resentful of Rangers in the current meta, is that almost any other profession played with half the interest, in lesser gear can likely outclass a fully geared Ranger that the player invested quite some time in.
Some people “gave up”. Others are still hoping the upcoming patches will bring a few fixes. Time will tell.

As for Engineers; I personally couldn’t wrap my head around the multiple playstyles they offer, and the lack of a true melee weapon eventually had me put down the profession entirely. But I do know that they have easier access to high damage (bombs, grenades), and have a very interesting support style with their elixers and turrets.
If you’ll pardon the lack of many weapons to choose from, in exchange for all their toolkits, then Engineer really is worth looking into.

Both ranger and engineer are currently unwanted for high level content.

Fun to level, though.

Advice-> lvl it the normal way to 80, when you hit lvl 80 take a few hours off. Make yourself a cup of coffee or whatever you prefer to drink. Look through all your traits.
By them time you have hit lvl 80 you should have found out which play style fits you the best.
Pick your calculator look up on gw 2 wiki and find the skill and trait tree. There should be some equations how to calculate how much you get out of each trait and skills.
It is worth the effort. I did it with my ranger

Find your play style and see if it is worth to put some effort in the gear to get that suits your style.

If I mention my build, perhaps it doesn’t fit with your style. Go and make your own build and then come back and perhaps we can come with ideas to what could be done to it^^

We are not unwanted in high lvl content. There are bad players that deny Rangers and Engineers. Bad experiences with these classes… but hey I am sometimes on the edge to kick glass cannons from my party. I dislike them in high lvl content!! and I’m talking about Warriors, Mesmers, Ele’s gets one shotted! in high lvl content. I just don’t like people that downs all the time. But I still give them the chance to come with me though I get my daily healer pretty fast xD

If you care about dungeons/fractals/wvw don’t pick ranger. Engineer is still not one of the “must picks” but is still very viable .
If all you care about is the leveling up/exploring/DE ranger is probably better, due to the pet, by letting him tank you can take pretty much any encounter, including champ,s by yourself (not that its worth it, but hey..).
That pet however, becomes a problem and a hinderance to the team in much of the content, while being always dead (thus halving your dps, which is average WITH the pet). Support is non existent , excluding a good water field and warhorn buff, control is ok but mostly single target (excluding traps). Also, rangers are plagued by bugs more than anyone else.
Trait lines are a mess, you have attributes and abilities that have nothing in common on the same line, forcing to waste points and reduce the number of efficient builds to just a couple.

Rangers need plenty of dedication to be efective. Try to learn all there is to this class, the weapon switch, the weapon evades, the pet switches, the combos etc and you wont regret it, its pretty fun. Just dont get stuck to being that ranger in the back with the bow and the bear, not sayin thats bad but we have plenty of options besides that. Have fun.

Viable in spvp and small skirmishes. Not viable in high level pve and wvw no matter what starry-eyed newbs try to argue

WonderfulCT.6278:

Ranger is fine. A lot of the arguments I see on this forum are unjustified but oppositely a lot of them are. Ranger has good dps, can preform in pvp, plus the pet can work well, but dies easy in certain boss encounters. The pets have very limited AI so learning to manage them is pretty essential.

Never played engineer so can’t offer any advice.

1. Ranger has sub-par DPS to any other profession capable of doing it. If you want DPS, I recommend playing another profession.

2. In PvP we’re a bad joke. Nonsensical weapon design makes DPS builds with the longbow outright useless besides barrage. The only builds I can honestly give credit for in PvP are bunker and trap as the others are just enticing other professions to smash you for badges. If they don’t succeed at smashing you for badges, they’re simply bad players and should feel bad.

3. The pet does -not- work well. It is clunky, stupid, is too weak to survive even the most mediocre AoE, it takes up to four seconds of blank staring just to start the windup for its weak abilities and/or prioritizes spamming its basic attack over listening to you, which can end up in a single ability taking up to 7-9 seconds, time you don’t have in many situations. In dungeons, pets die immediately, taking your DPS with them and thusly making you a useless profession for many paths where fast and hard DPS is required. You’ve touched on their AI, but you’re giving it way too much credit. It is simply lazy and clunky, something that a modern MMO like this shouldn’t have to say about its own pets.

4. Anet has addressed them in dungeons but continues to ignore all the other issues Rangers face, ones they are apparently quite content with pretending do not exist.

My personal final rating for ranger is a generous 6.5 out of 10. As others have said, it is a ‘Jack of All Trades, Master of None’, but that’s just an excuse for mediocrity. If Anet stepped it up and performed some serious changes rather than disheartening icon changes it would likely be a 8-9.

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

2. In PvP we’re a bad joke. Nonsensical weapon design makes DPS builds with the longbow outright useless besides barrage. The only builds I can honestly give credit for in PvP are bunker and trap as the others are just enticing other professions to smash you for badges. If they don’t succeed at smashing you for badges, they’re simply bad players and should feel bad.

Badges? PvP? You are talking about WvW and not everyone is solo roaming in WvW. LB works in groups.

Depends on what you’re after at top end imho. I absolutely love my ranger for open environment pve and roaming/skirmishing in wvwvw. I mainly play a beastmaster build with the evade dance (sword+dagger/GS), and it feels exhilarating at times.

Large-scale battles are something else entirely, and i’m still struggling to find out how to contribute more to them. At the moment, i juggle between ccing, range-dpsing/quickness-stomping of foes downed by the melee train, and pestering the enemy backline clothies. Engineers have this one easier thanks to plenty of spammable aoe dps (flamethrower, grenades, bombs…) in addition to their utility value.

Dungeons, you’ll be fine provided you’re running with friends/guild, and don’t mind having to work more for the same result (running dungeons on my warrior is way way easier, no hiding from that). If that’s not the case and you’ll heavily rely on random groups, then expect a good few rude types or speedrunners dismissing you fast. Unfortunately for you, you’ll have the same issue with engineer.

Now, there’s bugs, broken abilities, underwhelming skills, and a pet AI that will sometimes make you cry. But past all this, there’s an agile skirmishing class with a nice pick of cc skills. And furry companions.

I’d advise you to get to Heart of the Mists, and try out the popular ranger/engineer builds to see how you like them. You’ll have access to all skills/traits/runes, so that’s what your level 80 will look like.

Have fun with the mobs on the map, the class NPCs for 1v1, and some hotjoin 8v8 for sheer madness. It won’t give you any idea about how you’ll perform in dungeons, but you should get a grasp of what combat style feels right for you.

In wvwvw, large scale work, the class feels mediocre. I’m a dps helper, I help kill others, but don’t do the real damage. I soften targets up. If that is fun for you, then great. Definite issues in high end dungeon runs that Dev is looking at addressing, especially with pets staying alive. Pet AI is still an issue in most ranged pvp aspects.

Today, if I started the game, I would roll something else. I’m not re rolling anything now. Have no alts, don’t want any alts. I’ll live with the Ranger and its mediocrity for now.

Okay, as an engineer, I know Im not exactly right in this class-forum, but sicne engineers were mentioned I want to give my 2 cents :P

But first off: This thread gives me a good laugh.
The same is debated over and over on the engineer forum. They say the exact same things about damage, about fun, about how it´s often a l2p issue and about the issues with traits and their synergies. Just replace the words “pet” with “turrets” and of course “ranger” with “engineer” and … voilà! You have the exact same discussion about the engineer and the profession´s problems.
Except for the problems with RnG, Kit-viability, no reliable stability, some really lame projectiles and… other.
But as I read in other threads I guess ranger also has some more problems than the above stated So I think problem- and bug-wise engineers and ranger are nearly even.

As others only try to justify their existence, i will give you a honest answer.
No.
There are people who love kitten, it’s called fetishes. But that doesn’t mean kitten is good now. It still stinks and looks ugly.
Same with Ranger.

I find it laughable when Rangers complain about pet AI after playing my Necromancer. But to the point, unfortunately Rangers and Engineers have more bugs/broken mechanics than most other classes. This makes them harder to excel with. I would argue that any class is “viable” as it can get the job done in any situation. Is it ideal? Most likely not.

Short and simple, it’s not viable. Ranger and Engineer are the two worst classes in this game and I don’t see them getting fixed anytime soon. Just jump on the warrior / guardian / mesmer bandwagon like everyone else if you want ‘viability’.

Here’s the general public opinion on PVE “tiers” in dungeons:
Warrior/guard/mes
Ele

Necro
Ranger/engineer

PVP:
Mes/guard/ele
ranger/necro
engineer

…
warrior

WVW:
Mesmer
ele/war/necro/ranger/guardian

Engineer

Are rangers actually worth rolling? Seems better than the engineer…

Every patch they’re screwing with the engineer, at least the ranger’s meta is a little more stable.

Also in dungeons, I find my ranger way better and more useful than my engineer.
To answer your question, the ranger is more viable than the least viable class. It’s probably behind the others though.

JohnDied.3476:

Every patch they’re screwing with the engineer, at least the ranger’s meta is a little more stable.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m playing same game, cause Engineers has nothing but received bug fixes and some improvement to couple traits/kits, at least the last 3 major patches. Beside the one nerf to #1st grenade skill, but the others got improved at least.

Although this is a bit off topic.

engies have a lot more viable builds than the ranger. it’s a much more versatile prof.

I’ll prolly get hounded since this is the ranger forum and all but to answer the OP: No, they’re not.

People will defend their preferred class ‘till their dying breath but as of right now, Ranger’s aren’t very good for end game. Sorry. Even the best played rangers tend to fall somewhere around the average player of other classes. It’s not the player’s fault – it’s just the class ATM.

HappyHubris.1096:

Both ranger and engineer are currently unwanted for high level content.

Fun to level, though.

Sorry , but you are totaly wrong. I got all characters and the most destructive ones are trap ranger and demolisher engineer.
Specially with these builds http://tinyurl.com/ap5uwkp http://tinyurl.com/bgdgzc5

I’ve got an 80 Warrior, Thief, Mesmer, Ranger, and Guardian… of them, Ranger is my least favorite for group play. Ranger makes a good solo-farming class but feel weak in group play despite having the best heal in the game (aoe regen + water field).

I only play spvp/tpvp and rangers can be amazing – with some of my builds i can beat any class 1v1 – except very good mesmers, though i hear trap rangers are good against them (a build i never use) so who knows, maybe the sky is the limit, either way rangers can be extremely strong.

You can take out bunkers so long as they don’t get support, and hence neutralize a point. Rangers are also one of, if not the best orb carriers imho.

Keltset.4738:

I find it laughable when Rangers complain about pet AI after playing my Necromancer. But to the point, unfortunately Rangers and Engineers have more bugs/broken mechanics than most other classes. This makes them harder to excel with. I would argue that any class is “viable” as it can get the job done in any situation. Is it ideal? Most likely not.

Not quite so laughable. I play both classes and while yes their are times some of my necro pets sit there with their thumb up their kitten at least 1/2 of them are attacking the mob and they also have ranged attacks so pathing and lag is less of an issue. My necro would completely destroy my ranger. So yea, not really laughable.