Guild Wars 2

I love my ranger, everyone is screaming about how bad we are, and how we should all reroll warrior, but I honestly don’t see it. Stop begging for a GS buff, stop saying the longbow is bad, stop crying about a shortbow nerf. You need to think past other mmos. So far i’ve noticed that this game doesn’t have DPS, Heals, and Tanks. The amount of damage you can push out in a given moment isn’t as important as how much you can help everyone around you. This isn’t World of Warcraft guys, different thinking is required. Rangers have the most unique playstyle I’ve ever seen.

1) Greatsword is awesome.
Guys, the greatsword isn’t for doing a lot of damage, it’s built defensively. Look at the auto-attack, it has an evade at the end of the chain, I can’t think of any other class that can evade that much damage by just smacking a mob, then getting a sandwich. Now, I may be wrong, but i’m pretty sure that rangers are the only class with an evade built into their auto attack. Stop acting like it needs to be a high dam weapon, Rangers aren’t dps, dps doesn’t exist

2) Sword is just as awesome.
Barring a mechanical oversight with the auto-attack(rooting bug) Swords are awesome, they have both a built in cripple and a charge and a leap IN THE AUTO-ATTACK! you stick to your target like a idiot’s finger sticks to his nose when he gets sloppy with superglue. It also has 2 count’em 2 evades and a leap. And a poison. Once they fix the root bug, that will be a kitten weapon. Plus. it’s got the coolest animation ever.

3) Shortbows and longbows.
Longbows aren’t bad, shortbows are not the supreme weapon. You aren’t a dps, stop acting like it WoW baby. Look at the skills
SB
1)Bleeds when behind the opponent.

2)Cone of poison

3)Evades back. don’t have to face target
gives swiftness if the arrow connects.

4) Cripples, makes pet attacks bleed

5) Dazes in front, stuns from behind.

LB
1) Does more damage the further you are from the target.

2) Rapid fire shot.

3) 100% vuln, almost full uptime, gives pet swiftness

4) Pushes back further the closer you are.

5) Big AoE, cripples, Lasts longer than cast time.

To me, looking at them together, The Shortbow seems to have less group ability and more situational moves. Longbow’s 3 shot is very very powerful. 100% damage, hell yes! I don’t much like the shortbow move set.

But that’s the beauty of it! It’s all viable! Play how you want. No DPS, no heals, no tanks. Now keep it quiet about ranger being bad!

moderator edit: This post has been edited to remove a violation of the forum code of conduct.

I’d imagine one would look a bit like Violet Beauregarde after that much kool-aid.

Ranger. Do you see the word Range in that? I don’t see sword and greatsword as a ranged weapon. Some people actually pick their class on the decision if it’s ranged or not. I don’t like up and close combat, I prefer fighting from a distance.

Longbow just doesn’t do enough damage because you can’t kite mob while you are in combat(mobs are faster than you). Shortbow was good untill they nerfed it.

And what about Ranger not being a damage class? What are they? They aren’t a tank, support class. Of course they have their pets, but these are useless right now. If you take anything else than a tank pet(bear) it will die within seconds. Your bear pet might be good enough to tank 1 or 2 mobs, but more than 2 is just impossible.

So yeah, I suppose ranger should be a damage class, as they do not have anything else to really focus on. It’s a really generic class.

Also the ranger should have a higher DPS because they don’t have real utility skills to break out of combat. Almost all classes get a skill to boost their movement speed to get away, rangers only have a 10% passive boost, which doesn’t help in combat.

As last I would like to say something about you. Please don’t flame people with “WoW Baby” or refer to that game. Many people don’t come from that game. Heck, I haven’t ever played it. So next time you start a topic, don’t start off with flaming people who enjoyed another game and compare it to Guild Wars 2.

Tsohg.1798:

So far i’ve noticed that this game doesn’t have DPS, Heals, and Tanks.

So you mean there is no such thing as doing damage in this game?

Remz.9083

Ranger. Do you see the word Range in that? I don’t see sword and greatsword as a ranged weapon. Some people actually pick their class on the decision if it’s ranged or not. I don’t like up and close combat, I prefer fighting from a distance.

‘Ranger" does not originate from ’range’, it basically means ‘someone who covers range’, a ‘roamer’ . Rangers are not limited to ranged damage. Aragorn from Lord of the Rings is a fantasy Ranger prototype. Don’t forget ‘Walker, Texas Ranger" as well It’s D&Ds fault that Rangers are being pushed into the pet/ranged damage niche.

Anyway, look it up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger

ankohra.6384:

Tsohg.1798:

So far i’ve noticed that this game doesn’t have DPS, Heals, and Tanks.

So you mean there is no such thing as doing damage in this game?

I meant, as in your job isn’t to just do damage. If my friend went down, i can send my pet to heal him. If my friend is getting hit too hard, i can pop my greatsword on my back and swoop in, counterattack, hilt bash, auto evade, roll away, pull longbow back out, continue to get my vulns going. Or, I can plant a frost trap, kite him over, than ping him with arrows while he crawls around. In pvp, poison trap, bye bye bunker guardian ultra heals.
You can do so much more than stand back and watch your auto attack. occasionally pressing sharping stone and complaining that your bored.

The sword is a surprisingly difficult weapon to use, perhaps because it does all that stuff “automatically”. However, now that you write out the skill set like that I can see that on paper at least it looks good if you can time those evades well (much harder than using block skills).

ranger is mostly fine. spirits need to be reworked and SB nerf must be rolled back. i love my ranger too.

Remz.9083:

Ranger. Do you see the word Range in that? I don’t see sword and greatsword as a ranged weapon. Some people actually pick their class on the decision if it’s ranged or not. I don’t like up and close combat, I prefer fighting from a distance.

And thats the beauty of it. The same class can be played 100 different ways. I like both ranged and CQC, and I use a mixture of both. if i could dual wield daggers i would be longbow/DD just because it’s an awesome concept.

I for one can walk into a dense mob filled area, like the centuar camps in the south east of Queensdale, aggro like 10 at a time, and proceed to wipe them off the face of this earth. My raven is even more kitten. She tanks like 5 at a time.

Yasha.5963:

The sword is a surprisingly difficult weapon to use, perhaps because it does all that stuff “automatically”. However, now that you write out the skill set like that I can see that on paper at least it looks good if you can time those evades well (much harder than using block skills).

Put a dagger in your offhand and you get a third evade, and a second poison. and a ranged cripple

Tsohg.1798:

…

BUT THATS THE BEAUTY OF IT! ITS ALL VIABLE!!!! PLAY HOW YOU WANT. NO DPS, NO HEALS, NO TANKS. NOW kitten ABOUT RANGER BEING BAD WoW BABY!

What total drivel.

It is clearly not all viable. If you take a ‘full part’ in any dungeon team, you as a ranger, do not go forward waggling your rubber sword in the face of a mob.

If you are also faffing about at the back trying to get to the long bow range sweet spot your also a waste of space.

The short bow was the most viable weapon for a ranger, It is now less so. It was nerfed for no good reason.

Since for some reason it won’t let me quote people, and I don’t know the quote command off the top of my head, @ Cina.
It’s that kind of thinking that breeds the thought that nothing is viable. Everything is viable if you build yourself for it. If you know how to use the skillset, and if you use the tools made available. I build myself for longbow, and I use my greatsword to help ease pressure if needed. You really need to remember, there are no tanks, there isn’t any dps, and nobody has a full healset. Everyone working together as a team is what makes a good run. If you make your job all about standing behind the boss auto attacking, then you aren’t using your class to it’s full potential. Everybody plays differently, and Anet has done a decent job allowing variation in the same class. Just because some people are reporting the shortbow is a good weapon, doesn’t mean it’s the only weapon that works. You can be handsomely rewarded for creating your own personal build, that plays exactly how you want(within reason) because thats yours, its how you want to play, you will excel at it.

OP, you make great points. I just logged on today and saw the nerf, 40 milliseconds or what not. I’m amazed at the out cry over this! It’s so not a significant enough nerf to be calling out Devs and ‘threatening’ to shelve your character! Maybe you lose ONE bleed stack, or take 4 seconds longer to kill a foe… It’s not a class killer. Stop crying.

I did laugh at the poster who tried to comment on the name, saying the word Range was in the name so the class needed more range damage… that’s the kind of garbage that makes these forums ridicouls sometimes guys!

But I just wanted to say I still love the Ranger class as well, and it would take alot for me not to. Alot more than say 40 milliseconds, or bugs that I didn’t even know about until I came here. Something pretty special about stalking a target, setting a trap in a choke point, sending in my tamed man eating bear to maul a foe, calling him back to lead the poor beast into a pit of vipers (pffft!), and finishing with a savage whirlwind of axe and blade that wreaks HAVOC on anything close enough to be caught up in that storm of death. And worst case, it’s so beaten down for the moment that another attack or maul will end the fight just a gracefully. Get some.

Theres so many different ways to enjoy the Ranger class than some colorless approach to DPS. It’s the Adventurer class! The Jack-of-All trades but master of none class! Take your WoW behind back to the land of Kung Fu Panda Bear rip offs, this game is making a stand for something more! And if you can’t dig it, don’t play! Ain’t no one gonna miss ya!

I agree mostly with OP. But ranger still needs a lot of attention and work on the part of ANet. Many of our wonderful skills and such are bugged and cause it to become ineffective. It’s not that I’m not satisfied with the skills and weapons and so forth, I’m unsatisfied that ANet hasn’t fixed issues that prevent the skills and weapons from working the way they should.

Ranger’s name DOES NOT mean ranged. in many cases over the course of history and fiction, rangers means wanderers, travelers, fighters who specialize in using terrain and experts at nature, and versatile resourceful warriors, NOT SPECIFICALLY ARCHERS. Many other threads talked about this as well.

Regarding a comment above about having only a bear pet. I run two wolves. They tank 5 mobs at the SAME TIME. Without ANY beastmastery traits. I don’t do beastmastery I build for power precision and well i guess dps. The DPS on my ranger is fine. I love it. I clear mobs like crazy. It’s not as powerful as burst thieves or warriors but that’s fine because they don’t have as much survivability as me. I know alot of people think warriors have heavy armor and all that etc, but just that the fact they are one target, I’ve seen them die left and right in tough places, whether it is champs or just normal mobs, like in Orr. Thieves well they tend to be squishy despite their crazy dps. My thief friends die left and right against a swarm. Where as I’ve solo’d many swarm events and taken down twenty at a time. Though that is a ton of work and ton of stress just to stay alive, rangers can do it.

I run pure melee recently day to day, vets, easy champs, swarms alike. Greatsword and sword torch. i have so much damage and AoE it’s nuts. Just one big storm. Both of these weapons are fantastic and compliment each other so well. I agree with OP lots of great skills. They could still buff greatsword damage a bit but it’s not going to be bother me that much. It just doesnt make sense as my sword kills things at the same rate as my greatsword. Similar damage. The sword skills are amazing. Sometimes Gs gets clumsy because targets are moving and your skills that gap closes/ranged throw are on CD. So switching to sword comes in handy you stick to your target and jump from old target to new target effortlessly. The evasions are also amazing.

However, our two issues is that the skill 2 and 3 evasion/attacks misses a lot. especially on tricky terrain it just overshoots. There’s nothign we can do about that since it is choose target and press button, so it’sn ot on the fault of the player but a bug that should be fixed. They’re great skill concepts though.

Secondly, the autoattack chain sticks too hard and even when you try to use evade skills it doesn’t break the chain (fast enough). The solution has been to take off auto attack and just mash button 1, which i do. And it works fine. I can evade perfectly now. But still it’d be nice to have this fix so other skills and dodging interrupts the chain immediately

Longbow can use a bit more damage. It is a precise, carefully chosen, tactical, powerful weapon concept. Whereas shortbow is rapid fire and condition damage. I use my bows for kiting champs and dungeon bosses.

My pets are great but their AI can be a bit sharper.

As for DPS. I have a ton of DPS. I have some traits for survivability and stuff but i crit at 2.5k, in PvP i have 2.5k normal attacks. Now when i use my burst quickening zephyr for 4 seconds, you can imagine how many times i hit and how much damage i do. lets say 2k x 10 times. thats 20k damage already. Especially if you’re using an already fast skill like hunter’s shot and then longbow rapid fire stuff like that. I mean other classes have one shot kill damage, but we don’t fall that short.

And even with their kill damage, in PvE, in a lot of situations, ranger’s damage over time stands stronger, because of our survivability as well.

In PvP, the ranger has some trouble. but it takes specific careful thinking and strategy, with the perfect build for you so you can do fine. Some people can do it well. There are tricks within our traits and skills where you can be invulnerable for a few seconds enough to survive the initial burst dps class attacks. The rest though will be a struggle of wit and skill. But nevertheless the current ranger can still kick butt.

But I mean there’s a lot things that we need to be fixed and changed, some things are frustrating and we know the original intention was for it to be much more effective. but i still love my ranger currently. I have never used a more versatile, more survivable and adaptable class.

Remz.9083:

Also the ranger should have a higher DPS because they don’t have real utility skills to break out of combat. Almost all classes get a skill to boost their movement speed to get away, rangers only have a 10% passive boost, which doesn’t help in combat.

Then you don’t use your tools effectively.
Frost trap, -66% movement speed.
Spike trap, cripples
Longbow 4. knockback.
Dog pet, imob
Snowy owl. chill
axe 3 chill
SB 3 evade backwards+swiftness/doesn’t need to be facing target. Run away and hit that button.Get an awesome animation of you jumping up, twisting in midair and shooting an arrow behind you.
Dagger 5, ranged cripple.
warhorn 5 15s Swiftness,might,fury
Lightening reflexes, evade back, gain 100% endurance regain, do damage.
GS 5 Hilt bash, dazes from front, stuns from behind.
protect me. Pet takes all damage 6s
Signet of blah blah (forgot name) Pet takes no damage.
Hide in plain sight, trait. camos you when you get CC’ed
shared anguish, pet gets disable instead of you
Theres a million more that can be used for these purposes, but for the life of me I can’t think of them. USE YOUR TOOLS!

bro just stop. most people arent actually hating on the ranger. the community is upset about the unjustified SB nerf, so let them vent.

I hate when people who have no idea how the game works or what other classes can do makes a thread saying that an obviously UP class is fine.

having fun playing it =/= effective class

Rangers aren’t specifically range attackers. The term “Ranger” comes from the verb “range”, which means, generally, “to wander”.

Or, from Dictionary.com: To pass over or through (an area or region) in all directions, as in exploring or searching: “They ranged the entire countryside.”

So, thinking Rangers are specifically a ranged class is completely wrong. Thanks, try again.

So because the word Ranger doesn’t mean that they are a Ranged class that means it is perfectly fine to have no decent ranged weapons to go along with our lackluster melee weapons?

Makes perfect sense.

Levetty.1279:

I hate when people who have no idea how the game works or what other classes can do makes a thread saying that an obviously UP class is fine.

having fun playing it =/= effective class

I hate it when people who think they understand how the game works or what other classes can do makes a reply saying that despite some bugs, a perfectly good class with a lot of unique traits and abilities is UP

Informer.5213:

Rangers aren’t specifically range attackers. The term “Ranger” comes from the verb “range”, which means, generally, “to wander”.

Or, from Dictionary.com: To pass over or through (an area or region) in all directions, as in exploring or searching: “They ranged the entire countryside.”

So, thinking Rangers are specifically a ranged class is completely wrong. Thanks, try again.

How about we quote the Creators of the game?

Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

yup… unparalleled… totally

oh and looking at the full blurb

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.

No where does it say melee or CQC. It emphasizes RANGED COMBAT via BOWS!

So all the hardcore dungeon and tPvP guilds who have had plenty of time to practice with every class and min max the hell out of everything and both decided that Rangers are useless are wrong but you managed to find the secret to making them good?

Sounds legit.

Levetty.1279:

So all the hardcore dungeon and tPvP guilds who have had plenty of time to practice with every class and min max the hell out of everything and both decided that Rangers are useless are wrong but you managed to find the secret to making them good?

Sounds legit.

Is it even possible to min/max in a game that has so much variance in just one class? let alone 8

Tsohg.1798:

Levetty.1279:

So all the hardcore dungeon and tPvP guilds who have had plenty of time to practice with every class and min max the hell out of everything and both decided that Rangers are useless are wrong but you managed to find the secret to making them good?

Sounds legit.

Is it even possible to min/max in a game that has so much variance in just one class? let alone 8

For a guild/group of people, yes. It’s called theorycrafting then sharing the results.

Kirito.3591:

Informer.5213:

Rangers aren’t specifically range attackers. The term “Ranger” comes from the verb “range”, which means, generally, “to wander”.

Or, from Dictionary.com: To pass over or through (an area or region) in all directions, as in exploring or searching: “They ranged the entire countryside.”

So, thinking Rangers are specifically a ranged class is completely wrong. Thanks, try again.

How about we quote the Creators of the game?

Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

yup… unparalleled… totally

oh and looking at the full blurb

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.

No where does it say melee or CQC. It emphasizes RANGED COMBAT via BOWS!

Last part. Rangers can adapt to any situation. Like picking a sword up and using it effectively.

Tsohg.1798:

Kirito.3591:

Informer.5213:

Rangers aren’t specifically range attackers. The term “Ranger” comes from the verb “range”, which means, generally, “to wander”.

Or, from Dictionary.com: To pass over or through (an area or region) in all directions, as in exploring or searching: “They ranged the entire countryside.”

So, thinking Rangers are specifically a ranged class is completely wrong. Thanks, try again.

How about we quote the Creators of the game?

Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

yup… unparalleled… totally

oh and looking at the full blurb

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.

No where does it say melee or CQC. It emphasizes RANGED COMBAT via BOWS!

Last part. Rangers can adapt to any situation. Like picking a sword up and using it effectively.

except… what you’ve been saying is that people should not be focusing on the ranged aspect, which is the big selling point to the ranger, especially as it’s described by the creators of the game.

Yes adapting to the situation indicates that the use of the other items are purely situational, ie not often. Nerfing the ranged aspect for a “Unparalleled archer,” whose only ranged weapons are bows, so they are forced to re-spec/build for CQC is unbelievably stupid. It’s like saying, “hey, I know you’re really good at cooking, so much better than you are a musician, but I’m going to have you be our lead guitarist anyways.”

I agree that the hue and cry about the adjustment to short bows is above and beyond what it should be, but by no means does that mean that we, as a class, are perfect and do not need some tweaking.

I LOVE my ranger. I have a lot of other classes, but by far and away Dari is my favorite class and the only reason he is not getting a TON of playtime right now is I want to level my engineer a bit and my Ranger is pretty close to where I want him to be. Mechanics wise though, there ARE some reasons to ask for tweaks / adjustments.

Greatsword may be intended for a more defensive weapon I will give you that, but right now compared to other classes USING THEIR DEFENSIVE WEAPON our damage is soft. I do not WANT it to be an uber AOE machine like it was in early beta testing, but simply more in line with what other classes can do with a similar setup.

Longbow is my other stock-in-trade tool. Overall I am happy with the skills that I have, and the damage output feels right on skill use at proper times. The ONLY thing we need is a SLIGHT uptic in the speed of our arrows in flight as well as a SLIGHT increase of auto attack cycle. If the SB “nerf” was 40ms slower, I feel that 10ms, 20 at the OUTSIDE faster cycle rate would bring this weapon on par to what other classes can do and give Rangers as a whole more weapon viability.

Pet issues we have a few, but one is the trait Master’s Bond. AWESOME trait on paper, I would give ANYTHING if it worked properly. However at this point it is pointless to slot it because swapping pets or EVEN FALLING IN WATER resets the stacks. I get that it is a balance thing so that not every pet/ranger has a constant, instant buff because of the trait, but this one desperately needs looked at.

The last thing I am going to touch base on is pet AI, we all know the issues with them and YES it does need some balancing. They are not NEARLY as useless as people want to make them out to be, and the bunk of “you HAVE to run a tank pet or they are always dead” is simply false. I run a wolf/lynx 90% of the time and through proper pet management can keep my DPS up and still keep them alive and doing damage in most cases. Sure if I just send them in and expect them to be “set and forget” pets like in other games they are going to be toast, but when people learn to not do that they will be better Rangers. Not saying they do not need a LITTLE more beef, either in armor or HP, but they are NOT useless…just stupid at times =P

The one other change to rangers that I do feel that is needed is either a damage cushion, negate the cooldown on fall damage, OR a perma stow option for pets. I am VERY vocal against the concept of a “petless” ranger, but at the same time even I find it annoying that if I put my pet away that one point of fall damage pops him back out and I have to wait to tell him to go away again. Cooldown for swapping / stowing in combat? By all means yes, but fall damage should in NO way trigger this. Even giving a delay of 20-50% health before the pet is auto summoned would be fine, but as a fellow ranger has said in other threads I am a master of beasts, the pet should listen to me if I put him in a cage.
Side note. Doing so should NEVER buff me or add pet damage to me, it should be my choice to tell him to go away but it should not be a benefit

Kirito.3591:

Tsohg.1798:

Kirito.3591:

Informer.5213:

Rangers aren’t specifically range attackers. The term “Ranger” comes from the verb “range”, which means, generally, “to wander”.

Or, from Dictionary.com: To pass over or through (an area or region) in all directions, as in exploring or searching: “They ranged the entire countryside.”

So, thinking Rangers are specifically a ranged class is completely wrong. Thanks, try again.

How about we quote the Creators of the game?

Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

yup… unparalleled… totally

oh and looking at the full blurb

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.

No where does it say melee or CQC. It emphasizes RANGED COMBAT via BOWS!

Last part. Rangers can adapt to any situation. Like picking a sword up and using it effectively.

except… what you’ve been saying is that people should not be focusing on the ranged aspect, which is the big selling point to the ranger, especially as it’s described by the creators of the game.

Yes adapting to the situation indicates that the use of the other items are purely situational, ie not often. Nerfing the ranged aspect for a “Unparalleled archer,” whose only ranged weapons are bows, so they are forced to re-spec/build for CQC is unbelievably stupid. It’s like saying, “hey, I know you’re really good at cooking, so much better than you are a musician, but I’m going to have you be our lead guitarist anyways.”

So, who exactly is forcing you to play a melee ranger? Is the anet mafia in your house putting hand clamps on your mouse hand and threatening to kill your family if you don’t use a greatsword? You have 3 ranged options. the .40ms nerf isn’t really much of a big deal, you lose one bleed. It happens. There are a host of viable options, Rangers are a very flexible class with a lot of different options. Just because some people want to pretend that their way is the best doesn’t mean its true. That isn’t how the game works.

“You got a nice house here, shame to see it burn down, See, we won’t use this here kerosene if you just go ahead and use this here greatsword.”
Seriously?

Lot of misconceptions in this thread:

• The OP seems to be coming from a standpoint of PvE. And from that standpoint, yes, Ranger is viable. So is anything else, because open world PvE is a joke.

• Greatsword does less damage than Shortbow by a wide margin, and it requires melee range, where Shortbow works at 1200 range. There’s literally no reason to ever use it over a Shortbow, even after the recent unintentional nerf.

• Longbow does less damage than Shortbow by a significant amount. It’s only viable in WvW, and only there because of its ranged AoE capability. It’s awful in sPvP. (It’s viable in PvE as well, but again, everything is viable there.)

• People are upset about the shortbow nerf because it’s clearly bugged. Repeated tests have shown that, under the effects of quickness, the increase in cast time on Crossfire is closer to .4 seconds, not .04. This translates to a major damage nerf to a class which is considered by most competitive PvPers to be marginally viable at best.

• The Ranger class is underpowered. This isn’t whining or hyperbole; it’s simply how things are at the moment. If you don’t do competitive tPvP, you’re not going to notice this so much. When people say the class is underpowered, they’re talking about in a highly competitive tPvP environment. It’s simply a worse choice than many others at the moment. Bunker Engis, Guardians, and Eles make better point defenders, and Thieves make better Roamers. Outside of highly competitive tPvP, Ranger is viable, in the sense that a good player can do well with them, even despite the unintentional SB nerf.

TLDR; Open world PvE doesn’t matter, Greatsword is terrible, Longbow is only useful in WvW, and Rangers could use some improvement to be on par, but are far from unplayable.

Tsohg.1798:

Kirito.3591:

Tsohg.1798:

Kirito.3591:

Informer.5213:

Rangers aren’t specifically range attackers. The term “Ranger” comes from the verb “range”, which means, generally, “to wander”.

Or, from Dictionary.com: To pass over or through (an area or region) in all directions, as in exploring or searching: “They ranged the entire countryside.”

So, thinking Rangers are specifically a ranged class is completely wrong. Thanks, try again.

How about we quote the Creators of the game?

Unparalleled archers, rangers are capable of bringing down foes from a distance with their bows.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/ranger/

yup… unparalleled… totally

oh and looking at the full blurb

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.

No where does it say melee or CQC. It emphasizes RANGED COMBAT via BOWS!

Last part. Rangers can adapt to any situation. Like picking a sword up and using it effectively.

except… what you’ve been saying is that people should not be focusing on the ranged aspect, which is the big selling point to the ranger, especially as it’s described by the creators of the game.

Yes adapting to the situation indicates that the use of the other items are purely situational, ie not often. Nerfing the ranged aspect for a “Unparalleled archer,” whose only ranged weapons are bows, so they are forced to re-spec/build for CQC is unbelievably stupid. It’s like saying, “hey, I know you’re really good at cooking, so much better than you are a musician, but I’m going to have you be our lead guitarist anyways.”

So, who exactly is forcing you to play a melee ranger? Is the anet mafia in your house putting hand clamps on your mouse hand and threatening to kill your family if you don’t use a greatsword? You have 3 ranged options. the .40ms nerf isn’t really much of a big deal, you lose one bleed. It happens. There are a host of viable options, Rangers are a very flexible class with a lot of different options. Just because some people want to pretend that their way is the best doesn’t mean its true. That isn’t how the game works.

“You got a nice house here, shame to see it burn down, See, we won’t use this here kerosene if you just go ahead and use this here greatsword.”
Seriously?

so for the entirety of this thread you have NOT be advocating the use of melee weapons as the main source of dmg instead of being primarily ranged?

First two items you listed as alternatives for main damage sources, GS and Sword.
When you start nerfing viable ranged dps weapons making melee weapons the only real viable choice for damage/dps then yeah you’re pretty much going to be pigeon holed into a melee ranger if you’re trying to maximize your dps, which is generally what you’re trying to do in dungeons and somewhat in sPvP (max dmg and max survivability).

Also, if you’ve bother keeping track of the entire situation before running your mouth, you would know that it isn’t a 40ms nerf as listed rather it’s higher. Some numbers point towards an 80ms nerf while others indicate that this nerf bugged quickness for the SB. Some show that this patch had decreased SB dps by 25%+ bleeds.

Personally, I’m getting between 3-5 stacks less, on average. I haven’t been able to test it in dungeon situations as of late, though. And given how fast most mobs respawn in PvE, taking much longer to kill the mobs, who outrun you, is annoying to say the least.

mouse.1689:

Lot of misconceptions in this thread:

• The OP seems to be coming from a standpoint of PvE. And from that standpoint, yes, Ranger is viable. So is anything else, because open world PvE is a joke.

I’m talking about everything. Pvp and pve are different. In pvp I run a tankier build using shortbow/GS, that focuses on traps and staying alive, using snowy owl and Black widow.
Me and this Bunker guardian went tow to tow for like 3-4 minutes before the rest of my team swarmed in.

Zaq.3762:

I just logged on today and saw the nerf, 40 milliseconds or what not. I’m amazed at the out cry over this! It’s so not a significant enough nerf to be calling out Devs and ‘threatening’ to shelve your character!

Expect that it’s 80ms, not 40ms as the update notes say and on top of that those added 80ms are not affected by Quickness. That means the damage of the Shortbow has been reduced by ~14% and Shortbow+Quickness by 25%.

Kirito.3591:

so for the entirety of this thread you have NOT be advocating the use of melee weapons as the main source of dmg instead of being primarily ranged?

I have been advocating that every build and playstyle is usable, and that I PERSONALLY enjoy using melee/ranged mixture. What this thread was first about was the fact that everyone that is screaming about how bad rangers are aren’t quite right, and it’s been apparent throughout this thread that some people have the wrong ideas, and some people have proven points. Rangers as a whole need polishing, were a bit buggy, and our pets can sometimes have slow reaction times. That does not mean we can’t be good with what were given, and that we shouldn’t all want to be the same.

the .40ms nerf isn’t really much of a big deal, you lose one bleed.

.04 or 40 milliseconds out of an attack speed of .5 is an 8% increase in delay or a 7.75% decrease in output.

One bleed out of 6 is 16.67%.

You can reference how it is “just 40ms” or “just one bleed” but only if you entirely ignore the reference values.

Kerri Knight.3168:

the .40ms nerf isn’t really much of a big deal, you lose one bleed.

.04 or 40 milliseconds out of an attack speed of .5 is an 8% increase in delay or a 7.75% decrease in output.

One bleed out of 6 is 16.67%.

You can reference how it is “just 40ms” or “just one bleed” but only if you entirely ignore the reference values.

Ignoring the nerf, we are still perfectly viable.

Tsohg.1798:

Ignoring the nerf, we are still perfectly viable.

Well, at least you readily admit your are dismissing the facts to come to that conclusion.

…so there’s that.

Am I the only one who realized the OP is reading from a list and probably doesn’t even have a ranger?

All games have tiers, nothing new. Rangers are limited by AI, not as limited as many think, but imo rangers with a tiny bit of GS damage buffs, Sword animation clean up, and other small tweaks will make them a nice midline class, which is where they should be imo.

Kincaidia.3192:

Am I the only one who realized the OP is reading from a list and probably doesn’t even have a ranger?

It’s painfully obvious the OP either doesn’t have a Ranger, or has not played them to the extent many of the other posters here have. The SB, in all my experinces, was the single weapon that made rangers viable to play in PvE, sPvP, and WvW. Now we’re just a class with completely kittened with weapons and with pets.

Kerri Knight.3168:

Tsohg.1798:

Ignoring the nerf, we are still perfectly viable.

Well, at least you readily admit your are dismissing the facts to come to that conclusion.

…so there’s that.

One nerf, to one skill, in one weapon, does not destroy a class.
And from what i’ve seen, its a bug, and they’re looking into it.

One Nerf, to our best damaging ability, to our only good weapon for DPS does ruin our class.

Our Melee weapons do terrible damag.e
Longbow does terrible damage.

I’m not comparing these in a vaccum to other ranger powers, but to other classes. If you think SB auto attack was bad, have you seen rifle auto attack? While it does its physical damage slower, it has a 6 second bleed without position requirements, and its 2-3 abilities are fantastic for dps. And of course anyone in their right minds would trade pets for adrenaline and kill shot.

faytte.1057:

One Nerf, to our best damaging ability, to our only good weapon for DPS does ruin our class.

Our Melee weapons do terrible damag.e
Longbow does terrible damage.

I’m not comparing these in a vaccum to other ranger powers, but to other classes. If you think SB auto attack was bad, have you seen rifle auto attack? While it does its physical damage slower, it has a 6 second bleed without position requirements, and its 2-3 abilities are fantastic for dps. And of course anyone in their right minds would trade pets for adrenaline and kill shot.

You can’t look at 1 or 2 abilites in a vacuum, once they quicken up our pets, and fix some of the bugs, we’ll be great.

You mean once they do things they have never said they were gonna do?

If I cant compare things in a vacuum, you cant compare things to fiction.

As it is now our weapons are strictly inferior to warrior counter points. Any ranger worth their salt would give up SB in a second for Rifle, even pre nerf SB. Their melee is far better than ours. Their support skills (shouts/banners) are far better than ours (spirits that get one shotted and dont do much outside our elite). They have more survivaibility out of the gate with much more hp and armor, and unlike us they can burst damage.

Thats the reality today and ANET chose to nerf us more NOW. They did not wait to make these improvements you hope they might make and then nerf us after seeing how the dust settles, they chose instead to make a bad class even worse.

Tsohg.1798:

ankohra.6384:

Tsohg.1798:

So far i’ve noticed that this game doesn’t have DPS, Heals, and Tanks.

So you mean there is no such thing as doing damage in this game?

I meant, as in your job isn’t to just do damage. If my friend went down, i can send my pet to heal him. If my friend is getting hit too hard, i can pop my greatsword on my back and swoop in, counterattack, hilt bash, auto evade, roll away, pull longbow back out, continue to get my vulns going. Or, I can plant a frost trap, kite him over, than ping him with arrows while he crawls around. In pvp, poison trap, bye bye bunker guardian ultra heals.
You can do so much more than stand back and watch your auto attack. occasionally pressing sharping stone and complaining that your bored.

I’m absolutely sure that you did not play any other class.

Remz.9083:

Ranger. Do you see the word Range in that? I don’t see sword and greatsword as a ranged weapon. Some people actually pick their class on the decision if it’s ranged or not. I don’t like up and close combat, I prefer fighting from a distance.

Longbow just doesn’t do enough damage because you can’t kite mob while you are in combat(mobs are faster than you). Shortbow was good untill they nerfed it.

And what about Ranger not being a damage class? What are they? They aren’t a tank, support class. Of course they have their pets, but these are useless right now. If you take anything else than a tank pet(bear) it will die within seconds. Your bear pet might be good enough to tank 1 or 2 mobs, but more than 2 is just impossible.

So yeah, I suppose ranger should be a damage class, as they do not have anything else to really focus on. It’s a really generic class.

Also the ranger should have a higher DPS because they don’t have real utility skills to break out of combat. Almost all classes get a skill to boost their movement speed to get away, rangers only have a 10% passive boost, which doesn’t help in combat.

As last I would like to say something about you. Please don’t flame people with “WoW Baby” or refer to that game. Many people don’t come from that game. Heck, I haven’t ever played it. So next time you start a topic, don’t start off with flaming people who enjoyed another game and compare it to Guild Wars 2.

Wrong, wrong and more wrong.

If anything we are top tier in avoiding damage, we have vigor regen coming out of all four orifices and again, welcome to the forums for if you weren’t new you would know that fifty thousand qualified Rangers, have shed light over little rangettes such as yourself THAT we infact do not MEAN ranged individuals.

A ranger does not mean one who excels at ranged weapons, google and increase your bran. If a ranger was another ranged close boring kitten class that allows easy moders to sit back and pew pew to their hearts delight I wouldn’t have chosen such a pathetic class. I’m so glad we are not purely Ranged pro’s so glad.

When they introduce a pure-ranged martial class that has at least 15ØØ range and more options than what we’ve currently got, tell me, and maybe I’ll stop trying to push the ranged aspects of a ranger. Until then, since I like range, I’ll focus on the range of my ranger so she can fight ranged while she ranges, dawg.

Yo dawg…

… kitten she beat me to it.

If you read ANETs description of ranger from their wiki, you will see that THEIR definition of ranger is actually someone that excels at ranged damage.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Ranger

“Rangers are proficient with the bow. They rely on a keen eye, a steady hand, and the power of nature to slay their targets. Their loyal pets, which rangers tame and train, distract enemies while the rangers strike safely from a distance. As an adventurer profession, rangers wear medium armor.”

First thing mentioned is our bow proficiency. No mention of melee or our ability to survive in the wild, but they do make mention of slaying enemies from afar.

Thats from ANET, not from me.

And if we are not meant to excel at ranged damage, then we are even worse off than I thought, cause our melee is freaking terrible compared to other classes.

First, people that are complaining have nothing to do with WoW, stop bringing it up, you are the one comparing everything to WoW. They are Rangers who care about being a viable class in all areas of the game (mostly). Secondly, You obviously have never played sPvP or tPvP on a ranger, anyone who knows anything about PvP will laugh very hard at the OP. As you stated, crossfire bleeding is great, but you cant bleed as much with a slower firing speed can you? Hmmm guess you didn’t think about that… Warrior Rifle now has much more bleeding capability. Don’t know why I even took the time to respond to such an ignorant thread, you are embarrassing yourself.

Although, I do agree that people should not be threatening Anet that they will leave the game etc. etc. Most of us that have played Anet games know they will come around eventually. Just have some patience fellow Rangers, maybe it is a good time to roll another class you wanted to try?