Guild Wars 2

I used to love coming here and making videos on my ranger. I got into GW2 beacuse I saw some videos of my old DAoC solo brethren Kalorian (Sarlack) and Xsourous playing rangers, and it made me hyped, played double bow for the longest time and had a blast. Then all these new changes came and made it lack luster for me.

Then came Condi Regen BM and I felt alive again, even though there were serious issues with the build, such as pet AI, our lack of condi clears etc, it still was fun and breathed new life into the Ranger.

Now, with all these changes, I feel this class has no direction, we are left in the dust and Anet has zero clue in which direction to take it.

I can only hope that in the future more trait lines are fixed, and we are given more reasons to play this great class with lots of potential.

Well the direction is obvious – low magic ranged dps with evades and pets. What else? The melee dps with high armor is already taken (war) and the low armor melee dps with stealth is also taken (thief).
And the short and cheap way out of the mess would be:
1. overpower rangers bow damage to such a level that every moron notices how overpowered it is at the first glance
2. do not let stowed pets autoappear in combat

Concerning bows – well, lets face it, wars in PVE are in most cases not much more than greatsword #2 spammers. Yeah you can switch to something else from time to time, but going gsw#2 as often as possible is the best and expected way how to go. As long as this works and they kill things fast, nobody cares about wars, their balance, their direction, whatever.

I am stumped atm deciding what type of build to use. Anything I create always seems to be missing something very important.

(for roaming WvW)

I agree about ranged dps being our niche. I havent noticed another class that has our sustained single target ranged dps. Talking wvw here, apparently other dps options are better in dungeons but that’s not my expertise.

Always cracked me up that Kalorian and Me ended up playing similar classes in GW2 again

He had a high rank Reaver in DAOC, and I had a High Rank Valkyrie in DAOC.

Yes, single target long range dps is what Rangers excel at. Yes, the warrior has a 1500 range killshot, but his other rifle skills are 1200 range and the rifle projectile doesn’t go beyond its max range, unlike an arrow. Getting Eagle Eye and Piercing Arrows and Quick Draw are a must though, so that’s 50 out of 70 trait points spent. The untraited longbow doesn’t really excel at anything. Although the single target long range dps is nice in WvW, you don’t get as many lootbags as some other classes get. But you should play it because you like the unique playstyle, not because of the loot.

That and pets… the BM tanky regen builds were quite fun. The pets themselves just aren’t very reliable.

Agreed with OP. I can’t stand it anymore.

I took a 3 week break from this game because I was so burned out on the state of the ranger. Came back for 2 minutes and got facesmashed by a healing sig warrior with absolutely no hope of anything I can do against him (was running a BM build, pet couldnt even keep up, hit for less than 1k on a 30BM cat).

Logging in just seethes me with hatred for everything wrong with this class and balance. I have too much time invested in my ranger to swap and balance can break this game at the drop of a hat.

I no longer enjoy this game because of these issues.

I’ll be modding skyrim until things improve (if they ever do).

See you all in a few months.

Against Healing Signet Warriors, Change your build up to my updated version Lord

10/0/30/0/30

Use Malicious Training, Wilderness Survival is still the same, for BM use Mighty Swap,Intimidation Training,Natural Healing

Use the Poison Spider, and the Weakness Spider.

You should have zero trouble with Healing Signet Warriors Then.

Cripple is not there to actually do anything to them other then Cover your other Conditions, and you apply enough poison to bring them down.

Terravos.4059:

Against Healing Signet Warriors, Change your build up to my updated version Lord

10/0/30/0/30

Use Malicious Training, Wilderness Survival is still the same, for BM use Mighty Swap,Intimidation Training,Natural Healing

Use the Poison Spider, and the Weakness Spider.

You should have zero trouble with Healing Signet Warriors Then.

Cripple is not there to actually do anything to them other then Cover your other Conditions, and you apply enough poison to bring them down.

I run 10/0/30/0/30, not much difference.

Takes too much effort, and one stun combo and your dead. Was the classic LB GS war, with the immobilize shot at melee range and 100B.

No defense against immob, you get caught in it and you die.

Its too stupid, I dont even want to try anymore. I’m done, just 100% done.

The only time I’ve died to a Warrior with 100b was when they had the long duration Skullcrack, now they don’t have enough damage to kill me.

And no defense against Immo? You have Sword/Chain evades…You can evade while immobilized

@Terravos,
Fine, but evades(despite some qq) don’t last forever and auto attacking vs any melee is suicide thanks to stupid leap frames (and this in an auto attack heavy game). You really have to far outplay opponents on a ranger (spirit bunker may be stronger, at least in a group fight, but even that is tied more to the elite than to any inherent build strengths). You will get caught by one of a warriors, or god forbid an engineers endless amount of cc and watch your health plummet. I can sympathize op, I find bm builds to be particularly rage inducing. BM was pretty good before the dummfire patch/ warrior patch, but the build was nerfed while other proff’s saw huge buff’s. Now Its just watch the pet do 0 damage 50 +% of the time while still being susceptible to conditions bombs/cc, not fun.

Traps on the crit traitline? (best idea)

Terravos.4059:

Always cracked me up that Kalorian and Me ended up playing similar classes in GW2 again

He had a high rank Reaver in DAOC, and I had a High Rank Valkyrie in DAOC.

I found it LOLs myself ; )

Sup man!

Bumaye.7168:

Traps on the crit traitline? (best idea)

I just…I just don’t even. What were they thinking?

This isn’t the only class that has these issues. The way things are designed, there will be things you want to do that just aren’t viable.

Guardian sword/shield, for example, has no finishers, no conditions (well… blind), no fields. Their ranged options are wand or staff, not very good if you don’t consider yourself a caster. And the staff range is 600. The entire class has only fire as a condition available to them.

dylan.5409:

@Terravos,
Fine, but evades(despite some qq) don’t last forever and auto attacking vs any melee is suicide thanks to stupid leap frames (and this in an auto attack heavy game). You really have to far outplay opponents on a ranger (spirit bunker may be stronger, at least in a group fight, but even that is tied more to the elite than to any inherent build strengths). You will get caught by one of a warriors, or god forbid an engineers endless amount of cc and watch your health plummet. I can sympathize op, I find bm builds to be particularly rage inducing. BM was pretty good before the dummfire patch/ warrior patch, but the build was nerfed while other proff’s saw huge buff’s. Now Its just watch the pet do 0 damage 50 +% of the time while still being susceptible to conditions bombs/cc, not fun.

A. The only time I use Auto Attack with BM Bunker is when I want to apply lots of cripple to the target that’s running, Otherwise there is no point in ever auto attacking.

B. The evade’s have an incredibly short cooldown, they do last forever..

C. The Pet does less damage now, But the Spiders aren’t there for their damage, They’re there to overload the person with Conditions, even Engineer’s have trouble with it, Warriors have trouble with it, The only class that you have to currently watch for is a Necro…a Necro can absolutely kill a Ranger Very easily, esp a BM Bunker one.