Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I haven’t played this game in quite some time and last i played, the ranger was very underwhelming in group play and the pet was very wonky……

Kind of want to start playing again but can anyone tell me if the ranger is still bottom of the barrel in terms of class strength and group viability?

I know there is a game notes section, but that’s a lot of reading to skim through to see what all has changed…. i noticed some changes to traits and pet commands and stuff. Has it made a difference to the ranger class?

we have gotten a lot of buffs, some nerfs, some buffs, then a bunch of nerfs, then some buffs…

If you quit one year ago, you’d miss the “epic destruction of BM viability” after they shaved off 4-5k from cat spike damage. So instead of cats hitting 12-15k, they now “only” hit 7-9k max… i know, totally useless.

Support has been buffed alot, we got a blast finisher on warhorn, regen + swiftness on shouts, faster arrows, stronger poison, they fixed Pet command responsiveness too.

New armors with new stats;
Dire – Tough, Vit, Condi
Celestial – All stats
Zealots – Power, Prec, healing power
Assassins – Prec, power, ferocity (crit damage)
Too many changes to runes and sigils affecting us to mention.
Pet HP was buffed in PvE by 71.5%…. still hoping for similar buff in WvW.
Some pet skills where nerfed.
Spirits was buffed, then nerfed, then buffed a little, then bug fixed (nerfed)
Sic’em shout now applies revealed on your target. Making thieves and mesmers unable to stealth.

GS had some damage buffs
LB had some major damage buffs
SB was nerfed into the ground and is totally unviable now (according to forum users, i still love it anyway) that its range is only 900
Axe offhand hand some minor changes
Lightning Reflexes now remove immob
some other random stuff i cannot remember.

^^^ yep he pretty much nailed it here.

One particular note to mention that I think is quite substantial, with the new trait patch, we got SotF grandmaster which gives fury and condi cleanse to our survival skills. Great if you use multiple survival skills & want active condi cleanse, or otherwise lacked condi cleanse.

PvE, we do have an effective meta build for dungeons/speed running, adds a lot of party damage. Its not the highest damage build out of all the classes but is competitive with added group support. (Note: it is the highest damage dealer if weilding an eles lightning hammer).

PvP, still top tier point defenders. Spirits/bm bunker are still considered some of the best point holders in the game. We dont have too many effective offensive builds for pvp however.

WvW, weve gotten better. We excel at roaming and in small groups as we always have (3-10) , and new runes/gear have improved that even more but still arent the best class for zerging. The new longbow trait allows for effective sniping from great range, so if you were to zerg… zerker LB/GS spec 6/0/2/6 would be the way to go.

Thanks for the info! it can be quite overwhelming to come back to the game and see so many changes and nerfs/buffs. i dont know whats good anymore! haha

i guess it will all come down to just playing a bunch again to get used to everything

thanks again

If you like Longbows in WvW, definitely use the new grandmaster trait Read the Wind. It gives +100% projectile speed, which translates to basically having 100% hit chance. Even combined with Eagle Eye’s +300 range it hits everything within range. Longbow has never been this good in WvW.

WvW solo = Fine
WvW group play = Bottom class. Guilds don’t want them
PvE = Part of the meta with frost spirit, spotter and high damage. IE. in really good spot
PvP = Rlly good home point defender & group fight support. Roaming builds are also on the rise. Mainly condition builds tho

It warms my heart to come in here and see legit assessments of rangers rather than “reroll, anet hates rangers”.

I’ve got plenty of people on my friends list who want me on their team for PvP when I’m online. Yesterday I went on a marathon dungeon running session doing almost every dungeon in the game, and again, people were happy to have a ranger with FS, spotter and HS. We’re actually in a pretty good place.

Thank you all for coming in and NOT posting re-roll since “Ranger is the bottom of the barrel” because we aren’t. Every class has it’s good and bad points.