Guild Wars 2

With the arrival of HoT, the new elite specs have many ways to counter projectiles (reflects, blocks). Some of the new specs also have easy access to stability.

What if you want to Point Blank Shot ? You’ll need to take in consideration if the person has a reflecting or a blocking skill. You also need to look if the person is not immune. Then, you need to look if it has aegis or stability.

With no way to remove those skills or boons, what are we left with ?

All rangers weapons are projectiles except GS, Sword, Staff and some skills from off hands. Sometimes getting in melee is not the best idea.

Any tips you guys have ? I was main mesmer for a long time and went to Ranger for the past few months. As a Mesmer, GS could go through those stuffs easily and the profession have easy access to boon removal, so I didn’t really had a problem with it.

I don’t focus on hard cc so much. I mean if I can land a pbs or a howl I will but I like snaring conditions.

I love barrage for its attrition in damage and soft cc.
Then ofcoarse their is immobilize with entangle & hound.

Oh and for blocking, note that traps are unlockable ;-)

HoT was designed to hate rangers and this is just another kick in our nuts.

What other profession can have it’s weapon sets completely shut down by a typical mob? At least we have our pet who can tag the events for us while we sit and watch everyone else play this bad (for rangers) game.

Sandpit.3467:

HoT was designed to hate rangers

Basically this.

Use Staff.

I only use longbow now if the enemy team has many necros. Otherwise I have to use staff to avoid reflections.

It doesn’t help that reflect is completely broken. 100% damage reduction + 100% damage returned to attacker. Nothing else in the game has that level of power. Even Retaliation is crying in a corner.

Projectile destroy is fine. That’s 100% damage reduction like so many things.

But I don’t see them removing reflect any time soon, they just added 50 new reflect skills and I bet they just love the mechanic too much.

Things have gotten a little out of hand with the addition of the elite specs… There’s just an unbelievable amount of reflects and blocks now. projectiles in general are much less effective than they used to be. the revenant projectile block is especially ridiculous with the CD it has.

I never much cared for longbow ranger, but now there’s really no point since everyone can just use anti-projectile and get into your face instantly. DH, rev, chrono, tempest, warrior, DD, and scrapper can all mitigate ranged projectiles like crazy.

Daredevil is a complete hardcounter to power ranger. If you thought things were bad with thieves before… just you wait lol.

I guess reaper and ranger are really the only ones that don’t have some form of crazy projectile mitigation.

Observe→ Learn→ Adapt and keep pushing forward. No easy way out if you play ranger.

Zorpi.5904:

Observe-> Learn-> Adapt and keep pushing forward. No easy way out if you play ranger.

That saying sounds familiar
v

vespers.1759:

I guess reaper and ranger are really the only ones that don’t have some form of crazy projectile mitigation.

Staff 5 is a hard counter to projectiles so it’s really just reapers.

Photinous.4628:

vespers.1759:

I guess reaper and ranger are really the only ones that don’t have some form of crazy projectile mitigation.

Staff 5 is a hard counter to projectiles so it’s really just reapers.

RS2 is a thing. Which is both an projectile destroyer and a gap closer. Making it BOTH things that projectile users hate.

Every elite spec has either a hard counter for projectiles. Or HEAVY access to soft counters.

Longbow/shortbow/axe ranger won’t be really viable in PvP for a VERY long time.

Edited for accuracy

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zorpi.5904:

Observe-> Learn-> Adapt and keep pushing forward. No easy way out if you play ranger.

That saying sounds familiar
v

Sayings, builds, ideas to improve rangers

you seem to have come up with it all first. maybe you can tell us how it all ends…

The game has always been somewhat unfriendly to ranged specs. But with a lot of the new armors/sigils/runes, you can ride the boon bandwagon, pretty easy to get 100% boon duration on a Ranger now, and boon spam is safe against everything but a Necro.

Time of the longbow ranger is over. Lb can be your second weapon with quick draw trait but pure lb builds are not very useful for above average opponents.

But good thing is that with quick draw and good timing you can get a great deal of damage with gs and lb. I tend to use gs/ sword+axe in pvp for projectile reflect, dodges and kiting potential. Also axe 4 can rip an opponent from his comfy zone.
Shouts are not as bad as they used to be nowadays. Especially with traits. But I tend to use wilderness survival for condi removal, short cd and fury. Combined with bm (bonus to two handed) it becomes a really fun to play melee ranger build.
For DH or some other bunker I use gs/ axe axe or gs/lb (not very effective as it used to be though, every bunker has some form of projectile hate)

Ranged damage is problematic nowadays. It is way too easy to reflect. And if you plan smartly, you can destroy a lb ranger with reflect skill.

Ps: I do not have HoT so my opinions on my build is based on core ranger. I pvp a lot an wvw a lot. My play style is not the best one though. Hope I could at least start a good share for other rangers

Justine.6351:

Tragic Positive.9356:

Zorpi.5904:

Observe-> Learn-> Adapt and keep pushing forward. No easy way out if you play ranger.

That saying sounds familiar
v

Sayings, builds, ideas to improve rangers

you seem to have come up with it all first. maybe you can tell us how it all ends…

As it usually does.
I can tell you my guess but I’d rather refrain from going way off-topic.

Reflects are just one of the many numerically unbalanced mechanics that go against Rangers. It just hasn’t been addressed because there is a way to go around reflects.