Guild Wars 2

Hi,

There may be a lot of emotions in my thoughts, so please try to take what I’m about to say from the right perspective and if you don’t have anything reasonable to add then just remain silent, thank you. Also, bear in mind, that English is not my mother tongue.

I feel really down and disappointed about the ranger. I tried to figure it out day after day for the past month and something (almost two months and yer, I’m new to the game), but despite the many people I bested in PVP both in close and long range combat I feel the class isn’t balanced at all when talking about manouverability.

From a reasonable perspective, any archer in any game, and in real life of course (snipers, hunters and such) ought to demonstrate flawless manouverability and positioning, which they depend on and outlines their survival.

I mean, who the f* designed a class that is supposed to be extremely agile and hard to catch to move like a turtle instead, unless one uses a horn or the shout build to give himself and the party swiftness with regeneration or uses another combination to achieve movement boost.

I don’t know by what other means than the above mentioned and eg. the sword skill to jump and leap, or the greatsword’s rush you guys use to achieve better movement but frankly, I tried what I believed to be the most reasonable options for both condi and/or sniping builds, both of which fail at movement if you go let’s say LB/GS, or LB/sword + weapon of your choice for sniping or for condi builds axe/torch + sword/dagger or otherwise.

A bloody guardian that wears heavy armour and heavy weaponry should by definition be a very slow runner, but no, he has teleportation skills and can swing through the battlefield with his sword and other very helpful stuff. What the…

Why don’t rangers have supreme evasion skills like in most games allowing for swift repositioning? Why the hell have we, when in combat mode, been given a movement pace of a snail while an elementalist can get up to 25% if wearing two daggers?

Example: you run a condi build where you don’t include the movement signet because you need other utilities, you enter combat = what the heck is with that movement speed??? You’re dead if you move 0.5 km/h.

I’d like to hear how you guys manage.

Rangers blow guardians out of the kitten water in terms of WvW-style mobility. It’s not even close. But you are right, lack of teles is pretty brutal for PvP. It’s only us, warriors and engis that lack them, and obviously engi and warrior are renown for their team support to make up for it.

It would be easy to give us a tele that isn’t overpowered for LB rangers: just put it on a long cooldown. That one tele would be huge.

I strongly suspect druids will get a tele that is nature magic themed, perhaps along the lines of the necro wurm swap.

By the way, sounds like you should use RaO as your elite when playing LB ranger.

Hi, guardian main here who plays ranger quite a bit in sPVP and WvW.

I would like to say you are wrong and that teleports on a guard are the ONLY thing that lets them survive a ranger.

Keep in mind as a ranger you should ALWAYS have the high ground or be able to open up from 1600+ range. If you are facing a guard in melee range, you are doing something wrong, but in this case the guard is the least of your worries, you would be dead to any class, particularly thief and mesmer.

Once a guard uses his focus 5 they become a poor HP spunge for your burst. You have many ways to create distance, guard has only teleports to close it, and 1 of them is on a 32 sec cooldown.

When you trait hunter shot its at 12 sec cooldown with point blank shot about the same as well. Add in pet fear and CC and you are looking at twice more ways to make distance than the guard has to cut it.

if you are losing to a guard, you are doing something wrong. if you are facing a guard on a point, unless you are much more skilled than a guard, you will lose as a power ranger.

It’s not that I would have problems facing a particular class. I mentioned the guardian as an example only to point out some of the stuff Rangers would appreciate, not precisely teleportation, but to somehow mitigate the horrible movement.

Perhaps I should’ve mentioned, that this is mainly about PVP, where rangers don’t always get the advantage of higher ground, which is understandable in terms of balance. Some maps are better suited and some less so. My main concern is the movement speed and evasive manouvers along with positioning.

On my condi build I can squash about anybody. Last time I checked it took a full party to kill me and I can fairly hold points on my own, at least to keep them busy while my team should be on their way to capture the rest and assist, but anyway, it’s not that I don’t manage, it’s what I feel is wrong about the class.

I understand the ranger being mainly support, but there are times (90% and I’m being optimistic) when you don’t land a good party from the Q as your guildies don’t often have the time for PVP, so you bang your head and ask yourself why do you have to go hold a point when the rest got stuck in a different universe and you get surrounded by 3… ouch.

…D-did you just use Guard as an example of mobility compared to Rangers?

As someone who mains both a Guard and Ranger (more Guardian than Ranger) in SPvP, I can tell you that Guards aren’t all that mobile at all — definitely not as mobile as the likes of a Ranger, even without a Warhorn. I mean, I guess they’re more mobile in the sense that they can get up in people’s faces a lot better, but not in the sense that they can play keepaway/disengage easily. They can’t do that worth kitten, at least not if they’re relying solely on their mobility.

Really, Guardians have JI as a nice tele (which is on a 32 second cooldown), a leap which has a fairly “meh” range (600 – 900, iirc) which is decent for closing gaps and speeding yourself up when roaming (save for the fact that it’s on a 15 second CD), and a teleport on the sword, which I wouldn’t advise using in a SPvP situation, considering that (in my opinion) the Scepter is a /lot/ more useful than that of the Sword.

So tl;dr, no the Ranger is not less mobile than a Guardian. And even though it’s a lot less mobile than a lot of the other classes, you have to understand that we have the advantage of range and the high ground. A good LB ranger is usually always out of range — or at least out of range for as long as humanly possible — and that is why we don’t have an excessive amount of escape skills and teles coming out of our orifices.

Now what we could /really/ use is maybe a few more condi cleanses. /That/ is something a Guardian has us beat on, hands down.

I play condi-ranger alot and i dont have trouble with moving around at all, i mean using sword and dagger i dance around 3 enemy’s and evade so much it drives them crazy.
Thats why i absolutly love ranger.

I know heavy armor builds are heavy and realisticly should be slower, but if you are consistant in asking for realism, then how many freaking arrows do you carry around, and how slow will you be if you carry that much arrows

i think our movement and repositioning is not only in our movement but also our control of the target, fears, immob. Or you could even use trapper runes for repositioning if you like stealth and speed.

thorsonwong.2805:

…D-did you just use Guard as an example of mobility compared to Rangers?

You don’t have to take everything literally. You can take any other, suitable example.

My point is for something that should be more evasive/manouverable rangers move very slow by default. And are squishy.

Ashkew.6584:

Or you could even use trapper runes for repositioning if you like stealth and speed.

It’s something I was thinking about before I lost it… since my condi build uses mainly traps and we know traps cannot be blocked and bring a lot of heat into the battle.

But Trapper runes aren’t available in PVP for obvious reasons. Guess how many rangers would use them, and they sure as hell would be unstoppable.

But that movement… until I get to a point while constantly in combat… Jesus…

As far as mobility options, I have a few for Ranger.

Traveler Runes- Not ideal stat wise, but you can’t number crunch the value of the added mobility. I’ve used these in sPvP when I don’t want to carry Signet of the Hunt. I don’t think I’d use them when I had actual communication, but there is value in being able to move independently. Rune of Speed is an alternative worth looking at as well.

Signet of the Hunt- For condi, it is less than ideal in the slot. The 150% damage can make Sword 2 or Dagger 5 hurt, but otherwise there isn’t a lot of use for the active for condi.

Nature’s Voice- You’re passing up an excellent trait in survival of the fittest, but for a condi build it isn’t unforgivable. The permanent regeneration is also good for 1v1’s and bunkering in general. Not the best option, but not unviable by any means.

Offhand Horn- I would probably give up the dagger (A/H, S/T) if I wasn’t using fire trap for burning off of the axe. Horn 4 + Rampage as One is an excellent source of might, and the 5 is really the only blast finisher we have (outside of Drakes). You need around 55% bonus duration and Offhand Training to get a 100% swiftness uptime, which is doable with points in BM and the right rune set.

High mobility has slightly better harmony with a power build, and condi does tend to be more bunker by virtue of being damage over time. Rangers do have a lot of built in evade from their weapons, so I’m not sure if there is a lot to complain about there. What I would like to see is a trait for +25% movespeed with an active pet, hopefully replacing Agility Training in Skirmishing. The tradeback of having to keep your pet alive is slight enough for this to be fair and balanced in my mind.

90 hours on ranger now, been winning vs medi guards with duel melee, pure zerker armor, and runes of the trapper. My mobility is insane, nonstop evades or blocks, stealth, and super speed. 0/6/6/2/0 only running duel melee because i dont have enough gold to buy a longbow.

There isnt much i cant out run or evade/invis, sword mainhand covers ground so fast.

A huge thank you to everyone.

I took your valuable feedback into consideration and experimented a lot the most part of the day today in PVP, since my question was mainly aimed towards that and Ranger’s overall faint movement speed (excl. signets). I go by the rule, that if it’s applicable in PVP, it will most likely work in PVE and for me it does. (Yer, I’m looking for a universal build, although some may disagree.)

I went from different trait lines to runes and sigils, armours and weapons, tried about everything I found interesting and that would suit my play style.

In WvW/PVE there’s plenty of space to manouver, but PVP is usually close quarters, of course depending on the map type – some offer more advantage, some less so – but comparably less space for manouverability at points.

I too concluded, based on what some of you mentioned, that what the ranger would truly benefit from is to substitute not so used/useful traits for passive movement speed increase/positioning abilities/evasive manouvers in and out of combat.

Have a good day.

I haven’t experienced problems with ranger mobility, instead I keep on getting “omg you are a speedhacker”-type of whispers quite often. If you learn to use 1h sword’s #2 skill as an escape tool, it will open up a whole new level of mobility.

I exclusively use LB zerk with sword and warhorn as my other weapons. Like FrouFrou said above me sword #2 gives fantastic mobility but requires a bit of practice. You get the initial backwards leap but if you turn around really quick and deselect your target you get a forward leap in whatever direction you want. Then theres also the warhorn 5 with the added swiftness and lighting reflexes and RaO if you choose to bring those. While we aren’t thief or warrior level of mobility(oh look there goes a warrior flying half way across the borderland with his greatsword….) we can still be pretty kitten mobile. I just wish that the skirmishing trait line had more to do with actual skirmishing like hitting hard and fast then disengaging quickly.

If you want true maneuverability as a Ranger … Sword+X & Greatsword. Trait for reduced cooldowns and you’re flying across the map.

Unlike the mobility of some other classes, through, it takes some extra skill to use Sword #2 properly for extra mobility … similar to how it takes extra skill for Mesmers to use Staff #2 for extra mobility.

There are several things to considder when playing a ranger. Althought the Holy Trinity does not exist in this game (not in its pure form) there are still some classes that are better at some of these roleplays than others just as there are some builds that are better at certain functions than others.
This is the reason why a guardian that gives a lot of boons/heals will teleport to the middle of the fray. Because his build can soak up a lot of damage while he empowers his allies.
So my first advise to you is to look a your build and decide wheather it fits one of these roles better.

My second advise would be for you to inform yourself about other classes and also about how others (the good ones) play your build. There is a lot of information on Youtube as well as these forums. If you are really interested about becoming a good ranger then you will definitely want to research and read a lot about the class.

Third, don’t try to replicate what other classes do. Know your place as a ranger and learn to take advantage of it. Learn to use your pet and you will not feel the need for stealth or teleport mechanics because you will not be running from battles anymore.

Last, I will share my build with you. Its nothing fancy/new, and its certanly not gonna make you all-powerful, but if you learn when and how to use each of the skills then you will find yourself making more stomps than before.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNAV8YjMqUwaLLerQ1aABhaVA0uGu3u29QkvfdBfqA-TpRHABFcEAq9BAgwFAApyAAcQACZ/BA

This build focuses on harrassing the enemy and helping people win battles so you can quickly help your allies in the next capture point. I personnally beleive that it has great mobility and versatility. If you would like to have someone to practice with then I will definitely help you as long as you catch me online : ). Good luck and I hope this helps.

Runes of the Trapper
Skirmishing 6, trap focused

BAMCIS: you have 12 seconds of invisibility and super speed.

or

Nature magic 6, bonus to the shout skill and you have forever-swiftness.

GS swoop, swap to sword, spin to face opponent and monarch’s leap, lightning reflexes, spin around again and monarch’s leap again before it times out, swap back to GS and a few seconds later swoop again.

covers an amazing amount of ground and few can catch up with that, but takes a little timing practice to pull it off correctly

Inoki.6048:

the ranger would truly benefit from is to substitute not so used/useful traits for passive movement speed increase/positioning abilities/evasive manouvers in and out of combat.

Have a good day.

Out of combat speed is what hurts rangers the most. They have several options for swiftness, but a lot of them require combat to use. These are your options:

• Signet of the Hunt
• Traveler Runes (Also Speed, Pack & Centaur)
• Tail Wind
• Storm Spirit
• Birds
• Warhorn
• Quickshot (3 seconds of swiftness from shortbow #3)
• Rampage as One

Tail Wind in itself can be enough combat speed on it’s own to get by, but especially with any of the other ones supplementing it like pack runes, a bird, warhorn or quickshot. The problem is that the only reliable speed out of combat is SotH and traveler runes, with warhorn giving a decent burst of swiftness but not perma.

I usually run sword in both my condi and power builds for the extra mobility. Traveler runes on my condi build and generally warhorn/Tail Wind on my longbow build. On my melee zerker build (2/6/6/0/0) with sw/axe & gs I have Tail Wind/pack runes but my out of combat speed hurts (though the leaps help).

There’s a lot of tradeoffs with the decision on how you want to build for mobility. You have to choose between your runes, utilities, traits, pet or weapon. There’s a lot of options, but you will have to choose mobility over something else.

I go alot of rounds of spvp without dieing once on my ranger. I find it pretty easy to maintain distance with greatsword 3 block longbow 3 for stealth and stone singet when needed to help u get another gs or lb 3 attack to gain some more distance. Also entangle can help as well.

Inoki.6048:

Hi,

There may be a lot of emotions in my thoughts, so please try to take what I’m about to say from the right perspective and if you don’t have anything reasonable to add then just remain silent, thank you. Also, bear in mind, that English is not my mother tongue.

I feel really down and disappointed about the ranger. I tried to figure it out day after day for the past month and something (almost two months and yer, I’m new to the game), but despite the many people I bested in PVP both in close and long range combat I feel the class isn’t balanced at all when talking about manouverability.

From a reasonable perspective, any archer in any game, and in real life of course (snipers, hunters and such) ought to demonstrate flawless manouverability and positioning, which they depend on and outlines their survival.

I mean, who the f* designed a class that is supposed to be extremely agile and hard to catch to move like a turtle instead, unless one uses a horn or the shout build to give himself and the party swiftness with regeneration or uses another combination to achieve movement boost.

I don’t know by what other means than the above mentioned and eg. the sword skill to jump and leap, or the greatsword’s rush you guys use to achieve better movement but frankly, I tried what I believed to be the most reasonable options for both condi and/or sniping builds, both of which fail at movement if you go let’s say LB/GS, or LB/sword + weapon of your choice for sniping or for condi builds axe/torch + sword/dagger or otherwise.

A bloody guardian that wears heavy armour and heavy weaponry should by definition be a very slow runner, but no, he has teleportation skills and can swing through the battlefield with his sword and other very helpful stuff. What the…

Why don’t rangers have supreme evasion skills like in most games allowing for swift repositioning? Why the hell have we, when in combat mode, been given a movement pace of a snail while an elementalist can get up to 25% if wearing two daggers?

Example: you run a condi build where you don’t include the movement signet because you need other utilities, you enter combat = what the heck is with that movement speed??? You’re dead if you move 0.5 km/h.

I’d like to hear how you guys manage.

Man you are totally right. Some White knight here will tell you learn to play but they have no idea how limited ranger is compared to other classes.
Unfortunatly ranger is totally broken.
I ve already gave up on it.
And I have to be honest I’ m little by little, quitting this game becouse ranger is the only class I actually like..but compared to Others…ranger is 0 worthy.
So i truly understand you man and your disappointemnt.
Let’ s hope that new games where ranger is decent…will come out soon. Gw2 isn’ t one of these games

Darkness.9732:

Inoki.6048:

Hi,

There may be a lot of emotions in my thoughts, so please try to take what I’m about to say from the right perspective and if you don’t have anything reasonable to add then just remain silent, thank you. Also, bear in mind, that English is not my mother tongue.

I feel really down and disappointed about the ranger. I tried to figure it out day after day for the past month and something (almost two months and yer, I’m new to the game), but despite the many people I bested in PVP both in close and long range combat I feel the class isn’t balanced at all when talking about manouverability.

From a reasonable perspective, any archer in any game, and in real life of course (snipers, hunters and such) ought to demonstrate flawless manouverability and positioning, which they depend on and outlines their survival.

I mean, who the f* designed a class that is supposed to be extremely agile and hard to catch to move like a turtle instead, unless one uses a horn or the shout build to give himself and the party swiftness with regeneration or uses another combination to achieve movement boost.

I don’t know by what other means than the above mentioned and eg. the sword skill to jump and leap, or the greatsword’s rush you guys use to achieve better movement but frankly, I tried what I believed to be the most reasonable options for both condi and/or sniping builds, both of which fail at movement if you go let’s say LB/GS, or LB/sword + weapon of your choice for sniping or for condi builds axe/torch + sword/dagger or otherwise.

A bloody guardian that wears heavy armour and heavy weaponry should by definition be a very slow runner, but no, he has teleportation skills and can swing through the battlefield with his sword and other very helpful stuff. What the…

Why don’t rangers have supreme evasion skills like in most games allowing for swift repositioning? Why the hell have we, when in combat mode, been given a movement pace of a snail while an elementalist can get up to 25% if wearing two daggers?

Example: you run a condi build where you don’t include the movement signet because you need other utilities, you enter combat = what the heck is with that movement speed??? You’re dead if you move 0.5 km/h.

I’d like to hear how you guys manage.

Man you are totally right. Some White knight here will tell you learn to play but they have no idea how limited ranger is compared to other classes.
Unfortunatly ranger is totally broken.
I ve already gave up on it.
And I have to be honest I’ m little by little, quitting this game becouse ranger is the only class I actually like..but compared to Others…ranger is 0 worthy.
So i truly understand you man and your disappointemnt.
Let’ s hope that new games where ranger is decent…will come out soon. Gw2 isn’ t one of these games

You certainly haven’t given up crying about it.

But Ranger actually has good mobility OOC, if you want bad OOC mobility pick up a mesmer, I feel like a potatoed turtle when I play my mes. Also sword 2 offers great repositioning potential, though I feel the skill cast/delay is a little too high, that may just be me.

If you comapare that to warrior then of course we’re going to get left in the dust, I mean having less mobility than a heavy armoured class that weilds a greatsword just makes sense cus logic….. seriously, it’s something I’ve never understood.

@Darkness:
What’s with the constant “White Knight” talk in your posts. Calling someone that:

• Does nothing for your post
• Has no real meaning
• Reflects poorly on you

@Darkness & @JimHunter
Please try to stick to discussing the topic(s) … not the people.

@Curring:
I think most people’s problem is that for Ranger to have good OOC mobility, they need to have Sword and/or Greatsword. On top of that, using Sword effectively for that extra mobility requires some coordination. Not everyone can meet the skill floor required for it and do it comfortably.

I agree on Mesmer … people that have played Mesmer don’t complain about any other class’s mobility … except when complaining about trying to chase them :-p

One last thing … most mobile builds sacrifice a good bit to get that mobility. I’m much less concerned with a Greatsword/Sword+Horn Warrior than I am a more combat-focused Warrior.

Elementalists though … Dagger Dagger and Cantrips … so much versatility. I don’t see any sacrifice there for that mobility aside from a lack of range … though Ride the Lightning did get that cooldown nerf a long while back.

Yeah but it’s rare for people not to be running a GS or Sword in the build, Power I go LB/Sword or GS condi I always have MH sword.

Warrior ONLY needs greatsword for the mobility, doesn’t need the SW/WH at all, GS on it’s own has more mobility than most classes lol.

Elementalist doesn’t actually have that much mobility I’d actually say ranger has more. RTL is a 40 second C/D (Which I feel is absurd, should be 25 second regardless), Lightning flash is roughly the same and I guess Burning speed the only thing that gives them good mobility is FGS which is basically warriors GS on fiya (Though now you can get the skin, gg)

With Elementalist they have RtL and Burning Speed … and perma-swiftness.

But, yes, I agree that they aren’t any more mobile than Rangers … possibly slightly less nowadays.

I just think for that all speed + swiftness they aren’t giving anything up. But I imagine that’s a hard class to balance. 20 weapon skills alone versus everyone else’s 10 (not counting 2+ kit engineers).

It really depends on your build type, I play condi and find it more then suitable. I’m going to be 100% honest here, when I go Long Bow I do it for giggles because currently its pretty kitten OP, if they gave a LB Ranger the ability to port around ontop of it, it would be kitten near god mode.

I know people hate this phrase and comes off rude but it really is a L2P issue. Every class doesn’t have to have ports, or whatever ability people think their class should have that another does. The only place in this game that I personally find Rangers lacking is in Large scale (20-25 man) organized (<<—Key Word) WvW because they lack the group support/condi cleanses, another class can do it better basically. Even with this said, 1 Ranger can be beneficial for a Driver Snipe.

I love my Ranger, and if Anet wants to give me God Mode I’ll take but we certainly don’t need it.

Fluffball.8307:

Rangers blow guardians out of the kitten water in terms of WvW-style mobility. It’s not even close. But you are right, lack of teles is pretty brutal for PvP. It’s only us, warriors and engis that lack them, and obviously engi and warrior are renown for their team support to make up for it.

It would be easy to give us a tele that isn’t overpowered for LB rangers: just put it on a long cooldown. That one tele would be huge.

I strongly suspect druids will get a tele that is nature magic themed, perhaps along the lines of the necro wurm swap.

By the way, sounds like you should use RaO as your elite when playing LB ranger.

I’ve seen some very fast Guardians – very, very fast. So I don’t know how you can say that we move “faster” than even a Guardian.

Rangers without traiting move very, very slowly and can’t keep up with any group without the boosts or speed fields – if we lag behind, and we do without our traits, we die.

Rangers are support oriented – can solo, but best in a group where they can really shine – the necessity to trait for speed that comes naturally on others who are light as we are (medium class), is just a bit ridiculous.

atheria.2837:

Fluffball.8307:

Rangers blow guardians out of the kitten water in terms of WvW-style mobility. It’s not even close. But you are right, lack of teles is pretty brutal for PvP. It’s only us, warriors and engis that lack them, and obviously engi and warrior are renown for their team support to make up for it.

It would be easy to give us a tele that isn’t overpowered for LB rangers: just put it on a long cooldown. That one tele would be huge.

I strongly suspect druids will get a tele that is nature magic themed, perhaps along the lines of the necro wurm swap.

By the way, sounds like you should use RaO as your elite when playing LB ranger.

I’ve seen some very fast Guardians – very, very fast. So I don’t know how you can say that we move “faster” than even a Guardian.

Rangers without traiting move very, very slowly and can’t keep up with any group without the boosts or speed fields – if we lag behind, and we do without our traits, we die.

Rangers are support oriented – can solo, but best in a group where they can really shine – the necessity to trait for speed that comes naturally on others who are light as we are (medium class), is just a bit ridiculous.

This doesn’t make a lot of sense. Any class that chooses not to use traits/skills that increase their mobility will be slow. When rangers build for mobility they are the 3rd fastest class

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have a trait that offered 25% mobility like so many of the other professions, I would definitely love to get a teleport, but rangers do currently have really good mobility. The real issue is we have to invest much more to achieve it than a lot of the other professions.