Q:
New to the game: Is Ranger a good pick?
The Druid is a level 80 only trait line that opens up after you’ve unlocked every other trait and skill point for your character. It can fill a variety of roles in any game mode, but I find it works best with conditions (damage over time effects) and healing/support, in PvP.
If you’re looking for ranged combat, a longbow might be better for you (but even if you want to play melee as much as possible, keep a spare longbow in your bags just in case!)
For melee, take the mainhand sword, but beware that its auto-attack can force you to face tank some pretty nasty attacks you might be otherwise able to block or avoid with other weapon sets. Still, the sword is my weapon of choice, and with evades built into its #2 and #3, makes for a fine weapon set that will let you dance around the battlefield and keep up with your opponents, or get around them.
Offhand axe or dagger compliments the sword well. If you want some extra damage, take the axe. If you want some extra evades, or poison to slow down healing, take the dagger. The warhorn is good, but you might find it more useful for larger group play over 1-2 people.
A “DPS class with good survivability” fits the ranger perfectly, and I highly recommend you give the class a try. I only want to reiterate a previous point in saying that if you take the mainhand sword, be prepared to take -some- damage because its attack chains can temporarily (1/4-1/2 second at the most, but I’m guessing) prevent you from using other skills to avoid big hits. It’s still my favourite weapon, oddly enough.
Just felt like stopping by and correcting the statement.
A “DPS class with good survivability” fits the ranger perfectly,
This is not true. Ranger doesn’t have a role of DPS. At any part of the game. Neither PvE, nor PvP.
We are supports both offensive and defensive. But we do not have what it takes to compete with other DPS classes.
Also, our defenses are still weaker than defenses of other classes. We, however, have good access to CC and sustain which gives us the opportunity to recover from taking damage. But once you get chained by a CC at a wrong time – you die. You don’t have anything to stay alive besides heals and CC. Not even stability (that can be interrupted as well).
We currently are one of the best skirmishing and dueling classes. Not because of the DPS or defenses but because of the pet that allows us to have a chain damage spike while focusing on defensive stats such as toughness and healing power. But having defensive stats does not mean that a class has good defenses. Anyone can take the same equipment.
EDIT: Also, since you do not intend to play Raids, neither sPvP – I’d probably advise to play druid only for higher fractals. Which is a long way to go.
You might be better off playing Condition builds or standard builds such as Frost Spotter or GS remorseless (links to both builds are definitely in Heimskarl’s thread in the stickies up in the forum, but if you can’t find it I’ll paste them here).
Do not worry. Rangers are not bad. We just have much harder times getting along with people. Sadly, vast part of our community plays the Ranger wrong – and that gets the rest hated unjustly. But we have some stuff up our sleeves to compete.
We are the easiest to play but the most difficult to master.
“Observe, learn and counter.”
(edited by Tragic Positive.9356)
It’s fun. Not competitive though, with druid you have the chance to get more tanky, but there is the problem that our damage is average at best and the druid has very clunky mechanics.
However being the ranger in such incoherent state is fun because of the unexpected results in many situations.
Thank you all for the input. I gotta say that the bit “it’s fun but not competitive” worries me a bit for the long term. Would you recommend another class to pair up with a Rev?
Thank you all for the input. I gotta say that the bit “it’s fun but not competitive” worries me a bit for the long term. Would you recommend another class to pair up with a Rev?
Actually …
… Ranger is quite competitive.
For PvE it definitely is. There are some hardcore guilds that use the Druid in their record runs. But… Yea, it’s for Raids.
When it comes to fractals, Druid is one of the most valuable assets you can get. I don’t think you intend to get into the World’s Best PvE guild to try and defeat Raids in 5 people instead of 10 and such.
Druid is both competitive and not.
It is competitive if you are the master of your class. That way you can beat other professions in what you have to offer.
If you aren’t – you never will be competitive. Ranger has the worst habit of dragging players into AFK Longbow play. If you won’t fall into that category – you’ll have just enough options to stay competitive.
“Observe, learn and counter.”
Ranger is fine for PvE as are all 9 professions, and it’s outstanding in WvW. Warrior is extremely strong in PvE. Whoever told you warrior is not good in PvE is out of their dang minds.
Depending on balances iterations, rangers/druids are great for your options.
If you know how to play with your pet, use your offensive/defensive abilities well, and, like others said, don’t AFK on LB, ranger is a great class.
Especially in PvE, where the pet takes less damage, and where mobs don’t run off or don’t use terrain to negate your damage.
I would say, the more the better.
Do not hesitate to pair rangers with revenant, and War with elem. You do not need to have only one 80 class. enjoy your leveling time, since GW is about the journey.
The interconnections between those pairs are great.
Elem has lots of fields, which your war can finish (combo). Your ranger can have many combo fields that your revenant friend can finnish.
Classes have very different purposes and uses. Straigh DPS is not the only point.
Sometimes, you will find it really handi to be able to switch.
Jack of all trades. I feel competent healing, doing long range dps doing melee dps, condi and being a bunker. I don’t think they are best in class at any one thing but they are competitive at everything. I think people struggle with the terms competitive. It’s probably top 3 at most roles which makes it competitive but its not the best at any of them. Great if you like to change your playstyle up alot and still be viable at everything.
Thanks all – what are the first traits you’d recommend I take when leveling?
Thanks all – what are the first traits you’d recommend I take when leveling?
Marksmanship I suppose.
Just to have that AoE swiftness + might and you’ll get that vulnerability on 1st hit.
On leveling, GS + LB are your best friends. Longbow for AoE and ranged tagging, GS for burst and mobility.
And you’ll like remorseless for leveling. I hope you’ll do.
“Observe, learn and counter.”
For a levelling purpose only, I would say the first signet (signet of the hunt), so that you can go faster on the maps (active goes well with Maul – GS#2).
Then traps – they will allow you to tag more mobs in events, and ice and fire traps offer nice combo fields (ice, less in PvE, though) so traps up to fire.
Then survival. Lightening reflex is nice as a get out ability, and Quickening zephyr adds to your DPS.
For traitlines, I think skirmishing would be a nice first one – already go for spotter and quick draw, which raise DPS.
(now, there are as manu ways to level a ranger as there are final builds, so any way, they would work).
The state of our Weapon, from a direct damage perspective, in PvE is LB and sword/Axe.
word is tricky to use, I strongly advise checking these vids out https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0YdygHp1vKfJ6iu9ZIIeWOQYNVexSeJW
though old, their swrods comments are still true. (I personnaly don’t use sword – I use GS, which is not too much of a lost with QD).
I agree with everything Keyce said.
Sword can really take a time to get used to and also puts a lot of people off because of the attack chain and you get stickied to your target, which you don’t want sometimes.
If you don’t like it (at first) you can try the greatsword, which is a bit easier to play with.
Who the hell advised you against the warrior? It’s been one of the strongest and most welcome classes in PvE since day 1. Ranger, not so much. Warrior can either provide good damage and very good offensive support or (currently) the best dps in the game.
It is overplayed tho, you can’t take a step without tripping over 5 warriors and their great swords.
Rangers deals ok-ish damage and as a Druid, the best healing. They have a bad rep because of bad players but they’re not so bad. They’re also somewhat deeper than warriors, both classes are very easy to pick up and play but ranger is the harder to master because of the many pets and i often find myself switching skills/weapons more on my ranger.
If survivable DPS is what you’re after i’d recomend warrior or necromancer over ranger unless #1 You like pets #2 You like having good ranged damage #3 The skills/play style in general
Yes it is a good choice. You can play a lot of content including soloing champions due the tankieness of your pet.
I’d recommend drakes in PVE (due to the fact that they cleave) or the new HOT pets (due to their damage) not the wyvern.
I also recommend using a greatsword for PVE and a Longbow or Axe+Horn.
I apologize for everyone else who has responded to you post. They spammed you with a lot of irrelevent data to your request, taljing about raids wvw and fractals. You’re probably like “what the hell is a fractal?”.
I can’t speak on behalf of warrior since i havn’t started playing one but i have much to give you in regards to ranger as that is what i main.
Starting out ranger will be an easy time as its survivability is quite high with its signets and “survival” utility type and pets. While leveling i would recommend going with a shortbow and sword or axe/axe weapon set until your sixties and go with power and condition damage stats. Take some trap utilities and quickening zephyr or lightning reflexes to get out of kitten. A bear would be a good pet to start with until you figure things out, it has high toughness and health but low dmg.
After you hit approximately lvl 60 or so you will start getting triple stats gears. At this point i would recommend switching from condition damage gear and weapon and go for the berserker stat combo which is power, precision and ferocity and grab a longbow and a greatsword. Longbow is our highest burst damage weapon and greatsword is a good power damage melee weapon with excellent defensive skills. Prior to 60 you wouldnt get that stat combo of power precision and ferocity so you wouldnt get the full benefit of using these pure power weapons which is why i recomend going with a power+condition damage set up.
Of course this is all my opinion, i would encourage you to just roll with your curiocity even if it gets you some bruises along the way and dont sacrifice your enjoyment of the game for what is “meta”. As you play the game you’ll run into people who preach about the meta as if it were the word of some heavenly being and they were its prophet.
90% of the fun is twitch chat, 10% is the casters trying desperately to make the match interesting.
I apologize for everyone else who has responded to you post. They spammed you with a lot of irrelevent data to your request, taljing about raids wvw and fractals. You’re probably like “what the hell is a fractal?”.
He actually said he wanted to play WvW and fractals, read his post.
So should I apologize for you now?
We’re all just trying to help him out, no need to apoligize for eachother.
Thank you all! Really appreciate the discussion and honest input there. Great Community!
One last question that stays within this topic: When it comes to playing non-magical range, how to the Ranger compare with the Engineer? I understand Engineer have more DPS, no pet, so less potential survavibility in PVE and of course cannot heal as well as a Druid would. Am I correct?
I understand Engineer have more DPS, no pet, so less potential survavibility in PVE and of course cannot heal as well as a Druid would. Am I correct?
More DPS in very specific situations, but nothing 99% of players will notice or even be able to achieve.
No profession has any trouble at all surviving in PvE, pets just make it more braindead if you want to explore while drinking heavily or something.
Druids can heal more, but that only really applies to raids. Even for PvP, engi’s healing is very potent.
How does the Ranger compare with the Engineer…
I would say the learning curve of the engineer is way steeper than the ranger’s one.
Anybody can play ranger, and get going with minimal dedication and work. Few are the players who master the ranger.
The engineer is very sub-par if he is only casually played. To really take advantage of it, one has to use the many combos it offers (it can explode up to (5?) times in it’s water zone, for instance, which means lots of heal, or it can might stack by exploding in fire fields multiple time, and so on). And to use the combos, get ready to switch a lot.
A bad ranger can go on playing PvE, for his pet eats the damage. A bad engineer would get rekt if he doesn’t know what he is doing. I brought mine up to 80 with flamethrower, but I can’t solo a WvW old-style tower with it, while I could with my ranger. Good engineers I know can solo the new tower lords without problems.
So, all in all, it is just different gameplay.
(it can explode up to (5?) times in it’s water zone
Every single utility has access to a blast finisher, plus the shield, Big ol’ Bomb, and the trait that gives blast finishers on dodge. So I think it’s 8 unless I’m missing something. And knowing engi, I am missing something.
Well, but as fast as one can press buttons, there is a limit in the number of explosions that one can do in a 3 sec water field ^^
Actually, and this is totally off topic, you should be able to easily get all 8 off. For simplicity’s sake, let’s make this a turret engi, so there is no downtime swapping kits, just slam down the 6-0 keys all at the same time. The BoB can be cast premptively, and then you only worry about dodging and blasting shield. I imagine you could do the whole sequence in 1 second or less.
Hi could someone help me and give some advice. I’ve been playing ranger and just found out when I unlock elite spec I basically become a support class which I’m really not a fan of, I’m tempted to switch to a revenant, can someone tell me what’s good about rev compared to ranger?
Greatsword and Longbow are really boring and attacks feel slow. They only have two special offensive attacks. So most of the time you just repeat the same 1 or 2 attacks and auto-attack until they reset.
Ranger LB is the most boring, uninspired weapon in the game (or any RPG really). Ironically, if you want a fun bow class, don’t choose a ranger. For example, thief shortbow is very fun and even useful for getting out of trouble. On top of that, it AOEs better than both of ranger’s bows.
OTOH Ranger Axe/Axe is very fast-paced weapon set that damages multiple enemies. Every skill deals great to excellent damage and can be used in every battle, even against trash mobs. It’s midrange weapon, so you can move between melee and range without the need to swap weapons or losing much damage output in the process.
“but everyone and these forums strongly advices against Warrior”
Forums are always full of whining and crying. The truth is warrior and ranger are actually favored meta classes right now – although that can change at any time – and all classes are viable for just running around in the world, having fun and learning the game.
“but everyone and these forums strongly advices against Warrior”
This thread is from 2 years ago.
“but everyone and these forums strongly advices against Warrior”
This thread is from 2 years ago.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. There have been posts this week about how Ranger is the prof most persecuted and hated-on by the devs. TBH I didn’t see that though, my bad for contributing to the thread necro.
Condi ranger will most likely get nerfed in the coming months. So it’ll be out of the meta by the time you hit 80/have all the gear
Condi ranger will most likely get nerfed in the coming months. So it’ll be out of the meta by the time you hit 80/have all the gear
They just buffed it in the previous patch, why would they nerf it now? ANet rarely rubberbands buffs they do.
Yannir for males. (guard,thief,war,ele)
Sonya for females. (necro,rev,ranger,mes,engi)
All classes lvl 80.
Sonya for females. (necro,rev,ranger,mes,engi)
All classes lvl 80.
Condi ranger will most likely get nerfed in the coming months. So it’ll be out of the meta by the time you hit 80/have all the gear
They just buffed it in the previous patch, why would they nerf it now? ANet rarely rubberbands buffs they do.
No, anet did not buff the condi ranger the last patch.
Ending the main source of condition damage is not buffing. And buff with 4 extra stacks of bleed an skill with 20 seconds cd is not making up for.
Condi ranger will be nerfed even more as Anet don’t won’t the Druid to be a dps dealer at all.