Guild Wars 2

Ok I have some questions for the ranger community. I don’t play a ranger, but have thought of making one. I understand that it can be a difficult class to play, but that doesn’t deter me. However, reading the dungeon forums, profession balance forums, etc. I see a general disgust over rangers in general. Especially the “bowbear” build. It would seem to me, that as popular as the “bearbow” seems to be, that there is much hate toward it. Why all the hate? There must be a reason for it, and I am sure it was developed by the ranger community who I would think knew what they were doing. Any insight on this? Thanks!

pdavis.8031:

It would seem to me, that as popular as the “bearbow” seems to be, that there is much hate toward it. Why all the hate?

Low damage and low utility/support are the main reasons. Sometimes lack of pet control as well.

So if it’s low damage, and low utility/support, why is run run so often?

It’s run so often because a bear is tanky enough to survive most things so you can autoattack your way through leveling.

Some of your skills depend on your pet being alive, rather than your pet dealing damage.

Bears won’t die even with zero micro, and this is probably the main reason they are run.

Bows are simply a sacrifice of damage and utility for lazy safety. On a solo note, longbow damage from max range is not that bad.

It has no place in group play, though, since you want to give and receive buffs with the rest of the party.

pdavis.8031:

So if it’s low damage, and low utility/support, why is run run so often?

The players usually don’t know any better or are lazy/bad.

Bearbow damage isn’t that low, the problem is that you end getting far from the group where the buffs are, so you don’t reach the damage potential other builds have.
That build is popular because most players make a ranger to be an archer, also bears have a really high HP so they can tank allowing you to only focus on damage, solo play this build is very effective in open world PvE, but when you need to play any other aspect of the game you’ll be doomed.
Rangers are despised at dungeons because a bad ranger build is way worse than a bad warrior, guardian, mesmer and so on, so while a bad warrior can be tolerated a bad ranger can’t.

Belzebu.3912:

Rangers are despised at dungeons because a bad ranger build is way worse than a bad warrior, guardian, mesmer and so on, so while a bad warrior can be tolerated a bad ranger can’t.

This. A ranger that doesn’t control his pet (generally bearbows) can really screw up a run.

Simply put, rangers are able to choose bears at launch, and the first thing 99.9% of rangers do is buy a longbow. It’s an immediate sign of a new player, and regardless of what level a person makes it to in the game, if they are still running that bearbow, then they look like an inexperienced player that lacks game knowledge on how to play “efficiently” (I quote this because efficiency is usually a narrow field of vision that only measures how close a persons build is to a meta build, and meta builds aren’t always the full extent of efficient builds, just the most popular efficient build(s)).

Rangers are kind of like unprocessed gold. Some people can see the value under the dirt but most just see it as another rock in the pile.
If using the proper build, Rangers can be a huge asset. But that’s speaking from a group/dungeon composition, where in most other aspects of the game a Ranger’s position can easily be filled by another profession.

Bearbow is a bad sign because usually it means the Ranger will think that everything else works the same way open world PvE works. Pet tanks while they DPS from afar. And as others have said, the Ranger won’t receive buffs, can’t provide buffs and worst of all, their pet will very likely pull unwanted aggro. Managing your pet between active and passive is very important and people who rely on their pet for absorbing all the damage all the time will forget to bring their pet back when it matters most.

Not all bearbows are terrible though, so keep that in mind. Bears are actually good pets if used properly, but when it comes to a group composition, there are far better options.

TurtleDragon.3108:

pdavis.8031:

It would seem to me, that as popular as the “bearbow” seems to be, that there is much hate toward it. Why all the hate?

Low damage and low utility/support are the main reasons. Sometimes lack of pet control as well.

Please do not spread misinformation like that.
Rangers has better single target DPS then warriors (if pet is attacking)… DPS wise we are only beaten by elementalist and thief.

We have few support functions that cannot be done by other classes, but the frost-spotter build is unique to rangers.

Our utilities depends a lot on the pet we use. If you use the wrong one, you will have poor utilities, if you use the right pet for the right occasion you will have good utilities. Other classes has better utilities on their own, some being really strong, but most utility skills in this game, as a whole, is rather situational and or lackluster (guard spirit weapons, warrior banners, thief traps, mesmer mantras etc. )

bearbow is WvW zerg meta.

There I said it.

It’s not welcome anywhere else though.

Holland.9351:

bearbow is WvW zerg meta.

There I said it.

It’s not welcome anywhere else though.

I would argue it’s not even welcome there, 99.9% of bearbow rangers in WvW are rallybots. My guild group and I go after other rangers (yes, they let me run ranger) when we are zerg busting just because we know we’re going to steamroll over the ranger while they sit there just rapid firing and autoattacking and trying to fire off a barrage.

As a ranger, I make it my job to hunt down and kill other rangers in WvW. I have only ever been pleasantly surprised by one or two, and out of the population of active players in the game that are playing ranger, its a very sad (albeit anecdotal) statistic.

I want as many bearbows on the enemies side as can possibly fit on the map when we’re WvWing, and the day that somebody proves that concept wrong is the day that ANet has finally overbuffed rangers to be the autoattack sniper faceroll class that so many people want it to be (aka a warrior with the longest range weapon in the game).

Not that I would complain, but I’m a bit different balance wise. I think ANet has let power creep run rampant which has created faceroll classes (warrior, necro) or annoying, hard to kill (thief), swiss army knife builds (elementalist, engi) that plague the game for the classes that are either balanced (Guardian, maybe a hair or two off), or in need of improvement (ranger, mesmer). I would prefer to see nerfs before buffs, so I can actually figure out if ANet has some sort of baseline for balance established and if I can perceive what it is versus where we are in order to figure out exactly what we need and what the final balanced version of the class should look like by their standards.

I have played many games throughout the years but this is the first game where I see someone call a glass cannon class that can hit sometimes over 10k and single handedly 1 shot squishys with a single skill, a bad class.

Utility isn’t everything, you need damage, regardless of how much crowd control, speed, slows and everything else you have, if you don’t have the damage to follow it up, then you won’t win regardless of how much cc you have.

Rangers aren’t bad, they are awesome in PvP, PvE , WvW (dungeons not so much), I honestly lol at people saying that rangers, a class that can literally 1 shot squishys a bad class.

Good luck getting to the back end of my whole zerg and get through my 1500 range to try adn kill me, before you arrive you’re already dead.

Sumusikoo.1360:

I have played many games throughout the years but this is the first game where I see someone call a glass cannon class that can hit sometimes over 10k and single handedly 1 shot squishys with a single skill, a bad class.

Utility isn’t everything, you need damage, regardless of how much crowd control, speed, slows and everything else you have, if you don’t have the damage to follow it up, then you won’t win regardless of how much cc you have.

Rangers aren’t bad, they are awesome in PvP, PvE , WvW (dungeons not so much), I honestly lol at people saying that rangers, a class that can literally 1 shot squishys a bad class.

Good luck getting to the back end of my whole zerg and get through my 1500 range to try adn kill me, before you arrive you’re already dead.

That’s because those other games didn’t have the kitten rally mechanic.

Sumusikoo.1360:

I have played many games throughout the years but this is the first game where I see someone call a glass cannon class that can hit sometimes over 10k and single handedly 1 shot squishys with a single skill, a bad class.

Utility isn’t everything, you need damage, regardless of how much crowd control, speed, slows and everything else you have, if you don’t have the damage to follow it up, then you won’t win regardless of how much cc you have.

Rangers aren’t bad, they are awesome in PvP, PvE , WvW (dungeons not so much), I honestly lol at people saying that rangers, a class that can literally 1 shot squishys a bad class.

Good luck getting to the back end of my whole zerg and get through my 1500 range to try adn kill me, before you arrive you’re already dead.

You’d have to be really really squishy and forget to dodge to be one shot by a Ranger.