Guild Wars 2

Haven’t seen a thread on this here in a while so thought I’d toss it out before I build one.

Thematically the two obvious choices to me are norn and sylvari. I’ve never played a sylvari and so that’s my lean, though it’s obviously a cliche to some extent.

Then there’s the asura. The small size seems to be generally accepted as giving an advantage in terms of hiding in clutter and disguising skill tells in PvP. But it’s unclear how much advantage there is. And specifically, I’m not sure how much it matters for a ranger, since I haven’t played one.

Your thoughts?

(Note that I absolutely do not care about armor styles or other appearance stuff whatsoever.)

I play Sylvari Ranger because the race is just really well designed (aesthetically.)

And in WvW 5x Sylvari + Take Root + Immob Spam = Very funny small scale encounters.

asura’s technobabble is nice with moment clarity. norn is nice if u wanna glass-troll-transform-1-hit people.

Human, for my own personal story use.

I picked human myself but i think out of all the races it suits norm the best. Mostly because of their lore and the GS animations (maul’s bear etc). I also think the legendary warhorn is well suited for norm above all others. Their racial elites are just lol atm…watch the “heavy hitter” video, its a good laugh.

Sylvari, yea i get that they are the “elf” style race but the way the human male runs….its just not “right” for me. Female i have yet to actually roll. The racial elites seem quite good, i’ve seen the hound popped along with a rockdog /w pet tearing a bunker guardian apart before lol.

Charr, well i’ve seen quite a few cool looking charr rangers but i’ve always thought they look best holding a rifle, dual swords or swinging a hammer. The very nature of the charr (see legions, black citadel and steampunk theme etc) makes it seem like ranger doesn’t really suit the charr. Not to say it couldn’t suit the odd one here and there for RP reasons as it makes the character stand out quite well i guess. Raciasl are probably meh compared to RaO/Entangle.

Asuran, same as charr really. Doesn’t suit them too well but that’s what might make the character special. I cant remember ever seeing one but i’d love to see one with the shortbow legendary lol. Im sure i’ve heard of certain mesmer builds finding use for their racial elites but that maybe bs. Again though i’d stick with the ranger specifics.

Human, well not much to say, suits all classes as usually is the case in MMO’s. Racials for the most part are pants imo, others with certain classes/builds might disagree. For me, if they were the only option i’d rather put a ruby orb in that slot or something…maybe even a copper doubloon.

Just my, probably bs 2 cents

I have to disagree with Asurans not suited to be rangers.
Seeing how they have experimented on all the animals in area, I could easily see some of them specializing in dealing with critters out of necessity.
The first non-hostile Charr in Guild Wars was Pyre Fierceshot. If you consider his historical significance., a ranger would be respectable for any Charr as well.

I was toying with these ideas when I had a good character name, but it suited a Sylvari, so I went with that.

From a combat view, asuran or charr.

Asuran for technobabble (daze and interrupt) or charr for hidden pistol (15 second cooldown extra evade)

Base it off of cultural armor. They both look good IMO t3 norn for male is pretty sweet and not used very often, sylvari t3 glows and has a nifty design as well.

Charr or Human, so you can pick an elite that summons two additional pets (Warband, Hounds of Balthazar). Pet Hyena + F2 + spirit heal + 3 spirits + 2 elite pets + one mini just because you can = 9 creatures around you. Get one or two friends like that with you and you can scare away zergs in wvw when they see the amount of red names. ^^

Interesting, hadn’t really thought about it from that angle. Was thinking more about sPvP, where there are no racial elites, and more about the “tell” issue.

Do rangers have a lot of abilities with important “tells” where the size of the character would thus matter?

Qaelyn.7612:

Interesting, hadn’t really thought about it from that angle. Was thinking more about sPvP, where there are no racial elites, and more about the “tell” issue.

Do rangers have a lot of abilities with important “tells” where the size of the character would thus matter?

Greatsword Maul #2 is the most animated. HOWEVER a lot of ranger attacks already have ridiculous tell animations where a spirit animal shows up in the animation. It looks really cool, but it is a really obvious tell of what a ranger is about to do or has done.

Including:
Warhorn 5: big howling wolf
Sword 3: Green spirit snake
Greatsword 2: Huge spirit bear
Greatsword 3: Spirit Eagle

Other than that, longbow barrage is a pretty obvious animation, larger characters might make the Greatsword blocking more noticeable.

Thanks. Doesn’t sound like character size is that big of a deal and since I haven’t done a sylvari before I may just go with that.

If they wanted to stick to the lore, the only ranger playable races should be sylvari/norn.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

If they wanted to stick to the lore, the only ranger playable races should be sylvari/norn.

Except y’know GW1 had charr rangers, Pyre Fierceshot

Redball.7236:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

If they wanted to stick to the lore, the only ranger playable races should be sylvari/norn.

Except y’know GW1 had charr rangers, Pyre Fierceshot

Yes I know. Every race has ranger heroes, but it is very rare or “uncommon” and should not be given to players.

For pve definitely Norn. The leopard transformation is extremely good for more difficult skips, like in arah.

Love my asura ranger, uncommon amongst both players and lorewise, apparently. Also technobabble is a beautiful interrupt skill as mentioned by others. In terms of “Tell” Norn GS block is extremely recognisable compared to an Asura. Otherwise as Fomby said our animations are fairly prominent so there isn’t much of a difference. I’m just thankful long range shot / hunter’s shot / point blank shot animations and projectiles all look the same really.

I have a Sylvari Ranger because they fit together as a theme. In beta they also had the best racial skill, but it got nerfed so hard I haven’t used it since. Grasping Vines used to be stronger than Entangle, since it was a 1200 range target-able AoE, which had perfect synergy with Barrage. Now it’s single target, 900 range and goes on full cooldown if the target was out of range.

Asura:
They have the best daze skill Rangers can get. Considering we have a trait that doubles its duration makes it even better.

Norn:
Apparently Bear Form skill 5 deals the most burst damage a Ranger can deal.

Interesting. I have several other asura and have never even used technobabble. Maybe it’s especially good for rangers in some way?

I had settled on sylvari but now you guys have me all confused!

Technobabble is good for Rangers if you use the grandmaster trait Moment of Clarity. It becomes a 6 second daze, if I’m not mistaken.