Guild Wars 2

What is everyones Opinion on Ranger for all Content of the game?

Especially end game when it comes to dungeons?

almost same topic opened again?
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Thief-or-Ranger

d´oh!

The ranger has been ignored by Anet for the last 3 years. Their damage is terrible compared to the others. And their only good healing/condition cleanse Healing Spring skill was nerf to nothingness. Pets are unreliable and takes too long to attack.

I would suggest to make another class…don’t waste your time leveling a ranger.

I main a guard, but ranger is my second. I run my ranger in WvW, all dungeons, and FoTM and love it (celestial build). For fractals above 40 I use my Guardian just because he has the AR, but everything below 40 I use the Ranger and she kills it. If you plan on running dungeons with a Ranger with longbow. Get used to not using your #4 ability (unless enemy is against a wall and would not move them). It will save you a ton of headaches. But be prepared to be blamed for knockbacks even if a Guardian or Mesmer does it.

I use GS on my Ranger 65% of the time, LB the rest. Axes as needed per encounter. Ranger GS can be pretty beast.

I love my ranger. She is only second to my warrior when it comes to survivability when in a bad situation. Even with a bad ai pets are useful – they distract enemy AIs and if you see their health go down you know there is something big and bad behind you to be aware of.

For weapons I use the same exact set as my warrior: greatsword and longbow. When running up to something she can at least do SOME damage as soon as she gets in longbow range. Then when at melee swap to the GS (unless that is not an option, like with some bosses).

I use to main and love my ranger, but after watching all the other class get buff and ranger got nothing. I decided to create a Guardian and Ele and I was having so much fun afterward. I don’t why I didn’t listen to people saying that ranger were useless, but they were right all along.

rangers were great at launch, so good that botters spammed rangers. then the guillotine came 3 months later killed the bots… and the ranger class. ever since then the ranger class has never fully recovered

Rangers are fine. They could certainly use more team support but their personal DPS is pretty good right now. Learning to control your pet is a lot of it. I’ve solo’d dungeons as a ranger so saying end game content is undoable by them is simply not true. They also, have great access to quickness, which I see being the next DPS boon to hit the meta.

I think the problem is elementalist is just too good. Make every other class seemed useless.

You should be able to join most of the pug. But from time to time, there’s always “that” group which says, “LFM elementalist only”.

PvP meta: 4 elementalist and 1 thief.
PvE meta: 3 elementalist, 1 guardian, 1 warrior.

Rangers are fine if you like being mediocre at everything.

They can do all the content, but not as well as other classes.

They are AMAZING at nothing, they don’t SUCK at anything either. Just an mediocre to avg class…

Shen Slayer.3058:

The ranger has been ignored by Anet for the last 3 years. Their damage is terrible compared to the others. And their only good healing/condition cleanse Healing Spring skill was nerf to nothingness. Pets are unreliable and takes too long to attack.

I would suggest to make another class…don’t waste your time leveling a ranger.

I suggest to stop using a bloody bowbear…
Melee damage on Ranger is good – it’s probably 4th DPS ingame if you use sword+horn/great sword.

Terrible damage is on necros, engis and mesmers. (and necros are rather debatable of their “terrible” damage)

Frediosz.2718:

Shen Slayer.3058:

The ranger has been ignored by Anet for the last 3 years. Their damage is terrible compared to the others. And their only good healing/condition cleanse Healing Spring skill was nerf to nothingness. Pets are unreliable and takes too long to attack.

I would suggest to make another class…don’t waste your time leveling a ranger.

I suggest to stop using a bloody bowbear…
Melee damage on Ranger is good – it’s probably 4th DPS ingame if you use sword+horn/great sword.

Terrible damage is on necros, engis and mesmers. (and necros are rather debatable of their “terrible” damage)

1) I keep seeing “bowbear” on the forums; what is/was it?

2) How can a sword/gs melee ranger deal good damage? The damage coefficients are terrible. Do they solely rely on damage modifiers from traits?

I love my ranger and he’s my only character. But I’d be kidding myself if I said the class got any amount of love like the other classes. Have you seen our current bug list? Besides, every time rangers get anything worth while, opposing players cry like they got coal in their stockings.

For example, rangers are kings of PvP underwater combat. Guess what happened to all the underwater content in PvP?

Gone.

Not coincidence in my book. But, as far as the question, I can solo things better than your average squishy class in PvE. A pet does make a world of difference. Despite everything, I’d still play my ranger if I had to do it all over again.

Take that for what it’s worth.

Play a class because you like it, not because others tell you it’s “good”.

People who want to mini-max their party composition for dungeons want profession that are masters at party damage increase, party reflect, party stealth party stability, and pure DPS.

Rangers are sadly not master of any of that so people who want to organize fast runs tend to looks elsewhere. If that is something that worries you I would recommend leveling up several professions so you always has a profession that any specific party need.

Did fractal 50 (currently the “most challenging” end-game PvE dungeon) last night with 2 rangers, 1 warrior, 1 guard, 1 elementalist. The rotation was (swamp, dredge, cliff, aether (mai)). Havn’t fully wiped once – completed the run in an hr (which is pretty good considering the length of some of those fractals)

TL;DR – If you’re a competant player, it doesn’t matter what toon you pick, play what fits you.

My interaction with Ranger has been pretty bipolar: Some I’ve met are downright horrible, but others, mostly at high level PvE, tend to deliver. It really is all about understanding what to use (traits/utilities/weapons) and when to use it.

My main is a ranger and I’ve done everything except high level fractals on her, and I don’t do that by choice. It may not be the absolute best choice but it’s the one I enjoy most.

Didn’t the last patch improve the pets behavior?

By far the biggest problem with rangers is that it is a VERY easy class to play in open world PvE. You take a tanky pet (bear), you equip a longbow (high ranged damage) and you just pew pew things to death. This gives rise to ‘bearbows’ – rangers who have no idea they have pets other than bears and weapons other than longbows. Whats worse is that these people are so used to soloing in open world, they have no idea how their playstyle can cause problems in organized parties (ie careless use of longbow 4).

Well played ranger provides some unique party support and deals competitive damage. Problem is that due to the large fraction of rangers being poorly played, they have a fairly bad stigma associated with them. Most groups are not willing to take a ranger not because its a bad class but because the number of players who know how to play it well is relatively small.

Salamander.2504:

Frediosz.2718:

Shen Slayer.3058:

The ranger has been ignored by Anet for the last 3 years. Their damage is terrible compared to the others. And their only good healing/condition cleanse Healing Spring skill was nerf to nothingness. Pets are unreliable and takes too long to attack.

I would suggest to make another class…don’t waste your time leveling a ranger.

I suggest to stop using a bloody bowbear…
Melee damage on Ranger is good – it’s probably 4th DPS ingame if you use sword+horn/great sword.

Terrible damage is on necros, engis and mesmers. (and necros are rather debatable of their “terrible” damage)

1) I keep seeing “bowbear” on the forums; what is/was it?

2) How can a sword/gs melee ranger deal good damage? The damage coefficients are terrible. Do they solely rely on damage modifiers from traits?

Bearbow or bowbear is a nickname for rangers who use a longbow to stay at range and let their pet (usually a bear because they have most health and toughness) tank the enemies for them. It’s a boring but effective build in open-world PvE but absolutely terrible in anything more challenging and it gives you a very steep learning curve because as long as you’re using it you don’t need to use dodging, positioning and other techniques.

Ardid.7203:

Didn’t the last patch improve the pets behavior?

my Necro minions are a heck of a lot better, but the patch did only SPECICALLY mention minions.

Ardid.7203:

Didn’t the last patch improve the pets behavior?

All it did was fix minion reaction time so they no longer just sit there spacing out while you attack an enemy. Most likely a bug specific to Necro mobs as the Ranger pet didn’t suffer this same issue.

Pet AI overall is the same system used by all mobs. They can’t really do any significant adjustments without changing the whole system.

Zania.8461:

By far the biggest problem with rangers is that it is a VERY easy class to play in open world PvE. You take a tanky pet (bear), you equip a longbow (high ranged damage) and you just pew pew things to death. This gives rise to ‘bearbows’ – rangers who have no idea they have pets other than bears and weapons other than longbows. Whats worse is that these people are so used to soloing in open world, they have no idea how their playstyle can cause problems in organized parties (ie careless use of longbow 4).

Well played ranger provides some unique party support and deals competitive damage. Problem is that due to the large fraction of rangers being poorly played, they have a fairly bad stigma associated with them. Most groups are not willing to take a ranger not because its a bad class but because the number of players who know how to play it well is relatively small.

This is a bogus excuse. Open world PvE is easymode all the time and equally breed bad habits. I mean, a staff ele in open world pve lays a lava tomb and spams fire abll all day at distant mobs in some braindead “dynamic” event.

There are bad players in all classes.

It is also undeniable that ranger and necromancer are in the bottom spots of PvE. What little support they provide is best done by somebody else and their damage isn’t anything to write home about.

Don’t try to excuse Anet’s terrible PvE balancing.

My opinion is that it needs an entire revamp. The spirits line should be completely dropped with more focus on the pet.

While other classes manage to get a decent template out of the traits and utilities the Ranger is severely penalized by comparison. Its like someone with ADHD worked on it and skipped around its concept at creation with no real defined ability to play a solid role in any one aspect of the game.

Other than that I wondered if there wasn’t a thief fanboy among development after I sifted through the forum and realized the nerf bat was swung at the ranger every single time the thief community howled about ranger threatening their 1v1 supremacy….

Danikat.8537:

It’s a boring but effective build in open-world PvE but absolutely terrible in anything more challenging and it gives you a very steep learning curve because as long as you’re using it you don’t need to use dodging, positioning and other techniques.

Ineffective actually.

A well built Ranger is one of the best options for open world, my personal favorite, but the bear/tank mindset doesn’t help. Ranger’s open world survivability is made really high by it’s burst damage, evades, mobility, stability, condition removal and the ability to have 100% pet uptime BY SWAPPING THEM. Bearbow rangers either let their bears die when things get rough, or when things don’t, their bear does pretty much nothing.

Furthermore, Call of the Wild (Warhorn) is usually better movement speed choice than Signet of the Hunt.

OR

Path of Scars (Axe) is usually a better CC choice than Point Blank Shot (Longbow.)

Danikat.8537:

Salamander.2504:

Frediosz.2718:

Shen Slayer.3058:

The ranger has been ignored by Anet for the last 3 years. Their damage is terrible compared to the others. And their only good healing/condition cleanse Healing Spring skill was nerf to nothingness. Pets are unreliable and takes too long to attack.

I would suggest to make another class…don’t waste your time leveling a ranger.

I suggest to stop using a bloody bowbear…
Melee damage on Ranger is good – it’s probably 4th DPS ingame if you use sword+horn/great sword.

Terrible damage is on necros, engis and mesmers. (and necros are rather debatable of their “terrible” damage)

1) I keep seeing “bowbear” on the forums; what is/was it?

2) How can a sword/gs melee ranger deal good damage? The damage coefficients are terrible. Do they solely rely on damage modifiers from traits?

Bearbow or bowbear is a nickname for rangers who use a longbow to stay at range and let their pet (usually a bear because they have most health and toughness) tank the enemies for them. It’s a boring but effective build in open-world PvE but absolutely terrible in anything more challenging and it gives you a very steep learning curve because as long as you’re using it you don’t need to use dodging, positioning and other techniques.

The problem with a bearbow ranger, particularly in dungeons, in the tendency of people to stack. That means foes will be right on top of you and your bow will do minimal damage. If you’re the only one not stacking you’re ruining everyone else’s strategy and at the same time, you’re not providing the support that everyone else is looking for, and if you use your 4 longbow skill you knock back stuff people had nicely stacked together. Bears do less damage than most other pets, so they’re less useful in dungeons.

In dungeons raingers need to take the spotter trait, and frost spirit (not sure about that one anymore), they need to use sword/warhorn for buffs and switch off to greatsword to get maximum damage.

A ranger who does all this and doesn’t knockback does fine in dungeon groups that stack…but because so many rangers don’t do all this, they’re often shunned by speed run groups and min maxers.

If you start your own casual group or join a casual guild none of this matters at all.

Ranger usually have the mechanics that in the hands of top players can be great. ANet balances for that. The other 99% of ranger players can just RP with their pet because making you viable will break the game because of the 1% good players.

Ranger = Broken

Frediosz.2718:

Shen Slayer.3058:

The ranger has been ignored by Anet for the last 3 years. Their damage is terrible compared to the others. And their only good healing/condition cleanse Healing Spring skill was nerf to nothingness. Pets are unreliable and takes too long to attack.

I would suggest to make another class…don’t waste your time leveling a ranger.

I suggest to stop using a bloody bowbear…
Melee damage on Ranger is good – it’s probably 4th DPS ingame if you use sword+horn/great sword.

Terrible damage is on necros, engis and mesmers. (and necros are rather debatable of their “terrible” damage)

Engis actually can do more DPS with just camping on the bomb kit. And necro solo
can melt mobs faster than most other classes, they just don’t have that much
group support.
Personally i at least have the feeling that rangers were the biggest looser on the
trait revamp, while Engi was the biggest winner.

From a “get through in one piece” standpoint, I’d say Ranger is perfectly fine. You’ve got the tools to handle most of the bad situations you may find yourself in, and there’s a lot of room for tactical improvement beyond just a skill rotation like many other classes.

Any sort of PvP is a big toss-up. The biggest thing I see repeated time and time again is “skill > build”. While a good build will beat a bad one in the hands of two perfectly-equally-experienced players, you’re not ever going to FIND two perfectly-equally-experienced players.

As far as PvE, including dungeons and fractals… Again, Rangers do just fine. The “problem” is that they don’t speedclear like other classes when thrown into whatever perfect-map-and-AI-exploiting-position is set up for this or that boss, nor provide the tools to skip massive portions of dungeon content. If you end up in a band of elitist powergamers via the LFG menu, yeah, you’re going to be hated. But if you find a party of people who are in the game with the radical notion that playing and having fun is its own reward, you’ll be just fine. Personally, I don’t want to be a part of the mind-numbingly systematic and stringent crowd, anyway, so Ranger works just fine for me.

So, in a nutshell: If you’re playing with friends without the exclusive goal of meeting this or that Gold-per-hour rate, Ranger will treat you just fine. If accounting and spreadsheets are your idea of a good time… Maybe look elsewhere.