Guild Wars 2

Need a ranger appreciation thread for all the rage, and hatred the forum has been flooded with. Anything will do.

Mine is how I won’t feel alone in open world, with my pet. ever. unless I hide them. Which I hardly do, because I’m almost always in the silverwastes.

Watching a thief troll noobs and waiting for the very right moment to sic em. Then I sit back and watch the thief get owned by people randomly pressing buttons. Always good for a laugh.

Being perceived as the red-headed stepchild is great, it makes the opposition rage madly when they die to you.

When someone thinks you’re a free lootbag and they lay in the dirt after a minute.

And pets. I like pets.

Pugchug.8905:

Watching a thief troll noobs and waiting for the very right moment to sic em. Then I sit back and watch the thief get owned by people randomly pressing buttons. Always good for a laugh.

And here I thought I was the only one. I won’t interfere in any other way.

I appreciate the acrobatic moveset of S/D. Makes me feel like a real fantasy character.

The abundance of viable builds, both power and condition, including the variety of sub-builds within each.

The fact that my pets’ stats are completely independent of my own so one or both of us can be glassy, tanky, etc..

My pet distracting champs for me while I grab a chest/node and run (when I don’t feel like soloing a champ).

Being able to give my pet silly names that make myself and others smile :-)

As borked as they may be, I love my pets. It’s like I always have a buddy wandering around looking out for my back. Hoping they come out with more with HoT comes.

For all sword is worth to us, I love my greatsword. The different animal spirit attack animations are awesome looking and Swoop makes getting around a larger map that much easier. Ranger’s really do have some of the most graphically fun to watch attacks.

I like that we can provide a pure damage boost with Frost Spirit and a nice precision boost with Spotter, so we do rightfully have a place in dungeons. Slowly that bearbow mentality is dying

Sebrent.3625:

The fact that my pets’ stats are completely independent of my own so one or both of us can be glassy, tanky, etc..

Yeah, love that too. Glad the devs didn’t listen to the 785324347 threads asking for pet stats to scale with ranger stats.

I really love the Ranger class – because it absolutely fits it’s current position and my game-style.

Even while being a target of all the hatred and prejudice … You do not need anyone to comfort you. You do have a pet that helps you out – and your kit is suited for being a solo player.

Not to mention that there are viable ways to outplay much more mechanically powerful enemies – which means that a “useless” ranger can be played into perfection and beat his “overpowered” nemesis classes in a blink of an eye.

That’s what I’ll always love about this class.

cafard.8953:

Sebrent.3625:

The fact that my pets’ stats are completely independent of my own so one or both of us can be glassy, tanky, etc..

Yeah, love that too. Glad the devs didn’t listen to the 785324347 threads asking for pet stats to scale with ranger stats.

Well, separate discussion … scale as a %, not directly :-p
Different thread. Open if you want to discuss ;-)

Can I just say I 100%, absolutely, love the range with the LB and Rapid Fire changes? Without a doubt almost as fun when I played my Runemaster in DaOC I’d love to see the people raging now about how much range the LB has compared to those fella’s. Alligator tears I’m sure would fall from the heavens like God himself was dropping skittles on us all for a tasty snack!

Seriously though. During beta I ran a Ele. Loved it. For whatever reason when head start came about I selected Guardian. No idea why and still can’t figure that out. Still like the Guardian. But on a whim I rolled a alt, and it was a Ranger…

So for the appreciation it goes out to all the valuable posts on this forum that help new rangers out. /Peace

Pugchug.8905:

Watching a thief troll noobs and waiting for the very right moment to sic em. Then I sit back and watch the thief get owned by people randomly pressing buttons. Always good for a laugh.

Never leave home w/o it

Thief uses Refuge.
I swap to wolf.
Wolf howls.
Laugh.

I have played ranger since day 1 of guild wars 1. I played every single expansion, and I’ve played GW2 from launch until still currently playing. I’ve beaten every campaign and piece of PvE (outside of GW2, I just can’t find the motivation to finish the initial story, loved the Living World though) content, and even went a few bronze/silver/gold cape wins in the GW1 era.

In all of that time and energy spent playing ranger, I will say that while I hate the transition the class made from GW1 to GW2, there is still nothing that feels quite like the Ranger class, and although I feel ANet has made some overall terrible design choices and balance decisions (that aren’t exclusive to the ranger class), I’m happy overall to be a ranger player and part of the ranger community, and love my ranger to death regardless of how much “better” I think things could have been done.

Plus, I love bodyhopping on all of the players that say “no skill” about our class as if we’re some sort of turret engi or something, when really they are just mad because no matter how hard they try, they have never had to try as hard as long-time ranger players, and because of that, cannot figure out how to win over long-term ranger players and instead resort to insults and rage forum posts to try to discourage us and bring us down.

I also haven’t found a single class in this game that is as satisfying to play.

We are Rangers, we don’t need appreciation from anyone.

So, where to start.
Rapid Fire. I’d play this class if it was named Rapid Fire and it’s only skill would have been Rapid Fire. Single most satisfying button to press in the game. Well, maybe Lich auto comes close.
Afforementioned Thief house busting using angry wolves, torches and Barrage.
Sword. Nothing else makes you feel like a grasshopper on steroids. And it can actually kill people.
Ranger s/t a/d condi builds are generally fun as hell and strong to use and don’t suffer from the stigma of LB ranger.
Tears. Oh, the sweet tears. I don’t think any other class allows me to feast on so much QQ, especially when someone dies from 2k range because rapid fire is hard to dodge.
Did i mention Rapid Fire being amazing already?

Lenor.8197:

So, where to start.
Rapid Fire. I’d play this class if it was named Rapid Fire and it’s only skill would have been Rapid Fire. Single most satisfying button to press in the game. Well, maybe Lich auto comes close.
Afforementioned Thief house busting using angry wolves, torches and Barrage.
Sword. Nothing else makes you feel like a grasshopper on steroids. And it can actually kill people.
Ranger s/t a/d condi builds are generally fun as hell and strong to use and don’t suffer from the stigma of LB ranger.
Tears. Oh, the sweet tears. I don’t think any other class allows me to feast on so much QQ, especially when someone dies from 2k range because rapid fire is hard to dodge.
Did i mention Rapid Fire being amazing already?

Here, here. Rapid Fire is amazing

So here is a toast to our health…“Sláinte”

Wrecking bad LB Rangers who continue to fire for the entire duration of my Whirling Defense.

Couldn’t help myself. One of my favorite things to do on my Ranger is 1v1 other Rangers.

As much as Ranger gets trashtalked, I must admit that the class has a pretty wide variety of possible builds to work with. Not to mention, trolling glass cannons with Jaguars never gets old.

I have always liked that there so many tricksy things about the ranger class, there is so much more to it than just autoattacking on max range. There are builds that takes long time to master, but once you get there you will be unstoppable. I especially love the overly hated 1h sword that gets me out of trouble bounce after bounce.

Back when our pets had their longer leash range … roaming WvW with Sword+X & Greatsword having parties chase me while my pet ate them one at a time. If you wanted a diversion so you could set up siege, take a camp, etc … I was there with my ultra mobile, full melee setup.

Sebrent —- Hostile Players —- Pet nom-ing on Hostile players’ backsides. /grin

When [Guard] allowed our pets to scale keep walls … sending my pet (often with other Rangers’ pets) up on walls to kill defenders. Much hilarity ensued on Teamspeak back then … especially with a 5-man Ranger group.

I think I loved that even more than pulling people off walls/cliffs with my Mesmer’s focus.

Controlling my pet while I man siege. Who else can make such full use of their class mechanic while operating siege :-) … though was better with the longer leash range.

I guess I like to try out gimpy classes, or classes that are perceived as gimpy.
When I played DAoC, I decided to make a zerker(was a bit after patch 1.62, where zerkers got nerfed) that I would use for soloing in RvR. To make it as gimpy as possible, I made it a valkyn, the race least suited for a zerker. Turned out it was a lot of fun and I loved it!

In GW2 I started with a guardian, then mesmer, then ele. I liked the ele a lot, but wanted to try something new. There was a lot of talk on the forums about how bad the ranger was, so I thought I would give it a try. I enjoy soloing in WvW and the ranger was actually really good at that, and fun!

Maybe I like it because of the mobility with S/D, which makes me feel like a ninja, the stupid pets(that are still fun) or just the general feel of the class.
Sometimes I bring out my other chars, but I always go back to my ranger pretty quickly. I just enjoy it way more than any of the other classes, even if it’s not gimpy.

several have been mentioned already, but ill list my favorite things

• Sic em vs thieves in a zerg
• Pet names, Juvenile Reef Drake would just be depressing
• Taking down zerker rangers with my solder LB build
• surviving in an enemy zerg for 6.5 seconds as opposed to .5 seconds just because of SoS
• Being targeted first because people think you are running the zerker LB build only to outlast them
• Distracting RI supervisors in WvW by just swapping pets before one pet goes down
• RF off of a wall and being able to hit a target

I played about 1500 hours of WvW roaming on my mesmer. My friend played warrior and guardian.

Until we switched to (different) condi ranger builds, we never accomplished what we have done in the last couple of months.

If you ever feel bad about what you can do as a ranger in WvW, I would suggest switching to a mesmer. This is an awesome profession.

The exact Moment when People realize you are NOT the expected, Walking lootbag and go totally nuts because they have no idea how to deal with a Power Ranger that can take some hits and knows where he placed the dodge and remembers his weapon swap before he Needs to run

I really like the variety of tools being available to rangers. I think its awesome. I just wish the same could be said about the usefulness of said tools.

Also love naming pets (make them stick A-Net, pretty plese /puppyeyes). The other week random ranger enters AC Explo party with a brown bear called “Bowjob”. Had a good chuckle over that one.

Sebrent.3625:

Thief uses Refuge.
I swap to wolf.
Wolf howls.
Laugh.

Thief uses Refuge.
Throw Axe
Axe pulls them out.
Jump around dumb founded Thief with a kite. :]

Being able to have a silly conversation in Lion’s Arch with an ArenaNet dev that was completely about our Ranger pets.

I recently went through and leveled every character to 80 in EOTM. Ranger by large and far was the worst one I did. Hated every moment 1-80 and was just waiting for the day I could finish this guy off and regulate him to Ascended material storage alt.

On a whim I decided to gear him out a bit. Figured it’d be pretty cheap using WvW badges (get tons in EOTM). However as I started to play around with different builds and different gear in the build editor I started to notice man this bad boy has a lot of damage potential and still be pretty darned survivable. At first I geared kinda kitten with ultra minimum investment of WvW gear, some Soldier Crests and only rare jewelry.

After playing with him a bit I was hooked. Replaced the Signet of the Hunt for Traveler’s Runes and now I got crazy survivability with crazy single target burst. This is what I came up with ultimately. Love taking him out in mid to large scale WvW and just focusing someone down hard. The recent stab changes with Rampage As One barely affects me in a group and still got a strong with Signet of the Wild. I find I spend most of my time finding that squishy target in a crowd and using them as a Rally bot for the rest of the people and ensuring the down while swapping between Eagle Eye and Piercing Arrows.

Not perfect. Pretty weak to heavy condi application but more than enough all around to keep going and have a great time with it.

Phobos (wolf) and Medicus (sylvan hound), have been my companions since I first started my journey. They have kept me safe in every game mode WvW, PvP and PvE. Even if no one wants to party with me on EBG, they still help me take on the world. I will always be a ranger at heart, no matter what.

Running a 0/0/6/2/6 Condition Beastmaster spec and stomping a guy running a Longbow Ranger with a name that insinuated that all you had to do as a Ranger was “press 2 to win”.

The fight was so lopsided it wouldn’t have been funny if his name wasn’t that way.

Roaming with condiranger → be bored → equip longbow → pew pew and make it look really clumsy while doing some ridiculously low amount of damage → people still assume you are squishy longbow ranger → watch people use gapclosers & dodges→ start applying conditions → have people ignore your +condition duration foods and the conditions you applied on them before it’s getting too late

Smarter players of course don’t fall for it or realise what is happening after a really short time

Remember back in the day when shortbow was even faster than it is now? And the time all the brownbear bow bots rampaged Queensdale? Noticed how they were all rangers,, and you didn’t see a train of any other profession?

I hate bow classes, ill probably never use one in this game, axe is as far as ill go. But ranger is the only character i got to 80 and i love it.

There’s just something really fun about swinging my gigantic greatsword around with my pet in tow.

Melee ranger all the way.

As I have said before:
“Rangers can bench press two bears at once, walk on water, shark pets dedicate a week to us, Lyssa calls us for dates, we swim after eating, Ascalon ghosts sit around fires and tell stories about us, we teach Krytan drake hounds to bark in Canthan, we talk about fight club, we grant genies 3 wishes and only a ranger has swum across the Crystal Desert.”

Ranger is just too much fun to play.

Hmm…Lyssa never called me for a date

That no good, two bit hussy!

Feeling like the Starks with my direwolves lolol

As mentioned the strong and variety of builds possible. Melee ranger is too fun. Enemies are think they will win getting close and in your face and you’re just like sure, and get in their face instead lol

Ranger and Mesmer are my main classes, nothing else provides all this constant tricky mobility and quick multitasking finger work

Being able to be tanky as all heck while my glassy pet eats faces.

“Whoo hoo! Over here! Let’s fight! … yes, hit me in the face … ignore the pet doing the real damage” ;-)

All the awesome spirit animal animations with the greatsword just make me giddy every time I go down for a MAUL! Commanding the vines of the earth to reach up and entangle my enemies is thematically rewarding. And fighting in melee with my pets instead of in the back just makes everything gravy.