Guild Wars 2

In PvE they are fine in some cases however for a majority of the time I have been downed I have rarely bothered using my 2 and 3 abilities. My 2 ability is barely even noticeable and the enemy rarely seems to care that I use it. Other classes seem to have massive stuns and rooting abilities or they can just teleport to a different spot. The 3 ability I find completely useless because when I am downed the stun doesn’t give me enough time to even use my 3. Not to mention now that I am downed my pet is getting attacked since I can’t order it to me with F3 anymore, so it usually dies quickly. I think for 3 there should not even be a cool down or at the very least make it shorter. So far some classes can get away just fine in PvE and PvP from a downed state. However I find the Ranger one almost useless.

First, you can still order your pet like normal when downed. I regularly hunt for the lowest HP enemy around and sick my cat on it, I even swap pets, use abilities, and call my pet back.

Otherwise, I tend to agree with you. 1 is just damage, very little damage. 2 seems to take longer than a stomp to go off and/or doesn’t seem to work that reliably. 3 works… most of the time though the heal it provides is low and the pet can still die and/or be interrupted.

I think its fine considering you get to use your pet like normal. Thanks to quickness on swap, I can swap to wolf and fear between the cooldown on 2. Only problem I have is that 3 interrupts the cast of 4, which makes it hardly ever worth using unless, for some reason, I’ve been sitting there not bandaging for long enough for 3 to come up.

3 is great, because you can continue to use 1 while your pet bandages. Or you can bandage along with your pet. Of course, if your pet is tanking, you’ll probably want to just try to bandage yourself with 4.

2 is relatively useless. You can interrupt a finisher in PvP (though it’ll only save you a few seconds at most) or interrupt a big attack and buy yourself a little more time to rally in PvE. That said, I think Lawn Pirate makes a good point – having your pet still active probably balances the weak 2.

I actually think Rangers get some of the best abilities when downed for reasons stated by others. Having your pet able to revive you is also hugely useful as it gives you that edge over other downed players when you and an enemy knock each other down.

I’d suggest anyone grab the wolf as a pet too as he gets two CC’s that stop enemies from attacking you which often gives you enough time to get off two lightning strikes making it just so much harder for an enemy to take you down.

Hopefully they’ll fix pets not using their abilities at the right times and pets not healing you when you’re downed sometimes soon, those are my two biggest complaints about the ranger.

I rarely die when downed. Running a Beastmaster build and my pet can tank so much damage that I can outheal most damage from mobs and bosses with 3 and 4. I was standing near the Claw of Jormag taking the 400 damage dot and I still go up. 4 is so good it’s insane, if you are running a DPS build it’s only normal for your pet to die. Also as someone stated you can control your pet while downed and bears use their invulnerability skill while reviving. Any increase in numbers here would make 34 comboing overpowered.

1 is ok as it has bleed, yes damage is low but its OK compaired to other downed abilities go check their damage on the Wiki.

2 is HORRIBLE, I can’t stress how unresponsive this baby is. It’s the little brother of your pet’s F2. It doesn’t take 100 hits of the button to work, but by the time it executes you’ll probably be looking for the nearest Waypoint.

@Ickorus, I’m using a Wolf since level 10 and I never regreted it. I use the normal Wolf as it’s F2 is an AoE 2 second fear. I die, mobs surround me… F2, 3, 4… Rally.

In WvW I noticed that my 2 skills didn’t really last at all. The stun doesn’t even last long enough for my 3.

You mean you don’t like your big fat pet sitting on top of you, healing you for a sad amount and blocking the camera view of the already obstructed camera down state?

I don’t know why you are complaining that Thunderclap doesn’t work properly or why Lick wounds doesn’t work properly. I never have issues with either skill. Also, when you use Lick Wounds, you don’t sit there and expect your pet to pick you up by itself. You need to use Bandage at the same time its healing you for it to even be meaningful. Lick Wounds also puts your pet nearly on top of you, which means if its lined up right your full health pet will take the damage from projectiles that would normally interrupt bandage, also allowing you to get up. Just because you don’t understand the mechanic doesn’t mean its bad/broken.

Lick wounds is indeed buggy. My jaguar actually does massive damage to me rather than heal. I think Anet thinks its funny..i know I do

Three is only useful in a situation where both you and an enemy are downed in a 1v1 scenario. Makes for a free win assuming it doesn’t bug out and the pet actually starts healing you.

Two buys you an extra second and a half at most. Never once has bought enough time for a teammate to revive me or anything.

Of course this is from a PvP perspective.

The problem with #3 in my experience is that by the time the cooldown ends you’re probably defeated or within a hit or two of it.

Lick Wounds has some issues with certain pets, like Devourers, where they sometimes refuse to bandage you and just stand on your corpse.

It is a lot weaker compared to other #3 downed skills on other professions under many practical circumstances(pvp and dungeons).

At least other professions such as the mesmer, elementalist and guardian can move enemies away from their corpse, or move their corpse away.

On the bright side, rangers should be one of the very last to go down with their wide arsenal of CCs and arguably the longest range in the game.

I have to agree, played PvP today and was shocked by the downed skills of other classes – teleports, AOE knockback, invisibility etc. It took half a minute and 3 people to finish off a downed mesmer… Then you think you finally got him, but no, he went invisible and is behind you! Meanwhile my ranger lies on the ground, just healing and getting healed by the pet and waiting for help. I dont even feel like fighting back when downed since it’s no use anyway. No other class is as easy to finish off as the ranger in my opinion.

Tip about defeating downed Mesmers: the one that appears with a big red arrow over it is the real Mesmer. It’s also always the second one that appears. After I realized they have a giant target over their head in downed state, I stopped being frustrated by their downed skills. Worse than ours once people realize this, but still not as bad as Ele.

Larina.2036:

I have to agree, played PvP today and was shocked by the downed skills of other classes – teleports, AOE knockback, invisibility etc. It took half a minute and 3 people to finish off a downed mesmer… Then you think you finally got him, but no, he went invisible and is behind you! Meanwhile my ranger lies on the ground, just healing and getting healed by the pet and waiting for help. I dont even feel like fighting back when downed since it’s no use anyway. No other class is as easy to finish off as the ranger in my opinion.

We are the easiest class to kill off, we have nothing to stop people from finishing us off except for our number 2 and it doesn’t stop them if you do it to late. Our pet resing us kills us faster as if you use it. It starts doing tics of 1000 damage to yourself if you noticed and the pet sometimes bugs too and wont even res you but stands their next to you. Our class feels so freaking mediocre sometimes I swear. I might just re roll a ele or mesmer ~_~

Elementalist doesn’t even get an interrupt like us. They get Mist Form which has like a 10 or 15 sec CD. You’ll rarely, if ever, get to use it, and you run so slow the enemy just follows you and finishes you off anyway. Elementalists have the worst downed skills, Rangers are second.

If you’re considering rerolling to Ele for PvP, Bast, you might want to look at their forum. They aren’t in the best place, ATM. Mesmer is another story, though.

I personally love our #2 in sPvP, and in wuvwuv in small fights. Between #2 and pet abilities, you can buy yourself more time. Which is really useful if your team is around, as they “should” be able to help you out if you give them 5 seconds.

I’ve had many situations where someone downs me, and then tries for the desperate finish and overextends. If you time the #2 well enough, he’s invested too much in the finish and when you break it he will end up dying before he can pull it off again from your buds.

Pet only revives you if you are on perfectly plain ground. Even the slightest angle or a wall or rock next to you will bug out the pet and it will not revive.

Part from that you don’t need to even bother doing anything when you are downed. There is nothing you can do to delay it. You will get finished immediately.

Like with so many things, Rangers get screwed again.

Yeah, i think we have like the strongest downed state ever… there have been plenty of times in PvP where i get downed in a 1v1, and then i drop my enemy from half health to downed, and then win because i can heal and fight while downed where he can’t… Ah i love having a pet =D!

PS: Idk what this damage bug is, but my faithful fern hound i’ve had from lv 1 has never harmed me!