I’ve noticed a few issues with Ranger that really seem to limit me. I’ve seen a few of them complained about already here, but I’ll list them anyway.
Firstly, my chief offender is pets. There are a LOT of issues behind pets that make them more of a liability than an asset, I’m noticing. The first one is their F2 skill, which has frequent issues with activating and I find myself having to mash it to get it to work. I won’t go into detail on that one anymore, though, as I already noticed a fix is in the works.
My second pet issue, though, is the new update. I liked having the option to revive a pet in (or after) battle. Now I have to wait until I can swap it out, which isn’t bad on its own, but if I wait for after battle, it still needs to recharge the swap, and if I needed the until-now-dead pet, it means another wait.
Next up, spirits.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved GW, and I love GW2. I played GW1 for years and I imagine I’ll do the same this time around, and I was a Ranger the whole time.
And the whole time I HATED spirits. And it looks like that’s going to apply again this time around.
Spirits are… well, they’re useless. They die easily and their bonuses are only functional on percentages, making almost any other skill a better choice than them. The sad part is that they’re taking up valuable skill spots that could have been used for creating something more interesting, Maybe preparation skills, for example.
Next, weapons.
My chief complaint is actually the longbow, but not for reasons you might think. It’s fairly limited on what it can do, and almost all of its attacks are simple arrows with no significant twist to them. Then I compare it to what the Warrior’s longbow skills are and it baffles me. The Ranger’s iconic weapon is the longbow but the iconic melee fighter has more interesting (if not more effective) skills for it. While the skills tend to be at least mildly effective, they don’t cause many conditions, which I find odd considering how much my ranger gear tends to try to promote +condition damage.
But that one’s more a personal thing. I don’t know if anyone else takes issue with it.
I’ve heard this one here too, so I’ll be brief. The greatsword. It looks like it has great potential, it’s really fun to use, but it’s also very weak, I notice. I mostly use it for fun, but it’s almost entirely ineffective in most cases.
Moving back to the longbow one last time, I find it odd that the longbow, whose advantages over the shortbow are supposed to be power and range, has the same range as the shortbow. And while I’m aware that there is a trait that can increase the range slightly, it still baffles me that they by default have the same range (and if you count point blank shot, the longbow’s 5 skills total have LESS range than the shortbow’s).
Next up, combat.
I get the point of the invulnerability, I do. It’s a balance mechanic and it’s probably needed in some PVP. But at least in PVE, isn’t shooting from a safe location the whole point of using a ranged weapon?
And while it could be argued that this mechanic needs left in, I’ve also noticed that after triggering “invulnerability,” when I move to my target’s elevation or area and resume the fight, it still has invulnerability applied to it, even though it can hit me. Often this will last the entire fight, and I have to make my pet finish the target.
My final concern is “combat mode,” as I’ve heard it called.
When I’m moving through an area either my pet or I will usually get shot by a mob or player. My character then enters this “combat mode” and my speed drops by right around 20%, I’d say. It’s God awful infuriating outside of combat when I’m simply trying to move from area to area. And IN combat, I notice it makes it difficult for me to keep any distance on an enemy (especially Orrian undead, who seem to move ungodly fast compared to my combat mode speed). While I can sort of support it in combat, allowing enemy players at least to close the gap, I’ve also noticed it doesn’t seem to affect a lot of players. I’ve mentioned it to some other players before and they haven’t even noticed the speed change. Am I bugged, then?
I feel I should add on that these are all personal observations and opinions. Yours may differ from mine, but this IS a public forum and I’m just bringing what I notice to light.