Guild Wars 2

Ranger:
•“Protect Me”: This ability now breaks stuns.
•Splitblade: Reduced the aftercast from .4 seconds to .2 seconds.
•Pet leash range increased to 2000 units.
•Path of Scars: This skill now pulls enemies on the return flight.
•Long Range Shot: Reduced the aftercast from .5 seconds to .25 seconds. Increased the arrow speed by 15%.
•Rapid Fire: Reduced the initial cast time by .4 seconds. Increased the arrow speed by 15%.
•Point Blank Shot: Increased the arrow speed by 15%.
•Barrage: Increased the cripple duration by 50%.
•Stalker’s Strike: This skill no longer loses evade duration when traited with Off-Hand Training. It now strikes targets more reliably in melee. It now functions with Off-Hand Training in PvE.
•Crippling Talon: This skill now functions with Off-Hand Training in PvE.
•Muddy Terrain: Decreased the duration from 20 seconds to 10 seconds. Increased the cripple duration per pulse from 1 second to 2 seconds. Decreased the cooldown from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
•Lightning Reflexes: The travel distance for this skill has been halved when underwater.
•Man O’ War: The base recharge has been increased from 18 to 25.
•Counterstrike: The base recharge has been increased from 15 to 20.
•Swirling Strike: Increased damage by 33%.
•Crossfire: Decreased the range to 900.
•Poison Volley: Decreased the range to 900.
•Quick Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%.
•Crippling Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%.
•Concussion Shot: Decreased the range to 900. Increased the damage by 14%. Reduced the aftercast by .25 seconds.
•Spirit-activated skill range increased from 180 to 240 (360 when traited).
•Call Lightning: Increased the damage by 150%.
•Solar Flare: Decreased the cast time from 1.7 seconds to .5 seconds.
•Counterstrike: Fixed an issue with this ability that caused it to go on interrupt recharge when pressed twice rapidly to use Counter Throw.
•Thunderclap (Downed Skill 2): Fixed an issue that caused this ability to have infinite range.
•Winter’s Bite:. Fixed an issue so that it now chills for 3 seconds (as listed in the tooltip) instead of 2 seconds.

Pets
•Armor Fish: Bite: Reduced the damage by 50%.
•Bird: Slash: Increased the damage by 15%.
•Eagle: Lacerating Slash: Reduced the damage by 50%.
•Raven: Blinding Slash: Reduced the damage by 34%.
•Canine: Bite: Reduced the damage by 27%.
•Devourer: Twin Darts: Reduced the damage by 20%.
•Drake: Bite: Reduced the damage by 27%.
•Insect Swarm: This skill can no longer fire behind the drake.
•Drake: Lightning Breath: Reduced the damage by 17%.
•Feline: Maul: Reduced the damage by 50%.
•Jaguar: Stalking: Critical chance increase while in stealth reduced to 25%.
•Jellyfish: Tentacle Slash: Increased the damage by 50%.
•Jellyfish Blue: Chilling Whirl: Decreased the damage by 33%.
•Moa: Peck: Reduced the damage by 7%.
•Pig: Jab: Reduced the damage by 25%.
•Shark: Bite: Increased the damage by 10%.
•Spider: Spit: Increased the damage by 10%.

Beastmastery
•Instinctual Bond: This trait has been swapped with Zephyr’s Speed. Quickness has been increased to 3 seconds.
•Stability Training: This trait now causes the pet to ignore the incoming crowd control skill as well as granting stability. This has a 10-second internal recharge.

Marksmanship
•Keen Edge: This trait now activates when the player strikes a target whose health is below 50%, instead of when the player’s health reaches 75%.
•Beastmaster’s Might: This trait now grants 3 stacks of might for 15 seconds.
•Spotter: This trait has been increased from 70 precision to 150.

Nature Magic
•Vigorous Spirits: This trait has been merged with Spiritual Knowledge.
•Spiritual Knowledge: This trait has been moved to the Adept tier.
•Evasive Purity: This trait has been moved to the Master tier.
•New Grandmaster trait—Nature’s Voice: Shouts apply 10 seconds of regeneration and swiftness to allies in a 360 radius.

Skirmishing
•Companion’s Might: This trait now grants 5 seconds of might to the player’s pet (up from 1 second).

Wilderness Survival
•Peak Strength: Damage bonus when the player’s health is above 90% has been increased from 5% to 10%.
•Healer’s Celerity: This trait now increases revive speed by 10%. Swiftness granted on revival has been increased from 3 seconds to 15 seconds.

(Yes, it’s long, no there’s no tl;dr)

So, as we all know there has been some leaked patch notes… Now, it’s entirely possible they’re nothing more than someone’s wild fanfiction, but to be quite honest, they sound very plausible, with most classes receiving interesting and mostly needed nerfs/buffs…

… down to moment they completely screw the ranger class over, and over, and over, with absolutely no sense of direction or purpose other than “kitten rangers”.

I am disappointed. Very. With every other class receiving seemingly carefully considered changes, even ones I may not agree with but can concede to having a point, the ranger’s change list seems mostly a collection of arbitrary buffs and nerfs because of reasons.

Even if this “leak” is a lie, until different patch notes are released that break the recent trend, I remain convinced ANet completely lost sight of what they wanted the ranger class to be at some point, and is now just throwing changes around hoping to find some sort of… something.

The ranger class right now, pre-patch, is probably in the best spot it has ever been. It has a lot of flaws, in fact it is inherently flawed, but at least it has some viable builds, and it’s honestly hard to call any of them overpowered. They’re good, they’re strong, but they have issues that can be easily exploited to level the playing field. But now they’re just generally crippling everything again, to the point where I’m having issues imagining why I’d play a ranger over any other class… With pets and shortbow receiving a completely unnecessary and uncalled for nerf, what does that leave? They’ll underperform in PvP, and they already underperform in PvE.

As it is, Rangers are flawed at their core, and I’d like to approach some of that.

#1: Rangers are inherently crippled… because of reasons.

It’s no secret that Rangers’ power scalings are horrid – about 60%-70% of what they should be. According to ANet that’s because “we have a pet”. In other words, Rangers have about 60-70% damage to make up for having a class mechanic,

I’m sorry… what? What 40% of their power do Guardians sacrifice for having a passive and active burn, a passive regen with an active secondary heal and a passive block with an extra active block? What 40% scaling do Mesmers sacrifice for having more reliable “pets” with higher damage and the shattering mechanic? What 40% of their power do Thieves relinquish for stealing and spammable skills?

What’s that? Nothing? That’s the whole point of everyone having class mechanics? Well, someone forgot to tell the Ranger team that.

“Oh but if you un-nerfed the ranger’s scalings they’d be terribly OP!”. Would they? I mean…

#2: The only viable ranger builds right now are the ones that aren’t inherently nerfed.

Condition damage isn’t inherently nerfed on the ranger. Neither is defensive ability (toughness or healing ratios). Yet these are the only viable builds a ranger has. A better scaling would not significantly affect either of these, it would only give power-based builds the ability to not be 60% of an effective character. Especially now that the pets have been so viciously nerfed…

Which brings us to another issue:

#3: Rangers are the most dependent on their class mechanic… And theirs is particularly unreliable

You can build a guardian without traiting for Virtues, and still be a full build. You can build a Necro without traiting into Death Shroud. You can build a Thief without traiting Steal, and still be a perfectly viable Thief. But if you build a Ranger without traiting into the pet, you’re inherently crippled for it.

An untraited pet does almost no damage (especially now), particularly because of how poorly it hits, it can’t take more than a couple of hits, but is still accounting for “40% of a ranger!”. This is before we even account for the fact that the pet is AI, and AI, in these things, is never as good as human control – at least without cheating wildly. AI does not understand tactics. It does not understand “yomi”. It does not understand planning.

Take fighting games for example, normal AI is stupid and unchallenging to a point where you can beat it with your eyes closed. The only time AI offers any challenge is when it starts cheating wildly – reading inputs and reacting with inhuman accuracy and speed, at which point it is just patently unfair, relying on the computer letting you win more than you outsmarting it.

Hell, look at your own game. The only way the AI ever stands half a chance of fighting a human player is when it is so incredibly buffed up stat and skill wise that any human player using it would be impossible to defeat by any other human of even remotely similar skill.

When it comes to pets, it’s not like our pet is particularly more damaging than others… Mesmer phantasms do die a lot faster, but they also frontload their damage in a direct attack (that doesn’t require them running from the mesmer all the way to the opponent since they appear right next to them), and have immensely smaller cooldowns. Yeah, they’ll die a lot faster than a ranger Pet… Too bad that that’s essentially irrelevant because the Mesmer can just keep sending more and more of them, essentially rendering their pets nearly immortal in practice. And that’s before you even account for their shatters and the Mesmer’s many control mechanics (dazes, immobilizes and stuns).

A warrior’s burst (which are about to be significantly improved in utility if these notes are to be trusted), does not lag immensely on activation. Meanwhile I can’t even begin to count the number of times I’ve died on my ranger because I’ve hit my wolf’s fear, only to see him stand around for several seconds before even starting the long kitten howl animation. Or tried to stealth my jaguar to give him some extra damage, and was forced to mash the hell out of F2 till the bloody thing finally decided “yeah, ok, I’ll get on that”.

No other class relies so heavily on a mechanic that’s so utterly broken and dysfunctional – Just to be a complete character.

Meanwhile, these patch notes address none of the real problems, instead nerfing BM builds because… of reasons… because it’s the only one used.

Yeah, I know most developers are terrified of “power creep”, but sometimes the reason you need to buff things up to the level of the popular things is because of the same reason people are using those popular things – because they’re the only ones that work.

People didn’t pick shortbow over longbow because shortbow was _ better_, They picked it because longbow was bad. It’s a power weapon, on a character with inherently crippled power scales as previously mentioned. On top of that the only time it maintained an half-decent DPS was at max range, with the damage being dwarved as the enemy approached. On top of that the weapon practically offers no defense, a #2 with pathetic damage, and a #5 AoE that roots you in place seemingly forever for no particular payoff – compare to Staff Eles that offer a lot more damage and AoE range through the similar channel of Meteor Shower, while retaining higher damage, and way more utility… And no reliance on stupid broken AI.

You didn’t need to bring the shortbow’s range to 900 (unless you were going to significantly buff up its damage). You needed to change the longbow’s range to 1500 without needing to trait for it.

You needed to at least bring up the ranger’s power scalings to normal before nerfing the pet’s damage so attrociously…

You needed to fix the things that were broken instead of breaking the things that were fixed…

I agree, more or less. I don’t think they have any idea where they want to go with the ranger; their excuse for keeping rangers so weak offensively is that they have a pet to do damage too, and now they nerf the pet damage. They have to make up their minds, what will it be? Rangers who deal decent damage through their own weapons but have useless pets, or rangers who’s damage is very mediocre at best but have decent pets? If these patch notes are accurate, both the ranger’s damage and the pet’s damage is going to be abysmal.

Agreed. I was glad to see the slight improvements to the longbow, but very disappointed in seeing the range nerf to the shortbow. And they still haven’t fixed the shortbow’s firing rate after the stealth animation nerf. Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Taran Redleaf.7912:

Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Why bother with that? Rangers are among the worst PvE professions.

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Taran Redleaf.7912:

Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Why bother with that? Rangers are among the worst PvE professions.

How do you figure?

Chopps.5047:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Taran Redleaf.7912:

Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Why bother with that? Rangers are among the worst PvE professions.

How do you figure?

Because every class in the game does it better

Unless you’re talking farming shelks

then a Ranger is pretty good at that.

Lol ya. Dungeons are really easy though so having a ranger really only helps, particularly when there’s not a perfect meta team comp available. Rangers do a good job filling gaps in team comps. Besides, afaik, no one theorycrafts a team comp with ranger in it for dungeons. The popular players won’t because they say the pet dies too much (which really shows their lack of understanding of ranger since pet death is only a problem on a few specific encounters—assuming you’re using a build with ways to protect the pet).

Whenever I have rangers in the party we do well. The offhands are all great (torch for might stacking, warhorn for fury etc, and axe for reflect). Ranger has more access to quickness than most think (pretty sure it’s something like 12% uptime with QZ and 5 in BM), and an instant revive elite that often comes in handy.

I just think it’s shortsighted to simply say “ranger sucks” because I don’t see that most of the time, particularly in dungeons less explored and pick up groups. Really, the truth is rangers in dungeons have been hated on based on exaggerrated claims. If it was that bad, how could I have earned every armor set and farmed nearly every dungeon in the game? We just beat fractals 48 using two rangers in the party. It’s not a big deal.

How come when I played DAOC, my 8 man Wrecked face even though I was on a Valkyrie when they were the worst class in the game.

Could it be because the Valkyrie was somehow amazing and was carrying its weight….and not that every class in the game was clearly superior and would of done a better job…

Or could it because I was being carried.

Define being carried.

Chopps.5047:

Define being carried.

Team Carried..I was being carried by the other players on my team..

I could of played any other class in the game.. and done a better job.

There was no redeeming value to the Valkyrie at the start of its release..

Every job it could do..a Thane could do better… and Thanes were regarded as the worst class in the game right up until the Valkyrie was released

By that definition, I’m not carried because I wouldn’t do well with another profession. I’m mich more practiced with ranger, although I have one of each.

Do you know how many times I’ve carried a party through Arah or a fractal? I can’t even count how many. It’s a lot. Helping your team in a dungeon is more than a profession. It’s a mindset. It’s knowing the dungeon and being able to lead a team that falters.

I have to admit I would be curious to know what niche/gap the devs think the ranger is meant to fill.

Chopps.5047:

By that definition, I’m not carried because I wouldn’t do well with another profession. I’m mich more practiced with ranger, although I have one of each.

Do you know how many times I’ve carried a party through Arah or a fractal? I can’t even count how many. It’s a lot. Helping your team in a dungeon is more than a profession. It’s a mindset. It’s knowing the dungeon and being able to lead a team that falters.

if you played those other classes equally to your ranger, you’d do better..

You not knowing how to play a class doesn’t make that class worse then the one you’re currently playing..

I could of picked any class in DAOC, and been better on it then the Valkyrie…just like I can pick any class in this game, having never played it.. and be better in a Dungeon then my Ranger.

Well to get back to the point, so far you’ve defined being carried as playing ranger. Am I understanding this correctly? Is there no other criteria?

Chopps.5047:

Well to get back to the point, so far you’ve defined being carried as playing ranger. Am I understanding this correctly? Is there no other criteria?

Rangers are able to be outclassed by every other class in this game in a Dungeon.

You getting to 48 FOTM is not a testament to how awesome Rangers are..

Its a Testament to you getting carried by your team.

If rangers were amazing..you’d see people actually requesting them for Dungeons….If they release raid content like they’re planning to…you’ll see how Un-needed your ranger actually is in a dungeon

Have anyone test the new nerfed pets?Have someone lost a battle than wouldnt be lost before the nerf?Well i geussed so…
Noone can read the future so stop assuming..

Ask people on the test server

You still haven’t defined ‘carried’ in a convincing way. Let’s say I play elementalist or engineer or thief in a dungeon. What do I have to do to not be carried according to your definition? Is it 7 might stacks and fury? Or reflection? What do you want? Must one use Strife’s build to “not be carried”?

Be clear and don’t resort to generalities. What does it mean to be carried? Because so far you are saying to play ranger is to be carried. And I don’t think most players would agree with that. I’ve carried tons of non-rangers.

Be specific, please.

He explained it pretty clearly, I don’t know what part you don’t understand… Being carried: your team is doing the most of the work, you’re not doing anything vital.

While this might be true, I do think rangers can be used effectively in dungeons, just not nearly as effectively as just about any other class. Personal skill is a big factor in this.

I cant understand they decrease the ranger of SB and to compensate give 14% more damage to skills that are there for utilities so therefor the increase is useless. Seriously Anet have no north and this prove it, is over. Reroll there not much in the future for rangers

Honestly, I don’t even care enough to post that much anymore even though I have a lot I’d like to say. They completely destroyed my hopes for my favorite class just like they did last time when John lied to us. They obviously have no idea what to do with the class and even more obviously don’t listen to the people playing it. I’ll check in on Rangers in another 6-10 months. Have fun guys. Love ya.

Chopps.5047:

By that definition, I’m not carried because I wouldn’t do well with another profession. I’m mich more practiced with ranger, although I have one of each.

Do you know how many times I’ve carried a party through Arah or a fractal? I can’t even count how many. It’s a lot. Helping your team in a dungeon is more than a profession. It’s a mindset. It’s knowing the dungeon and being able to lead a team that falters.

Flawed argument is flawed.

I rarely find myself agreeing with Mr. Positivity, but you do kind of have to qualify what you mean. If the thing you think Ranger is poor at is the Speedrun Farming Meta, you should actually say so.

BolshoiBooze.3406:

He explained it pretty clearly, I don’t know what part you don’t understand… Being carried: your team is doing the most of the work, you’re not doing anything vital.

While this might be true, I do think rangers can be used effectively in dungeons, just not nearly as effectively as just about any other class. Personal skill is a big factor in this.

Define “doing most of the work”. That isn’t clear at all. What do you mean by that? Be precise. Stop using generalities.

@castalia

By saying “flawed argument is flawed”, you’re utilizing the circular argument fallacy. I guess my argument is flawed. Why? Simple! Because it’s flawed!

This is the problem I have personally. If you have an intended role in mind that the Ranger should fill, please, for the love of all that is good, come out and say it. These patches of buckshot fixes make it painfully obvious that there is no one overriding role in which Devs see the Ranger filling. Most off-putting to me is the fact that is seems like every time I get comfortable with my weapon or build I’m forced to entirely reconsider my weapon of choice. What if I like the visceral feel of the shortbow with my current build, shall all uses of a weapon be hit just because it excels in some cases?

In the shortbow’s case, has anyone every really said, “hey that ranger is hitting me from too far away with that bow?” That’s where I have my problem. It seems like a nerf just for the sake of nerfing to make other weapons stand out. That is not the way you do things. If this is indeed the case, then I have to question the thought process of the Devs. YOU MEAN RANGERS FAVOR BOWS? THIS IS NEWS TO ME. BETTER NERF IT.

You’re living a fantasy if you think the current state of Rangers was ok. After seeing the supposedly leaked Patch Notes, you go on a QQ spree.

This FOTM no skill class needed to be toned down.

If these Patch Notes are legit, we’ll ONLY continue to see skilled rangers continue to play and the kiddo’s running Mes or something.

Autoattacking/petcarryme builds are in for a treat.

Enjoy the backseat.

Chopps.5047:

By that definition, I’m not carried because I wouldn’t do well with another profession. I’m mich more practiced with ranger, although I have one of each.

Do you know how many times I’ve carried a party through Arah or a fractal? I can’t even count how many. It’s a lot. Helping your team in a dungeon is more than a profession. It’s a mindset. It’s knowing the dungeon and being able to lead a team that falters.

You’re not being carried. Why? Because you’re familiar with the class. What if you had spent that time getting familiar with another class?

Saying;
X Class +TimeUsed=Good Because Y Class + (TimeUsed- Z)=Less Good
is not in any way an argument because the sides are not equal.

Secondly, “Do you know… It’s a mindset. It’s knowing the dungeon and being able to lead a team that falters.” Does not further help any statement about Rangers as this is a player factor and equally applies to any class.

Therefore you’re entire argument is that you’re not carried because experience and have become personally familiar with predictable AI. NOT because the Ranger class itself is “good” or “useful”.

The fact is that Ranger’s are regarded as crap for very legitimate reasons, none of which directly correlate to player skill, just obvious shortcomings of the class. Some people blow it out of proportions and unjustly persecute the class but that does not mean it is unwarranted a lot of the time.

Chopps.5047:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Taran Redleaf.7912:

Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Why bother with that? Rangers are among the worst PvE professions.

How do you figure?

What can a ranger do that other classes can’t do far better?

DPS? No. We’re nerfed to kitten in that department. It’s not even “we don’t compare to warriors, mesmers or guardians”. In full zerker we don’t compare to anyone . If we go 30 in power, burn 2 signets and elite we get a decent burst, but it has very low upkeep and still won’t match the top classes, even in that brief period.

Utility? Not even close. Mesmers reign supreme with their cc, timewarp, portal, blink…

Support? Pffft. As if. Guardians do more team support while retaining much higher DPS. If you really want more support/healing then staff ele will do way more of that while retaining way higher damage and AoE.

The thing rangers could bring to the table would be tanking, which is meaningless in PvE – things you can tank you don’t need to, and things you’d want to tank you can’t. And guardians would be better at that even…

So what’s left? Being “ball and chain”ed to stupid cripple AI? My warrior is jealous. Really.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that you can’t do PvE on them, PvE is simple for the most part, but that you’ll underperform. You can do lvl 50 fractals on them… but so can any other class, and better.

ProxyDamage.9826:

What can a ranger do that other classes can’t do far better?

Being on the developer explict-list

Viewing (actual) balance fixes that should have in game from the beginning as buffs
(This might just be more Ranger players than rangers as a profession)

Legacy.7360:

You’re living a fantasy if you think the current state of Rangers was ok. After seeing the supposedly leaked Patch Notes, you go on a QQ spree.

This FOTM no skill class needed to be toned down.

If these Patch Notes are legit, we’ll ONLY continue to see skilled rangers continue to play and the kiddo’s running Mes or something.

Autoattacking/petcarryme builds are in for a treat.

Enjoy the backseat.

seeing as beastmaster builds have never been buffed since launch, you might just want to realize that a lot the people that moved to ranger from other classes are just fotm hoppers. Beastmastery hasnt changed, ranger has never been OP, other classes have been nerfed to our level, which means we have to be nerfed again!

Doopslayer.2304:

Legacy.7360:

You’re living a fantasy if you think the current state of Rangers was ok. After seeing the supposedly leaked Patch Notes, you go on a QQ spree.

This FOTM no skill class needed to be toned down.

If these Patch Notes are legit, we’ll ONLY continue to see skilled rangers continue to play and the kiddo’s running Mes or something.

Autoattacking/petcarryme builds are in for a treat.

Enjoy the backseat.

seeing as beastmaster builds have never been buffed since launch, you might just want to realize that a lot the people that moved to ranger from other classes are just fotm hoppers. Beastmastery hasnt changed, ranger has never been OP, other classes have been nerfed to our level, which means we have to be nerfed again!

FOTM Hoppers, I’ll take that. I’m merely speaking on behalf of the PvP community. Can be brain dead while your pet does all the work and they still are able to achieve Top Spot Positions.

We’ll be seeing more Necro/Warrior “Hoppers” come next week I’m sure.

Legacy.7360:

You’re living a fantasy if you think the current state of Rangers was ok. After seeing the supposedly leaked Patch Notes, you go on a QQ spree.

This FOTM no skill class needed to be toned down.

If these Patch Notes are legit, we’ll ONLY continue to see skilled rangers continue to play and the kiddo’s running Mes or something.

Autoattacking/petcarryme builds are in for a treat.

Enjoy the backseat.

From his sig

Guardian <3
Maurader
Platinnum – Guardian

So the Guardian…..has come to this forum, to tell Rangers that we’re FOTM

ROFL

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Chopps.5047:

ProxyDamage.9826:

Taran Redleaf.7912:

Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Why bother with that? Rangers are among the worst PvE professions.

How do you figure?

What can a ranger do that other classes can’t do far better?

DPS? No. We’re nerfed to kitten in that department. It’s not even “we don’t compare to warriors, mesmers or guardians”. In full zerker we don’t compare to anyone . If we go 30 in power, burn 2 signets and elite we get a decent burst, but it has very low upkeep and still won’t match the top classes, even in that brief period.

Utility? Not even close. Mesmers reign supreme with their cc, timewarp, portal, blink…

Support? Pffft. As if. Guardians do more team support while retaining much higher DPS. If you really want more support/healing then staff ele will do way more of that while retaining way higher damage and AoE.

The thing rangers could bring to the table would be tanking, which is meaningless in PvE – things you can tank you don’t need to, and things you’d want to tank you can’t. And guardians would be better at that even…

So what’s left? Being “ball and chain”ed to stupid cripple AI? My warrior is jealous. Really.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that you can’t do PvE on them, PvE is simple for the most part, but that you’ll underperform. You can do lvl 50 fractals on them… but so can any other class, and better.

^ This

So many delusional people in this forum who think nothing’s wrong and the update is A okay simply because they are able to participate and confuse being able with being excellent. There pretty much isn’t any reason to be a ranger in Teir 1 WvW simply because any role we can fit some other class will do better and bring more to the group than we can.

The new “10 seconds of aoe swiftness and regen on shout” that we may or may not get might help a bit but I don’t see any future for the Ranger at all in high end WvW until the devs wake up and fix things like spirits ect.

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Taran Redleaf.7912:

Guess I’ll keep my ranger in farm mode until this profession gets fixed.

Why bother with that? Rangers are among the worst PvE professions.

Not bad for killing world mobs or underwater combat.
Usually will go to an event, toss on the long bow, press 1, then go make a sandwich.
Dungeons I will bring guardian or warrior.
WvW Ill bring anything but my ranger.
sPvP Weeeee ranger bm bunker build is usefulish.

One thing I would like to see fixed with some of the ranged weapons…
The axe #2 abilitiy that throws the 5 axes…. If my target breaks, instead of throwing them forward, most often he will throw them directly at his feet. Now the only way Ive manage to correct this is by changing my camera angle to be almost behind my feet which isn’t where the camera normally is. Seems trivial but its my biggest pet peeve with ranged weapons in general, and that one ability has always been the biggest offender for me.

Substance E.4852:

So many delusional people in this forum who think nothing’s wrong and the update is A okay simply because they are able to participate and confuse being able with being excellent. There pretty much isn’t any reason to be a ranger in Teir 1 WvW simply because any role we can fit some other class will do better and bring more to the group than we can.

The new “10 seconds of aoe swiftness and regen on shout” that we may or may not get might help a bit but I don’t see any future for the Ranger at all in high end WvW until the devs wake up and fix things like spirits ect.

Not even. They revolve around Shouts and none of them are remotely useful in WvW groups. You’d be better off having Healing Spring pulse vigor with that trait in the Wilderness line… which is still all we do. Useless is as useless does.

There has to be some MAJOR changes to the way a vast majority of Ranger skills are designed for us to warrant a spot in WvW teams. That Axe change was a good example. It is quite unique in the fact it is a long range AoE pull. You could essentially pull smaller groups of foes off a larger group and take them out quickly with your team. Other than that though a vast majority of our skills (both weapon and utility) are so clearly not designed in any way for group play.

Maybe if Dust Trap was still around, the older version of barrage, spirit’s buffs weren’t pointless and didn’t have the range of a melee attack (ex. Last GW spirits), and even preparations that added unique effects to our attacks (like AoE damage, extra damage vs boons, etc.) We used to punish people for boons, were masters of poison, change the course of battle with spirits that demanded attention, AoE’d like gods, and more. They stripped everything that made the GW Ranger a Ranger and slapped us with a pet then punished us for it.

Right now we have:
-Signets that only affect pet unless traited with 30 points. Then they only affect you and Pet. (The exception is Renewal which wouldn’t you know, a must for all Rangers)
-Shouts that only affect a pet and have no affects remotely useful for team play. (Even the resurrect one is useless.)
-Spirits that die in AoE yet don’t have the effect range to avoid any of it on top of having RNG buff procs and useless ones at that.
-Survival skills that half of which are useless in any setting.
-Traps that are useless in PvP unless traited heavily for and even then don’t make up remotely for having completely sup-par weapon skills for group play while taking up all your utility slots.
-Slow moving projectiles.
-Main hand weapon whose every skill inhibits personal control of your character.
-Major lack of AoE

As a Ranger I don’t blame WvW players for preferring other classes at all. I personally feel pathetic and useless in a group. It’s selfish to play a Ranger in WvW and that’s not even debatable. I mained Ranger in the Last GW and I’m so disgusted with what they did to the class in this game. None of the long lasting staples of the last Ranger were carried over. Not a single one. Just pets which fell out of use when they couldn’t tank cuz AI is always useless. Yet they bring that back as a class mechanic in a game where you can’t tank and punish us for it? They don’t even seem willing to “fix” it either considering it’s been the same core problems for 10 months.

I love pets don’t get me wrong. It’s the way the rest of our skills are designed that I hate. 250 years ago we literally had the answers to today’s problems but are too stubborn to learn.
Pathetic

Rangers are one of the most viable class for wvw zergs.
The main reason that wvw ranger aint that effective in wvw zergs is because they are running builds for s/tPvp or Soloing builds which are highly dependable on pet dps/cc.
Remember pets are nothing in a zerg not matter how long your pet could stay alive which wont take long. Pet skills bug, pet A.I., standing in AoE, etc etc…

I used to test run couple of my s/tPvp builds and stats in wvw months ago.
I’ve own faces most of the time soloing. But i dont do that no more.
I’m running a zerging build of my mine nowadays.
Yeah most could owned me solo (most not all) but im more than useful in a zerg than ever. Believe it or not it does not matter cause i know im contributing loads for my guild or the zerg that im in.

It is understandable to get kitten ed losing 1v1 especially in wvw but if youre running soloing builds for wvw zergs you aint helping em.

edit: That is why Rangers are usually handed with scouting duties or watching keeps where Thieves could do it better by a mile. Cause they know we aint contributing much for the zerg unlike Mes Portals, Necro marks, Guard Buffs, AoE from Eles, War’s Shouts/Banners etc etc…

Once anet stops trying to balance their entire game around the smallest portion of it (spvp), I think perhaps rangers will get some much needed positive attention.

Jabronee.9465:

Rangers are one of the most viable class for wvw zergs.
The main reason that wvw ranger aint that effective in wvw zergs is because they are running builds for s/tPvp or Soloing builds which are highly dependable on pet dps/cc.
Remember pets are nothing in a zerg not matter how long your pet could stay alive which wont take long. Pet skills bug, pet A.I., standing in AoE, etc etc…

I used to test run couple of my s/tPvp builds and stats in wvw months ago.
I’ve own faces most of the time soloing. But i dont do that no more.
I’m running a zerging build of my mine nowadays.
Yeah most could owned me solo (most not all) but im more than useful in a zerg than ever. Believe it or not it does not matter cause i know im contributing loads for my guild or the zerg that im in.

It is understandable to get kitten ed losing 1v1 especially in wvw but if youre running soloing builds for wvw zergs you aint helping em. Just saying.

Yet not a single build was posted nor did you obviously understand my argument at all if you responded with “…if you’re running a 1v1 build…”

Go ahead. Post something that changes the entire standpoint in all of T1 WvW that Rangers are a joke.

PS.
It better not just be something that “contributes”. It better be something amazing.

Castaliea.3156:

Jabronee.9465:

Rangers are one of the most viable class for wvw zergs.
The main reason that wvw ranger aint that effective in wvw zergs is because they are running builds for s/tPvp or Soloing builds which are highly dependable on pet dps/cc.
Remember pets are nothing in a zerg not matter how long your pet could stay alive which wont take long. Pet skills bug, pet A.I., standing in AoE, etc etc…

I used to test run couple of my s/tPvp builds and stats in wvw months ago.
I’ve own faces most of the time soloing. But i dont do that no more.
I’m running a zerging build of my mine nowadays.
Yeah most could owned me solo (most not all) but im more than useful in a zerg than ever. Believe it or not it does not matter cause i know im contributing loads for my guild or the zerg that im in.

It is understandable to get kitten ed losing 1v1 especially in wvw but if youre running soloing builds for wvw zergs you aint helping em. Just saying.

Yet not a single build was posted nor did you obviously understand my argument at all if you responded with “…if you’re running a 1v1 build…”

Go ahead. Post something that changes the entire standpoint in all of T1 WvW that Rangers are a joke.

PS.
It better not just be something that “contributes”. It better be something amazing.

lol im in NA T1 fyi. I dont have to lie bout it
And if you mean by saying its better to be amazing in a zerg by running soloing build then i have nothing much to say. Its you game, you bought it with your money but i really pity the zerg or guild youre in. Just saying.
Anyways have fun. Cause i am

edit: Add me as friend and you will know which T1 server im in. And if you happen to be in the same server, join my guild and i’ll ping you the build that me and my fellow ranger are running in zergs. /wink

Jabronee.9465:

Castaliea.3156:

Jabronee.9465:

Rangers are one of the most viable class for wvw zergs.
The main reason that wvw ranger aint that effective in wvw zergs is because they are running builds for s/tPvp or Soloing builds which are highly dependable on pet dps/cc.
Remember pets are nothing in a zerg not matter how long your pet could stay alive which wont take long. Pet skills bug, pet A.I., standing in AoE, etc etc…

I used to test run couple of my s/tPvp builds and stats in wvw months ago.
I’ve own faces most of the time soloing. But i dont do that no more.
I’m running a zerging build of my mine nowadays.
Yeah most could owned me solo (most not all) but im more than useful in a zerg than ever. Believe it or not it does not matter cause i know im contributing loads for my guild or the zerg that im in.

It is understandable to get kitten ed losing 1v1 especially in wvw but if youre running soloing builds for wvw zergs you aint helping em. Just saying.

Yet not a single build was posted nor did you obviously understand my argument at all if you responded with “…if you’re running a 1v1 build…”

Go ahead. Post something that changes the entire standpoint in all of T1 WvW that Rangers are a joke.

PS.
It better not just be something that “contributes”. It better be something amazing.

lol im in NA T1 fyi. I dont have to lie bout it
And if you mean by saying its better to be amazing in a zerg by running soloing build then i have nothing much to say. Its you game, you bought it with your money but i really pity the zerg or guild youre in. Just saying.
Anyways have fun. Cause i am

edit: Add me as friend and you will know which T1 server im in. And if you happen to be in the same server, join my guild and i’ll ping you the build that me and my fellow ranger are running in zergs. /wink

I find this funny because both of you’re post’s are calling me out for kitten that not once I even mentioned. Lol. Where, in my entire post, did I say “1v1” or even imply Ranger’s run 1v1 bars? Not only are you misunderstanding that but you’re also making arguments with the writing ability of a 12 year old. That, combined with your reading and comprehension levels, bring me to my next point…
I’m going to call BS on you claim. I’ve met people just like you before who think they have the secret little answer to everyone’s question when it turns out to be the same normal junk as always yet because they make minor contribution and a couple key plays it’s suddenly god’s greatest gift.

Basing everything on a leak is bad. :<

Judging by what they are giving warriors (nothing they wanted, more nerfs then buffs.) Warriors got nerfed just as much as rangers did damage wise. Do you think with all the buffs they said they were giving warriors this is true?

Warriors got amazing condition removal…. That was their primary weakness.

Daecollo.9578:

Basing everything on a leak is bad. :<

Judging by what they are giving warriors (nothing they wanted, more nerfs then buffs.) Warriors got nerfed just as much as rangers did damage wise. Do you think with all the buffs they said they were giving warriors this is true?

Daecollo, even for your “usual” this post is utterly insane… Warriors got so many, quite needed, buffs… I have no idea which “leak” you read…

I know I’m polishing my warrior’s sword and rifle in antecipation.

I honestly cant decide if Daecollo is a troll…

I 100% agree with OP.

Razaac.7834:

I 100% agree with OP.

Same here :/

I completely agree with the OP, ranger has been in such a bad state since RELEASE (especially in PvE) it’s not funny anymore.

I’ve really lost hope in any of Anets Balance-Devs, especially Jonathan Sharp who promised to improve ranger in every aspect (didn’t deliver at all) as he never showed up here again commenting on serious ranger issues.
Sadly the only dev caring about the ranger seems to be Robert Hrouda, which isn’t even his job at Arenanet.
Atm sPvP ranger seems to be in an “ok” state, but PvE is still as bad as it was from release on. Meanwhile we have other classes like mesmers who are one of the best classes in every aspect of the game like sPvP or Dungeons since release (Yes, I’m jealous).

It seems like Arenanet has no idea what they want to do with the ranger, imo they should completely scrap it. Return the damage from the pet to the ranger itself and make BM a viable OPTION. Then start giving us a lot more crowdcontrol abilities like in GW1.

tl;dr
I’ve never been so dissatisfied with any class in any MMO I’ve ever played and the horrible thing is that the corresponding devs seem to have no idea how to change this.

Enjoy your “wonderful” grandmaster trait for regen and swiftness on shouts nobody uses with the weakest boons in team fight

RIP Zephyr’s Speed. PvE/WvW rangers must be ecstatic for the marvelous gift spvpers brought to them this patch.