Ranger Stress

Ranger Stress

in Ranger

Posted by: Detharos.3157

Detharos.3157

Hi I’m Dathaul. Those from my server and the people I’ve fought might recognize me as that awkward melee ranger who you frequently see rolling with drakes. I spend A LOT of time complaining about unique weaknesses that the ranger class suffers from and find myself often taking flak from people who in my opinion, in ignorance, think the ranger class is actually at parity with other classes in a fight. (Of course they are usually spvp players.) I’m the first to admit, I’m beating against the stream rolling melee as a ranger, when the class is made so dependent on range. I happily accept that weakness and disadvantage for a play style that I like and the difficulties of using a melee ranger are not my complaint at all at this time. Let me say to my credit, I have spent months (probably about 4-5 months now) building a melee ranger of incredible competence and fighting in solo roaming in WvW vs. anywhere from 1, to multiple opponents. (4 to 5). Against those that lacked skill I often found myself dropping upwards of 2-4 fully exotic geared level 80s going all out and using terrain to advantage, fighting smart.. and hard. Mind you, they are always HARD, exhausting fights. I myself possess NO ascended gear at this time, so I don’t rely on supposedly op stat differences to defeat my foes at this time. I’ve probably explored the depths of the ranger’s strengths and weaknesses more than the vast majority of the ranger community and in greater detail, and it shows from the fact that I have no other character over level 23, and no ascended gear at this time. (Though I am FINALLY working on it.) I have put painful hours into designing a ranger capable of fighting well against every single type of opponent and build, and capable of besting every other ranger in battle using skill and timing, and at the same time different from the cookie cutter builds. Maximum mobility, high levels of tankiness, a 30-some odd second stunbreak and damage/damage reduction. The keys to success as a melee character with no stealth capability.

Despite my efforts, I’m sure there are other rangers who could say very similar things. And most of these rangers, I am sure will share the same complaints as I. I’d even love to test it out more in spvp against other rangers if not for the fact that the stat distributions of vitality-tougness-healing power-power are completely unavailable in SPvP, thereby breaking mine(and many other good builds) when thrown into that environment. I talk as a very experienced WvW solo player. And while its certainly true that WvW players on average have far less skill, there are some solo roamer’s I’ve fought out there who I believe could throw down with the best of SPvP players and win, without needing Perplexity runes and torment sigils or ascended gear. So let’s not delude ourselves as if there were no skilled players or elitists in WvW and use that as an excuse to claim the ranger class does not suffer from broken and bad mechanics but rather from L2P issues. I’m not arrogant but confident to happily myself say I have no l2p issues having taken the hard path for rangers, and yet having found great success in it.

At this point, the only things I can complain about are BROKEN MECHANICS that weaken the class. I’m happily open to counter-builds, class weaknesses and the like. I get excited when I see someone targeting my pet specifically and trying new things. It’s great. I do not like it however, that so many necessary functions available to other classes are broken by poor design and made EASILY exploitable to defeat every single ranger in skilled combat with minimal effort, no matter what build someone with high skill level on other classes rolls.

So again.. as a bit of an elitist, and one who would hold himself as being at the pinnacle as a melee ranger I find it disheartening how many people think the ranger class needs at best “band aid” solutions to be at par with the other classes. So here I will spell out many of the classes major weaknesses that will get it burned in a pro-level fight 99% of the time. (We’re not talking about meeting up with counter-builds here, literal class weaknesses.) Introduction over. On to the good stuff, or rather the bad stuff.

To be continued…

Dathaul, 80 Melee Ranger
Ferguson’s Crossing server.

(edited by Detharos.3157)

Ranger Stress

in Ranger

Posted by: Detharos.3157

Detharos.3157

In a brief overview, the issues of this class that NEED attention and need to be considered as the problems they really are, by all classes and not looked past:

1) Melee pets inability to hit moving targets; Cripple, stun, chilling every 9 seconds, pulling and even pets with cripple and CC like the dogs will still miss upwards of 75% of their auto attacks on a moving target. AIS cannot compete with players. Players think “Where you will be”, “How to intercept them”, pets do not. They only attack where you are which in high skill fights will always be where you WERE.

Ranged pets don’t have enough damage to be viable. Devourer is terrible compared to spider and lacks the damage to be a viable choice over it in ranged pets. Ranged pets need to have damage options similar to melee pets, Ie. the Lashtail Devourer F2 needs to hit damage levels more reflective of the Drake F2, and at least with similar cast times to be relevant.

2) Healing: I’m sure some will disagree with my because of regen rangers, but nonetheless I feel ranger default heals are lacking severely. Not all of us have 3 regen procs and a healing spirit. Heal as one needs more perks or a 5 second lower cooldown. Reducing the raw healing we can get off of healing spring by means of combos was a bad idea. You should of increased the condi remove pulses AND kept the original field duration. By sacrificing the latter for the former, all you did was make it lean toward condi removal while not offering the ranger any decent chance to survive against high physical damage builds.

3) Condition removal: INSUFFICIENT AND TREACHEROUS. Healing Spring Cooldown is too long to be viable outside group fights(30 seconds) and even without. Too many skills and traits just pass conditions to the pet, killing it. WE NEED TO PURGE CONDITIONS COMPLETELY AND SIMULTANEOUSLY REMOVE THEM FROM OUR PET. Empathetic bond should be changed to something that removes 3 conditions from both the Ranger AND the pet with no cost, because currently it literally takes that much for us to survive and keep our pet alive for (A LITTLE) longer. (It will probably still die overly frequently.)

4) Class does not synergize with it’s pet well. Help the pet survive but kill the ranger, or help the ranger survive but guarantee the pet dies are choices we always have to make, and they hold us back. It’s been made clear to us that the current ideal for the ranger is “The Two fight as one”. This is untrue. Our pet is a burden on us, and our condi removal utilities and Protect me burden the pet. We do not fight in harmony and synchronicity. The pet holds back the ranger damage, and the ranger holds back the pet survivability, and the pets that are supposed to offer survivability like the moa have massive AI problems.

5) Extremely low build variability is available with the ranger, and every class, but annoyingly so with the ranger.

Dathaul, 80 Melee Ranger
Ferguson’s Crossing server.

(edited by Detharos.3157)

Ranger Stress

in Ranger

Posted by: Shirk.6421

Shirk.6421

I’m not arrogant but confident to happily myself say I have no l2p issues having taken the hard path for rangers, and yet having found great success in it.

Welcome to the club.

No, honestly, mastering the ranger is (imo next to the ele) the hardest work with a lot of effort. I wouldn’t say I mastered him, but 50 win streaks in the colosseum should speak for itself. The biggest issue I have with the ranger is – as you said – the poor pet AI, I always try to time my hard hitting skills in a way that my pet actually provides help, with immobilizes for example. I kinda know when my dog’s or wolf’s knock-down is ready, pay attention and try to time my attacks. But the stupidity of the pet and the F2 ability just grinds my gears. The other thing is the design of some wapons, not only speaking about the sword’s rooting. The axe for example: It’s a ranged hybrid weapon. Doesn’t deal decent damage at all when facing a single enemy and, as a condition weapon, – despite the fact that it’s a ranged weapon – only works fine when you go into melee. You try to let him eat a point-blank splitblade but then the moving enemy just side-steps out of the cone. I often find myself staying at melee range just to make sure that my pet hits… that’s kinda sad for a class with so much potential. Same goes for the shortbow, not only it’s poison fan but also if it’s a power or condition weapon. It has better dps than the longbow in kinda close combat, but is our one and only two-handed condition weapon. But then you try to get some bleed stacks on your target in PvP or WvW but because every class can just facehug you, you have no chance (except for bleeds on crits) to apply the bleeds, again poor designed imo. I don’t even want to start about decent power builds or condition cleansing again…

Ranger Stress

in Ranger

Posted by: Detharos.3157

Detharos.3157

I’m not arrogant but confident to happily myself say I have no l2p issues having taken the hard path for rangers, and yet having found great success in it.

Welcome to the club.

No, honestly, mastering the ranger is (imo next to the ele) the hardest work with a lot of effort. I wouldn’t say I mastered him, but 50 win streaks in the colosseum should speak for itself. The biggest issue I have with the ranger is – as you said – the poor pet AI, I always try to time my hard hitting skills in a way that my pet actually provides help, with immobilizes for example. I kinda know when my dog’s or wolf’s knock-down is ready, pay attention and try to time my attacks. But the stupidity of the pet and the F2 ability just grinds my gears. The other thing is the design of some wapons, not only speaking about the sword’s rooting. The axe for example: It’s a ranged hybrid weapon. Doesn’t deal decent damage at all when facing a single enemy and, as a condition weapon, – despite the fact that it’s a ranged weapon – only works fine when you go into melee. You try to let him eat a point-blank splitblade but then the moving enemy just side-steps out of the cone. I often find myself staying at melee range just to make sure that my pet hits… that’s kinda sad for a class with so much potential. Same goes for the shortbow, not only it’s poison fan but also if it’s a power or condition weapon. It has better dps than the longbow in kinda close combat, but is our one and only two-handed condition weapon. But then you try to get some bleed stacks on your target in PvP or WvW but because every class can just facehug you, you have no chance (except for bleeds on crits) to apply the bleeds, again poor designed imo. I don’t even want to start about decent power builds or condition cleansing again…

Yeah, part of what also made me roll melee was the idea that my pet’kitten ratio would go up, for both ranged and melee pets. Surely enough it did.. VERY SLIGHTLY, so when I still see it suffering from high miss ratios.. it’s like.. it hurts my heart. I’ve pushed the “Two as One” idea pretty far, but as you’ve seen yourself there’s no way for it to go the distance it needs to.

Dathaul, 80 Melee Ranger
Ferguson’s Crossing server.