Guild Wars 2

Ello All Fellow Rangers!

I have seen many complaints about rangers in all the forums out there ranging from lack of damage, survivability, and we seem to have a bad rep. However, I have been running WvW nonstop for a few weeks now, and I must say I rarely die, and am able to pull loads of bags and cash. I agree there are some mechanics with ranger that need to be fixed (I.E. impossible to dodge while in melee with sword) but I believe our mechanics are getting a lot better with time. What are your thoughts on this?

Ivy

We are defiantly getting better. But the Ranger is a bit like a two-bladed sword. On one end, we have a good amount of viable builds, but on the other end, our skills and traits are still a mixture of boring or useless effects. On one end, our pets can deal very good damage, but on the other end, they can’t hit moving targets consistently. On one end, we have very powerful bunker and condition builds, but on the other end, our burst direct damage and support builds are still lacking.

This is why the feedback of the Ranger is such a mixed bag. Your enjoyment of it, depends very much on how you play. Maybe even more so then any other profession.

When you look at the Ranger on it’s own – especially in normal PvE – it is a fun class that has some unique mechanics. When you contemplate the GW2 MO and reflect on how the Ranger is designed in comparison to other classes, that’s when you see the gaps.

My fundamental problem with our class is that having a pet controlled by a very limited NPC AI severely handicaps us in any non-standard encounter. Building on this, GW2 is designed at I – t – s (apparently that gets transformed into akitten when not spaced…)core to encourage group play and synergy with other players. Our class is built from the ground up to synergize the player with the NPC that follows us around instead of the people around us. There have been a couple of steps over the recent patches to rectify that and give other people a reason to want us around, but at the core we still focus on sharing our power, damage and utility with an NPC – see the many traits and minor traits that augment pets at expense of giving us something that an ally can use.

Building on that, a good many Rangers play selfish builds, focusing all available options on what they can do to boost their own contribution. If you couple that with the inherent synergy with an NPC, you can see why people do not see value in bringing us along. That isn’t to say that there aren’t ways to synergize with players in our trait and skill choices, they are just very limited in scope, and the one trait line that was specifically intended to allow us to contribute something in a group setting – Spirits – simply does not work in any common WvW scenario.

I guess it also depends on you ability to put skill sets together to deal high DPS. I am not saying that I am very good, but I have found a LB/SB or LB/S+WH set up that allows me to deal damage very fast with the ability to flee if I am taking loads of damage as well. I believe this is what makes it so enjoyable for me, to be able to take out 1 or 2 players by myself. For instance, earlier this week I was in EB JP and a guardian and ele came at me, the battle was long and painful but I prevailed over them both switching back and forth between combos. However, I have read on forums of beginning rangers being disheartened on the fact rangers have multiple bugs. When I started, I threw everything I had into toughness and armor, but now I have thrown everything at precision and crit damage, completely ignoring toughness. I also do not run with high leveled equipment, only rare armors and weapons. As time as gone on my skills have greatly improved. Now days, I cannot stand pure meleeing on my warrior or guardian, so I just switch back to my ranger….

Again, if you are by yourself and fighting 1v1, there’s not a lot of problems that will directly affect you. Rangers were actually nerfed because of their ability to frustrate people in sPvP with a particular 1v1 build. The complaints about the ranger comes in the more epic encounters this game has to offer where the mechanics we are given do not stack up well to human intelligence, mass ground targeted AoE and non standard game mechanics.

I find the class has no defined purpose in this game. It’s the reason the class struggles in PvE and it’s the reason their role in sPvP is so passive. In WvW, the class offers very limited utility which further makes coming up with a reason to play the class so difficult. My main complaints with this class are it has nothing it excells at and it’s so boring to play.

Now that doesn’t mean it’s outright useless as you’ve found, you can still get bags aplenty and have fun with the class from time to time. But if you sat down and tried to rank the classes in overall value to WvW, where would you rank the class? Of 8 classes, I give the Ranger a solid 7 eaking out a win over the thief because of its waterfield and nothing else.

For a condition build, it’s awful when compared to the Necro or Engi.
For a power build, it’s awful when compared against nearly every class out there. Especially when you try to focus on the bow skills.
For utility there’s nothing but waterfields and potentially spirits if you trait them.
For burst there is none outside of a maul when you pop 3 signets.

Really the only thing this class has to set it apart from the others are pets, and we see how awful and poorly thoughtout they are.