Guild Wars 2

So, here’s the thing. I’ve heard a couple times that there’s different tiers for different game modes; such as mesmers being top tier for PvP in general. I’m not about to contest that, but it’s made me curious where the ranger supposedly falls. I’ve heard a few people claim that rangers are garbage in PvE but godly in PvP, and yet it’s the only class I’ve heard of that can consistently solo legendaries, and I have a hard time playing them in PvP.

So, where does it fall? In general anyways. I know there’s variances based on build.

The class being said to be good in spvp, no doubt, is no more than people simply parroting what someone else said. The source of which is probably a number of people, who you could count on just one hand, who have done well with the class in spvp. Just because 5 out of dozens have made a good go, doesn’t make the class good.

There is spvp, WvW and PvE and yet they balance around spvp which is wrong. They should be balancing around WvW. Why? In pvp, they place certain limitations that can mean the difference in a win or lose in WvW. Also, spv kitten trictly pvp with no pve element. WvW is pvp but with nothing different to the profession from PvE and there is also PvE in WvW. Thus WvW is a PvE/PvP hybrid situation allowing the players to make use of everything.

If they balance the professions around concept of 1v1 within WvW, then the rest would, more or less, fall into place.

They should balance things differently for all three aspects of the game, since they’re all different.

Rangers is good in sPvP and great at open world PvE and WvW roaming, but sucks hard in dungeons and fractals.

Venereus.9473:

Rangers is good in sPvP and great at open world PvE and WvW roaming, but sucks hard in dungeons and fractals.

Why do they suck so hard in dungeons and fractals?

Venereus.9473:

Rangers is good in sPvP and great at open world PvE and WvW roaming, but sucks hard in dungeons and fractals.

And yet, I can solo most dungeons with mine. Haven’t tried fractals yet.

Beta.2045:

Venereus.9473:

Rangers is good in sPvP and great at open world PvE and WvW roaming, but sucks hard in dungeons and fractals.

Why do they suck so hard in dungeons and fractals?

Dead pet + lacking support: sucks.

Rangers are the worst class on dungeons by far. Your part dies and you lose 50% of your damage. Yes you can still solo dungeons without pets because the AI is dumb and its just about remembering patterns.

Puandro.3245:

Rangers are the worst class on dungeons by far. Your part dies and you lose 50% of your damage. Yes you can still solo dungeons without pets because the AI is dumb and its just about remembering patterns.

My pets don’t die vs lupicus and I reflect 50k dmg with [Whirling Defense]. I also prevent grub spawn at transition with a well timed pet swap after the melee pet takes grub aggro at phase 1/2 transition. For many groups, ranger is a great Ruined City of Arah profession (protection / fury / healing / reviving / grub prevention / reflection / invuln / combo fields).

Like Chopps said: lots of Parrots on forum. You got a few examples of that in thread. Rangers are viable everywhere ikittennow how to play class. Don’t listen to so-called experts on forums that tell u otherwise. I play everything with ranger and i manage everything, but there’s a learning curve. Flexibility is important. Adjust weapons, pets and skills according to circumstances.

Deamhan.9538:

The class being said to be good in spvp, no doubt, is no more than people simply parroting what someone else said. The source of which is probably a number of people, who you could count on just one hand, who have done well with the class in spvp. Just because 5 out of dozens have made a good go, doesn’t make the class good.

There is spvp, WvW and PvE and yet they balance around spvp which is wrong. They should be balancing around WvW. Why? In pvp, they place certain limitations that can mean the difference in a win or lose in WvW. Also, spv kitten trictly pvp with no pve element. WvW is pvp but with nothing different to the profession from PvE and there is also PvE in WvW. Thus WvW is a PvE/PvP hybrid situation allowing the players to make use of everything.

If they balance the professions around concept of 1v1 within WvW, then the rest would, more or less, fall into place.

Short answer? No.

Arenanet balances around at least PvP and PvE, I believe they’re also separating WvW balance. This is because if they did just PvP, the thief would be impossible to play in PvE, my evidence for this? Check the Guild Wars 1 wiki and tell me how many assassin skills are split for PvP. But, well, it’s not just the thief, but the thief is an excellent example of the issues with balancing for PvE or PvP alone.

You seem to misinterpret what WvW is for as well. PvE has dungeons, a structured instance, to dictate balance while Pv kitten tructured and is the competitive side of the game so it also needs balance. WvW does not have this level of structure that allows balancing to be possible. If there are major issues, like defending yourself from a wave of invaders killing you without getting hit, then the balance team will take note. However, PvE and PvP require vastly different things.

Lastly you seem to think the game is determined by one on one combat. Well unfortunately, even one on one is situational (such as fighting a turret engi or trap ranger) and making all professions equal when it comes to one on one combat makes some professions look far worse. The thief for example can instantly win one on one fights, especially against inexperienced opponents, which is a major problem if this is our balance focus. The Ranger is also technically two people, which just makes them mechanically better in one on one situations. Both however are weaker in team fights, the thief explodes if caught by one stray stun and the ranger’s extra dude gets caught in AoE and dies because it can’t dodge easily, but that’s more the thief than the ranger, because the ranger is a jack of all trades and provides bonuses to teamfights in other ways.

Sure, I’ve probably got things about actual balance and design horribly wrong and provided extremely vague examples, but this doesn’t change my point. PvP and PvE require vastly different things, making something good in one can often make it ridiculous in the other, so balance is split as necessary.

Deamhan.9538:

The class being said to be good in spvp, no doubt, is no more than people simply parroting what someone else said. The source of which is probably a number of people, who you could count on just one hand, who have done well with the class in spvp. Just because 5 out of dozens have made a good go, doesn’t make the class good.

This is just outright insulting to the community, how can you claim that players with hundreds of hours of spvp under their belts are basing their claims off hearsay rather than personal experience? Are you suggesting that they persevere in playing a weak class, blinded to their poor performance, simply because they once heard that some top tier teams roll with a ranger or two? I consistently achieve pretty good success rates in basic pug play with a ranger, and I’m certainly no pvp guru. Are you counting me on one of your hands?

Chopps.5047:

Puandro.3245:

Rangers are the worst class on dungeons by far. Your part dies and you lose 50% of your damage. Yes you can still solo dungeons without pets because the AI is dumb and its just about remembering patterns.

My pets don’t die vs lupicus and I reflect 50k dmg with [Whirling Defense]. I also prevent grub spawn at transition with a well timed pet swap after the melee pet takes grub aggro at phase 1/2 transition. For many groups, ranger is a great Ruined City of Arah profession (protection / fury / healing / reviving / grub prevention / reflection / invuln / combo fields).

Because you can do decent in some dungeons it doesnt make the ranger good, an example is how bad rangers are in CoE against alpha. Literally all the pet needs is to gain invulnability when the player dodges to make the pet damage viable in dungeons and fix sword auto attack so you can move around your target while attacking and ranger will be in a very good place.

Daemon.4295:

Deamhan.9538:

The class being said to be good in spvp, no doubt, is no more than people simply parroting what someone else said. The source of which is probably a number of people, who you could count on just one hand, who have done well with the class in spvp. Just because 5 out of dozens have made a good go, doesn’t make the class good.

This is just outright insulting to the community, how can you claim that players with hundreds of hours of spvp under their belts are basing their claims off hearsay rather than personal experience? Are you suggesting that they persevere in playing a weak class, blinded to their poor performance, simply because they once heard that some top tier teams roll with a ranger or two? I consistently achieve pretty good success rates in basic pug play with a ranger, and I’m certainly no pvp guru. Are you counting me on one of your hands?

Since your name doesn’t show up on the leader boards, no I’m not counting you.

Deamhan.9538:

Daemon.4295:

Deamhan.9538:

The class being said to be good in spvp, no doubt, is no more than people simply parroting what someone else said. The source of which is probably a number of people, who you could count on just one hand, who have done well with the class in spvp. Just because 5 out of dozens have made a good go, doesn’t make the class good.

This is just outright insulting to the community, how can you claim that players with hundreds of hours of spvp under their belts are basing their claims off hearsay rather than personal experience? Are you suggesting that they persevere in playing a weak class, blinded to their poor performance, simply because they once heard that some top tier teams roll with a ranger or two? I consistently achieve pretty good success rates in basic pug play with a ranger, and I’m certainly no pvp guru. Are you counting me on one of your hands?

Since your name doesn’t show up on the leader boards, no I’m not counting you.

Of course you’re not, or any of the countless other average players that do alright for themselves in spvp despite your claim that the class is weak and we’re all just mindless retweeters. If you disagree on the ranger’s performance in pvp that’s fine by me, but you can’t dismiss everyone else as being incapable of judging a game they’ve been playing on a daily basis for months.

Rangers are really good in sPvP.

Puandro.3245:

Chopps.5047:

Puandro.3245:

Rangers are the worst class on dungeons by far. Your part dies and you lose 50% of your damage. Yes you can still solo dungeons without pets because the AI is dumb and its just about remembering patterns.

My pets don’t die vs lupicus and I reflect 50k dmg with [Whirling Defense]. I also prevent grub spawn at transition with a well timed pet swap after the melee pet takes grub aggro at phase 1/2 transition. For many groups, ranger is a great Ruined City of Arah profession (protection / fury / healing / reviving / grub prevention / reflection / invuln / combo fields).

Because you can do decent in some dungeons it doesnt make the ranger good, an example is how bad rangers are in CoE against alpha. Literally all the pet needs is to gain invulnability when the player dodges to make the pet damage viable in dungeons and fix sword auto attack so you can move around your target while attacking and ranger will be in a very good place.

I will post video of my pets living in CoE as well. In fact, I made a post about it a while back and suggested using drakes for the blast in water fields. Don’t yell at me! It’s true, man, why would I lie?

Puandro.3245:

Rangers are really good in sPvP.

Not only this but pvp made me think harder about what ranger is and why, thus making me a better dungeon runner. In fact, spvp players of deer rank will likely putperform most PUGs that ONLY do pve. There’s little doubt in my mind about this.

I ran CoE on my ranger and my jaguar pet couldnt live during the alpha aoe. In path 2/3 before the patch. Im a min maxer and i run zerk gear on my PvE toons and with proper evades i rarely go down. If i have to run a tankier pet so my pet has a chance to live through big aoe from mobs because it cant dodge ill just play my other toons. I find ranger fun and i love my jaguar and making me use a drake is BS.

Puandro.3245:

I ran CoE on my ranger and my jaguar pet couldnt live during the alpha aoe. In path 2/3 before the patch. Im a min maxer and i run zerk gear on my PvE toons and with proper evades i rarely go down. If i have to run a tankier pet so my pet has a chance to live through big aoe from mobs because it cant dodge ill just play my other toons. I find ranger fun and i love my jaguar and making me use a drake is BS.

In that case your pet will need lots of protection and support. It’s a paper tiger. I’ll take reliable dps over a cat, partcularly when it blast heals. Drake plus five standing people beats dead cat plus three standing people. Be flexible. Because unless you’re strife or obal’s level, just finishing the dungeon should be your goal. And in a world of terrible berserker PUGs, a little bit of healing makes you the hero.

Chopps.5047:

Puandro.3245:

I ran CoE on my ranger and my jaguar pet couldnt live during the alpha aoe. In path 2/3 before the patch. Im a min maxer and i run zerk gear on my PvE toons and with proper evades i rarely go down. If i have to run a tankier pet so my pet has a chance to live through big aoe from mobs because it cant dodge ill just play my other toons. I find ranger fun and i love my jaguar and making me use a drake is BS.

In that case your pet will need lots of protection and support. It’s a paper tiger. I’ll take reliable dps over a cat, partcularly when it blast heals. Drake plus five standing people beats dead cat plus three standing people. Be flexible.

Pet was dying with perma protection and 30 BM with toughness signet. This was prepatch and i refuse to run a weaker dps pet because of Anet bad mechanics. I dont want aoe reduction like in other MMOS i just want my kitten pet to dodge.

Puandro.3245:

Chopps.5047:

Puandro.3245:

I ran CoE on my ranger and my jaguar pet couldnt live during the alpha aoe. In path 2/3 before the patch. Im a min maxer and i run zerk gear on my PvE toons and with proper evades i rarely go down. If i have to run a tankier pet so my pet has a chance to live through big aoe from mobs because it cant dodge ill just play my other toons. I find ranger fun and i love my jaguar and making me use a drake is BS.

In that case your pet will need lots of protection and support. It’s a paper tiger. I’ll take reliable dps over a cat, partcularly when it blast heals. Drake plus five standing people beats dead cat plus three standing people. Be flexible.

Pet was dying with perma protection and 30 BM with toughness signet. This was prepatch and i refuse to run a weaker dps pet because of Anet bad mechanics. I dont want aoe reduction like in other MMOS i just want my kitten pet to dodge.

:( yep, tough to be a ranger! Maybe it will improve even more in pve.