Guild Wars 2

So I got my ranger to level 21, and I have to say I am enjoying it. Anyways I have been reading some on the ranger forum, and all I hear is ranger is bad.

Is this true? For WvW and endgame dungeons. Should I just roll a warrior or thief. I really liked the idea of being in leather armor with a giant great sword. But if I will be useless/not up to par then whats the point.

Thanks for your feedback.

People over exaggerate quite a bit. Rangers aren’t bad, but they are a little awkward because they have some really weird weapon sets and traits.

My main is and always will be my ranger. The class certainly doesn’t excel at anything, especially DPS, but I do find it fun to play. Ranger still really needs some tweaks on weapon skills and trait lines, but I enjoy it.

johnIV.3849:

So I got my ranger to level 21, and I have to say I am enjoying it. Anyways I have been reading some on the ranger forum, and all I hear is ranger is bad.

Is this true? For WvW and endgame dungeons. Should I just roll a warrior or thief. I really liked the idea of being in leather armor with a giant great sword. But if I will be useless/not up to par then whats the point.

Thanks for your feedback.

Ranger’s are viable in everything and if you really enjoy the class stick with it.
That being said…
If however you get into serious WvW, GvG, newly designed “challenging content”, or most Dungeon PUGs people will simply not want you. The Ranger may be viable in all game types but it is not optimal in a few of them for some very core reasons which do not seem like they’ll be addressed anytime soon and in more serious play if it isn’t optimal it isn’t worth bringing.

There are people on both sides of the fence. Some will tell you it’s an amazing class and is amazing all the time (which is false) and some will tell you its terrible all the time and never worth using (which is also false).

TL;DR
- If you want to get into more serious group play I would sadly suggest another character.
- If you really like being a casual Ranger and are willing to put yourself and your team through the increasingly inevitability your entire profession mechanic will be useless a majority of the time then stick with it.

The following thread is a very well written post about some of those “core reasons” I mentioned earlier if you wanted to read more.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Challenging-PvE-Content-vs-Ranger-Mechanics/first#post2564017

Ranger rocks so hard I create earthquakes in Japan!
So many possibilities, but here is my current favourite;

Long Bow|Sigil of Energy (Endurance on weapon swap)
Short Bow|Sigil of Hydromancy (Chill blast on weapon swap)
When enemies close in after you’ve burned through your skills on LB, they get hit with a chill blast, and when you burn through those skills and swap back to LB you’ve more energy to dodge/evade.

Your pet choice is important—-need burst damage? Take the Cat. F2 for Might, combine this with Zephyr, and Sharpening Stone and Long Bow skill 2 for some wicked burst + condition damage. Take the dog as your other pet—F2 for an immobilize, and one of its normal attacks is a knockdown. Also when you go down, your pet rezz is soooo helpful.

Wanna play support? No problem. Take the Sword and Warhorn, use skill 5 after dropping a healing spring (best heal in game) to splash you and your entire party with healing. Also check the trait lines for that trait that gives everyone +precision, which will increase the crits for the whole party!

So many possibilties not listed here, the Ranger is so versatile… uh oh… I feel a tremor…

Overall a fun solo experience if you plan on farming mobs all day, but ultimately a lack of end game vision and is still hampered by an under performing mechanic that may just be too late to fix. If your plan is endgame dungeons, I can’t recommend a ranger at all outside of the fringe cases where your are already in an elite group going up against a very specific type of boss fight. Rangers are not as pug friendly as other classes.

If you plan to do PvP, there’s some promise there if the devs don’t get around to nerfing every last one of our emergent builds. Apparently PvP is where all the action is, so says the balancing team.

I’m pretty salty, yes. But I will say that is still and enjoyable class for those capable to over perform on an under performing class. If you want a true bow class where all ranged combat feels great, you’ll have to wait a long time as the focus seems to be putting more melee into ones hands.

I like the ranger. I hate the pet. I don’t like John Sharp for what he has voiced about the Ranger on the STOG interviews because its lies.

Until they give me the option to perma-stow my pet, this class will never be great. There has been better pet AI ten years ago. That’s not exaggeration. That’s fact. You can blow hot air until you are blue in the face or deny until you die, but it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the pet is the Achilles heel of this class. There’s no debate on this despite the blow-hard denialist on this forum that are convinced the pets are worth a dam when they aren’t.

I would love LOVE to have a Ranger and not a Beast Master.

The ranger is a great class that occasionally falls flat on his face due to certain pieces of content that makes his pet next to worthless.

My personal recommendation: If you plan on maining a ranger, have a second character of another class to fall back on when you hit these areas.

Many of the more serious WvW guilds frown upon rangers because they don’t bring enough to the table aside from water field. The pet mechanic is hinders the class and ranged attack is better done by an elementalist or necromancer. The ranger is similar to the thief and engineer in that respect, as they make good roaming/small group class (depending on the spec) but tend to fall off in larger encounters.

Leveling is quite fast in this game, so you can have different characters for different activities.

My Main is a ranger.

I dont regre’t that I made it my main. I love it and Always will! It took some time to learn how to make it “work” the best way for my play style, but now I have a strong, flexible and fun to play main character!

thefantasticg.3984:

I like the ranger. I hate the pet. I don’t like John Sharp for what he has voiced about the Ranger on the STOG interviews because its lies.

Until they give me the option to perma-stow my pet, this class will never be great. There has been better pet AI ten years ago. That’s not exaggeration. That’s fact. You can blow hot air until you are blue in the face or deny until you die, but it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the pet is the Achilles heel of this class. There’s no debate on this despite the blow-hard denialist on this forum that are convinced the pets are worth a dam when they aren’t.

I would love LOVE to have a Ranger and not a Beast Master.

I’m really with you on this one. Myself, being a culprit of not being vocal on my dissenting opinion of the other “loud” or forum regulars. But I think the pet absolutely limits the class.

It’s a fair design, poor in practice concept that is basically just a constant source of damage with toddler skill level management abilities necessary. If ANet were willing to make the pet more controllable by the player, it would raise the skill ceiling away from the floor a little, and provide some comprehensive gameplay, and a controllable pet (just think, being able to control the Moas heal or the Drakes tail swipe) would definitely be the direction to take the class in if the current dynamic is the one that the devs want to keep.

However, until then, the pet is an anchor. It is a mechanic that the devs refuse to touch in a serious manner for the most part, that gets factored into the balancing equation, and then the final product isn’t at all what the ranger community is asking for (as a blanket general request, more viable power damage and more control of things in the players hands. More active gameplay) because the pet had to be factored in to the balancing which then lowers the amount of tools that the devs allow the player to have access to, because combined with the current pet implementation it might be too strong.

I will forever remain adamant that a full redesign should be made, and that the pet should act like other classes F1 (it’s basically like pokemon lol):
-Pet is stowed, out of harms way. F1 brings the pet into the battle, and toggle to a return/heel while the pet is summoned.
-F2 is an ability unique to the chosen pet
-F3 is an invulnerability for the pet
-F4 is a pet cancel. Basically, the pet is out, on a cooldown (exactly how the spirits work). It comes out, it does damage until it’s time is up, then it has to be brought back out. F4 will cancel the pet prematurely and go on cooldown for whatever time was remaining til it could be activated again. The pet being killed puts in on full recharge.

Boom, now the ranger isn’t the only class whose mechanic can also be a liability (name one other class where you can completely disable their mechanic in combat). Instead, players have the option to do damage without their pet, and instead of the players damage being reduced to compensate for the pets damage, the pet is an additional damage or support source on top of what the ranger is capable of.

Notably, it also still allows people to be beastmasters, since there would be an entire redesigned tree to focus on recharge reductions, damage improvements, and mechanic enhancements.

Sadly, we are agreeably stuck with just about the most subpar pet system that any gaming community has ever had to put up with.

It’s unfortunate, and I do think the ranger is in a fair or better spot for the majority of the games content, but that pet system to me is just too simple and also unbelievably inefficient compared to what I will ever want it to be, unless by some miracle the devs are listening to the few posts I’ve made on this topic lol.

My commander and main toon is a ranger. I got 2 tanky pets and both of them have knockdowns, its just a really great class if it links with your playstyle. I am not willing to share my build because i spend a lot of time creating it myself ( Trait and gear wise) But i do use both longbow and shortbow for Wvw and Pve.

Longbows barrage is amazing for zerg fights, putting cripple and bleeding ( if specced right) while damaging a lot while still being decent on 1v1 with knockbacks, rapid fire and your shortbow or maybe axe/warhorn really good choice too.

There are better classes to play end game than the Ranger. I still only have 1 toon and it is a ranger.

It’s all going to come down how you want to play. If you want to be a low damage condi build or primarily use melee weapons, you’ll be fine. If you want to be a high burst power ranger at range you will not. If you expect your pet to work half the time, I’ve got some bad news. If you’re looking for rewarding game play, also not going to happen.

It’s quirky and fun, just like me. I love nature themes and pets so I play it a lot. I don’t think of it as “main or alt” because I have all eight professions and carefully chosen names and I care about all of their looks. I like being counter to the meta and popular opinion.

As a gamer, I’ve never been the best but I’m clutch. Never count me out. I’m the dark horse. So I play ranger the most, it fits my personality. I hope that helps! Happy hunting!

I have played since 3 days headstart mainly with Warrior and I never understood the hate towards Rangers. The Ranger can do so amazing things, pet is actually useful and ranger brings alot in party so I love to have it in my groups. Also I have found very skilled Rangers in PvP and they makes Rangers shine.

Here is what I don’t really like in certain dungeons:
Thief in arah is a bit horrible. Lacks range. I think their pistols needs atleast a trait to make the range longer. U need range on lupi and some bosses if u ain’t with pro team. I enjoy taking new guys trough arah and if u got low range u get hard time.

Condi Mesmer, in any dungeon, feels kinda … waste of space. Necro can do condis better. Thanks to max condi stacks condi builds overall in dungeons are kinda not so good. I usually take 1-2 condi dealers max to my group because of the max stacks.

Full zerker guardian who doesn’t know anything about the class itself – any dungeon.

any class with mf gear.

I’m lvl52 fracs, I got 500 frac runs and I have dungeon master. 1700hours played. I’m an officer of biggest guild of Aurora Glade(like that matters :P) and I find Rangers USEFUL and always WELCOME to my groups.

Leo Frost – Officer of MGK

johnIV.3849:

So I got my ranger to level 21, and I have to say I am enjoying it. Anyways I have been reading some on the ranger forum, and all I hear is ranger is bad.

Is this true? For WvW and endgame dungeons. Should I just roll a warrior or thief. I really liked the idea of being in leather armor with a giant great sword. But if I will be useless/not up to par then whats the point.

Thanks for your feedback.

Man… i know that what i’m going to tell you may sound obvious or not apparently helpfull but trust me:
your main char is the one you enjoy more than every other one… the one that you will pick up when you want to Play with you friend, or your guild, the one that you will choose simply because you like to see what you are capable to do… with your ability.

So, I might suggest you to choose as “main” pg the one you enjoy more… because this is a game… if you play for win but you don’t enjoy it… you have already lost (i’m kinda poetic today lol).

Then coming to ranger description… i can say that ranger isn’t anymore a weak class (“anymore” because a lot of work where made with latest patches) … the are a lot of thing a can tell you… but the problem is that i haven’t videos to show you directly. Anyway i have a ranger lvl 23 (i’m leveling it with a friend… so i’m really slow) and i like to play it in Hearth of the Mists to test my ability (… so i’m not talking anymore of “class ability” but “my ability” because this class has everything which every other class has) and i’m pretty sure that if there will be a kill/death rate (like call of duty) mine would be over 10kills per death because i can simply destroy every other class… just learn how with experience… learn when to run, when to attack, when to defend, when to go over a cliff… and laugh at your enemy… before to say “goodbye b****” xD

I want also to underline that i run a non-condition build in hearth of the mists… which make me really disadvantaged when fighting against some builds… but this is nothing that can stop me from trying… and succeed when i do all right.

I’m really sure that ranger would be my second main (because my main is a guardian) … but i also suggest you to try out every single class olso for few levels (at least 20… because in the first 10 lvl you can’t try anything).
Actually my char cronology is:
warrior (i hate it) -> guardian (my main) -> mesmer (meh) -> elementalist (i love this class… but can’t work) -> hunter (my second main)

so don’t worry about “main class” because you will find it as soon as your will of test and try will grow playing gw2.
See you in game

PS: sorry for my bad grammar ._.

Nuorus.8415:

I have played since 3 days headstart mainly with Warrior and I never understood the hate towards Rangers. The Ranger can do so amazing things, pet is actually useful and ranger brings alot in party so I love to have it in my groups. Also I have found very skilled Rangers in PvP and they makes Rangers shine.

Here is what I don’t really like in certain dungeons:
Thief in arah is a bit horrible. Lacks range. I think their pistols needs atleast a trait to make the range longer. U need range on lupi and some bosses if u ain’t with pro team. I enjoy taking new guys trough arah and if u got low range u get hard time.

Condi Mesmer, in any dungeon, feels kinda … waste of space. Necro can do condis better. Thanks to max condi stacks condi builds overall in dungeons are kinda not so good. I usually take 1-2 condi dealers max to my group because of the max stacks.

Full zerker guardian who doesn’t know anything about the class itself – any dungeon.

any class with mf gear.

I’m lvl52 fracs, I got 500 frac runs and I have dungeon master. 1700hours played. I’m an officer of biggest guild of Aurora Glade(like that matters :P) and I find Rangers USEFUL and always WELCOME to my groups.

Leo Frost – Officer of MGK

Wait, what?
“As a Warrior I can’t understand the hate towards Rangers…pet is actually useful…”
As a Warrior…

I appreciate you having the nice words for the profession but there are obvious and very serious issues with many core designs of the Ranger profession that cannot be denied and are becoming even more apparent with each update. As someone who doesn’t play one and only sees Rangers during casual play or PvP skirmishes those flaws will be much less noticeable. A lot of the general hate is indeed overblown but it isn’t entirely baseless. Again, thank you for your words as an outside perspective.

What’s on your mind, Castalea? I found ranger incredibly useful in the Aetherblade Retreat, then the Candidate Trials, and now the gauntlet. I’ve been happy and successful. Maybe I can help?

My main fluctuated a lot. I started with Ranger main, Moved to Necro, then Warrior, then back to Necro, then back to Ranger. I’m sticking with the Ranger and got 3 ascended items on her.

I don’t know about boss fights, but in wvw the ability to apply relatively high dps at very long range is great. I know staff eles can do the same but I don’t like slow arcing projectiles. Longbow with piercing arrows and 1500 range will absolutely destroy enemy zergs at chokepoints.

Ranger has issues, mostly with the pet, but the pet also has great strengths. We can use our pet in pve to get aggro off ourselves. A talented ranger can send her pet running away from herself, taking enemy mobs with it. In pvp, we have possibly the strongest downed state IF you remember to use your pet. Even while downed pet controls still work. So you can swap pets and use F2. That’s why many rangers run dual canines; if you get downed, you can pop pet 1’s howl, then immediately swap. First thing a canine does when swapped in is a knockback. Then have them howl. If one of those pets is a wolf, that’s 3 interrupts in a row at your disposal. Add on the ability for your pet to rez you and yeah, Ranger are the strongest in downed by far. The pet is unreliable in standing pvp though. Other then howls and projectiles, most pet attacks simply whiff. ESPECIALLY LUNGES. The enemy has to be standing still for a lunge to work. Doable if you catch them with point blank, then your pet happens to lunge right after.

Pet control is important. Put Attack and return and swap and howl keys on binds that are easy to reach and use them. During boss fights, use a ranged pet and a shortbow. If your pet is dead, dont swap, get out of combat. As soon as you are out of combat you can swap without getting a cooldown even if your pet is dead.

Anyway yeah I’m way off on a tangent. What I am saying is Ranger is a tricky class that forces you to juggle a lot of balls. It’s easy to just forget your pet, but you are shortchanging yourself. If you master its many nuances, a Ranger is a powerful enemy and useful ally in all facets of the game.

Rottaran Owain.6789:

The ranger is a great class that occasionally falls flat on his face due to certain pieces of content that makes his pet next to worthless.

My personal recommendation: If you plan on maining a ranger, have a second character of another class to fall back on when you hit these areas.

Regardless of how you feel about the pet, this is unfortunately true. I love my Ranger, but I take my Guard into dungeons and my Thief into WvW. If I could rely on longbow and a ranged pet, I might see the point of bringing Ranger into dungeons. But longbow puts me out of buff range, and the pet likes to sit in AoE or get one-shotted by bosses.

Honestly, until we see some improvements to how pets work, my Ranger exists solely to occasionally farm events with her fancy traps.

Chopps.5047:

What’s on your mind, Castalea? I found ranger incredibly useful in the Aetherblade Retreat, then the Candidate Trials, and now the gauntlet. I’ve been happy and successful. Maybe I can help?

Then everything changed when Liadri attacked, but when our pet was needed most, he vanished….

OP.

The Ranger Class is a jack of all trades. He is capable of doing everything moderately well. However, unless you are content being that casual player, who isn’t all that interested in doing anything"great"…I would recommend another class.

The Pet mechanic is garbage currently, the weakest and poorest designed mechanic of all the classes in my opinion [and I have played them all]. We don’t stand out in dungeons, WvW, and every viable build we have in PvP usually gets nerfhammered in the face.

My ranger is my main, I have 100% World completion on him, and I love him to pieces…but I can’t recommend anyone having Ranger as their main unless they don’t care about being “strong/effective” in most end game arenas.

Spirits [While strong in PvP apparently] are weak and non-usable in PVE. Meaning that most Rangers are running around with Sharpening Stone and Quickening Zephyr [because everything else is a bit lackluster].

I think you need to take a good look at yourself and ask “What do I want to do when I get to level 80?” Then unless your answer is “Complain on the Ranger forum because Anet developers won’t fix the numerous problems with the Ranger Class”……Re-Roll mate.

-Cole Winters
Stormbluff Isle
Level 80 Sylvari Ranger.
Arctodus = Bearly Useful
Brown Bear = Unbearable

I play this game in every aspect and have 7 lvl 80’s so i kinda know what i’m talking about when i say rangers aren’t a bad class they just take too much work to be mediocre at stuff. I feel like Anet realizes this though and rangers are going to get reworked or buffed. well, that’s what i like to believe atleast.

NinjaSonic.1392:

People over exaggerate quite a bit. Rangers aren’t bad, but they are a little awkward because they have some really weird weapon sets and traits.

I like to rib at myself a lot, because I always play a Ranger when I can and I almost always tend to regret it in some fashion. I still do it though, because there is something satisfying when there’s success at the end and it wasn’t dead-simple to do.

Castaliea.3156:

Nuorus.8415:

I have played since 3 days headstart mainly with Warrior and I never understood the hate towards Rangers. The Ranger can do so amazing things, pet is actually useful and ranger brings alot in party so I love to have it in my groups. Also I have found very skilled Rangers in PvP and they makes Rangers shine.

Here is what I don’t really like in certain dungeons:
Thief in arah is a bit horrible. Lacks range. I think their pistols needs atleast a trait to make the range longer. U need range on lupi and some bosses if u ain’t with pro team. I enjoy taking new guys trough arah and if u got low range u get hard time.

Condi Mesmer, in any dungeon, feels kinda … waste of space. Necro can do condis better. Thanks to max condi stacks condi builds overall in dungeons are kinda not so good. I usually take 1-2 condi dealers max to my group because of the max stacks.

Full zerker guardian who doesn’t know anything about the class itself – any dungeon.

any class with mf gear.

I’m lvl52 fracs, I got 500 frac runs and I have dungeon master. 1700hours played. I’m an officer of biggest guild of Aurora Glade(like that matters :P) and I find Rangers USEFUL and always WELCOME to my groups.

Leo Frost – Officer of MGK

Wait, what?
“As a Warrior I can’t understand the hate towards Rangers…pet is actually useful…”
As a Warrior…

I appreciate you having the nice words for the profession but there are obvious and very serious issues with many core designs of the Ranger profession that cannot be denied and are becoming even more apparent with each update. As someone who doesn’t play one and only sees Rangers during casual play or PvP skirmishes those flaws will be much less noticeable. A lot of the general hate is indeed overblown but it isn’t entirely baseless. Again, thank you for your words as an outside perspective.

I do have a ranger too but it’s an alt and not lvl80. I use it mainly on PvP. Why? Because I’m Warrior spirit and love the class. I have tried to play other classes but I always start missing my warrior and go back :d

No problemos amigo

@Nuorus Well if you mainly PvP on your ranger than there’s no real issue because in PvP the ranger does fine and is actually one of the better profs, the problems arise when you go into PvE.

Durzlla.6295:

@Nuorus Well if you mainly PvP on your ranger than there’s no real issue because in PvP the ranger does fine and is actually one of the better profs, the problems arise when you go into PvE and WvW.

- fixed :P

Castaliea.3156:

johnIV.3849:

So I got my ranger to level 21, and I have to say I am enjoying it. Anyways I have been reading some on the ranger forum, and all I hear is ranger is bad.

Is this true? For WvW and endgame dungeons. Should I just roll a warrior or thief. I really liked the idea of being in leather armor with a giant great sword. But if I will be useless/not up to par then whats the point.

Thanks for your feedback.

Ranger’s are viable in everything and if you really enjoy the class stick with it.
That being said…
If however you get into serious WvW, GvG, newly designed “challenging content”, or most Dungeon PUGs people will simply not want you. The Ranger may be viable in all game types but it is not optimal in a few of them for some very core reasons which do not seem like they’ll be addressed anytime soon and in more serious play if it isn’t optimal it isn’t worth bringing.

There are people on both sides of the fence. Some will tell you it’s an amazing class and is amazing all the time (which is false) and some will tell you its terrible all the time and never worth using (which is also false).

TL;DR
- If you want to get into more serious group play I would sadly suggest another character.
- If you really like being a casual Ranger and are willing to put yourself and your team through the increasingly inevitability your entire profession mechanic will be useless a majority of the time then stick with it.

The following thread is a very well written post about some of those “core reasons” I mentioned earlier if you wanted to read more.
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/Challenging-PvE-Content-vs-Ranger-Mechanics/first#post2564017

Wrong.
Ive never been removed from a PUG group, ever. I do fractals in pugs.
Ive finished the new “challenging content”
Im a frequent, and followed, commander in WvW, as a ranger. Sometimes i go melee trap (hilariously fun), others pure melee PVT (which i nearly never die), and sometimes a ranged zerker. I even go roaming, which i dominate in.

Not optimal? We actually are, but most people are hung up on OMG ITS A BEAR GTFO

We have: Aoe condition clearing,
5 combo fields (Ice is very important)
PERMANENT AoE regen and swiftness.
4 different ways to apply cripple (that i can think of on the top of my head, in 2 seconds, im sure there is more) (important since it isnt stopped by stability)
Nearly permanent AoE Fury/might, whichever you prefer.
Permanent Protection
All the benefits of Spirits

Good, not the best, DPS (aoe/condition/burst, take your pick)
Amazing amounts of control w/traps and evades

I have a blast on my ranger. I have a 80 guard, and 3 other characters level ~40-50. I cant even have fun on them xD

People on the forums are all grim and OH GOD WHY ME WHYD I PICK THE RANGER?
But really, a majority of the people who play Gw2 (and even in society in general) only speak up if its something they dont like. So, 90% of rangers arent on the forums complaining— Rather, theyre in the game playing and figuring out ways around a few “weak points”.

The ONLY thing youre not good at is Guild vs Guild. Well, youre good, but not optimal there.

Id say stick with ranger. Its amazingly fun, strong, with a ton of variety.

Edit: Im even thinking of leveling another ranger for different looks

Castaliea.3156:

Durzlla.6295:

@Nuorus Well if you mainly PvP on your ranger than there’s no real issue because in PvP the ranger does fine and is actually one of the better profs, the problems arise when you go into PvE and WvW.

- fixed :P

lol sorry i always figure WvW is implied when i say PvE xD, i don’t know why i always bunch those two into one category…. Because seriously, they aren’t that similar lol.

@Malpractice Um…. Traps do not bring control, they bring damage with the exception of ice trap whose control is actually pretty good, and perma might is useless, what you need are large amounts of might, which frankly we don’t do, which is fine. We can bring perma fury, swiftness, and regen though which does make us pretty useful.

I too, have never been kicked from a PUG in PvE (i normally am the guy who kicks people because they skip stuff lol), but that doesn’t make us not kitten compared to everyone else. We’re ok, but we’re useless compared to other profs in scenarios where we have no pet, like Liadri…. (Not impossible, but when compared to other profs, it’s just sad).

I have had a level 80 Ranger since month1 of the game and YES they are a BAD main…

They underperform in WvW, PvE dungeons, fractals, bosses and anywhere you have to be precise where you stand. Its basically endgame/harder content they are bad at…mainly because your pet ends up dead and on permanent cooldown or your pet goes to the wrong place/is hard to control.

Rangers can seriously fool the beginning player because they are great/easy street in open world PvE, which is mainly where you level. Also, they are good in sPvP because your pet can stay alive longer (other players damage is balanced) and the only enemies are opposition players so your pet can’t go wrong in who to attack. Plus Rangers can ‘bunker’ exceptionally well. But the ‘bunker’ mechanic is by and large only good in sPvP…

Malpractice.7850:

Wrong.
Ive never been removed from a PUG group, ever. I do fractals in pugs.
Ive finished the new “challenging content”
Im a frequent, and followed, commander in WvW, as a ranger. Sometimes i go melee trap (hilariously fun), others pure melee PVT (which i nearly never die), and sometimes a ranged zerker. I even go roaming, which i dominate in.

Not optimal? We actually are, but most people are hung up on OMG ITS A BEAR GTFO

We have: Aoe condition clearing,
5 combo fields (Ice is very important)
PERMANENT AoE regen and swiftness.
4 different ways to apply cripple (that i can think of on the top of my head, in 2 seconds, im sure there is more) (important since it isnt stopped by stability)
Nearly permanent AoE Fury/might, whichever you prefer.
Permanent Protection
All the benefits of Spirits

Good, not the best, DPS (aoe/condition/burst, take your pick)
Amazing amounts of control w/traps and evades

I have a blast on my ranger. I have a 80 guard, and 3 other characters level ~40-50. I cant even have fun on them xD

People on the forums are all grim and OH GOD WHY ME WHYD I PICK THE RANGER?
But really, a majority of the people who play Gw2 (and even in society in general) only speak up if its something they dont like. So, 90% of rangers arent on the forums complaining— Rather, theyre in the game playing and figuring out ways around a few “weak points”.

The ONLY thing youre not good at is Guild vs Guild. Well, youre good, but not optimal there.

Id say stick with ranger. Its amazingly fun, strong, with a ton of variety.

Edit: Im even thinking of leveling another ranger for different looks

AoE condition clearing: guardians do it much better
Combo fields: don’t include underwater ones, which aren’t accessible in most of the game and which replace some of the terrestrial ones. Also, trap fields aren’t quite as versatile, and non-F2 pet skills are a gamble to rely on. Our poison fields are inferior to a thief’s, for example, and we don’t get nearly the uptime or finisher variety that other classes do.
Warhorn has some nice options, but the main hand weapons we get aren’t terribly impressive in my opinion (especially the root on MH sword auto).
Spirits are inferior to banners. They can be killed, must be traited in order to move, and have a chance to give their boost rather than just giving it all of the time.
Ranger DPS is nice, at least until your pet stumbles into an AoE and dies instantly. ~30-40% of your damage (and much of your utility) is attached to an AI NPC which can’t dodge or block, doesn’t position itself intelligently, and most of whose skills you cannot control.
I like the evades (although I’ve never been a trap aficionado), but I have to tell you: in this game, every profession can have strong evades, and rangers aren’t at the top in that department by any means. Rangers aren’t even the only ones with traps now.

I, too have a second ranger for aesthetic reasons. However, I have to add that I’m not enormously fond of playing most of the professions in this game. I like them, especially from a creative and aesthetic standpoint, but they don’t fit my playstyle terribly well. I’m still hoping for something that feels like a successor to my favorite GW1 characters, my ranger and my dervish. I haven’t found anything that truly feels right yet.

Scorpio Spork.9568:

Regardless of how you feel about the pet, this is unfortunately true. I love my Ranger, but I take my Guard into dungeons and my Thief into WvW. If I could rely on longbow and a ranged pet, I might see the point of bringing Ranger into dungeons. But longbow puts me out of buff range, and the pet likes to sit in AoE or get one-shotted by bosses.

Honestly, until we see some improvements to how pets work, my Ranger exists solely to occasionally farm events with her fancy traps.

Honestly, if anything I exaggerated how many areas there are the ranger’s pet really gets the short end of the stick. Liardi, Lupicious (or whatever that Arah boss is called), and Subject Alpha are the only areas I’ve really had significant difficulty with pets.

Subject alpha isn’t an issue—if the people know what they’re doing and stack and dodge at the right time, alpha melts. Spirits and the pet live just fine. If alpha isn’t melting, you’re doing it wrong and in for a world of pain.

Source: myself, full rampager set from CoE as well as four weapons. I still have a ton of knowledge crystals left over from when I was farming out cores for Bolt earlier this year.

If you are a PvE focused player, I would say yes. We’ve spent an entire year now waiting for them to figure out how to make pets actually function well in PvE content, and there’s really not much to show for it. There’s certainly no meaningful benefit to putting up with the current pet dynamic relative to other classes who are not burdened by it.

Chopps.5047:

Subject alpha isn’t an issue—if the people know what they’re doing and stack and dodge at the right time, alpha melts. Spirits and the pet live just fine. If alpha isn’t melting, you’re doing it wrong and in for a world of pain.

Source: myself, full rampager set from CoE as well as four weapons. I still have a ton of knowledge crystals left over from when I was farming out cores for Bolt earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a pro team of 3 wars and mes to run with every time to melt alpha. I end up bringing my warrior if we only have one on the team, and that happens much much more often than me bringing my ranger. So, I can do everything right, but Alpha will still not melt and my pets still die 90%+ of the time because I don’t run in optimal groups because they are simply unavailable.

i just made it to 80 … it’s my 5th 80s char.. i picked this because i heard it’s the worst class at the moment.

i’m liking it so far in wvw. longbow is really good. none of my 80 can pull out this high dmg from range.

with a year experience and all other 80s i have. i kinda know how other classes play which give me a high chance to dodge and keep the distance …

thefantasticg.3984:

Chopps.5047:

Subject alpha isn’t an issue—if the people know what they’re doing and stack and dodge at the right time, alpha melts. Spirits and the pet live just fine. If alpha isn’t melting, you’re doing it wrong and in for a world of pain.

Source: myself, full rampager set from CoE as well as four weapons. I still have a ton of knowledge crystals left over from when I was farming out cores for Bolt earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a pro team of 3 wars and mes to run with every time to melt alpha. I end up bringing my warrior if we only have one on the team, and that happens much much more often than me bringing my ranger. So, I can do everything right, but Alpha will still not melt and my pets still die 90%+ of the time because I don’t run in optimal groups because they are simply unavailable.

In my BM build I can keep my pet up for 80% of the Alpha fight pretty easily, and I don’t run wih any warriors or mesmers unless we find a pug, my group comp (friends) is a guardian (rerolled to ranger now) and 2 thieves, and then me as a ranger (currently leveling my engineer) and we pug the last one.

It always comes back to the pet.

Can the content you are consuming benefit from the pet or not? Content where the pet can survive and provide it’s contribution, is pretty darn good.

Content where the pet is instantly obliterated or made utterly moot, we don’t have a good time for the most part.

Durzlla.6295:

thefantasticg.3984:

Chopps.5047:

Subject alpha isn’t an issue—if the people know what they’re doing and stack and dodge at the right time, alpha melts. Spirits and the pet live just fine. If alpha isn’t melting, you’re doing it wrong and in for a world of pain.

Source: myself, full rampager set from CoE as well as four weapons. I still have a ton of knowledge crystals left over from when I was farming out cores for Bolt earlier this year.

Unfortunately, I don’t have access to a pro team of 3 wars and mes to run with every time to melt alpha. I end up bringing my warrior if we only have one on the team, and that happens much much more often than me bringing my ranger. So, I can do everything right, but Alpha will still not melt and my pets still die 90%+ of the time because I don’t run in optimal groups because they are simply unavailable.

In my BM build I can keep my pet up for 80% of the Alpha fight pretty easily, and I don’t run wih any warriors or mesmers unless we find a pug, my group comp (friends) is a guardian (rerolled to ranger now) and 2 thieves, and then me as a ranger (currently leveling my engineer) and we pug the last one.

Yeah, I can see that in a BM build with people who are good at the professions they play. I usually end up with at least one or two necros or engineers cause we don’t discriminate in the guildie runs. It’s all about how fast you can get Alpha down vs pet survival.

I don’t know, I only PUG dungeons. Most people know how to run CoE. It has been farmed almost as hard as CoF. Subject alpha—seriously—isn’t challenging with 0 in BM even—so long as you melee and don’t range. It’s only a hard fight if you range it to be completely honest. Do bad things happen? People make mistakes, pet AI going out of control here or there? Sure, it happens. But, like I said, I only PuG.

Right now, the hardest thing about coe is the console and convincing new players that 1, fight inside room, then 4 on console with one person strong aoe guards the console is actually the best way to do it. Also, the lasers mess new players up pretty badly.

Chopps.5047:

I don’t know, I only PUG dungeons. Most people know how to run CoE. It has been farmed almost as hard as CoF. Subject alpha—seriously—isn’t challenging with 0 in BM even—so long as you melee and don’t range. It’s only a hard fight if you range it to be completely honest. Do bad things happen? People make mistakes, pet AI going out of control here or there? Sure, it happens. But, like I said, I only PuG.

Right now, the hardest thing about coe is the console and convincing new players that 1, fight inside room, then 4 on console with one person strong aoe guards the console is actually the best way to do it. Also, the lasers mess new players up pretty badly.

Ranging is what me and one of our thieves do, everyone else is normally Melee and we don’t have many issues with it, just gotta dodge the circles, fire ones are a minor inconvenience, can literally just walk out of it.

It’s a lot harder to range and he does more attacks than he normally would because you’re at range (tooth is one I can think of). In short, I think you are probably, possibly, making it harder on yourself…

Chopps.5047:

It’s a lot harder to range and he does more attacks than he normally would because you’re at range (tooth is one I can think of). In short, I think you are probably, possibly, making it harder on yourself…

Not that hard to range really, and he does the fire tooth (assuming path 2) regardless of where you are, and if it’s a path where he does the spike trail? My god me and the other ranged member are always the only ones up lol. The reason you stack in Melee on path 2 is because for whatever reason the ice spikes won’t activate if their circles overlap. So then you don’t need to move out of the ice spike into the earth one/avoid it completely and just stand there DPSing.

I have to agree with Chopps on that. I stopped pugging COE. I have good luck pulling pres from the forge, but not with pugs. COE isn’t a challenge for me. I can dodge just fine (depending on how much 151 & coke I’ve had), my pets on the other hand don’t have a fine time at Alpha. Which is fine too, I don’t néed the stones or anything so I can run it at my leisure. And I can just run with my warrior or guard anyway.

You’re right, I was thinking of spike trail.

OOT: how’s COE nowadays? Haven’t done it for few months since I got my armor set. Any differences?

They patched all the exploits where a party could skip ahead or complete all boss chests in one path. Besides that, not much.

My ranged ranger is zerk while having tank pets with having all 30 points i beastmastery they almost NEVER die due to their defense and perma regen. Even as a zerk based ranger i can still take a lot of dmg and just regen up, and my longbows rapid fire chained with quickness will take anyone from full hp to down or 20% left unless they dodge or have any invul skill up.

It at falls to your playstyle and skill, i like the current pet system i can easily put them on a target and pull em back whenever i want without having any issue. I really dont understand all the complains about the class

Natronix.9827:

My ranged ranger is zerk while having tank pets with having all 30 points i beastmastery they almost NEVER die due to their defense and perma regen. Even as a zerk based ranger i can still take a lot of dmg and just regen up, and my longbows rapid fire chained with quickness will take anyone from full hp to down or 20% left unless they dodge or have any invul skill up.

It at falls to your playstyle and skill, i like the current pet system i can easily put them on a target and pull em back whenever i want without having any issue. I really dont understand all the complains about the class

To sum it up; people don’t like having a lack of control of their damage/utility. While crude though, I agree the pet gets the job done.

Still, being able to have control over things like the moas heal, the birds swiftness, or the drakes blast would be that much better, and it’s a real tease seeing that we have good utilities like that with no consistent way to use them at our leisure.

I guess at the end of the day, most people feel in some degree or another that the system is too simple to be as efficient as they feel they have the potential to be, especially when compared to other classes they play.

Ranger will forever be my main though, regardless of the little quirks and lack of features that bug me. Longbow is still the best 1200 range DPS weapon in the game, and there aren’t many classes in the game that can match the survival and DPS rangers can build to have at the same time (with the DPS, I think only like Eles and Thieves can build to have the same sustain with damage output, and that’s saying something because of rangers ~5k higher base hp pool).