Q:
Ranger or Engi in arenas?
A:
So my problem is :
I want to level an alt for my Warrior (also have Ele) and not sure what. Right now i am considering Ranger a bit more (trough i played 6 years as hunter in wow and feels a bit boring…atleast early game), it has more weapons, and armors fit him a bit more.
I am a bit focused on character look, and sadly Ranger wins in any account on that topic (excluding the amazing looking “the preadator”).
As Con : Ranger feels weak in spvp. I dont have to much experiance. As warrior they seem pathetic in arena. I can mostly easy 2v1 most of them as Axe-shield build…(unlike engineer, that mostly can 2v1 us)
Rangers are top tier in sPvP. Arguably the best bunkers/point defenders. Maybe only slightly outshined by bunker guardian as a bunker, however provide more team utility.
Spirit Rangers are great point defenders, and provide Insta res, group protection, group burn damage, and a straight damage increase, as well as being incredibly hard to kill. A lot of tPvP teams will include a spirit ranger in their comp as they are super effective and useful.
BM Bunkers are great bunkers, almost impossible to kill, and can provide a constant spam of conditions. They dont have the utility of spirits, but are even more survivable, and can generally hold a point 1v3 unless 2 or more are burst/spike characters. I went 6-0 today in solo q, with no deaths on BM bunker. One thing to note though. BM bunker is basically a full melee build, so no bows involved and you should be in melee range all the time to be most effective. Not as common in a group comp as spirits but still considered a top tier bunker.
As far as offensive builds go, there dont seem to be too many good ranger ones for tPvP, as most other classes can perform offensive roles generally better than ranger, but here is a descent roaming/offence build I theorycrafted recently that has so far proven to be quite effective at its job.
Placing importance in how a class “looks” with his armor and weapons seems like a polar opposite to placing importance on how the class performs.
When someone uses the word ‘Meta’, a kitten dies. Don’t do it.
Placing importance in how a class “looks” with his armor and weapons seems like a polar opposite to placing importance on how the class performs.
Actually, I can relate to this conundrum. :P I love Engineer, but the weapon skins available are all so boring, plus the weapon kit backpacks throw off any look you’re after.
Ranger, however, has Greatsword and Dagger available, both of which have skins I adore. (Whisper’s Secret Greatsword and Incinerator, as impossible as it is to get the latter.)
As for the original question, Ranger and Engineer are actually my mains. :P My current Engineer is level 70, but I’ve had two 80s in the past (deleted one to change to a Charr, and deleted that one to change to a Sylvari for a certain build that needed Sylvari racial skills, which I got to 50 before feeling guilty because my friend and I have a Charr warband going and it just felt wrong. I’ve now decided that no race exists except Charr, for the purpose of character creation.).
I don’t have a lot of experience with PvP, but I’ve dabbled. My Ranger, which I’ve built for Regeneration Tanking (even for PvE), can get along pretty well so long as I’m not fighting against too many enemies at once (which happens often in WvW). My couple forays into SPvP ended with passable results given my inexperience, and I’ve seen a lot of people speak to the viability of such bunker builds with Ranger. When you really know what you’re doing (unlike me), it looks as though the playstyle is incredibly fast-paced and exciting. However, to my knowledge, bunker is darn near the only thing you can do as a Ranger in SPvP.
I’ve used Engineer less in SPvP (where I hear that knockback and launches are king, as far as Engineers go), but far more in WvW. Grenade Kit is wonderfully effective in zerg scenarios, you can set up to have a LOT of blocks/invulnerability/evades if you want to play “distraction”, and I would imagine Fortified Turrets can cause some nice disruption in Zerg situations. In SPvP, I would have to guess that Engineer is a good deal more viable than Ranger, particularly if you don’t want to go the bunker route if using Ranger.
If you’re used to Warrior and Elementalist already, I’d say go Engineer. Warrior and Elementalist are very self-reliant, while Ranger is very not. In addition, attunement-switching with Elementalist really prepares you for Engineer’s kits. Engineer leaves a lot to be desired appearance-wise, but there are SOME options, still. I’m a big fan of Sorrow’s Embrace gear, myself, aside from the sleevelessness of the coat.
The class is always greener on the other side.
I think you should try both classes to have an idea of which class to play as.
I main ranger since beta and they sure aren’t weak in pvp. There is just too many bad rangers in pvp it’s not even funny. On my ranger I beat warriors and engineers quite easily honestly unless they are very good at their class.
If you want high skill cap, I think you should go for engi. People will hate you less in pvp since you’ll probably end up playing a spirit ranger in tpvp if you play one, which you’ll get hated on by a kitten ton of players. :P
(edited by Skullface.7293)