Guild Wars 2

It recently just occurred to me what role the Ranger does better than others: We are tanks.

Tons of evade, endurance regeneration, mobility/escapes, long range, and 12 second invulnerability! (signet of stone + protect me)

We also have some of the best capabilities while downed (f2+wolf howl then f3 pet-res), and we STILL deal a ton of damage while down!

Also, no matter how bunker a ranger sets himself up to be, his pets still deal a ton of damage.

Our role is to tank enemies, yes? (It might not have much use in PvE, but in WvW….)

I don’t know about all that…..

But we got a bear. Awww yea.

They can do the tanking for us :P

There is no real downside for rangers going heavy Beastmaster/regen 0/0/30/10/10 or something similar. Since pets don’t get any stat bonuses from our gear we can go tanky and rely on a buffed dps pet to dish out the pain.

Just finished a molten factory run and suffice to say while the two thieves died quickly, the engineer eventually got brought down, it was only myself and the elementalist that lasted the entire fight. The only reason I lasted was because of my protection with every roll, vigour on using a heal skill, boosted stamina regen, and the ability for the pet to keep hammering away while tweedle dumb-and-dumber were busy trying to maul me. And failing horribly. I only got downed once, and the pet got me back up (I’d have been dead if it wasn’t for the pet res)

It is often like that. People who say Rangers suck in dungeons have no clue. I was able to keep my pet Fern Hound alive aswell as the silly zerk warrior who was always going down before I had to stay by him.

We can actually Tank /Dps/and support without sacraficing anything.

Loki.4871:

Just finished a molten factory run and suffice to say while the two thieves died quickly, the engineer eventually got brought down, it was only myself and the elementalist that lasted the entire fight. The only reason I lasted was because of my protection with every roll, vigour on using a heal skill, boosted stamina regen, and the ability for the pet to keep hammering away while tweedle dumb-and-dumber were busy trying to maul me. And failing horribly. I only got downed once, and the pet got me back up (I’d have been dead if it wasn’t for the pet res)

I had a similar experience. Two rangers besides me, both upleveled, and two warriors upleveled. Everyone but me wiped once and I had to finish the last few enemies alone, and then on the last boss everyone wiped before we finished the first stage, leaving me alone again. I actually got downed that time, but my pet managed to heal me up and I finished the first part, which got everyone up.

I still facepalm whenever people say I suck because I’m dying from mobs in a dungeon fast. If I’m dying from the mobs fast, it means the rest of them (was a party of me, a guardian, a mesmer, and 2 warriors) aren’t doing their jobs properly. I should NOT be taking that much aggro with a group like that. And yes, this IS on topic. When they do their jobs properly, I should take aggro for a few seconds and be able to dodge while they kill the mobs. It didn’t work out that time though, since I was tanking the mobs for 1 minute 16 seconds.

I’ve done this molten factory boss pair with both ranger and thief and yes the ranger was better suited to that fight. I also find it’s the same with fights like the CoE Alpha where big healing can hide small mistakes. The thief is still generally a better dungeon class.

“I still facepalm whenever people say I suck because I’m dying from mobs in a dungeon fast. If I’m dying from the mobs fast, it means the rest of them (was a party of me, a guardian, a mesmer, and 2 warriors) aren’t doing their jobs properly. I should NOT be taking that much aggro with a group like that.”

Hmm. You shouldn’t really be dieing very fast unless your groups is using bad tactics, like huddling up squishy characters in red circles so you can all melee a group of hard hitting mobs.

You shouldnt die quickly. One of the first things you need to learn with any class is how to keep yourself alive. Once a ranger has learned this then he must learn to keep his pet alive. Once this is done you can then bring support to your team.

For the most part while group are always in need of more damage they also need more healing support. I take fern hound and jaguars for my pet. One damge one support.

While guardians can heal they usually lack damage when they do. Eles have the best of both worlds.

This isnt any other MMORPG. In Gw2 there are no set healers and no set tanks. Those of you who still play with this mentallity are really handicapping yourself and the groups you run with.

As a ranger we are viewed in a bad light. There are many misconception about what a ranger can and can’t do. Ranger have one of the biggest learning curves you dont need to kitten your development by placing limitations on yourself based on your own or other’s misconceptions.

That’s exactly what they were doing Stooper. I had 7-8 mobs on me when I died. They were also aiming for the harder to kill enemies which aren’t as annoying as the easier to kill ones. Rule #7 of running dungeons…take out the weaker creatures first, unless the stronger ones are far more troublesome (see Molten Facility and the Molten Gunner).

I’m glad people are finally realizing how good we can really tank.

My Ranger makes an awesome Tank even in Dungeons and people often whisper me and ask me how I’m doing it. Thing is, it’s really no big trick at all Beastmaster Build, Knights Armor/Rings, Valkyrie Accessories (just for some extra HP,) and my Great Sword. When using a tanky pet like a Bear or a Drake I can pretty much hold mobs all day.

People underestimate how tough the Ranger really can be. We can also do it while maintaining respectable damage. It’s funny how surprised some people are when they see a Ranger actually doing well. Most people think it’s just not possible.

TBH he has a point, while the class can spec in a multitude of ways, ‘tankish’ builds are by far the most powerful!

+1 to the op
we are (rather dodgey) “tanks”…
please fix the homepage where it says we are the masters of ranged combat… thats obviously not true ^^

Darth Llama.9217:

Thing is, it’s really no big trick at all Beastmaster Build, Knights Armor/Rings, Valkyrie Accessories (just for some extra HP,) and my Great Sword.

I like to run a combo of Knight’s and Soldier’s armor and a mix of Knight’s and Cleric’s trinkets. This is how I tend to run my Ranger in dungeons, with shouts (either Guard or S&R) and signets (wild and between hunt and stone). I like that while it’s tanky, it can still do damage easily. It may not do as much damage as a Warrior or offensive Mesmer, but it’s very flexible and can react to many situations.

With beastmaster line, my tanky pets feel sturdier than me while likely doing a bit more damage than me (I mainly use dogs or drakes as tanky pets) while my offensive pets (cats or birds) are a bit more fragile than me but hit a lot harder. It’s probably not very viable in WvW (I tried it and failed…but I fail at that kind of stuff regardless) but in PvE I can literally pelt champions while my pets swap to take the damage or I can distract harder hitting champs with my movement and CC while my pet does the damage. Just support the pet and let it do the work

RyuDragnier, if your group insists on grouping up for a guardian/warrior mash down then get an ice trap down followed by the healing spring and use the weapon defenses. Greatsword has the evade on auto attacks, a block, and the leap in the healing spring. Offhand axe has the missile defense. Don’t be afraid to roll out to safety if it starts going wrong and graphics lag hasn’t taken over. It’s more likely that you are getting killed with aoe than any specific attacks directed at you.

Rangers don’t need to go full tank to survive longer than some other professions. We have so many evades and skills that provide us with protection and regen (both health and endurance) that smart play will reward us with less dying- obvious statement of the week?

My build is in no way full tank, but I do have 3k armour, 20k health, use Signet of the Wild and Stone, vigour regen and protection on roll, all of which enabled me to pretty much solo the end boss in the Molten Facility whilst the rest of my group played a game of ‘who can rez the most’ .

I run a Trapper/BM build (0/20/20/0/30) that is based on Healing, Cond. Damage and Vit, in the end I have 21.5k HP, 2.5k armor, 1k heal, 1.2k cond, and the new pet buff even my jaguar can survive a lot in the last bosses in the Molten Facility and my devourer is just immortal there.

In all my runs I was the one that died the last (when I even died), tanking even more than a guardian, the long range + all the regen, the pet not getting aggro, the condition damage ticking while you run/evade, the healing spring helping all the party, I don’t think I could help the party with my other toons.

So yeah, rangers can tank very well w/o giving up much damage.

As far as dungeonplay goes;

The general survivability on Ranger is naturally pretty good, and that can be useful depending on what your tackling and who you’re with. If you actually build into survivability, and try to leverage your excess survivability as tanking it can be moderately successful….But, tanking in this game isn’t really a role, it’s a tactic. Like any tactic it has specific places where it is and isn’t helpful. I kind of feel like tanking would be a pretty hit or miss as a class identity.

We have been for the longest time now. Bunker-Beastmaster, and Condition-Trapper is the only viable Ranger builds. The problem is the Rangers incapability to play burst builds, or builds that don’t rely on snaring just so the pet can hit.

There’s no reason for the RANGER to be a tank. The ranger is capable of dealing 5k/s with greatsword and 6.2k/s with 1H sword, while the pet deals, at most, 3k DPS. You are better off going melee zerker on your ranger and bringing a bear pet, which still has 1.2k DPS, than trying to be the tank yourself.