Guild Wars 2

My first 80 was a thief. I spent a little time on it in WvW, but never really got all that proficient at it. I ultimately tired of the mechanic of never losing 1 v. 1 fights, either through winning or “not losing”.

Anyway, I then made my Ranger which I’ve been playing ever since. I have countless hours spent in WvW, and I am fairly proficient at it at this point. That said, I’ve continuously been frustrated by how slow the class kills (in general) and how hard I have to work to do well.

I played my thief last night for the first time in 4 – 5 months, and it was frickin’ shocking at how much easier that class is to play in WvW. Having that sharp contrast really illuminated how weak the Ranger class is DPSwise relative to a thief. BTW, my thief is in Valk armor, Berserker Weapons & Trinkets, and is traited more towards survival than pure dmg.

Anyway, probably common knowledge, but I was shocked enough to spend a moment to share.

I much prefer the large array of tools the ranger has when compared to the thief. Yea the thief can do a lot of damage quickly, but when that fails against my ranger, the tables are turned in my favor really quickly and it is the thief who is running away from me

My first 80 at launch was a Thief, and I slowly built up a Ranger since November.

I agree with your assessment, but I still like my Ranger’s tools and playstyle. I feel like I have more options than my Thief as far as utilities and traitlines go.

Last SOTG they briefly mentioned merging and adjusting Thief traitlines, and that would be lovely.

Ya, I like the versatility & playstyle of my Ranger over my Thief as well. It’s just much more difficult to play well. I got 5 times the kills last night than I normally have on my Ranger, and I haven’t played my thief in months. Rusty anyone? I find that I get way more moral victories on my ranger than I’d like.

Joey.3928:

and it is the thief who is running away from me

But his ability to do that with impunity is the issue with theives. If as a Ranger, I start a fight and it’s going bad, I have to deal with the consequences. A GW2 thief doesn’t. The instances of where there are consequences to a thieves actions are extremely rare.

I much prefer the stealth mechanic in other games. I don’t mind perma-stealth if once the fight is initiated, the stealther can’t restealth if in combat (or the old UO mechanic where he had to break LOS). Or even the SW:TOR style where the stealther gets one get out jail card for stealth on a long CD.

I think there are far too many disengage abilities in this game w/o enough abilities to keep someone from running. My ranger can get away from a ton of ugly situations. I’ve run half a map being able to out heal the DPS of a half dozen enemies. Rarely have I not been able to get away using GS3/Sword 2 with enough time to react. Other classes have similar disengage abilities. Crazy mobility is fun, but it’s been at the expense of being able to cheese your way out of fights if you want to.

I really feel like Ranger needs some sort of pull utility ala Scorpion wire. It could come from Axe 4 or a pet, but I’d like more synergy with MH Sword. The constant cripple is close, but imagine Hornet’s Stinging out of someone’s attack, then yanking them to you to fight on your terms.

It’s really no more capability than the Thief has. I feel like the mobility is on par thanks to our weapons, but my thief can use her weapons and utilities to engage or escape. The ranger tends to have more disengages. Swoop goes both ways, but with our traps and pets, I feel like we’re lacking some control.

It doesn’t need to be perfectly matched, as clearly the ranger is meant to be an amalgam of every other class (hey, like Thief steals!).