Guild Wars 2

Ugh forum bug makes me

The most funny thing about the video isn’t even the fight but the beginning.
“We shouldn’t pick the same class though. I pick Ranger.”
“I wanted to pick Ranger too!”

Then again, I sometimes get, “Ugh, this kittening ranger is terrible”. Those always make me chuckle.

confirmed thief op.

don’t really have much comment on the rest of the thread, just that the video isn’t a good indicator of the problems we face, imo.

Wrong, fireworks are OP, as the title already says. :P

@Tigaseye
I could have made a way worse build for that necro. The video was either made to be to be that way, or the guy who played the ranger (and had no clue how to) and made the necro build (and actually included things that did damage) has no concept of GW2 builds at all. I suspect it is some of each.

Jaysin X.6740:

Puck.9612:

There are definitely things that can be improved but rangers are solid if you know how to use them.

Yep, and any commander worth his salt would know how to utilize his assets on the battlefield to maximize their efficiency. Maybe it’s just SBI, but I’ve never seen one of our commanders baggin on any class, and I’ve played a lot of WvW.

I’m not going to put them down for it, however annoying it is to be told to switch from your chosen class, because think they’re just being honest.

If someone, who is a commander, has played a class themselves and has found it to be more lacking/challenging/awkward/vulnerable/unintuitive/new player unfriendly/bad build-hampered/whatever than other classes, of course they will be tempted to encourage people to swap classes.

As they just want to maximise DPS output and minimise deaths.

I was in a zerg today, on ranger and it was a complete nightmare – partly due to the fact that we were outnumbered, but partly due to the particular terrain we were fighting on.

Half of the time, I couldn’t even get line of sight to 1,1,1; let alone AOE.

I was constantly obstructed by tiny undulations in the ground, or tall blades of grass (I assume?).

Was also in a situation where, if I got close enough to even hit them (let alone trying to stand and channel AOE), I was constantly in danger of dying.

OK, yes, we were outnumbered, but it was still ridiculously awkward, IMO.

On completely flat ground, it would probably have been easier, but it’s not even like it was on a hill – it was just on the almost flat area between the garrison and the bay.

If that’s the argument you wanted to make you should have said that from the start instead of posting one of the most worthless videos I’ve ever seen as if it was some kind of proof that rangers are broken.
I suggest giving up on this failed thread, organizing your thoughts and trying again when you have a clear idea of what you would like to see improved.

+1. Totally useless thread, and that video…seriously ? Nuff said.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

@Tigaseye
I could have made a way worse build for that necro. The video was either made to be to be that way, or the guy who played the ranger (and had no clue how to) and made the necro build (and actually included things that did damage) has no concept of GW2 builds at all. I suspect it is some of each.

OK, fair enough.

Well, I’m certainly no expert either, so I will bow to your greater knowledge.

I just never hear “get off your necros” in WvW, so that leads me to believe that most commanders consider them to be a better class and/or of more use in most situations and/or easier to play and/or less easy to mess up the build of etc. than they do ranger.

I get what you’re sayin’ Tigaseye. I’d wager that all of us have been there, I know I have. All I’m saying is a part of leadership, which is what they choose to do when they throw up that tag, is using what you have to achieve the mission. If they’re running a guild group then that’s different, but if they’re leading a pug militia and start complaining and demanding people to play their way, then people just start to leave, and you can’t accomplish the mission without soldiers.

Tigaseye.2047:

Jaysin X.6740:

Puck.9612:

There are definitely things that can be improved but rangers are solid if you know how to use them.

Yep, and any commander worth his salt would know how to utilize his assets on the battlefield to maximize their efficiency. Maybe it’s just SBI, but I’ve never seen one of our commanders baggin on any class, and I’ve played a lot of WvW.

I’m not going to put them down for it, however annoying it is to be told to switch from your chosen class, because think they’re just being honest.

If someone, who is a commander, has played a class themselves and has found it to be more lacking/challenging/awkward/vulnerable/unintuitive/new player unfriendly/bad build-hampered/whatever than other classes, of course they will be tempted to encourage people to swap classes.

As they just want to maximise DPS output and minimise deaths.

I was in a zerg today, on ranger and it was a complete nightmare – partly due to the fact that we were outnumbered, but partly due to the particular terrain we were fighting on.

Half of the time, I couldn’t even get line of sight to 1,1,1; let alone AOE.

I was constantly obstructed by tiny undulations in the ground, or tall blades of grass (I assume?).

Was also in a situation where, if I got close enough to even hit them (let alone trying to stand and channel AOE), I was constantly in danger of dying.

OK, yes, we were outnumbered, but it was still ridiculously awkward, IMO.

On completely flat ground, it would probably have been easier, but it’s not even like it was on a hill – it was just on the almost flat area between the garrison and the bay.

Being a commander doesn’t mean you get some special insiders knowledge about the game. Any pug commander that tries to say any profession is worthless in a pug zerg has no idea what he is talking about.

It’s not a GvG where you have to have equal numbers and you want classes to synergize better, it’s a pug zerg. A pug zerg relies on having more numbers that won’t act as rally bait.

If you got a group of longbow rangers get them to party together and maybe throw a
engi in their party to pull out a target for them to spike down.

I personally love running ranger in a zerg, especially when we are short on ele’s for water fields, but when I run it I go with this http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fNAQNBHhFakRl+VbYxiFuWDQIULDg3tdLUspgzkoGS5IZhtIA-TFDEwAtU/JqSBnKT+t/wWlgGOFANVCpVJRbNBd0DU5BAA4IAQKgUGaB-w over longbow.

Running Search & Rescue and Guard did most of it.

They didn’t keep to their own rules though. They still picked “on revive” “on down” “on kill” sigils/traits/skills, which was clearly not going to happen ever in a 1v1.

They should have left those out. So ranger would still be stuck with Guard, but not with Search & Rescue. Now it wasn’t very interesting since they basically threw the sigils and some traits and skill slots into the rubbish bin.

Tigaseye.2047:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

@Tigaseye
I could have made a way worse build for that necro. The video was either made to be to be that way, or the guy who played the ranger (and had no clue how to) and made the necro build (and actually included things that did damage) has no concept of GW2 builds at all. I suspect it is some of each.

OK, fair enough.

Well, I’m certainly no expert either, so I will bow to your greater knowledge.

I just never hear “get off your necros” in WvW, so that leads me to believe that most commanders consider them to be a better class and/or of more use in most situations and/or easier to play and/or less easy to mess up the build of etc. than they do ranger.

Well, to say it simply it was a cas of rock/ paper/ scizor build. You can’t say that he took the worst thing for the necromancer, that is all. Beside the ranger’s pet management was awfull and the necromancer barely used it’s DS so could we really say that necromancer’s DS is better than ranger’s pet?

Ok as i see it: ranger has a lot of problems, broken mechanics and a lot of bugs that aren’t present in any other class in the game.

We are the only class that lack 2 base skills to survive: mobility and sustain.
Thief lacks sustain (i think) but compensate with extreme mobility. Also have a very good spike damage.
Ele lack mobility (again i think) but compensate with the sustain he can provide. Again one of the best DPS in game.
Guard lacks range and mobility but has good sustain and damage.

We have a decent damage when our pet hits (that is not always) but no mobility and no sustain, so we are the easiest to kill once we get focused on.

And yes, pet’s need a lot of work to make them actually be a reliable help. Right now is something like random, and if there is AoE involved forget the pet.

Also pet is a liability when we use our only source of stealth. That actually should have longer duration, because during that time you can not do any damage or attack with any weapon. 3 seconds with our mobility is mostly useless.

We have 1 reliable source of healing. Shouts traited gives a laughable regen and the spirits is mostly useless with a very long CD outside from PvE.
Cleaning condis you must go full survival or again only 1 source or risk for the mild healing that is HS.

Other classes have their own problems not as bad as the ranger thou. I won’t make a list here because i’ve already posted it enough times already.

With the new trait system it seems different thou. Not better but different.
Anet focus in damage reduction instead healing and i think that’s a change that could be good because is different to other classes and i think fits perfectly with ranger.
Although we still need more sources of healing and also sources of conditions cleanse. Or better with the role of Ranger more trait/skills that apply the new Resistance.

A good play shouldn’t be one where we are all the time running from the enemy.

anduriell.6280:

Ok as i see it: ranger has a lot of problems, broken mechanics and a lot of bugs that aren’t present in any other class in the game.

We are the only class that lack 2 base skills to survive: mobility and sustain.
Thief lacks sustain (i think) but compensate with extreme mobility. Also have a very good spike damage.
Ele lack mobility (again i think) but compensate with the sustain he can provide. Again one of the best DPS in game.
Guard lacks range and mobility but has good sustain and damage.

We have a decent damage when our pet hits (that is not always) but no mobility and no sustain, so we are the easiest to kill once we get focused on.

And yes, pet’s need a lot of work to make them actually be a reliable help. Right now is something like random, and if there is AoE involved forget the pet.

Also pet is a liability when we use our only source of stealth. That actually should have longer duration, because during that time you can not do any damage or attack with any weapon. 3 seconds with our mobility is mostly useless.

We have 1 reliable source of healing. Shouts traited gives a laughable regen and the spirits is mostly useless with a very long CD outside from PvE.
Cleaning condis you must go full survival or again only 1 source or risk for the mild healing that is HS.

Other classes have their own problems not as bad as the ranger thou. I won’t make a list here because i’ve already posted it enough times already.

With the new trait system it seems different thou. Not better but different.
Anet focus in damage reduction instead healing and i think that’s a change that could be good because is different to other classes and i think fits perfectly with ranger.
Although we still need more sources of healing and also sources of conditions cleanse. Or better with the role of Ranger more trait/skills that apply the new Resistance.

A good play shouldn’t be one where we are all the time running from the enemy.

Correction: Ele is the top mobile class when FGS is ready, and 2nd most mobile class, just behind thief, when FGS is not ready, on a “real build”. (Warrior with GS + S/WH is not a real build)

Aomine.5012 already caught the ele comment … Ele’s are not hurting in the mobility department. It pairs ridiculously well with Ele sustain.

Pet is a liability when you stealth … only when:

• You have the pet alive on passive
• The pet is dead

How do we have only 1 reliable source of Healing? What about:

• Signet of the Wild
• Regeneration
• Troll Unguent
• Natural Healing
• Blast/Leap in Healing Spring

I largely disagree that Ranger has no sustain … please see my 0/0/6/2/6 build … or my 0/0/4/4/6 build. Both are quite tanky. You have healing from TU, Regen, SotW, and Natural Healing. If you use the build with 6 in WS, you even have Barkskin which makes dropping that last 25% of your HP quite a pain in the rear for your opponents.

How is Ranger the easiest to kill when focused? We have a great invuln with Signet of Stone. We have a great block on Greatsword. We can dodge and gain protection from it. We can evade extra with Shortbow, Greatsword, Sword, and/or Dagger. We can even have our pet in the way of projectiles.

I disagree on Ranger mobility as well. Sure, if you don’t take Sword or Greatsword, you’ll be less mobile … but so is an Elementalist that doesn’t takes Daggers and FGS. So is a Warrior that doesn’t take Greatsword or Sword … and so on.

I’m sorry if this comes across mean, but I’m sensing unfamiliarity with the Ranger in its entirety as well as unfamiliarity with other classes. I recommend playing around more with the Ranger and/or other classes.

Sebrent.3625:

Aomine.5012 already caught the ele comment … Ele’s are not hurting in the mobility department. It pairs ridiculously well with Ele sustain.

Pet is a liability when you stealth … only when:

• You have the pet alive on passive
• The pet is dead

How do we have only 1 reliable source of Healing? What about:

• Signet of the Wild
• Regeneration
• Troll Unguent
• Natural Healing
• Blast/Leap in Healing Spring

I largely disagree that Ranger has no sustain … please see my 0/0/6/2/6 build … or my 0/0/4/4/6 build. Both are quite tanky. You have healing from TU, Regen, SotW, and Natural Healing. If you use the build with 6 in WS, you even have Barkskin which makes dropping that last 25% of your HP quite a pain in the rear for your opponents.

How is Ranger the easiest to kill when focused? We have a great invuln with Signet of Stone. We have a great block on Greatsword. We can dodge and gain protection from it. We can evade extra with Shortbow, Greatsword, Sword, and/or Dagger. We can even have our pet in the way of projectiles.

I disagree on Ranger mobility as well. Sure, if you don’t take Sword or Greatsword, you’ll be less mobile … but so is an Elementalist that doesn’t takes Daggers and FGS. So is a Warrior that doesn’t take Greatsword or Sword … and so on.

I’m sorry if this comes across mean, but I’m sensing unfamiliarity with the Ranger in its entirety as well as unfamiliarity with other classes. I recommend playing around more with the Ranger and/or other classes.

Please stop talking about theoricrafting or however is called. You play with the ranger as well and already know that:

In WvW – PVP pet is dead most of the time or you have it on passive. So yes: pet is a liability.

• Signet of the Wild : 64 ht per tick with a lot of healing stat. Rangers when have it is for the active effect, the healing is a joke.
• Regeneration : more jokes. 1k healing in 10 seconds when you are at 75% with 60 secs CD. Another mimic.
• Troll Unguent : Only source. this one or HaO.
• Natural Healing: for your pet . You are going to dead soon anyway.
• Blast/Leap in Healing Spring: 1k heal that you only have time to call it once. And for that you need to use HS, that actually is a very mild healing, instead TU or HaO.

I don’t know if you are simply misleading or are mislead about how healing in the ranger works. Ranger has no sources of healing, and with those examples you gave me you have proven me right. Not that really are any other choices… really.

About mobility the only weapon that gives some is the GS. 1 cast, 600 units, 30 secs CD. Not much mobility i would say.

The leap from the SW is so twisted (you have to call it then turn around quickly to be able to cast the second part) that i haven’t seen it being used yet.
Only 1 source of Swiftness: war horn. And for that you have to equip that weapon instead axe or dagger that give better offensive/defensive capabilities. Sure SB have #3, 3 sec swiftness… Another joke. And for that you have to equip the SB that after the nerf is mostly a wet noodle.

All the other classes have real leaps, TP, shadow walks… And multiple sources of swiftness.
So yeah, ranger is broken and need urgent fixing.

Wow, so many things wrong with your post and opinion.
- SoTW – 62 healing with 0 healing power, it’s double that with the pet and it scales 6% with healing power.
- Regeneration – Rejuvenation, Oakheart Salve, Nature’s Voice, Circle of Life, Nature’s Bounty (to extend duration), Healing Spring, Ferny F2.
- Healing Spring is another great heal, esp because of the condi clear and the water field which is possible to be finished multiple times for a lot of additional heal.
- Sword has fantastic mobility, learn to use it, every good roamer does. GS 600 units and 30s CD? What are you talking about? Ranger GS is 1100 units and 12s CD.
- Swiftness – WH, Nature’s Voice, Bird pets, Tail wind.

You have no clue about Ranger, please stop creating useless misinformation posts while also falsely discrediting people who actually know the class.

Signet of the wild is trash as a healing utility.

anduriell.6280:

• Natural Healing: for your pet . You are going to dead soon anyway.

Natural healing affects the ranger as well.

Which is why you do not take it for that reason.

edit SoTW I meant.

Natural Healing heals the ranger aswell, that it something you should be familiar with when talking about our sustain/healing options.

Wondering if it will still heal the ranger when they push out the trait changes. It’s weird that they didn’t change the description of the skill already, it would make it a lot more tempting for people not aware.

Natural Healing would be amazing if they just added the 125/s for the pet to the 133/3s for the Ranger and divided by two to have 85/s each and had the pets healing power scale with it.

@anduriell.6280:
I’m not theorycrafting, I’m using my actual experience … hence why I knew Natural Healing also heals the Ranger while you thought it only heals the Ranger pet.

In WvW, the Ranger pet is dead when two blobs collide. That is why a Ranger is currently not well-suited to those fights unless they are going backline … in which case the pet is still a bit wasted though you can use it as a boon-bot or defense against backline gankers. There are still options. Havoc-ing is great as a Ranger. It’s just not the meta and you have to run from the current meta (zergs) like any other Havoc.

The fact that you can deduce how strong it is to have the current Barkskin, TU, Regen, Signet of the Wild, and Natural Regeneration astounds me. Not only are you halving all direct damage when low (making you hard to take down) but you have 4 sources of healing. That ratio of healing versus incoming damage is effectively doubled by Barkskin when you get low.

That healing is also excellent when combined with the mobility and defenses from our weapon sets. It doesn’t take long to recoup large chunks of health.

I’m confused how I proved you right … unless you were trying to prove that you don’t actually understand how Ranger healing works.

Also, if investing in sustain … it helps to take Healing Power so you can benefit from what you’re taking … otherwise it’s like not taking condition damage when you take condition weapons … rather dumb.

What in the world are you casting on the Greatsword that is only 600 units and a 30 second cooldown? Greatsword Swoop has a base cooldown of 12 seconds and is 1,100 units. It can be traited to have a 9.6s cooldown. That alone is some great mobility, but then you also have the Sword where you can do all sorts of movement shenanigans with Hornet Sting and Monarch’s Leap. If you haven’t seen it used, then you are not looking at any of the many videos out there for Rangers. Plenty of us use it when we use Sword. Heck there have been videos from Wizzo streaming in pretty continously lately where he uses it plenty. And let’s not Forget lightning reflexes.

As far as sources of Swiftness … in-combat … Birds are great :-)
Out of combat … some people have taken to grabbing traited shouts so they can have perma-swiftness and perma-regen just from using Guard. There are recent videos of this being used amongst those posted by Wizzo … he’d be a great source for you to look at and get a clue about how things actually work.

How you are ignorant of all these things is beyond me. How you maintain that attitude of yours despite that abundant ignorance is just mind-boggling.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Natural Healing would be amazing if they just added the 125/s for the pet to the 133/3s for the Ranger and divided by two to have 85/s each and had the pets healing power scale with it.

That would be a nerf, it already scales with the pet’s healing power.

Honestly, I want Natural Healing to scale off of my healing power … unless they are going to make some change that let’s my pet have more than a fraction of the healing power I can get. It’s one of those mechanics that I make use of but am not happy with the implementation.

Sebrent.3625:

Honestly, I want Natural Healing to scale off of my healing power … unless they are going to make some change that let’s my pet have more than a fraction of the healing power I can get. It’s one of those mechanics that I make use of but am not happy with the implementation.

Yup. But it’s getting merged with compassion training, so it seems like that’s the route Anet is taking. It kinda makes sense with the trait belonging to beastmastery, especially when BM won’t grant us healing power anyways.

They could switch stuff around and put invigorating bond in BM, merge it with compassion training and make it scale of the pet’s stats, and then put natural healing in NM and make it scale with the ranger’s stats.

I’m wary of them scaling pet stats with Ranger stats unless it’s going to be as a % of our stats …

If they did that I’d want them to:

• Total our overall stats (so pet would benefit from Ascended)
• Each pet family would gain a different % of that stat total to each of their stats … so Bears would have an enormous % of our overall stats applied to their vitality, slightly less % to their Toughness, and less to their Power and Precision … while a Bird would have a large % to their Precision, less to Power, and even less to Toughness and Vitality.
• I’d like the other stats such as Ferocity, Condition Damage, Healing Damage, etc. become part of it.

I think we’re going to be largely surprised when we see our Specializations next … it seemed like some parts were still largely unfinished … and who knows what’s going to change for Traps/Spirits/Pets.

Lazze.9870
That would be a nerf, it already scales with the pet’s healing power.

How is that a nerf? It is exactly the same healing and functionality, just divided between the Ranger and pet evenly.

Having resounding timbre moved to beastmastery with natural healing is going to really help regen builds. http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgUDtASYBfQ~

Yep. Better pet, better sustain, and taunt/quickness … all from one Specialization … It’s looking like I’m going to be hard-pressed to not take BM in most builds.

IKR, a lot of benefits from taking it now, very attractive line for any build imo. Rending Attacks is the only one I’m ‘meh’ about, if it were a short duration torment on hit, then awesome, I would love it, but 6s bleed on crit is too pet specific for me. On-hit condi would make it great for spiders and dogs in WvW/PvP due to the Expertise Training in WS being useless for dogs (the +350, not the +20%) and both have low crit chance to take a trait that triggers on crit.

That would be a great combination then, Spiders/Hounds with Expertise Training, Rending Attacks, Wilting Strike and Beastly Warden.

Guardian is essentially my main, and I will tell you that I hate spirit weapons.

Half of my time in PvP was on my necro, and I will tell you I’ve seen worse builds than the one in that video.

As far as Ranger in PvP, they seem pretty balanced to me. It’s a matter of having a good build and understanding the class and build. Make the most of what you have, and you’ll be fine. Even though I wish the crazy CC warriors would be balanced a bit, I think that the PvP game right now is fairly balanced. Taking on any class with any build comes down to skill. Yes, it’s possible to make a bad ranger build. It happens in PvE as well. A class can’t be considered the “worst” just because it takes skill and knowledge to make it work well.

That being said, if I was allowed to sacrifice my pet to the anet gods for some extra personal dps, I would actually use my ranger more in PvE.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

Lazze.9870
That would be a nerf, it already scales with the pet’s healing power.

How is that a nerf? It is exactly the same healing and functionality, just divided between the Ranger and pet evenly.

Never mind, didn’t notice the heal per second on both.

Thanks for the input Valk. It’s nice to get some fresh perspective … though I disagree on your desire to trash your pet ;-) … if they let me have two, I’ll take yours :-)

I think Rangers are fine, as you said. I think people are just turned off because they see:

• Warrior/Ele/Guardian who are strongly placed in every meta
• Thief who is strongly placed in both PvE and sPvP
• Engineer who is strongly placed in the sPvP meta
• Mesmer who is sort of in PvE meta
• Necro is in WvW meta

So that leaves Ranger who currently isn’t part of any meta. We’re a great class, but we’d love to be great enough to be part of at least one of the metas :-) So ranger currently needs either:

• some changes to Ranger to help them become part of at least one meta
• or some changes need to occur elsewhere that shift at least one meta so that Rangers are a part of it.

Thankyfully we have a boatload of changes coming down the pipeline that may do both of these

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks for the input Valk. It’s nice to get some fresh perspective … though I disagree on your desire to trash your pet ;-) … if they let me have two, I’ll take yours :-)

I think Rangers are fine, as you said. I think people are just turned off because they see:

• Warrior/Ele/Guardian who are strongly placed in every meta
• Thief who is strongly placed in both PvE and sPvP
• Engineer who is strongly placed in the sPvP meta
• Mesmer who is sort of in PvE meta
• Necro is in WvW meta

So that leaves Ranger who currently isn’t part of any meta. We’re a great class, but we’d love to be great enough to be part of at least one of the metas :-) So ranger currently needs either:

• some changes to Ranger to help them become part of at least one meta
• or some changes need to occur elsewhere that shift at least one meta so that Rangers are a part of it.

Thankyfully we have a boatload of changes coming down the pipeline that may do both of these

Whenever ranger becomes part of any Meta, people complained and ask for Nerf.
Anet nerfed the Barrage damage by half, making Ranger’s AOE ability suffers severely in WvW.
Anet nerfed spirits, shortbow, and pet when ranger was part of PVP Meta because so many people complained about it.

Even when the new specs help ranger into newer Meta, people will protest ranger, to the degree of it driven out of Meta again. This is sad but true.

Aye, Aomine. I’m familiar with the history … it’s part of what irks me about having the same three classes always in all metas while my Ranger and Mesmer get nerfed out of the metas.

I’ve recently started to play ranger in pvp and I have to say, I think it’s a very good class. It can be traited for excellent sustain while still dealing good damage at all ranges. I couldn’t believe the guy in this thread who said rangers have poor sustain. Perma-vigor that procs Protection, GS block, LB stealth, TU, SoS, plentiful condi cleanse… Oo Do other classes have a Permanent Immunity From Damage skill I don’t know about? Anyhoo, from what I’ve experienced so far, there isn’t much it can’t kill if played well and, at times, patiently.

The thing I also like is the versatility of builds as there are nice options for condi, power or hybrid damage so you can change things up when you want. I run a mesmer a great deal of the time (with its mandatory 4 points in the accuracy trait line) so this is refreshing to me.

In sum, nice class, fun to play and comes without a debilitating learning curve. Good stuff.

Sebrent.3625:

Thanks for the input Valk. It’s nice to get some fresh perspective … though I disagree on your desire to trash your pet ;-) … if they let me have two, I’ll take yours :-)

I think Rangers are fine, as you said. I think people are just turned off because they see:

• Warrior/Ele/Guardian who are strongly placed in every meta
• Thief who is strongly placed in both PvE and sPvP
• Engineer who is strongly placed in the sPvP meta
• Mesmer who is sort of in PvE meta
• Necro is in WvW meta

So that leaves Ranger who currently isn’t part of any meta. We’re a great class, but we’d love to be great enough to be part of at least one of the metas :-) So ranger currently needs either:

• some changes to Ranger to help them become part of at least one meta
• or some changes need to occur elsewhere that shift at least one meta so that Rangers are a part of it.

Thankyfully we have a boatload of changes coming down the pipeline that may do both of these

You can have my pet! As long as I get my own damage back. I might be a bit of a control freak like that. Or… I don’t know… give my pet evade frames when I dodge or something.

It would be nice to see my old main come into meta. I don’t think it would take overmuch to get that to happen for PvE. If only we could get some DPS increase in PvE that wouldn’t cause people to Q.Q all over the floor in sPvP.

Even if Anet gave Rangers some serious buffing, it would take a while for them to be considered as part of a meta because most of the GW2 playerbase has this idea that the vast majority of Rangers are “noobs”. So, dear Rangers, you seem to be working uphill on both sides.

Cmon who runs around with such pets lol. Ill take dogs before pigs in any given situation.

@Valkyrie.1794:
No, I completely understand the sentiment. I want as much control over my character as well… though I see the value in the pet as now a % of your has to be dealt with as well. A CC on you isn’t 100% of you CC’d like it is for other classes (aside from Mesmer). You downed isn’t 100% of you downed.

That said, the implementation still needs improvements. Our control over the pet is quite limited so that part of our control over our character is quite limited … which, as a fellow control freak, doesn’t make us happy :-)

I imagine the Ranger sword AA locking you out of dodging rubs your control freak side the wrong way too, eh? ;-)

@Offair:
If they’d make the pig KD more reliable and the pig F2 just give you the item (sort of like Thief’s steal), then I think we’d see several more pigs used in-game. Some of the things those suckers can forage are nice … amusingly, very similar (if not the exact same) as several things Thief can steal.

It’d be nice if they’d borrow the rest of that Thief mechanic so it wasn’t so clunky for us.

Valkyrie.1794:

If only we could get some DPS increase in PvE that wouldn’t cause people to Q.Q all over the floor in sPvP.

A personal DPS increase wouldn’t do anything to our PvE situation, it’s already pretty high – actually 3rd/4th with engie depending on the situation, and it will get higher with the upcoming trait changes.

One out of three things needs to happen. 1)We either get offensive support buffs that outclasses the banners and the access to mightstacking the warrior has (we got 100 % fury uptime, which would be great if Persisting Flames didn’t make it redundant), or 2) we get utilities that can replace other classes on top of bringing FrostSpotter. Or 3), the ele gets nerfed to the point where switching one of them out for a ranger is concidered “optimal”. Beating the icebow with the nerfbat is a start..

@Lazze:
Do we need to outclass the Warrior’s banners? If so, why?
I’m not saying I disagree, but I ask because I want your reasoning behind your opinion.

I could see one bit of logic behind it: Warrior also applies Vuln, Might, Fury to targets via For Great Justice, Greatsword, and Phalanx. Ranger can apply some Might, Vuln, and Fury but I don’t believe as much Might for the group as a Warrior. So to compete, they’d need to (1) Do comparable DPS and (2) Provide something else better than Warrior since Warrior provides Might better.

I completely agree about something needing to be done about Elementalist. Not only are they one of the 3 kings of the 3 metas (always part of every meta), but they are currently 40% of the comp in two of those metas (5-man groups in PvE and sPvP and the comp features 2 Eles on that team … 2/5 is 40%). I’m not asking that Elementalist be nerfed (unless that’s the only option), but something needs to be done so that the best answer isn’t “more elementalists”.

Sebrent.3625:

@Lazze:
Do we need to outclass the Warrior’s banners? If so, why?.

Because the current role of both the warrior and the ranger in the dungeon meta is the same, they both provide offensive group buffs. The warrior currently excells at this, the only reason it’s being picked over a ranger.

It’s a theoretical “solution”, not something I think will happen and it certainly isn’t the “best” solution. Unless you’re ranger biased, obviously…

Lets not forget that PvE content currently resolves only around keeping and buffing the damage. So while the Ranger may be behind in damage, he could make up for that through other capabilities, like defensive options the warrior doesn’t have.

Now I don’t say that the Ranger is indeed better than the Warrior in other aspects, but this may be the reason why the Ranger is lacking in damage. I also think that ANet initially wanted the spirits to be more actively used, while banners are purely passive buffs.

I think if the Spirits revamp is “good enough”, we’ll see quite an improvement just from that.

We’ll see about the Specialization system changes … Ranger is getting improved by it, but so is everyone else.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Lets not forget that PvE content currently resolves only around keeping and buffing the damage. So while the Ranger may be behind in damage, he could make up for that through other capabilities, like defensive options the warrior doesn’t have.

Now I don’t say that the Ranger is indeed better than the Warrior in other aspects, but this may be the reason why the Ranger is lacking in damage. I also think that ANet initially wanted the spirits to be more actively used, while banners are purely passive buffs.

I don’t think Warrior lack anything in defense department compare to any other classes, but the offensive support is way beyond Ranger because of things like Phanlanx Strength and banners and fgj. So there’s actually not “making up with defensive measure” things going on at all.