Guild Wars 2

If that doesn’t convince you that the Ranger is severely lacking, I don’t know what can:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_EcAKVI0Tc

Skip to the fight:
https://youtu.be/r_EcAKVI0Tc?t=25m05s

I don’t want to push it, because I know there are some salty souls around here, but the pet is the worst profession mechanic in this game.

Salty souls? Please sir, click this link.

Well, would you say a permanent Flesh Golem for the Necro is stronger than his current mechanic? Would you say that a permanent summoned weapon would be stronger for the Guardian than his Virtues? Would you say one permament clone for the Mesmer is stronger than his current mechanic? No?
I thought so.

But please, tell me your version of the story. Why are the pets not the worst profession mechanic? What profession mechanic is even worse?

The guy playing Ranger has no clue, playing a build designed to be terrible by someone else, never having played it before and is generally a bad player, just look at him go.

Honestly, the pet has nothing to do with that fight, the other skills are by far the limiting factor, even so, those pets are bad choices and nobody uses those.

Sure, Ranger has some serious dramas, but putting all of them into 1 build and making out its the norm is absurd. Ranger can decimate any class 1v1 when played well with a decent build.

The funny kicker is that Ranger is in a good spot pvp-wise, but yeah heimskarl said it all tbh.

Any class can beat any class 1v1 if played well. That’s not my point. Yes those pets are not optimal and yes those skills aren’t either, but the fact that they exist speaks volumes alone. There are skills that are subpar, like the physical skills of the Warrior, but no skill in this game is as bad as the Ranger ones. It is far easier with the Ranger to kitten up in some way than with other classes. And you haven’t answered my question.

I disagree. Ranger does need some serious help to bring us up to level with some of the other classes, especially in WvW and to an extent PvP. I feel we are in a nice spot in PvE, we’re the best open world roaming class in the game in my opinion, especially for leveling. Dungeons need work obviously, we don’t suck we just aren’t necessarily top tier however that is debatable.

Frankly, the pet is here to stay, and proper management of the pet can bring your skill up a long way, just look at some ranger v ranger fights where one knows how to use it and the other doesn’t. Also with the pet we are the best 1v1 class in the game at winning directly (Thief can play so they never lose, but they might not win).

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well, would you say a permanent Flesh Golem for the Necro is stronger than his current mechanic?

Flesh Golem wasn’t designed to be as powerful as a class mechanic … so no. Also, many Necromancer hate Flesh Golem even as an elite. Necro AI-dependent mechanics make Ranger pets look like Einstein.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Would you say that a permanent summoned weapon would be stronger for the Guardian than his Virtues?

No, as, again, they were not designed to be as powerful as a class mechanic. Also, most Guardians currently don’t like their weapons (for good reasons). Similarly, Guardian Spirit Weapons make Ranger pets look like Einstein.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Would you say one permament clone for the Mesmer is stronger than his current mechanic? No?

First off, know the class. A clone is a weak piece of paper that does practically no direct damage (see: single digit).
Second, no because a single clone (or even phantasm) was designed to be as powerful as three clones/phantasms AND shatters.

Wuselknusel.4082:

I thought so.

Thought what? That people wouldn’t think that your horrible examples were good?

Wuselknusel.4082:

But please, tell me your version of the story. Why are the pets not the worst profession mechanic? What profession mechanic is even worse?

Pet stats are independent of my stats, so I can go full tank and still have a solid source of damage.

Pets can still operate even when I’m LOS’d, CC’d, down. This means that unless both the pet and I are taken out, I’m not 100% LOS’d, CC’d, down.

Pets can body block non-piercing projectiles.

Pets can take aggro.

Pets provide additional CC and damage.

Pets provide additional utilities via their F2 skills.

• Are pets perfect? Nope.
• Are Mesmer illusions perfect? Nope.
• Are Warrior burst skills perfect? Nope … still getting tweaks … even had to change traits with the upcoming Specialization to get some Warrior builds to even use burst skills.
• Is Necro Deathshroud perfect? Nope … please see the latest videos, etc. talking about how Necro Life Force + Deathshroud don’t scale well.

Everything has its pros and cons … use more brainpower figuring these out and how to work with them and you’ll do better than you will making bad comparisons.

Well, I could setup a Mesmer with the worst possible build for shatters and it would be worse than pets. Burst skills are not exactly wonderful if you do not trait for adrenaline gain or anything to do with them. Same goes for Steal if you don’t take any traits for it.

What is the point of this thread?

@Puck:
Probably the same as the other such threads we seem to be getting a recent influx of …

… they aren’t doing well as Rangers so they want to blame it completely on the class.

Because bad things are never that person’s fault … always someone else’s.

Sebrent.3625:

@Puck:
Probably the same as the other such threads we seem to be getting a recent influx of …

… they aren’t doing well as Rangers so they want to blame it completely on the class.

Because bad things are never that person’s fault … always someone else’s.

I love how Ranger’s are brokenly OP to the people we kill and just broken to the people that try them out and constantly die.
They are only in a good place for those of us that have been playing them for years.

@Puck:
Aye. I wouldn’t say we’re in a good place given that we’re not in any of the metas … but I would say that we are far from bad. Us not being in the metas is due to ArenaNet allowing a handful of classes to dominate all metas which leaves little room for the rest of us to fight over.

Heck, we have 40% of the meta in sPvP and PvE taken up by one class (the meta doubles up on Elementalists in both sPvP and PvE and those are 5-man groups … 2/5 is 40%)

Oh nice to see you judging my skill based on my opinion, lets you stand out as informed discussant… not.

@Sebrent: No they were not designed to be a profession mechanic, but how do they act differently than our pets? Flesh Golems do even have a “F2” so to speak.
But there are some things you can cross off your list, such as “Pets provide utilities/CC” or “Pets can take aggro” since those thing are either not unique to the Ranger or are simply useless in any PvP setup.
Other arguments like “Pet stats are independant” can straight out backfire if you don’t have a worthy pet to support your playstyle or you take buffs into account. When ascended gear was added Rangers got stealth nerfed as example since your pet doesn’t get any advantage whatsoever from ascended gear.

@Puck: What are you trying to prove here?..

Now you may say that I am wrong and that there are plenty of viable builds, such as GS/LB PowerRanger or Sw/T, A/D condi build, but, as I said earlier, the Ranger is much more prone to kittenty builds than the most other classes (Mesmer might be the exception). Let alone all the useless skills we have that no other class has. One out of all shouts is somewhat viable (mostly to counter Thieves), two sigils out of four signets are useless and the other two suffer from pretty long cooldowns, Spirits are getting nerfed and are no longer viable in PvP and only one spirit is used in PvE, half the healing skills are useless and the traps look like toys compared to the ones the Dragonhunter is getting (eventhough they will have a higher cooldown). Even if we ignore the fact that there will be better traps than the Ranger has in the future, Viper’s Nest only advantage is the poison field which lets us stack weakness on our foes with our countless blastfinishers we have and Survival skills ony become truly good when traited. So you can call me an exxagerator if you like, but don’t try to understate the problems this class has or shoehorn me into the sore player corner.

Can you create good builds as Ranger and win with it? Yes. Does this compensate all the crap the Ranger has to deal with? Hell no.

The other classes AI isn’t as responsive to commands as ours are.
The other classes don’t have nearly the same controls we do over their own AI.
The other classes can’t “pet swap” before their AI dies.
The other classes don’t have the variety of options we do when it comes to a pet.

That backfire only happens if a player makes a bad mistake. If you have a problem with players making mistakes, then you should also complain about people take condition damage with power weapons and power with condition damage weapons.

You make assertions about Ranger builds, signets, shouts, etc. but don’t provide any details. Just saying “this is bad” doesn’t really provide much to discuss. Perhaps you could elaborate on the “why” for each of your opinions.

Otherwise all we can say is “I agree/disagree”.

Sebrent.3625:

The other classes AI isn’t as responsive to commands as ours are.
The other classes don’t have nearly the same controls we do over their own AI.
The other classes can’t “pet swap” before their AI dies.
The other classes don’t have the variety of options we do when it comes to a pet.

That backfire only happens if a player makes a bad mistake. If you have a problem with players making mistakes, then you should also complain about people take condition damage with power weapons and power with condition damage weapons.

You make assertions about Ranger builds, signets, shouts, etc. but don’t provide any details. Just saying “this is bad” doesn’t really provide much to discuss. Perhaps you could elaborate on the “why” for each of your opinions.

Otherwise all we can say is “I agree/disagree”.

Other classes don’t have as much control over their AIs as Rangers do because it’s not feasible to implement it into the current skill system and because then their AIs would be as good as our profession mechanic. Point still stands, I bet noone (exept maybe a minionmancer) who plays other professions would want to have their profession mechanic replaced with ours. And I wonder how responsive our pet is exactly because often times when my pet wants to attack something and I call it back, it just stands still for one second before reacting.

And I hope I don’t have to elaborate why skills like “Guard” or “Search and Rescue” are bad. I do imply a certain amount of insight when I say “this or that is useless”. If you want to know why the skills named above are subpar, I bet you’ll find your answer if you look through this subforum.

I for one haven’t heard much about trapper Ranger being viable, have you?
Eventhough we have a rune that greatly encourages using traps, they still find not much use. heck, you have to just open your skillbar and look through those skills, you probably will find skills which are simply useless or skills that have counterparts that do the job way better.

I for one would like to compile a list for the devs with skills that are either straight out useless, subpar, have better counterparts or are not versatile enough.

Well, I disagree with you on various AIs being as good/strong/powerful/useful/versatile as our own.

I also disagree that only 2 of our signets are good.

It’s well-known that I’m not a fan of our shouts in their current incarnation …though I dislike our spirits more (man those suck).

If you want to compile that list … please do. I think that would be a far more beneficial thing than this thread.

So, tell me why the spirits are so bad, I rarely use them, so I can’t really judge that.

Here’s a topic on spirits. I have a post there with bullets detailing some points.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/ranger/what-exactly-is-wrong-with-Spirits/first

Sebrent.3625:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well, would you say a permanent Flesh Golem for the Necro is stronger than his current mechanic?

Flesh Golem wasn’t designed to be as powerful as a class mechanic … so no. Also, many Necromancer hate Flesh Golem even as an elite. Necro AI-dependent mechanics make Ranger pets look like Einstein.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Would you say that a permanent summoned weapon would be stronger for the Guardian than his Virtues?

No, as, again, they were not designed to be as powerful as a class mechanic. Also, most Guardians currently don’t like their weapons (for good reasons). Similarly, Guardian Spirit Weapons make Ranger pets look like Einstein.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Would you say one permament clone for the Mesmer is stronger than his current mechanic? No?

First off, know the class. A clone is a weak piece of paper that does practically no direct damage (see: single digit).
Second, no because a single clone (or even phantasm) was designed to be as powerful as three clones/phantasms AND shatters.

Wuselknusel.4082:

I thought so.

Thought what? That people wouldn’t think that your horrible examples were good?

Wuselknusel.4082:

But please, tell me your version of the story. Why are the pets not the worst profession mechanic? What profession mechanic is even worse?

Pet stats are independent of my stats, so I can go full tank and still have a solid source of damage.

Pets can still operate even when I’m LOS’d, CC’d, down. This means that unless both the pet and I are taken out, I’m not 100% LOS’d, CC’d, down.

Pets can body block non-piercing projectiles.

Pets can take aggro.

Pets provide additional CC and damage.

Pets provide additional utilities via their F2 skills.

---

• Are pets perfect? Nope.
• Are Mesmer illusions perfect? Nope.
• Are Warrior burst skills perfect? Nope … still getting tweaks … even had to change traits with the upcoming Specialization to get some Warrior builds to even use burst skills.
• Is Necro Deathshroud perfect? Nope … please see the latest videos, etc. talking about how Necro Life Force + Deathshroud don’t scale well.

Everything has its pros and cons … use more brainpower figuring these out and how to work with them and you’ll do better than you will making bad comparisons.

Can you provide where and when Anet or any of the developers said that Flesh Golem wasn’t intended to be designed as powerful as other Necro’s class mechanic? It is part of Necro’s mechanic too, why does it has to be less powerful? Also can you provide proof of “many people hate Flesh Golem”, even though it was used by many people in numerous situations of PVP?

Also can you prove that “most Guardians don’t like their weapons”, despite many of them are quite powerful and loved by many Guardians? You can make a post in Guardian’s forum and see whether they like their weapons or not, but claiming “most Guardians don’t like their weapons” is an over-statement. And what is this “for good reasons”? Can you name a few of those “good reasons” that’re accepted by “most Guardians”?

You said every claims need to be proven, so I’m all ears. I hope your “standards” do not just applied to others but not yourself. Also I would like to see solid proofs, not your opinion.

Ahah Aomine, you made my day ^^

Lol, if it wasn’t so sad I’d be sorry that your pride is still so hurt from the other thread that you’re now dragging that into here …

Let’s entertain this …

ArenaNet show’d that they didn’t intend for it to be a class mechanic nor as powerful as a class mechanic by:

• Not making it a class mechanic
• Not making it as powerful as class mechanics

I’d say by their actions they made that one pretty clear. If I hit a nail with a hammer do I have to tell you I did it or does the action not prove that I hit the nail with the hammer? Just curious.

Why does it have to be less powerful? Because ArenaNet made it that way. They are free to change it, but currently it is and there has been no evidence from ArenaNet that this diverges from their intent/design for it.

Here is a recent Minion Master thread discussing all sorts of Necromancer Minion issues … Flesh Golem falls under that category if that wasn’t clear. It mentions how Flesh Golem “gets stuck on pebbles”, “the charge easily misses”, etc. One person even comments on how it doesn’t have the attack commands like Ranger pets do.

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Calling-All-Minion-Masters

Here is a TenTonHammer article where he even mentions how Flesh Golem isn’t good … or, in his words, “Lich is currently the only good Necro Elite”. Feel free to peruse the comments as well.

• http://www.tentonhammer.com/editorial/guild-wars-2-elite-skill-discussion

Here is a recent post with several guardians discussing why they don’t like the Spirit weapons … that covers both Guardians not liking them and the reasons why.

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/guardian/Making-Spirit-Weapons-Viable

I’m especially amused reading that thread again after you said how “many Guardians love them and they are quite powerful”. Want to throw out an arbitrary % again to go with that?

Feel free to view their lack of usage in the various metas as well

• http://metabattle.com/wiki/MetaBattle_Wiki

If you’d like to find more evidence of what I said, feel free to dig a bit more and you’ll find older posts on those same Guardian and Necromancer topics … quite similar to how if you dig through the Ranger forums you’ll find so many topics on “Rangers suck”, “Rangers are OP”, “Ranger Pets Suck”, “Ranger Pets are Fine”, etc..

So I believe I just provided what was needed. Now, feel free to move on with your life.

Well Sebrent, you do realise that you give me all the arguments I need. Do you think the other classes would find their AIs more enjoyable when they could control it like thee Ranger can? Would they enjoy it that much that they want to trade their current profession mechanic for this AI? I don’t think so. Which brings us back to the point that every other class mechanic is more potent than ours.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well Sebrent, you do realise that you give me all the arguments I need. Do you think the other classes would find their AIs more enjoyable when they could control it like thee Ranger can? Would they enjoy it that much that they want to trade their current profession mechanic for this AI? I don’t think so. Which brings us back to the point that every other class mechanic is more potent than ours.

Our pets, lackluster or not, have nothing to do with anything that was shown in WP’s video. He used shouts. Our shouts are laughable. He used an untraited Water Spirit, the worst spirit out of them all.

If your so called point was to argue that our pet sucks, this video didn’t do anything for you. It just pointed out some of our stupidly subpar skills that we all are very well aware of, mashed together with a build that I wouldn’t even call a build – it has no synergy with anything, it’s nothing like what a new player to the game might had come up with.

IMO, WP did a poor job at actually making a “bad build”. It wasn’t a build, it was just a pile of trash mixed together. That being said, with WP seemingly being a popular guy at Anet, hopefully they paid some attention to his comments about “Guard” and S&R.

So wait…. a revive skill isn’t useful in a 1v1!? I’m sure glad you found a video to point that out.

I’d simply say that if one want to do a terribad build for necromancer, one don’t use S/D and staff with a condi amu. The guy shoud have done a power build with axe and trait in condi/tanky line. But well, whatever…

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well Sebrent, you do realise that you give me all the arguments I need. Do you think the other classes would find their AIs more enjoyable when they could control it like thee Ranger can? Would they enjoy it that much that they want to trade their current profession mechanic for this AI? I don’t think so. Which brings us back to the point that every other class mechanic is more potent than ours.

I don’t think that’s the case … except the Guardian thread does bring up one point which I’ll get to.

Do I think the other classes would find their AIs more enjoyable when they can control it like the Ranger can? Sure., since they are asking for it and being able to better control part of your character is generally welcomed.

I still think they’d have the same AI complaints we have since we all know the AI has its failings … but so does Internet latency … but we don’t complain for ANet to give us constant 10ms pings :-) (or maybe some do, I dunno how crazy some are, lol).

I have no clue if they’d want to trade their current class mechanic for it.

• I could see them being happy with Shield of the Avenger is place of their new projectile block in some situations where they didn’t need to be mobile, but it would still be inferior in various scenarios due to its lack of mobility when blocking projectiles … though superior when being flanked given that it’s a bubble instead of a wall.
• If all the weapons applied burning untraited, I could see some Guardians loving that more than Virtue of Justice.
• If they could have the bow and its cleanses, I could also see that replacing Virtue of Resolve

But now we’re replacing a mechanic with a whole bar of utilities that are currently coded as individual utilities. There are keybind issues (the summons and secondary actionvations), balance issues, etc. that pop up. Are we talking about the weapons are always up or is it more like a Mesmer Illusion mechanic? We are talking about 3 separate Spirit Weapon capabilities so it’s unclear. There’s quite a bit more if you wanted to go down this rabbit hole in detail.

Ultimately, you’re leaping from “I don’t think they’d like spirit weapons as a class mechanic” … to … “so I think ours class mechanic is the worst”. You’re leaping from your opinion of what other’s opinions would all be to a conclusion about our mechanic. Do you see how that isn’t really a proof but just an opinion?

Now, to the one thing I think they’d hate about having AI? It’s the same thing every class with AI hates about it … it gets “whoops’d” to death in large fights (zergs, some PvE content, etc.). Would they hate it less if they had the same controls and options Rangers do with their AI? Quite likely as our controls do give us greater capability to have our AI not get gibbed in some content; when possible … some content just doesn’t favor it at all, sadly.

My main two characters are my Mesmer and Ranger. I can show you how much worse being dependent on AI can be in various scenarios. If you play the living story part 2 as a Ranger and then as a Mesmer, you’ll see quite a difference.

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well Sebrent, you do realise that you give me all the arguments I need. Do you think the other classes would find their AIs more enjoyable when they could control it like thee Ranger can? Would they enjoy it that much that they want to trade their current profession mechanic for this AI? I don’t think so. Which brings us back to the point that every other class mechanic is more potent than ours.

Our pets, lackluster or not, have nothing to do with anything that was shown in WP’s video. He used shouts. Our shouts are laughable. He used an untraited Water Spirit, the worst spirit out of them all.

If your so called point was to argue that our pet sucks, this video didn’t do anything for you. It just pointed out some of our stupidly subpar skills that we all are very well aware of, mashed together with a build that I wouldn’t even call a build – it has no synergy with anything, it’s nothing like what a new player to the game might had come up with.

IMO, WP did a poor job at actually making a “bad build”. It wasn’t a build, it was just a pile of trash mixed together. That being said, with WP seemingly being a popular guy at Anet, hopefully they paid some attention to his comments about “Guard” and S&R.

Well, lets look at S&R first. If we look at the all the other revival skills of other professions, we quickly realise that they have added flavor to it. Some of them have passive effects which can benefit the player, some of them have further effects upon usage. The only thing S&R does is that it removes the pet as damage portion, since it runs off and revives an ally, not to mention that this skill can fail if your pet isn’t able to reach the ally.

Shouts in general are pet commands really and we all know how useful they are.
WP had the advantage that he was a Necro, which still had her profession mechanic, while the Ranger’s profession mechanic was rendered useless.

So WP didn’t win that fight only because of the pet being so bad, but it certainly was a huge aspect. While WP has able to utilize Death Shroud multiple times, the pet simply stayed useless.

@Wuselknusel

First, please look at all of the Rez abilities in the game. Mesmer’s Illusion of Life would be a good one to make sure you noticed when comparing ours with others.

Second, you have to note that Search and Rescue (1) Doesn’t cause the Ranger to spend any time casting, etc. for it to work (2) Can still full rez someone that is poisoned … the other rez skills don’t provide a full rez if the downed allies are poisoned.

Does it have its own failings? Heck yes it does. But that goes with the whole thing I speak about from time of time of everything having pros and cons that you have to realize and work within.

Also, if we’re going to compare all Rez capabilities, Ranger is the only class with two… Search and Rescue and our elite Spirit of Nature.

Now, my personal opinion, I miss my pet being able to rez even dead allies. It was a nice little “extra” that I thought balanced out the fact that our pet can be interrupted, killed, etc..

That being said, I also still miss being able to get my pet onto hostile any tower/keep walls using Guard and that was only enabled by a bug … it was the one time in the game I didn’t completely hate Guard.

Sebrent.3625:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Well Sebrent, you do realise that you give me all the arguments I need. Do you think the other classes would find their AIs more enjoyable when they could control it like thee Ranger can? Would they enjoy it that much that they want to trade their current profession mechanic for this AI? I don’t think so. Which brings us back to the point that every other class mechanic is more potent than ours.

I don’t think that’s the case … except the Guardian thread does bring up one point which I’ll get to.

Do I think the other classes would find their AIs more enjoyable when they can control it like the Ranger can? Sure., since they are asking for it and being able to better control part of your character is generally welcomed.

I still think they’d have the same AI complaints we have since we all know the AI has its failings … but so does Internet latency … but we don’t complain for ANet to give us constant 10ms pings :-) (or maybe some do, I dunno how crazy some are, lol).

I have no clue if they’d want to trade their current class mechanic for it.

• I could see them being happy with Shield of the Avenger is place of their new projectile block in some situations where they didn’t need to be mobile, but it would still be inferior in various scenarios due to its lack of mobility when blocking projectiles … though superior when being flanked given that it’s a bubble instead of a wall.
• If all the weapons applied burning untraited, I could see some Guardians loving that more than Virtue of Justice.
• If they could have the bow and its cleanses, I could also see that replacing Virtue of Resolve

But now we’re replacing a mechanic with a whole bar of utilities that are currently coded as individual utilities. There are keybind issues (the summons and secondary actionvations), balance issues, etc. that pop up. Are we talking about the weapons are always up or is it more like a Mesmer Illusion mechanic? We are talking about 3 separate Spirit Weapon capabilities so it’s unclear. There’s quite a bit more if you wanted to go down this rabbit hole in detail.

Ultimately, you’re leaping from “I don’t think they’d like spirit weapons as a class mechanic” … to … “so I think ours class mechanic is the worst”. You’re leaping from your opinion of what other’s opinions would all be to a conclusion about our mechanic. Do you see how that isn’t really a proof but just an opinion?

Now, to the one thing I think they’d hate about having AI? It’s the same thing every class with AI hates about it … it gets “whoops’d” to death in large fights (zergs, some PvE content, etc.). Would they hate it less if they had the same controls and options Rangers do with their AI? Quite likely as our controls do give us greater capability to have our AI not get gibbed in some content; when possible … some content just doesn’t favor it at all, sadly.

My main two characters are my Mesmer and Ranger. I can show you how much worse being dependent on AI can be in various scenarios. If you play the living story part 2 as a Ranger and then as a Mesmer, you’ll see quite a difference.

Well, first of all, if the Guardain would get its summoned weapons as profession mechanic, then you can be sure that they will be nerfed accordingly. After all, they give benefits a Ranger can only dream of. And I don’t know why the conclusion that our mechanic is the worst is so hard to comprehend. If all other porfessions are happy with their current mechanic, atleast more happy then with the AIs they would get instead, then we can safely assume that a pet is the least desired profession mechanic out of all current ones. Which does not inevitably mean that the pet is also the worst mechanic, but it’s a pretty strong indicator.

What can a spirit weapon do that a pet cannot?

I did. The illusion can resurrect up to 3 allies for 15 seconds. That alone sounds pretty potent if you’re fighting with your team.
Yes those skills usually have a long channel time, but that’s because you should still being able to stomb downed players, which you are also able to do if a Ranger uses S&R. Furthermore, the pet needs a kitten long time to revive an ally, time where you lose out on damage and utility. Yes, the Ranger has an elite that can also revive allies, but we know how often that elite is picked over the other ones. Also, the Ranger is not the only profession with two rez mechanics, the Warrior has his banner and this banner is actually used.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

What can a spirit weapon do that a pet cannot?

Create a shield that blocks projectiles in an area or applies burn on hit.

Wuselknusel.4082:

So WP didn’t win that fight only because of the pet being so bad, but it certainly was a huge aspect. While WP has able to utilize Death Shroud multiple times, the pet simply stayed useless.

The fact that you even think the pet was a huge aspect of it, and that it is comparable to the death shroud almost makes me giggle.

The ranger couldn’t do anything with his utility skills. That was the ONLY aspect of it from the ranger’s point of view. It would be like giving the guardian healing breeze, signet of mercy, merciful interventon, sanctuary and a tome as an elite, coupled with a trash compilation of trait choices. The virtues wouldn’t save it.

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

So WP didn’t win that fight only because of the pet being so bad, but it certainly was a huge aspect. While WP has able to utilize Death Shroud multiple times, the pet simply stayed useless.

The fact that you even think the pet was a huge aspect of it, and that it is comparable to the death shroud almost makes me giggle.

The ranger couldn’t do anything with his utility skills. That was the ONLY aspect of it from the ranger’s point of view. It would be like giving the guardian healing breeze, signet of mercy, merciful interventon, sanctuary and a tome as an elite, coupled with a trash compilation of trait choices. The virtues wouldn’t save it.

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

What can a spirit weapon do that a pet cannot?

Create a shield that blocks projectiles in an area or applies burn on hit.

Fair enough on the blocks, but we have salamander drake that burns, and can reflect ourselves. I’d rather take two canines and chain CC on the guardian. I’d take a pet over spirit weapons any day, they die super fast.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I’m saying that it is different. What you don’t seem to understand is that you could make a guardian build just like I mentioned and it would suffer the same fate as the ranger did against a necromancer, because DS is a usefull mechanic in a 1v1 no matter how bad the build is.

The pet has it problems, more problems than any other profession mechanics. But this video doesn’t point out what these problems are. It only proves how useful DS is in a scenario like this, against any profession. Necromancer was probably one of, it not the worst profession to pick in a video like this.

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I’m saying that it is different. What you don’t seem to understand is that you could make a guardian build just like I mentioned and it would suffer the same fate as the ranger did against a necromancer, because DS is a usefull mechanic in a 1v1 no matter how bad the build is.

The pet has it problems, more problems than any other profession mechanics. But this video doesn’t point out what these problems are. It only proves how useful DS is in a scenario like this, against any profession. Necromancer was probably one of, it not the worst profession to pick in a video like this.

That is certainly true, the thing I don’t like is that the pet could be as useful as a deathshroud, if the focus of the pet would move from dealing damage to supporting the Ranger. The pet could CC a target, more than it does now, it could give boons, vision, actively block projectiles, keeping the enemy away from the Ranger. It could stack conditions like weakness or vulnerability or cripple, things that set up the Ranger, not things the Ranger is already capable of doing, like dealing damage.

It’s not quite that simple. For starters, you have to consider how many builds are possible with all of the professions in the game. How many choices do you have to make with any other profession compared with a Ranger? They all have the same number of utilities, same number of elites, same number of heal skills, same number of traits and trait choices, but we have more possible weaponsets than everyone except Warrior. But on top of all that, we have our animal companion choice, which means we have more pitfalls and false choices than other professions. It shows especially so through all of our bad skills.

Here’s an example build that falls for as many false choices as I can think up

They’re not even blatantly wrong ones either. But this build features such incredible tactics as:
Double Longbow for free weapon swapping with Skirmishing bonuses
Punishing opponents who get close with weapons swap sigils
Condi Longbow
Taking a healing power amulet, without realising these healing sources don’t scale.
Double Bear that is not brown
Panda Bow
Protect me, because it has a lower cooldown than the signet and “the same effect”.
Stone Spirit, for extra survivability.
Rune of the Grove for sick protection uptime.
Moment of Clarity + Rapid Fire for a hundred blades that opens with the big hit.
Sharpened edges with as much precision from trait stats as possible

As you can see, these individual choices are not necessarily bad for a build, but they compound into this awful monstrosity you see before you. We’re not the worst profession, just the profession with the most wrong choices.

Wuselknusel.4082:

That is certainly true, the thing I don’t like is that the pet could be as useful as a deathshroud, if the focus of the pet would move from dealing damage to supporting the Ranger. The pet could CC a target, more than it does now, it could give boons, vision, actively block projectiles, keeping the enemy away from the Ranger. It could stack conditions like weakness or vulnerability or cripple, things that set up the Ranger, not things the Ranger is already capable of doing, like dealing damage.

They could have designed some more variations between the different pets than what we have now. But that isn’t what makes the current implementation bad in my opnion. In my opinion there are other problems like general AI problems and how we control our pets that are more essential to our current use of pets. Better control of our pets also opens some alternatives to be able to have pets more designated into certain roles without having major balancing issues.

But, I would rather have them focusing on our terrible utility skills before they start toying around with pets designated to certain roles, more so than they already are.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I’m saying that it is different. What you don’t seem to understand is that you could make a guardian build just like I mentioned and it would suffer the same fate as the ranger did against a necromancer, because DS is a usefull mechanic in a 1v1 no matter how bad the build is.

The pet has it problems, more problems than any other profession mechanics. But this video doesn’t point out what these problems are. It only proves how useful DS is in a scenario like this, against any profession. Necromancer was probably one of, it not the worst profession to pick in a video like this.

That is certainly true, the thing I don’t like is that the pet could be as useful as a deathshroud, if the focus of the pet would move from dealing damage to supporting the Ranger. The pet could CC a target, more than it does now, it could give boons, vision, actively block projectiles, keeping the enemy away from the Ranger. It could stack conditions like weakness or vulnerability or cripple, things that set up the Ranger, not things the Ranger is already capable of doing, like dealing damage.

You do realize when you build properly and know how to control them, pets can literally do all of those things right?

Puck.9612:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I’m saying that it is different. What you don’t seem to understand is that you could make a guardian build just like I mentioned and it would suffer the same fate as the ranger did against a necromancer, because DS is a usefull mechanic in a 1v1 no matter how bad the build is.

The pet has it problems, more problems than any other profession mechanics. But this video doesn’t point out what these problems are. It only proves how useful DS is in a scenario like this, against any profession. Necromancer was probably one of, it not the worst profession to pick in a video like this.

That is certainly true, the thing I don’t like is that the pet could be as useful as a deathshroud, if the focus of the pet would move from dealing damage to supporting the Ranger. The pet could CC a target, more than it does now, it could give boons, vision, actively block projectiles, keeping the enemy away from the Ranger. It could stack conditions like weakness or vulnerability or cripple, things that set up the Ranger, not things the Ranger is already capable of doing, like dealing damage.

You do realize when you build properly and know how to control them, pets can literally do all of those things right?

If they do already all these things as you claim, why do they then have to be entrusted with dealing damage aswell?

Yeah, I just constantly hear “get off your rangers and onto x, y, or z class”, “I can’t command, I’m on my squishy ranger”, “I don’t see the point in ranger”, “ranger sucks” and so on, from WvW commanders .

So, not just from random players, with some kind of irrational ranger hatred – from commanders, who know what they’re talking about.

Anet really need to work on it.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

The guy playing Ranger has no clue, playing a build designed to be terrible by someone else, never having played it before and is generally a bad player, just look at him go.

Honestly, the pet has nothing to do with that fight, the other skills are by far the limiting factor, even so, those pets are bad choices and nobody uses those.

Sure, Ranger has some serious dramas, but putting all of them into 1 build and making out its the norm is absurd. Ranger can decimate any class 1v1 when played well with a decent build.

I think you’re missing the point.

The point was that they both tried their best to give each other the worst build they possibly could and the ranger build either “won” as the worst build, out of the two bad builds; or, alternatively, it was found that ranger is more badly affected by a bad build.

Obviously, that finding isn’t in isolation, though – one could be a better player than the other, or could be less flustered by the unfamiliar class and build than the other.

Also, one class could very well just be, inherently, worse and/or less intuitive to play than the other (bad build, or not).

But, the point is that that was the point of the exercise, either way.

I play(ed) a hunter in WoW and have played most of the other classes in WoW at max level (to one extent, or another) and hunter in WoW is definitely significantly more forgiving to play than ranger in this (even though it is definitely not the most forgiving, especially in PVP).

For one thing, in WoW, rangers are just permanently ranged now – there is no trying to melee (badly) on them, anymore.

Another thing is that hunter in WoW wears mail (which is between plate and leather); whereas rogues wear leather.

There is good reason for that design choice – they didn’t just make an extra armour weight for a laugh.

Whereas, in this, rangers and thieves are (obviously) both in leather.

Also, since the changes to talents etc., in WoW, it is just far harder (if not impossible) to make a bad build, on any class.

All I get is, “Eura, get on your ranger!”

Wuselknusel.4082:

Puck.9612:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I’m saying that it is different. What you don’t seem to understand is that you could make a guardian build just like I mentioned and it would suffer the same fate as the ranger did against a necromancer, because DS is a usefull mechanic in a 1v1 no matter how bad the build is.

The pet has it problems, more problems than any other profession mechanics. But this video doesn’t point out what these problems are. It only proves how useful DS is in a scenario like this, against any profession. Necromancer was probably one of, it not the worst profession to pick in a video like this.

That is certainly true, the thing I don’t like is that the pet could be as useful as a deathshroud, if the focus of the pet would move from dealing damage to supporting the Ranger. The pet could CC a target, more than it does now, it could give boons, vision, actively block projectiles, keeping the enemy away from the Ranger. It could stack conditions like weakness or vulnerability or cripple, things that set up the Ranger, not things the Ranger is already capable of doing, like dealing damage.

You do realize when you build properly and know how to control them, pets can literally do all of those things right?

If they do already all these things as you claim, why do they then have to be entrusted with dealing damage aswell?

Why should they not? Every other pet in the game does damage as well as offer some cc or utility. Are you trying to argue that a ranger’s class mechanic should be weaker than every other pet in the game? You are seriously all over the place with this thread.

Eurantien.4632:

All I get is, “Eura, get on your ranger!”

^This.
There was one time I had some scrub PvE commander show up in WvW and try to make fun of me for being a ranger and he spent the next half hour getting mocked and laughed at by everyone on the map. And this was a good year or so before the buffs to longbow where rangers started getting a little more acceptance.

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

Eurantien.4632:

All I get is, “Eura, get on your ranger!”

They’re not talking to anyone in particular, in the examples I gave – they’re either talking to all rangers in a zerg group, or about themselves on ranger.

Puck.9612:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Puck.9612:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I’m saying that it is different. What you don’t seem to understand is that you could make a guardian build just like I mentioned and it would suffer the same fate as the ranger did against a necromancer, because DS is a usefull mechanic in a 1v1 no matter how bad the build is.

The pet has it problems, more problems than any other profession mechanics. But this video doesn’t point out what these problems are. It only proves how useful DS is in a scenario like this, against any profession. Necromancer was probably one of, it not the worst profession to pick in a video like this.

That is certainly true, the thing I don’t like is that the pet could be as useful as a deathshroud, if the focus of the pet would move from dealing damage to supporting the Ranger. The pet could CC a target, more than it does now, it could give boons, vision, actively block projectiles, keeping the enemy away from the Ranger. It could stack conditions like weakness or vulnerability or cripple, things that set up the Ranger, not things the Ranger is already capable of doing, like dealing damage.

You do realize when you build properly and know how to control them, pets can literally do all of those things right?

If they do already all these things as you claim, why do they then have to be entrusted with dealing damage aswell?

Why should they not? Every other pet in the game does damage as well as offer some cc or utility. Are you trying to argue that a ranger’s class mechanic should be weaker than every other pet in the game? You are seriously all over the place with this thread.

You are seriously not getting it. The pet does not deal additional damage. It deals our damage. And it deals the damage poorly. Which means we lose damage when our pet doesn’t hit. If our pet would deal no damage but we would deal the full 100% damage, we would come out ahead compared to the current situation.
If the pet wouldn’t be supposed to deal damage, then it could do other tasks, but you don’t seem to get that.

Wuselknusel.4082:

Puck.9612:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Puck.9612:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Lazze.9870:

Wuselknusel.4082:

Did you just said that the pet compared to the deathshroud is bad? Because it certainly sounds like it and that’s the whole point I’m trying to make here.

I’m saying that it is different. What you don’t seem to understand is that you could make a guardian build just like I mentioned and it would suffer the same fate as the ranger did against a necromancer, because DS is a usefull mechanic in a 1v1 no matter how bad the build is.

The pet has it problems, more problems than any other profession mechanics. But this video doesn’t point out what these problems are. It only proves how useful DS is in a scenario like this, against any profession. Necromancer was probably one of, it not the worst profession to pick in a video like this.

That is certainly true, the thing I don’t like is that the pet could be as useful as a deathshroud, if the focus of the pet would move from dealing damage to supporting the Ranger. The pet could CC a target, more than it does now, it could give boons, vision, actively block projectiles, keeping the enemy away from the Ranger. It could stack conditions like weakness or vulnerability or cripple, things that set up the Ranger, not things the Ranger is already capable of doing, like dealing damage.

You do realize when you build properly and know how to control them, pets can literally do all of those things right?

If they do already all these things as you claim, why do they then have to be entrusted with dealing damage aswell?

Why should they not? Every other pet in the game does damage as well as offer some cc or utility. Are you trying to argue that a ranger’s class mechanic should be weaker than every other pet in the game? You are seriously all over the place with this thread.

You are seriously not getting it. The pet does not deal additional damage. It deals our damage. And it deals the damage poorly. Which means we lose damage when our pet doesn’t hit. If your pet would deal no damage but we would deal the full 100% damage, we would come out ahead compared to the current situation.
If the pet wouldn’t be supposed to deal damage, then it could do other tasks, but you don’t seem to get that.

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.

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.