Guild Wars 2

I mainly play an ele, and a guardian on the side. I want a medium armor class and was wondering if i should be a ranger or engi? i hear good and bad things about rangers, what are the pros and cons of them?

Pros
Pet can tank for you while leveling up easily up to around level 55.
Has the longest normal attack range in the game (when traited for it)
Very self-sufficient
Can survive longer than most of the other classes
Seems to be able to do a little bit of everything…

Cons
…but we’re masters of almost nothing.
Pet AI is a crapshoot, and the pet itself starts becoming a bit useless the closer you get to endgame content.
Problems with several of our key weapons.
After level 55 the difficulty curve gets kinda steep, especially for endgame content.
Not much group utility.
Our traits are a mess.
Spirits are absolutely useless (this is the cause of the lack of group utility)

Well, it seems like rangers aren’t good at all? The pros seem to be not that good and the cons are huge deals that should be fixed. does anet not see rangers are this bad?

We used to be a lot better in beta, apparently, but were supposedly too good and got hit hard by the nerf bat. Another major con is the fact that the pet accounts for 40% of your total damage to your enemy. While other classes get their full power, ours is shared with the pet, which we cannot turn off during battle, meaning we’re stuck with the blasted things.

Engis are equivalent to lowbies (or so I hear) so at least a ranger is still an 80…

Do you still think a ranger is worth leveling to 80 though, i mainly pve, but do some spvp and wvw on the side.

as someone who plays both, engineers are very clunky.
Engineer vs Ranger:

Range:
Engineers basic weapon sets have fairly short effective ranges, which can be frustrating in wvw. Rifles auto attack is 1100 without traits and all the other attacks are much shorter. Pistols have a range of 900. Compared to the Ranger, who has two bows which can shoot at 1200 without traits. Grenades (engineer) and Longbow (ranger) can both be traited for 1500 range, but grenades require ground targeting and miss very often (making something as simple as autoattacking while moving fairly tedious).

Damage:
Both classes do great damage. They can both burst very well if specced for it, they are both the only classes with easy access to burning/bleeding/poison making them great at conditions, and they both have solid melee aoe with flamethrowers/bombs and greatsword.

Survivability:
Probably equal here. Rangers have more survival potential while engineers have great automated defenses. Both classes have oh-crap buttons, the same hp and armor and viable bunker specs and good condition removal. Disengaging as a ranger will be a function of weapon choice (sword/greatsword) while an engineer will probably have to slot for it (elixers, gadgets).

Group support:
Both are great in groups bringing water fields and nice buffs. Engineer support roles (elixers or healing bombs) are much more viable than rangers (spirits, while powerful, are a class joke) but both bring a lot if played well. Sadly, no one asks for support classes because high end pve is a guadian/warrior/ele sherade (read: aoe damage classes with buffs and or heals), but if you are casual this shouldnt matter.

All in all, i prefer my ranger because the skills are more reliable and many builds are viable, but the RNG of engineer skills does give them a certain charm.

Edit:
I mostly wvw, and have most classes to 80 in exotics. Ranger is an excellent wvw class, solo or grouped.

For outdoor PVE, you simply are not going to find a better class than the Ranger.

For indoor PVE, it is probably the worst off because Anet refuses to give pets aoe damage reduction and the state of spirits. That said, I never felt like a hinderance to my groups because we still offer a lot. Healing spring is the best combo field in the game, period. Rangers have huge aoe-cc, with muddy terrain, spike trap, chill trap, canine aoe immobilizes/chills/fears and entangle that can make the hardest fights easy. Pets can be mitagated by using them as buff bots (moas) or ranged dps (spiders, devourers). The only time class really becomes an issue is elite high level fractals, and if you’re not a guardian/warrior/ele you probably aren’t going so being an engineer wont help.

Had I known what I know now I would have never rolled a ranger. Until they fix AI, pathing, aoe damage in dungeons, and pets failing on moving targets I suggest to anyone who asks roll a different class. All my friends I play with have heard my frustrations with the pet repeatedly… Yet, my wife still rolled one. “What? It’s fun.” “We’ll, yeah. Your ranger is lvl 15. Of course it’s fun right now.” Don’t theives have medium armor??

There is no place for ranger in harder dungeons. Red circles will eat your pet leaving you lacking with DPS. They’re great in open world solo PVE. Have I known how bad rangers are at dungeons (compose the majority of my end-game goals) I would not have rolled a ranger.

Yenn.9185:

There is no place for ranger in harder dungeons. Red circles will eat your pet leaving you lacking with DPS. They’re great in open world solo PVE. Have I known how bad rangers are at dungeons (compose the majority of my end-game goals) I would not have rolled a ranger.

Yikes! This is really not true! Rangers can be great at anything. I personally think they are the best class, based on how I like to play. I would recommend the Ranger class to anyone who is a tactician, loves math, and enjoys figuring out the mechanics of the game. If you are more interested in beating the snot out of your opponents, with little regard for what is going on, I would recommend another class.

As a ranger you will have to dodge frequently, obsessively watch your pet, and switch your weapons, skills, pets between encounters in dungeons—sometimes. If this seems like a pain, don’t choose a ranger. If you like the idea, that’s good news. You’ll benefit your team more than any other class (these are fighting words, I am sure). I detailed some of the specifics below, read on if you are interested:

Rule #1: Check your server, you will find it more enjoyable to play on a server that has skilled WvW and PvE players. Jade Quarry, Blackgate, etc… In dungeons, check your teammates achievements. If they are under 4K, you might end up getting quite a bit of flak from your teammates that don’t really understand the game yet. Most everyone over 5K will be a joy to play with, for sure. Be ready to get grief from noobie players just for being a Ranger. Comments like: “Great we have 3 guardians, this will be easy!” (and take 4 hours to finish) are a good sign you are grouped with inexperienced players.

Rule #2: Don’t forget you have 6 pets. 1 you can control and 5 that join your party Don’t let them die and buff them to cause massive damage! This is your primary objective. Revive, revive, heal, revive. Your 6 pets will help you deal massive amounts of damage if used properly. Think about Call of the Wild, Mighty Roar, and Hunter’s Shot combined—The Mighty Spike Ranger’s must pay attention to their pet and the other five team members. This might not be true for other classes.

Rule #3: The strongest boss (think fractals) will die the fastest when it has 25 stacks of vulnerability, is on fire, poisoned, and is bleeding 25 times over while your 6 pets (team) have Fury and 25 stacks of might. Watch what your team is doing and change your weapons to fill in the gaps. In my experience most teams will have difficulty applying Vulnerability, Fury, and poison. That’s easy for you, so equip the right utilities and weapons when this is the case. Just make sure to fill the gap, wherever it is. Ranger’s need to be tactical.

Rule #4: Every once in a while you will end up with “runners” that run dungeons for the tokens. They basically end up skipping more than half the content by running past it to rush to the end. Understand what to do when this happens. This will usually be done with warriors and guardians build for low dps and tons of armor so they don’t go down… they usually don’t know how to revive so you will likewise need to build selfishly to survive. To keep alive, you need to “bunker” yourself. Basically equip RaO, and signets if you are using a damage ranger. Ranger’s need to adjust for survival more than other classes that have high armor and survivability by default.

Rule #5: Love your pet. He is your best friend. It’s fine to put 30 in BM for a bunker build, or 0 for a Pwr, Pre, Cond build. Either way your pet will help you quite a bit so pay attention to picking the right pet for the right situation. BM bunker/regen condition rangers are most likely the most powerful spec right now so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I don’t use it on my main because I enjoy the thrill of dodging and using wits to survive a bit more. Regen Ranger is sooo strong it takes the thrill out. Kinda like a healing Guardian… The Ranger class will require you to micro-manage your pet in most battles.

Rule #6: The GW2 Secret. Team based skills and affects benefit you less, but when all the numbers are added up, are much more effective than the seemingly more powerful individual effect skills (the selfish ones that save you and hose your team). The Ranger has nice team based skills.

So, to answer the question: Choose a ranger if you enjoy tinkering with your equipment and skills from time to time, and like watching all the little damage markers and status of your teammates. If not, I don’t think you will enjoy Ranger too much. In honesty, quite a few people loathe the class…

rangers i think can do mostly anything but still they have nothing that is great for theme but every class has flaws man go ranger all the way but don’t speck all signets or anything try and mix it there are some great builds on the build thread

Raven.9603:

as someone who plays both, engineers are very clunky.
Engineer vs Ranger:

Range:
Engineers basic weapon sets have fairly short effective ranges, which can be frustrating in wvw. Rifles auto attack is 1100 without traits and all the other attacks are much shorter. Pistols have a range of 900. Compared to the Ranger, who has two bows which can shoot at 1200 without traits. Grenades (engineer) and Longbow (ranger) can both be traited for 1500 range, but grenades require ground targeting and miss very often (making something as simple as autoattacking while moving fairly tedious).

Damage:
Both classes do great damage. They can both burst very well if specced for it, they are both the only classes with easy access to burning/bleeding/poison making them great at conditions, and they both have solid melee aoe with flamethrowers/bombs and greatsword.

Survivability:
Probably equal here. Rangers have more survival potential while engineers have great automated defenses. Both classes have oh-crap buttons, the same hp and armor and viable bunker specs and good condition removal. Disengaging as a ranger will be a function of weapon choice (sword/greatsword) while an engineer will probably have to slot for it (elixers, gadgets).

Group support:
Both are great in groups bringing water fields and nice buffs. Engineer support roles (elixers or healing bombs) are much more viable than rangers (spirits, while powerful, are a class joke) but both bring a lot if played well. Sadly, no one asks for support classes because high end pve is a guadian/warrior/ele sherade (read: aoe damage classes with buffs and or heals), but if you are casual this shouldnt matter.

All in all, i prefer my ranger because the skills are more reliable and many builds are viable, but the RNG of engineer skills does give them a certain charm.

Edit:
I mostly wvw, and have most classes to 80 in exotics. Ranger is an excellent wvw class, solo or grouped.

For outdoor PVE, you simply are not going to find a better class than the Ranger.

For indoor PVE, it is probably the worst off because Anet refuses to give pets aoe damage reduction and the state of spirits. That said, I never felt like a hinderance to my groups because we still offer a lot. Healing spring is the best combo field in the game, period. Rangers have huge aoe-cc, with muddy terrain, spike trap, chill trap, canine aoe immobilizes/chills/fears and entangle that can make the hardest fights easy. Pets can be mitagated by using them as buff bots (moas) or ranged dps (spiders, devourers). The only time class really becomes an issue is elite high level fractals, and if you’re not a guardian/warrior/ele you probably aren’t going so being an engineer wont help.

Lol seems to me you know nothing about the Engineer class lol..also the Ranger is quite fine man , don’t let the run of the mill qqers deter you from picking them , and the pet is quite vicious despite minor hiccups.

Take majority of the stuff you hear on forums with a grain of salt because people usually loiters here to cry nerf / buff to any and everything , dont get sucked in their void of despair …they just want a shoulder to cry on (most times anyway)

^^ Sent him a pm saying the same thing. People on this board cry entirely too much instead of adapting.

Archon.6480:

Yikes! This is really not true! Rangers can be great at anything. I personally think they are the best class, based on how I like to play. I would recommend the Ranger class to anyone who is a tactician, loves math, and enjoys figuring out the mechanics of the game. If you are more interested in beating the snot out of your opponents, with little regard for what is going on, I would recommend another class.

As a ranger you will have to dodge frequently, obsessively watch your pet, and switch your weapons, skills, pets between encounters in dungeons—sometimes. If this seems like a pain, don’t choose a ranger. If you like the idea, that’s good news. You’ll benefit your team more than any other class (these are fighting words, I am sure). I detailed some of the specifics below, read on if you are interested:

Rule #1:

[…]

So, to answer the question: Choose a ranger if you enjoy tinkering with your equipment and skills from time to time, and like watching all the little damage markers and status of your teammates. If not, I don’t think you will enjoy Ranger too much. In honesty, quite a few people loathe the class…

I absolutely agree with this post!

I never understand how people claim they want diversity in their MMOs and when they’re given it with the inclusion of classes that are not completely based on how much damage you can min/max out of them, they cry and complain.

Though this may sound weird coming from someone who is posting here, I wouldn’t take the majority of the comments in this forum very seriously, particularly since they belong to a very loud minority. Still there are some, like the one I just quoted, who are spot on, and give you proper arguments behind their opinions and based on them you should feel very encouraged to give the Ranger a spin

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Lol seems to me you know nothing about the Engineer class lol..also the Ranger is quite fine man , don’t let the run of the mill qqers deter you from picking them , and the pet is quite vicious despite minor hiccups.

Take majority of the stuff you hear on forums with a grain of salt because people usually loiters here to cry nerf / buff to any and everything , dont get sucked in their void of despair …they just want a shoulder to cry on (most times anyway)

i didnt cry nerf or buff to anything. what about engineers do you think i was wrong about?

I find the Eng profession much much more clunky and buggy than the Ranger. People (and elitists) will tell you that Eng requires a lot of skill and it`s one of the best DPS/whatever profession you can find, if you master it.

My opinion is this: the ‘high skill requirement’ is created by the many bugs and the way that the profession trait/skills and mechanics are designed.
Since the name emplies that you will be like MacGyver. But the strange/buggy traits(a lot of them broken since the game was launched) and the way they work and the way in which one must combine them in order to make the profession work, just does not give enough satisfaction. Sure it`s cool to hold on to a Flame Thrower! and have 20 stacks of might! but then check your Combat Log and see the damage output; respec, re-gear and try another ‘cool’ build. That will probably also look and feel nice; but then you check the Combat Log again.

Take the above lines from a guy that has played Eng too much, it`s a subjective opinion.

Raven.9603:

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Lol seems to me you know nothing about the Engineer class lol..also the Ranger is quite fine man , don’t let the run of the mill qqers deter you from picking them , and the pet is quite vicious despite minor hiccups.

Take majority of the stuff you hear on forums with a grain of salt because people usually loiters here to cry nerf / buff to any and everything , dont get sucked in their void of despair …they just want a shoulder to cry on (most times anyway)

i didnt cry nerf or buff to anything. what about engineers do you think i was wrong about?

Everything i tell you , EVER-E-TING.

Yenn.9185:

There is no place for ranger in harder dungeons. Red circles will eat your pet leaving you lacking with DPS. They’re great in open world solo PVE. Have I known how bad rangers are at dungeons (compose the majority of my end-game goals) I would not have rolled a ranger.

Somehow I made dungeon master ONLY playing ranger and I’m doing lvl 30+ fotm without any problems nor complains from my team. To make it even “worse” I’m running LB/GS build

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Everything i tell you , EVER-E-TING.

you gonna be specific, troll, or just going to troll?

their auto attack range with rifle is 1000 without traits, and the other skills are in the 400-600 range if used effectively. pistol is a 900 range weapon without traits. flamethrower, elixir gun, both also mostly short/midrange. compared to a ranger, who has 1200 range on bows without traits. with traits, grenades become viable (extra grenade) and get 1500 range, but they are slow at that range, miss often, and in skirmish combat the ground targeting for even the basic autoattack is tedious. Likewise, with traits, rangers longbow is also 1500 range. with traits, rifle auto attack becomes usable but the rest of its skills and pistols are still left as mid range.

both classes do great damage. engi’s static discharge builds are some of the highest burst in the game still AND on a very short ~22sec cd (the time it takes for the belt skills used to recharge), its just that no one runs it with HGH being brokenly OP. Which brings us to conditions: engis can apply all the damaging conditions pretty nicely, and with HGH they can spec to be great at conditions (p/p) or straight damage (hgh+grenades).

they have the exact same base stats, both have oh crap buttons that are pretty on par. for the most part, an engi will have to slot something specific if they want an escape skill, where a ranger will have to use sword or greatsword to fly away.

overall, most people will agree that engineers are clunky and that rangers major drawbacks are dead pets and spirits.

When asking these type of questions in the forums just realize you’ll get a lot of negative. Everything you see here I have seen in almost every forum thus far. Only the guardian and mesmer have been lighter on the negative overall though you won’t catch much moaning from warriors for PVE.

Personally, the biggest negative for ranger is the pet and longbow. I just expected more from longbow than what we have. I didn’t pick ranger to be melee since I have a warrior and thief for that. Do I think rangers need to be range and nothing else? No, of course not. But I did expect a bow to be a bit stronger in their hands than it currently is at the moment.

As for the pet, I just don’t like it being such a strong amount of our damage. I understand it is the ‘special’ mechanic of the class like thief has steal and initiative or warrior with its burst skills and jack of all weapons, mesmer clones, etc. But I just don’t see anyones ‘specials’ being such a high percentage of their damage with as many drawbacks like pathing, fighting anything mobile or merely surviving like the pet does. It’s more in the player’s control.

We should have more flexibility in this regard but the pet survival and dependency kind of kitten you in this matter to some degree. The class can still be fun, can still be productive and can still prove worth levelling/playing. You never know what is on the horizon for any class and they have shown it some attention in the most recent balance patch so give it a shot. I still find it to be one of the more flexible classes where it do something in every fashion of the game. Maybe not the best at one thing or another but for someone like me who likes to do everything it fits.

1. Pet AI needs to seriously be looked at, this change would be such a substantial change that it would also require re-working of the ranger’s trait system / damage co-efficients because it will be such a huge difference. Probably why they haven’t done it yet and chose the easy way out of simply nerfing pet damage.

I’ll say , in pvp the pet is much more effective because you have to contest the point, meaning you HAVE to eat pet damage, that in my book doesn’t make the ranger itself better it just means you have to conform to playing the ranger’s game/playstyle. Then if they can’t kill you, they have to leave as they can’t do anything else and usually a ranger is a point defense meaning you don’t chase, so it works perfectly for a ranger bunker class – which are the very builds everyone is QQ’ing about.. We really get pampered in this regard then people come on here and say ‘ranger is the best ever!’ , when it’s not. The pvp game style and your positional playstyle MAKES your class better but anywhere other than pvp, the class is far from fine.

In WvW , have fun trying to keep your pet on a very mobile target who has no worry of trying to contest a point and staying in a fixed location , forced to eat pet damage in order to try and kill you. Doesn’t work so well there, and doesn’t work well at all. You’ll end up being forced to run 30% move trait and even then they have issues staying on the mobile targets. It’s simple, the pet AI is horrid when you’re fighting anyone that doesn’t need to stay in a circle to fight you.

I don’t pve so im not sure actually how pets are in this regard, i would imagine given the amount of aoe in dungeons and stuff, pets dont last too long, you’re almost probably keeping it away from fights 90% of the time which probably mostly means you’re using some sort of utility pet as opposed to a strict damage dealer. Which is fine i guess, im not sure how others feel about this though.

2. Longbow – changing this up would help quite a bit, auto attack for one.

Seems to really be it for me , I have no issues with anything else really. Pet AI needs to seriously be looked at though. It’s just flat out terrible.

If people have fun playing the ranger in it’s current state, that’s great and awesome but that doesn’t always translate out to the ranger class itself being fine. It’s a great class but imagine if your pet was actually something you could count on. You could strategize around it more, which is why pvp also works well for ranger. Like I said above given the pvp playstyle it’s guaranteed pet damage, so you can strategize around what burst you can toss into it. The thing about wvw , the job is getting your pet TO your target in the first place. That in itself is the battle half the time.

Archon.6480:

Rule #6: The GW2 Secret. Team based skills and affects benefit you less, but when all the numbers are added up, are much more effective than the seemingly more powerful individual effect skills (the selfish ones that save you and hose your team). The Ranger has nice team based skills..

You totally lost me on Rule #6. I don’t understand what you are talking about, or which skills you think are “nice.”

I think you are trying to say something like use Healing Spring instead of Troll, since spring benefits allies somewhat. But as far as that skill being nice, well it’s not a team heal, it’s just team Regen, which is pretty marginal in terms of value to the group. The same as far as I can see for any other group boons we can provide , they are fleeting and simply not on the same scale as what Warriors, Mesmers and Guardians provide, so many people dismiss them as lackluster.

Raven.9603:

TheOneNOnlyGeneralBama.9586:

Everything i tell you , EVER-E-TING.

you gonna be specific, troll, or just going to troll?

To be honest with you though , i don’t know anything about Engineer…. im merely talking out of my posteria , because i don’t know if Rifle range untraited 1000 or 1100

Well at least you admitted it ^^
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